Combat Medic Archive

Let it begin guys. I'm going to write a thread here that will from beginning to end use so much math it might make your head spin, but here it is, my suggestions for the class based upon in game collected data. I'll start small and work my way up.

#1 Non-Line of Sight (LOS hereafter) is exploited from inside and outside buildings. CMs can launch their ranged packs from inside a structure to outside, or from the outside in which is unfair.

Solution#1 Fix LOS so that it only functions OVER buildings and obstacles and not INTO such things. A lobbed pack SHOULD be able to clear a hall realistically, but NOT penetrate a wall and go inside it. I believe all rational beings would agree with this.

#2 CMs get Area of Effect (AOE hereafter) poisons which are not counterable and balanced by Doctor AOE cures.

Solution#2 Give the Doctor class an AOE poison heal OR remove AOE poisons from the game entirely to maintian balanced

#3 CMs have ranged poisons while doctors have non-ranged cures.

Solution#3 None. The disparity is balanced by the fact that poisons take TIME to tick off and therefore allow a Doctor to meet the patient to cure the poison. If you are not smart enough to realize you've been hit by a poison and you need to see a Doctor, please cease your complaints and go find a real Doctor. The range givent CMs is inherent in the COMBAT part of the class. No fix is required here

#4 CMs get 5 experimentation points at master to use on their packs while Doctors get 10 at master creating a disparity between the classes.

Solution#4 Give CM's their own set of subcomponents for their medicines and final packs that stacks with general med crafting to allow them 10 experiment points at master. OR (to any dev that ever reads this) come out and say to the public that the CM was never intended to have 10 points and stop keeping the public in limbo.

#5 Mind damage is overpowered on CM poison.

Solution #5 Will take me forever to get to. Suffice it to say that it is mind damage across the board which needs EXTREME revamping. If you would like to reduce CM mind poison effectiveness you sure as hell BETTER reduce the effectiveness of mind damage from all other capable classes (BH eyeshot, Rifleman headshot and mindshot) AND fix fire knockdown, and pistol melee defense in PvP so that they cannot be spammed (yes with a low cost weap they still can, whose surprised). Heres where the math comes in. I'm going to do a quick comparison of mind damage between CM, BH, and Rifleman (RM from this poitn forward). The discussion hereafter will revolve around PvP since no one gets on the waaaambulance for PvE.

BH - 250 mind damage per eyeshot usage each 1.5 seconds with an average miss rate of around 20%. No possible healing of the damage. All this while on your back for a minimum of 5 seconds after a Fire Knockdown.

RM - 500 mind damage per headshot 3 (being conservative here) each 7 seconds along with armor pierching to guarantee damage (using a T21) and about a 30% miss rate at decent range. AND 800 mind bleed with success rate of about 30% which ignores armor and bleeds every 15 or so seconds which can be healed by a master medic in approximately 4000 seconds far AFTER incap.

CM - 300 mind poison damage per RangedMind Poison PackC charge per tick (apporximately 15 seconds) which is curable by a Doctor using Cure poison C. A miss rate of at least 50% on average.

Someone look at that comparison and please tell me that the CM mind poison needs to be cured on average. All comparisons are for masters of their respective classes (of which CM is second in point requirements). With a high miss rate, and a requirement for actually crafting the pack ourselves only to have it easily resisted and then cured by a doctor before incap can even occur, individuals have claimed that CM mind poison needs to be nerfed immediately. To those of you who believe that AFTER looking at this comparison, I have no other course than insult so I will hold my tounge.

Now for a cost comparison of the 3 classes in Credits (on my server bloodfin at least, its prolly more disparaging elsewhere but on that I cannot comment)

BH - Scatter pistol sold for 15k with 1000 durability. Assume 1durability lost per 20 skill point uses (a mere estimate, but relatively accurate) that gives 20,000 skill uses per weapon with as mentioned 20%miss rate. That gives 16000 hits for a cost of 15k credits and a total damage of 4 million damage. Time spent acquiring 15k credits (2 hours if you have no idea where to hunt)

RM - T21 rifle sold for 30k with 1000 durability. Assume 1durability lost per 20 skill point uses (a mere estimate, but relatively accurate) that gives 20,000 skill uses per weapon with as mentioned 30%miss rate. That leaves 14000 hits for a cost of 30k credits and a total damage of11.2 million (if a 10 bleed mindshot of 800/bleed is used with 30% effectiveness) or 7million mind damage (if a 500 Headhost damage is used) all for the low cost of 30k credits. Time spent acquiring 30k (4 hours if you have no idea where to hunt)

