Combat Medic Archive

Not that the devs will implement this, but here we go...

So I was thinking yesterday, two of the major complaints against the combat medic is that 1) any ranged stimpack below D isn't worth making and 2) we have no combat abilities (as you all know, we ARE called the combat medic). Everyone in the profession, including myslef, advances or advanced up the tree mostly on regular stimpack D's or E's - the ranged stimpacks are just bad. Also, our area healing meds aren't really too good until level C, making the A's and B's pretty useless. Really, with the combat medics having to start over from the very bottom of thecrafting barrel like this, it's not hard to see why more people prefer the doctor. My idea hit me like a brick when I thought about how regular and ranged stimpacks compare:

Why not make ranged stimpacks modified regular stimpacks?

Basically, the idea is that a combat medic should be able to take any regular stimpack A-E,and then use that as a component to create a ranged medpack. A rangedstimpack A, for example, could have a regularstimpack D inside, and be able to heal 1000 damage at a distance of 15 meters or so. This would immediately put the novice combat medic on the level of the master medic, which is where he should be.

Of course, without crafting the ranged stimpack "from scratch" per se, one of the important modifiers - healing power - is pretty much removed. I suggest that the level of the stimpack effect how far the stimpack can be used effectively. For example:

Ranged A - Usedup to15m, standard packloses healingeffectiveness at 10m (i.e., from 11-15, the stimpack heals SLIGHTLY less damage, like 20% less or so)

Ranged B - Used up to 30m, standard pack loses healing effectiveness at 20m

Ranged C- Used up to 40m, standard pack loses healing effectiveness at 30m

Ranged D- Used up to 50m, standard pack loses healing effectiveness at 40m

Ranged E- Used up to 50m, standard pack loses healing effectiveness at 47m

Now, depending on the crafting abilitity of the combat medic, a few things could be effected:

1) Max range - a ranged stim A could be made to have a max range of 20m with experimentation

2) Min range of lost effectiveness - a ranged stim A could be made to lose effectiveness at 13m with experimentation

3) Amount of stims in a pack - fairly standard and self-explanatory

4) Healing abilitity - MAYBE by creating a ranged stimpack, the regular stimpack used could get a small healing boost. On the other hand, it could suffer a loss as well.

Area stimpacks would work in much the same way as ranged stimpacks. A combat medic would take a regular stimpack - D again, for example - and create an "area stimpack shell" for it to make an area stim. The lower the area stim in level, as in Area Stim A, the lower the range of the stimpack. Also, the lower the level, the more the stimpack's power is distributed andlost. For example, a ranged stim A made from a 1000-damage-healing stim D might heal 600 damage to everyone when used. A ranged stim C, however, would heal around 900 damage to everyone in the radius with the same stimpack D. Of course these values could be tweaked with experimentation.

Before I move on, I think regular stimpack E crafting should be somewhere in the comabt medic crafting chain. Maybe at the advanced crafting level. That way, combat medics can have access to stimpack E's for their own crafting use, but at a later level so that novice combat medics don't outclass novice doctors.

Now you might say "Hey, this idea sounds all fine and good, but what about all those Combat medic range levels I've trained? Where do they come in with this?" Part of the beauty of this idea is that it makes combat medic range, as a skill, completely worthless. This might seem bad, but in fact in opens up an entire quarter of the tree for new abilities that we need. And what better to fill in themissing branchthan the combat abilities we've been clamoring for?

Thew new branch would level according to combat expererience, encouraging combat medics to go out and fight as they should. Each new level could bring new abilities to the combat medic that would make them a more effective support class on the battlefield. A few ideas:

Intermediate level - Throw over shoulder: Allows the combat medic tosling an incapacitated player, or the corpse of a dead player, over his shoulder and run the body out of combat and to the back lines where the player can awaken safely (if he's been incapped by mind) or be revived safely by doctors. Combat medic suffers a speed and attack reduction while carrying another player, but it is sure more effective then clicking the drag button over and over again.

Advanced level -Knockdownshot 1: If the combat medic is within close range of an enemy, this attack has a high chance of knocking him down for a few seconds. This, of course, can not be stacked and spammed continuosly. This ability would help a medic, when under attack by a melee player or creature, to knock it down and then back away to a safer area.

Expert level - Distract 1: Combat medic transfers the attention ofasingleunit attacking him to another group member or pet. Useful for drawing fire away from the combat medic towards stronger players who can take the abuse andwhom the combat medic can heal. Chooses group member targetted randomly. Players affected in PvP can choose to retarget the combat medic, but might not realize they have stopped shooting him for 2 turns or so.

Master level - Knockdown shot 2: Same as knockdown shot 1, but effective at a slightly larger range and higher chance or working against players/creatures with resistance.

