Combat Medic Archive
Thread: Thoughts on Combat Medicine
Combat medic is about chemical/biological warfare, not just healing the occasional minor health hit some buffed pvx player happens to sustain. Yes, we can heal some types of battle-related injuries, but clearly if we were meant to be the primary healing force on the battle field, we could put out fire, correct dizzy, stunned, intimidated, and blinded states, and dish out massive in-combat damage healing, and all but the last of these require a doctor. Heck, what medic worth his salt would be unable to administer a poison antidote in the field or wrap a fire blanket around a burning comrade? Well, we cannot do either.
Beyond Bio/chem warfare, we really only have ranged/area stims and mind heals to offer. The former is largely made moot by the fact of medical buffs (another preparation for combat the doc's have, but not us), and the latter is so damaging to the provider that it must be reserved for dire situations, and can only be used a few times before fully debilitating the CM.
But we don't like to talk about being the game's weapons of mass destruction. Yeah, that is what we are. The equalizers. The slavation of the underdogs. The mother of all weapons. Just like we should be. But it is an uneasy dicotomy, being battlefield healers, and the deliverers of the ultimate death weapons.
We need to be proud that we are the ones entrusted to use chemical and biological weapons to defend our bases from overwhelming odds and to take down the bases of the enemy even when our teams might not have enough power without us. I do not personally throw incredible venom-based poisons in pvp for two reasons: I have no venom and I avoid pvp since the jedi upgrade. But I have no problem with those who do use the tools of our nasty little trade to accomplish their mission. Even when I am on the bad end of it.
Quite to the contrary, rather than hate them, I admire them. Most of them work hard to ply their craft, seeking out rare and difficult to obtain resources to craft limited use weapons of incredible potency. If you have not done combat medicine crafting, you should hold off on being too critical of their products. Making the high end stuff is pretty challenging. You don't see a lot of rifleman/weaponsmiths out there, but the CM generally has to "roll his own."
Combat Medics, hold your heads high. Make no apology for doing your job and doing it so well that the cries of "exploiter" come up from the loser/whiner contingent. The primary reason there are so many calling for CM nerfing is that a CM killed them or brought them down to where they could be killed. But when we are useless, as this change appears to fortell, it will be some other "template" who kills them, untill all the professions are equally broken. That is a loss for us all. Crushing the life out of combat medicine hurts the game WORSE that the over-power situation that existed before. Just like crushing commando hurt us all. And crushing creature handler hurt us all. Bounty-hunter got a bit back with the skill point changes, so maybe they will make a comeback. One can always hope.
Yes, I was a CM before it was cool. In the day, our healing skills were actually needed routinely, and our poisons worked well and at a balanced level at one point, before the venom gave some of us un-asked for powers. I remember the day I picked up novice CM, my first foray into the elite professions. I remember the surprise and delight of my team when I hit with the first ranged stim I had personally crafted, "just in time" from 20m out. It looked grim for my mate until that glowing arc smacked down on him. I will be very sad if this renders ALL that is combat medicine useless, as it would appear.
Finally, I would like to say that having read other fora after crushing nerfs were delivered, i.e., CH, BH, Commando, and I believe that you, the Combat Medics, have had the most professional, mature response to the proposed changes that I have seen (my own rants excepted). You have not responded from a sense of person loss and anger so much, which would be justifiable enough, really. But rather you have tried to offer remedies that would truly balance our profession without rendering it essentially unusable.
I salute you, Combat Medics: Elite Warriors, Healers, Comrades.