CM - Ranged Mind Poison Pack C requiring 9 different resources (all specific in either planetary location or resource final type) for a total ofover 200resources. Assume a cost of 5 credits per resource (since more than 70% of those resources are so type specific and each one must be of an EXTREMELY high quality to get a good damage out of the pack) the total cost comes to $1000 per pack of 20 charges. Add on Factory Cost for production bump it up to $1500 per pack of 20 charges. with a 50% success rate thats a pack of 10 effective charges. To get the 16000 hits for a BH we would need 1600 packs for a cost of 2.4 million credits and a total damage of 4.8 million assuming 3k total dmg per pack. Total time spent gathering resources is way too many game hours to count even if you dont mine them yourself.

So to summarize...

BH - 15000credits for 4million damage2 hours time to acquire

RM - 30000credits for 7-11.2million damage 4 hours time to acquire

CM - 2400000credits for 4.8million damage and well over 20 hours gameply (as a conservative harvesting estimate)

The time and money spent into a CM to acheive the same amount of damage is inordinately large in comparison to the time and money it takes a Bounty Hunter or a Rifleman to achieve the same level of mind damage. Assumptions were made in many of these calculations, but they are not very far off in the least. hell, even if I added a zero somewhere in the CM calculations its STILL 10 times cheaper to play a different profession for the same amount of mind damage.

In conclusion if it is deemed that mind damage is overpowered, the CM is the absoloute LAST profession to have their mind damage nerfed along with other classes. Mind damage could also be made healable in combat (since entertainers in the field is the most rediculously ineffective idea ever) but i doubt that will ever happen

#6 TEFs are broken with poisons in general because poison application (if successful) does not gain a TEF for the CM

Solution #6 this is a clear bug, just fix it so that CMs do acquire TEFs

Hope you all enjoyed the math

Regarding #5

IMO, Mind Damage should remain unhealable. However, only 1 range attacker should be able to selectively target the Mind Pool, the Riflemen. Why? It's because Rifles are balanced with their x3 melee damage, slow fire rate, and horrific mind burn when they spam their specials. It's not fair to the riflemen class if people can heal the damage that a riflemen can inflict while they (the target) run into their "optimum" range because the target will be attacking at a far quicker rate.

We, as Combat Medics, should not be able to selectively target the Mind pool unless the Mind Cost of using Mind Poisons/Diseases gets raised significantly. Similarily, Bounty Hunters (and other non-rifle-using range strikers) should not be able to selectively attack the Mind pool unless the Mind Cost of Mind Damaging attacks gets raised significantly.

It should take significant mind burn to inflict horrendous mind damage.

Just my 2c

P.S. And no, I'm not a Rifle user =P

First of all I completly agree with #1, #3, and #6

Now off to others:
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#2 CMs get Area of Effect (AOE hereafter) poisons which are not counterable and balanced by Doctor AOE cures.
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I think the same logic as for #3 applies here.
AOE DoT are weaker then single-line and give enough time to doctor to heal himself and a few others before incap, and they get revive.


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#4 CMs get 5 experimentation points at master to use on their packs while Doctors get 10 at master creating a disparity between the classes.
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According to testing in 2 other threads, 5 extra points for subcomponents is insagnificant comparing to quality of resources used AND (if you are perfectionist) easy workaround exists.


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#5 Mind damage is overpowered on CM poison.
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Here is some of your math:

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CM - 300 mind poison damage per Ranged Mind Poison Pack C charge per tick (apporximately 15 seconds) which is curable by a Doctor using Cure poison C. A miss rate of at least 50% on average.
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This is inacurate, it's 400+ with even lousy components at a rate of about 80% (95% with good resources) and at about 10 seconds (can't measure for sure because of lag and strangley noone wants to be a target in testing)



Now for a cost comparison:


> BH - 15000credits for 4million damage 2 hours time to acquire
> RM - 30000credits for 7-11.2million damage 4 hours time to acquire

RM I think a bit on the high note, but for argument sake let's leave it as it is. Now:


> CM - 2400000credits for 4.8million damage and well over
> 20 hours gameply (as a conservative harvesting estimate)

But if you use average AOE poison (300dmg 80% resist) on an group of 4 the number is:

5000000 (dmg) = 4(people) * 300 (per tick) * 3 (ticks) * 16 (applications per pack with 80%resist) * 85 packs.