Master medic - Distract 2: Combat medic transfers the attention of every unit attacking him to another group member. Automatically relagates attention to the creature or player with most HAM and resistence. A player effected in PvP cannot change targets back to the combat medic until 3 rounds have passed.

Every other level gained in "Medical Combat Abilities" could also bestow terrain navigation bonuses (they would REALLY help us keep up with some of the quicker scouts).

That's about the extent of my ideas for improving the effectiveness of thecombat medic. What do you guys think?

bInteresting idea, but I see 1 major problem. All of this as it is would encourage more people to go join the doctor line of crafting. Make E stims to heal more and get the better experimentation on the stim packs. The rest of it sounds fine.

I did mention that regular stimpack E should be in the combat medic crafting chain, just later than it is in the doctor's.

This is news to me. Not to flame you or anything but I spent time crafting everything in the CM tree cause it takes forever to get master crafting. BUT, what I found was the Area Stims are tough even at A's.... if you use the proper ingredients. I was making ones that were healing about 800 HA, with AOE around 20m. This is the thing I used to actually complete all my healing skills in CM. I went through to Expert CM so I could use anything I finally crafted, and so I didn't have to experiment down the cm use, and just pump up the potency of them. I actually started crafting Area Stim A's with adv. components and they were doing 1000 heal. Now with adv components and C's... well, lets just say, I can heal my group of 20 fighters from the back lines about 40m away and it heals everyone to full HA. I don't think they have to change anything with the Ranged/Area stims. My ranged ones were awesome at b's. I almost didn't even craft any higher, but you know when you are able to get better, you do... just cause you can. I don't make Ranged E's cause they take way too much sub-components and nobody has 2500 HAM's except for pets, and I heal people, if my area's heal pets, then so be it. I make Ranged D's just because they hold more uses(30-35 using adv. components).

Something the Dev's should work on is Medicine selection. As a CM I shouldn't have to make small Stims at all. I can use Ranged at close range if I choose it from the hot-keys, or out of my inventory. So if there is no smalls in your inventory, then it default uses Ranged... and if no Ranged, then it should default use Area stims.....

That would make my life a bit easier when preparing for battle, I would only carry Area Stims. If I heal myself or one of my party, I heal all that are close enough. That would be perfect. I don't know why they didn't do this to begin with, but those Dev's are sly, they might have some reasoning behind it /lol

Jintar Tamara

I agree with MikeJ... if you use the right ingredients, you can make uber rangedpaks, even without enhanced. But, the throwover the shoulder idea sounds amazing cool... i can just see it... Carrying your best bud outta combat while firing to an aggressor at your flank. The whole idea is still good and well thought out too. Kudos

Yeah, combat meds can be awesome with experimentation and materials and all, but you need to think of standard issue ones too. My ranged packs B heal about 300 damage, max. My regular stimpack D's, built with the same materials, heal around 1200. That's just too large a discrepensy for me. In the same way, doctors start off with pretty awesome stims and packs, even without good materials. What I'd like to see are combat medic ranged stims that DON'T require power-leveling and off-planet materials to be effective. Basically, your typical poor Joe master medic should be able to jump in as a novice combat medic and heal at least as efficiently with ranged stim A as a ranged stim C.

Basically, combat medic needs to be made a little more accesible to people just starting off. Combat medicine can be great with the right materials, but doctor medicine can be just as great with the wrong materials, making doctor the preferred profession for most. We can't all get the money to maintain a half-dozen off-planet harvesters as well as a factory or two at home, you know.

And no one has to know you redirected fire to them =). I've seen plenty of NPC's switch targets to me randomly, so it woulnd't be too hard for us to...disguise it. Besides, most people should recognize that we do it because if we stay alive, we can keep them alive. Because I can do full-pool heals, everyone makes an effort to get targetted so that I can heal without worry of being shot.

THe crafting idea is interesting but as stated makes CMs even more dependent on doc crafting...we are trying to reduce dependence not increase it...

KD...i would love one...but we do have supression fire...I have always asked for a KD in the CM line a move that does no damage and drains mind and not A since we can heal A.

distract move..interesting...but hard to code in I would think especially for PvP...but the coding for the SL skill to make everyone in the grp target 1 target is in there so I think somehow it could be made to work...only problem is I can see people complaining about CMs "redirecting" fire that them...

i would rather say that CMs should get a single target panic shot thats called like pin shot as in i've pinned the target down so that he cant pop up to attack...

rather than TN..id rather see the burst timer for CMs shorten so we can burst run more not more efficiently...

as for the throw over the shoulder...uh no thanks...20m is a lot of dragging a incap corpse and its non-LOS so...if anything CMs should be longer /drag range...