Combat Medic Archive
Thread: COMBAT MEDICS rough & ready veterans or scrawny mad scientists?
Let me point out that I'm a Smuggler and a Pistoleer - no Combat Medic credentials at all, and in fact only Novice Medic and enough First Aid to stop my bleeding. I was in Beta, but never tested this profession. All I know about Combat Medics, I know either through this forum or from a friend of mine who hasn't been playing much in the past month (work-related, not dissatisfaction-related).
From my position as an outsider, I find it absolutely baffling that Combat Medics don't appear to have much combat skill whatsoever. Where are the weapons bonuses? Where are the ranged combat defenses? And what's all this craziness about poison and disease?
I always imagined Combat Medics as fighters with some healing skills, rather than healers with some weird combat skills - and poision and disease are definitely weird combat skills to have. I expected to see Combat Medics out there taking shots at enemies while rushing from wounded ally to wounded ally, dancing through the battlefield dishing out as much punishment as he was healing.
Instead, Combat Medics seem to be mad scientists, tossing out strains of poison and disease like a bad scene from Brueghel. Granted, they have nice ranged healing abilities, and those are perfectly sensible. But the combat aspect of Combat Medic seems to be missing. I know that everyone has the ability to pick up another profession, and Combat Medics can channel some skillpoints into a weapon speciality. Not having done the math on the point totals from Master Medic and Ranged Support (which is worthless without accompanying ranged weapon skills), I'll have to just bet it's tough, if not impossible, to master an elite combat profession. I guess that would be forgiveable if Combat Medics got some extra oomph somewhere in their skilltree.
But no -you get freaky diseases to throw at people. You're the bioterrorist of SWG.
This is my first visit to this forum, so I'll bet other people have mentioned things like this, but maybe everybody's focused on other issues after being convinced that it's too late in the game to get things changed. However, I think you should pushfor more direct combat skills in the Combat Medic tree. Add some General Weapon Accuracy so that you get bonuses no matter what weapons you use. Add some Ranged Defense to keep you from getting whacked at long range. Add some more Terrain Negotiation to give you some speed and versatility (why is that piddly +10 limited to Master, by the way? Sprinkle +5-10 in every branch of a tree and let CMs be the battlefield jackrabbits they should be.). Something has to be done to make Combat Medics the versatile tough guys I always hoped they'd be.
Anyway, that's just my neutral, mostly-uneducated view of Combat Medics. If you show up on the Discussion Forum with complaints that need to be raised, especially if they deal with adding the Combat in the Combat Medic, I'll be sure to bump your threads when I see them.
electricnomad wrote:
But no -you get freaky diseases to throw at people. You're the bioterrorist of SWG.
That is SOOOOO going in my sig if it lets me. 
Well, we've complained about no defensive bonuses. Most confrontations end up with us losing lots and lots of FP even if we DO get the buggers. The terrain negotiation is as broken as medical forage.
I like your take on it though. Our ability to reinforce our skillsetis somewhat..umm..lacking
I'm going to have to agree that to be an effective CM you'll have to sacrafice a lot. And if you want to toss more than 1 or 2 poisions or heals in a battle you're going to have to migrate most of your Attrib points into the Mind pools.
I'm now reworking my entire template to include Master CM, 1 scout skill (can't live w/o a min of +30 TN), Carbine Specialist - possibly novice Carbineer - and about half of the Doc' in order to have buffs, which in my opinion will be the saving grace to the fact that "scrawny" CMs will in fact go down fast simply because they typically possess little defense, give a good set of armor and healing.
I can take the front lines in a fire fight, but after tossing an AoE poision or even a single I'm nearly assured to have a graul or rancor on me fast, along with gun fire from two or three other players. I'm banking on DR buffs to greatly improve my combat longivity.
But we ARE the chemical warfare specialists. If we were say.... a "weapon (pistol)"+healing than there would be absolutely no reason to go cm. You'd spend less points and get better healing- buffs, woundpacks, cure stats by going doc+pistoleer which would be essentially the same thing you are saying you think of a CM.
Now... What I envision (I spent 4 years in the army as a CM) is a bit like what a CM is. Only should be faster and should be easier to drag players out of the line to the docs in the back (no i'm saying docs in the back of the group cause no medic should be up front in agro range, not in the medcenter) I think CM's should be faster to GET to the "players" The choice of weapon is naturally a ranged weapon (warning shot can be used with any weapon) But instead of getting "gun" styles we got poisons. Which I like and dislike. I dislike that it "takes" away from my healing, and I dislike that it takes a LOT and I mean a LOT of my gameplay to make decent bioweapons. It also takes a lot of cred, I've spend anywhere from 23k-30k a day on harvestors, ships, shuttles... I DO like poisons versitlity. I can target mind, action, health, or i can even target 2ndary stats. I can target all 3 or everything if I have the time. Anways, A Combat Medic is just what it is. Yes, it needs some tweaks, increased TN and increase BR, I also feel some of the range defences need a boost. But otherwise, a CM is a Chemical warfare Master. I can't imagine a CM being any other way. (snicker, in daoc terms we're cabolists =)))) I thought that was amusing.
