Combat Medic Archive

Hi folks,

Just read through the FAQ and perused the other stickies and found that very helpful, but I need some additional advice. I'm a smuggler and in addition I want to be what I'd call a "combat healer". In other words, someone whocan effectively be a healer ingroup hunting situation. Right now I'm a medic (3-3-3-4) and my plan all along has been to become a doctor, but what I've found is that trying to heal several moving targets in combat can be pretty difficult. Often times the best I can do is deliver a heal after incap, lol. So anyhow, I thought I'd look into the possibility of combat medic.

After some calculations, it turns out I'll have 26 skill points to spend after I get the novice CM box, if I decide to go that direction. So I'm looking for some advice and comments on how effective I could be given that constraint, and how I should spend those precious skill points. I noticed in the FAQ that it recommends maxing the "combat medic use" branch first, and even says it's not worth being a CM unless you can max out that branch. I'm kinda wondering if, for me, that isn't overkill though. I'm not a pvp'er, and value independence a bit over "uberness", so I'm probably real happy if I'm able to deliver say a 300 pt heal or whatever to a reasonable-sized radius for a smallish (maybe 4-5 people) group. Something like that. And if I'm able to craft said meds that would be ideal. In my travels I don't believe I've actually seen a combat medic store, but I do see a couple listed in the stickied thread (for Wanderhome) so I may check those out, but in general I'm concerned about my ability to buy meds if I cannot craft them myself.

Thoughts? Advice?

Thanks in advance

Vola Goce - Bounty Hunter/Commando/Hunter
"Doc" Holliday - Smuggler/Combat Medic

A 26 point combat medic will buy you 3004, which is very valid. If your are insistent on crafting your own meds, 0043 wouldn't be bad, althoughsignificantly sub-par to 3004. However, no matter how you look at it, getting the combat medicuse skill is essential for a combat medic. I firmly believe that a 0004 CM is better than a 4440 one in terms of viability (with the sole exception of getting /healmind at x4xx).

You can not use area stim packs without +50 CM support, so for you getting xxx3 is a bare minimum. Getting xxx4 will let you use the strongest area stim packs, and let you use everything except the strongest of area poisons and diseases. And there is a *huge* difference in effectiveness between a 50 CMUse medicine and a 75 CMUse one.

Getting the range tree, the x000 tree, lets you throw diseases at level 2, and increases the effect of your poisons and diseases (and presumably your ranged stims as well). I would say for you, depending on how much you want independence, getting 0043 CM might be best. Even better, get that and make tons of crates and schematics of items, then drop it and become a 3004 CM.

Vola Goce - Bounty Hunter/Commando/Hunter
"Doc" Holliday - Smuggler/Combat Medic

As I said, I am not sure that combat medic effectiveness affects ranged and area stims. In fact, the very little unoffical testing I have done suggests it does not. However, assuming it does:

You can get about a 450 medical rating area stim B at 50 CMU, depending on how you spend your experimentation points. A 3003 CM would use this at I think 50 CM effectiveness, or for about a 50% power gain over a 0003 CM.

Contrast this with a 0004 CM, who can use fully experimented area stim C at 75 CMU, who can heal for a medical rating of around 700 depending on experimentation (at farther range and more area of effect too). Like I said, getting xxx4 CM is essential to being a "real" CM.