Combat Medic Archive

Im constantly having brian farts and asking everyone which would be a better choice with Combat Medic: Rifleman or Pistoleer. I already have Rifleman and almost have the one 1st skill. When I go around healing everyone and using my rifle at the same time, my Mind drops really fast, which gets me incapped alot. If I used pistol, that would just affect my action which I could heal using Stims. Since I run around alot healing everyone I dont know whether I should be a Rifleman cus there really better at ranged distances. With pistol I dont know cause I havn't used one that much. Please help me out on what to be.

I'd go with Pistoleer or Carbineer

Don't go rifleman, we attack too slow, so by the time you want to try to heal, your target (or yourself) is already dead/incapped. Don't go pistol, they just aren't cool looking.I would say go with a carbineer! Sure the HAM costs are wretched, but they only take a stim B to fix, and carbineers do some pretty good damage, thats just my opinion though. =)

I started going with carbineer but found out that i couldn't heal as much as i needed to because with my PA me primary job is to keep everyone alive and then kill on the side, so i'm in the process of switching to pistoleer. If you need to heal alot I'd go with pistoleer but if you dont heal alot I'd go with carbineer cause you can do more damage that way.

Well not rifle, since any special you use with that is going to tax your mindpool and you want that for combat medic things.

I am a pistoleer, the action costs arn't that bad because when you're in a group and you use AoE heals, you heal yourself aswell. When you're soloing, just heal yourself.

Another thing, Migrate your stats so your Action/Mind pool recharges faster

i dont know about anyone else, but im a wookie with a maxed out mind focus and willpower pool. i throw a mind poison and run back, using my spraystick (1.6 attack speed) with mind shot 1. it devastates anyone. i kill tka masters all the t ime. just dont let them get close or yer toast! in pve go for a area health poison to back your m8s up, then step back and use tyour spraystick while watching everyones health. definitly not pistol, forget it.. pistol is whack, combat medics should not get close. carbinier is okay, however, you have to use a lot of skill points to be effective there. my advice is the marksman tree-go for sniper, then use your other points to play around if you want. i found my sweet spot tho, check out my skill points:

I've done 'em all.

Read on and I'll discuss my experience being a Master Combat Medic and using the three basic ranged weapon types in PvP and PvE.

First off costs: Rifle does have the highest costs, but if you consider the dmg done on a singel mind shot, it's very close to 3-4 pistol specials or 2-3 carbine specials.

Damage type: Rifle has mind, carbine has action and pistol is health. For pvp mind is key, for pve health or action are fine, but consider matching your damage types. Doing health damage while your mind poision ticks down on someone isn't the best use of your energies. In fact I think that it's a waste. I'd rather hit somone once for 400 mind damage and toss a poision on 'em instead of just gunning their health while my poision takes their mind pool. If however you do health poision/pistol you'll do very well however, that pool is very healable and in some cases won't do you much good to attack it even so. If you're game is strictly PvE, I might recommend pistol for HAM costs and speed or Carbine also, most pets do Health damage which would be another reason to do pistol or carbine to match your pets damage type (only recommendable for PvE).

Speed: Pistol and carbine are both faster than rifle w/ pistol being (typically) the fastest of the three with the exception of the Spraystick which can be made to fire every 1.7 seconds or faster and used at point blank range with only a -20 penalty to shot. Again faster shots seem great, but it's only really effective if you're combining your damage pool focus. Big difference if you play to go PvP or strictly PvE here.

Range: Pistol is 0-25m, Carbine 25-45m, Rifle 50-64m (typically and generally). Now to be at poision tossing range you need to be around 20-30m usually. Pistol and carbine are both good in this range, however, if you're a Master Combat Medic your offensive focus will never be on a weapon skill so you rely on poision, also, CM's at the moment are notgreat tanks for lack of defensive skills other classes have. So, rifle gets you two or three shots before a person or creature can even get into range of you and when they do: poision/PointBlankShot/run around to lower their accuracy while your poision does the work. If they run, knee and headShot. It's a simple trap and very effective. If you're PvE get a pet (non-CH) and use them to tank the mob while you use a Spraystick or rife from about 30m away and just range-heal your pet as necessary.

I started pistol (pistoleer: trickshot), went to carbine, and now I'm staying with rifle for a few reasons. Combat Medic and Doctor Mastered leaves you with very few points. The most damaging shots you'll get for the points left over is in the rifle tree, carbine is next up, also you'll get great weapons w/ very few points in carbine and rifle both. Secondly, I PvP and PvE. Doctor buffs keep me alive a long time in PvP so my main focus is damage. I can get off a few sniper shots and with high Mind pools, the HAM costs are almost not noticible. In addition, I'm not taking damage initially b/c I'm out of range for those pistol & carbine users (no need to heal...yet), and if they get into range poision/pointBlank/run to lower their accuracy or kneel to increase yours. I've had PvP kills w/o even using a poision, just arifle off a few shots and heal. For PvE I use a pet to attack and tank, rifle does 700 dmg on regular shots and 1500 on mind specials and that's only using a tier 3 special w/ a certified AP1 weapon w/ 6.7 second delay. If the mob is hard going down I toss a poision on and bleed for big damage and it's usually over pretty quick.

In my experience CMs are not to be on the front line tanking in either PvP or PvE. With careful tactics though, they can prove to be a very deadly class. I chose rifle over pistol and carbine for reasons stated above such as lack of points to do other, consolidation of my main poision/damage types/and great ranged tactics and traps.With careful manipulation other weapons can be of use toa combat medic,especially with more points to spend, however from my experience with a Combat Medic/Doctor as a viable characterfor both PvP and PvE rifle has been and will be my weapon of choice.

Very nice info Nerfheard1, its refreshing to see someone who speak from actual experience. I think I'll follow your lead and try them all too.

I'm currently with pistol and I like it a lot. It shoot pretty fast and do a lot of damage, even if I can't choose the HAM pool I'm attacking, the Bodyshot specials and the healthshot bleeds who target healthmakes it worth the points spent in it. Since mobs tend to run to you and fight you melee the 0-25m range is great to have. This is only from a PvE point of vue tough so I can only agree with you when you say that mind is the choice target in PvP since you can't heal it. Being a Master Medic I have some clue on how fast you can heal health and action.

We are not tanks, our primary role in PvP and hunting party is to heal, poison and offer some assistance with a kill.

Thanks for this input.

If I use pistol or carbine people can just heal themselves, but if i use Rifle headshots they wont be able to heal their miiind. na uh my friend. you dead

Only go rifleman if you are going all the way to master, otherwise it's not worth it. Rifleman are alot like us. They shine at master.

I went with carbineer. I like the ability to knock my opponent down and poison him while he lays there like a helpless little possum.

The benefits of the elite combat professions have been pretty well stated here...but you should all take note of something. The devs are talking about making the mind pool healable, so keep that in mind when you're discussing rifleman.

I am a Zabrak and I do heal mind more quickly. With bleed with rifleman and poison, I can kill people prety quick.