The right armor and stat boosts/migration drastically improves the longevity of a CM in combat. I wear Rebel Marine Armor (no helmet) coupled with chitin gloves and bracers. I have just recently added a high secondary resist PSG to my protection. I eat Teltier Noodles, drink Charde or Breath of Heaven, and sometimes pop a Grey Gabake or Muon Gold. I throw Area Stims into the fray (being careful to experiment on Area more than anything else) and stay in the middle of combat blasting away with my pistol. I keep a Rock Beetle on guard duty all the time, instead of sending it out into the general melee. Only thing that would really take me down in a PvE situation are one shot kills (Jedi/AT STs/etc). So, I would say that my character is an rough and ready veteran with the scary ability of carrying bio-tox weapons on my belt.
It's all about piling on the protection...
As another real-life CM (only two years, never actually deployed), I'm inclined to agree with my comrade up there - the point of a combat medic is that he's generally untouchable. A role one medic (which is the real-life equivalent of a SWG CM) must be able to keep up with the infantry unit to whom he is attached, and - if one thing is pounded into your head during trades training - defend his patient.
Combat medics don't save lives; that's the role of bright lights and cold steel. Combat medics prevent death, and rain hell on anyone attempting todo harm tothe wounded.
If you wanted to look at CM in a realistic, combat-oriented framework, the following things would have to be amended (note - these aren't meant to balance the game, or represent my complaints about CM - it's just observation about the changes that would make Combat Medic more combat-realistic):
1) Terrain Negotiation is an absolute must. If anyone is ever going to drag a corpse, it's us. But most of us are likely lacking in the exploration area. The unwillingness to give this up is likely another reason why so many CMs CH on the side. Plus, with so many creature handlers in the game, we're far too often having to cover a group that's split up nine ways to Sunday. Ranged stims are great, but large groups always require a massive amount of running.
2) Bonuses to Suppression Fire. If there's anyone that trains to lay down covering fire, not caring if he wounds the enemy in the least, it's the combat medic. As it stands, I have an option - hold off that voritor tracker from administering a deathblow, or heal the patient. Even disallowing a player from DB'ing while under suppression would suffice. Anything, as long as we can stave off death and get our man out of the line of fire.
3) Wind. Throwing chemicals that only hit the enemy is certainly a nice idea, but wholly unrealistic. It'd be utilitarian in a combat-realistic context if poisons did more damage, but area poisons had a chance at poisoning your own men. This would increase players' use of both single-target poison (rather than Area all the time) and doctors in PvP.
4) Package. Some way not to revive a player, but to have him revert to the status of walking wounded. Unable to fire, unable to die, but able to get out of the theatre of war. It'd represent the CM's ability not to fix anyone, but to keep them from getting killed on their way to the chopper/ship/sail barge. Dead players in this context would be "packaged" by a CM within, say, 20 seconds of the deathblow. They would then show clear white on all HAM bars, invulnerable to further harm,and crawl prone out of combat. A countdown timer (maybe twice the Incapacitated timer) would have to expire before he could heal in any way or take aggressive action. Essentially turning death into an evacuated incapacitation. That way battle reports could list dead and wounded. Neat.
5) Beer.
There are things to be fixed about the CM class, but if you want SWG to represent a real FIBUA urban assault MMORPG, that's what I'd recommend.
Gah - KILL for an edit button.
Obviously, the better things to deal with would be resource availability, crafting bugs, etc. And SWG doesn't have to be realistic - that's not the point. The above was just idle speculation for fun.
Though I really like 4 and 5.
This is best question I've seen asked by far.
If Combat Medic is rough & ready veterans, a "fighters with some healing skills", then your pre-req should have been master marksman and Organic Chem 4. Your CM line should have been weapon bonus line as well as ranged combat defense. You should have rez, but no ranged heal or ranged area heal. That would been "traditional" CM we see in WWII (except there is no rez I didn't think)
All that shoulda is interesting but I don't think thats the way Dev see your profession. It's not part of combat profession (assuming from the fact that combat designer don't handle CM) but rather support like doctor.
So I think what you(CM) are is exactly what you said. a "healers with some weird combat skills"
And I imagine you are right again to say it is already too late to change that since no current CM would likely give up their healing ability for more combat ability. They'd probably ask you to go Commando with novice medic or something.
excellent thread. i for one envisioned more of a support role when i started. saving lives not throwing poisons and diseases. seeing as most people get incapped on mind in pvp situations it's pretty hard to save lives. i really liked the "packaging" idea which would be a great solution to aid comrades. rezz is still doctor only, but you could take them out of harms way (saving them a run to the cloning facility) yet still have them not interfere while the battle lasts. maybe make them DBable again when the CM dies/incaps or is too far away.