Even with highly inflated 1500 per pack it's still only 127,000c

Why "only" ? Because:
#1 You will most likely be doing additional damage with your weapon
#2 You have GREAT utility value - healing, BH has no utility out of combat other then doing damage.

Edit:

85 packs yelled 4,896,000 damage in the above formula, not 5mln.

if they do decide to make some change i hope the area of effect increases a little. The times that ive tried using my poisons it would affect not many people (6 or less) and then I would be looking at the sky soon after.

Michael, as to the experimentation, it DOES matter. with good experimentation points you can get an extra 50% on your components and final pack... this makes a HUGE difference in the end. try doctor expted stuff as opposed to CM stuff. its WAY better

bump. does anyone else do math here?

After reading this post, if the game ever lowers mind damage poison theyshould make the components forpoisons beorganic and inorganic. None of the specific resource crap.

This is already unfair as it is. Doctors can be so much better than us in terms of combat potential but they also have simple organic and inorganic for their components. What BS.

And Combat Medic is broken too. Isn't there a top-level AE poison that has like 800 CM med use requirements? What is that all about? That's crazy!

Here's an Idea!

They should move the range healing to Doctor and give Combat Medic the Stat buffs. Which makes both professions in line with their intent; Doctor is all about the healing, Combat Medic is all about the combat since stat buffs are mostly, if not always, used for combat anyway.

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Michael, as to the experimentation, it DOES matter. with good experimentation points you can get an extra 50% on your components and final pack... this makes a HUGE difference in the end. try doctor expted stuff as opposed to CM stuff. its WAY better
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Tried it. Compared it. Did not see it doing 10% better, let alone 50%.

If you look at this thread here:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=combat_medic&message.id=3311
You can find lots of hard data (not fictional 50%) supporting it.

Compare for example:

CM: 21 charge, 82 potency, 158 effectiveness, 19 range, 20 area
Doc: 26 charges 80 potency, 154 effectiveness, 24 range, 21 Area

It has 25% more charges and range, with potency and effectiveness being the same.

There is actually a very simple explanation:
The stats (which is really the only think that matters) on the subcomponent depend on 3 thinks:
#1 Initial (before experiment) % on the component - same for CM and doctor and depends on resources.
#2 How high you can raise the stat (how many empty boxes you have to experiment with) - it's the same for CM and doctor and depends on resources.
#3 How high you managed to raise the stat (how manay full boxes you got after experiment) - that is were the difference is, Doctor got more tries to fill them up, however 5 experimnation points is enough to fill 1 box per base poison component made with all resources being over 900 qua, and more then enough for anything made with low resources (because they will have less room to grow as per #2).

So the only difference is - the secondary stats, were docs can put extra points into.
Coincidently secondary stats on component are - number of charges and range

Moral of the story: with crappy resources both Doc and CM will have crappy subcomponents and packs. With good resources Doc will do just slightly (25%) better on secondary stats (range and charges), so if you have good resources available and really paranoid about having enemy being 25% closer - ask your friendly doctor to craft them for you.

Right....


As a person who PVPs maybe one hour a month, I really don't care about mind poison. No offense meant, but mind poison doesn't do much of anything against creatures, which is what I spend 99% of my combat time against. I would think that I am not alone on this. I assume many of us don't PVP and when we do, it's mostly in a support fashion. So, if most of the population either doesn't participate in PVP or use mind poisons extensively, why does the rest of the world want to get it changed?

Because the rest of the world on these forums is concerned with PVP or rather 40 percent or less. They should spend less time "nerfing" classes and instead try to think of good ways to balance things out. Sure, a combat medic is great in PVP now, not that I would know from first hand experience, but I still cannot solo a lair for a destroy mission without my marksman skills. I cannot take a 4k agro mob with only my poisons to help me. I would die, plain as that.

And what is it we really do when we group with people? We heal them all the time, with ranged stims. Why don't we nerf that while we are at it. Obviously throwing Stimpacks at people is too unrealistic and should be taken out of the game.

Arg.... I just don't get it. Why does so much of this forum focus around 5 percent of playing time (if that). What you all need is a different forum where all the PVPers can go whine at one another about how they suck. In fact, the entire PVP system should work completely differently than the actual PVE system so that you people can go mess with it for days on end to ultimately achieve absolutely nothing.

Maybe I am wrong. Maybe everyone PVPs all the time and thats the only reason they bought the **edit** game. But I have a funny feeling I am not...

So let's talk about something else, shall we?

- Silax the Mime

> No offense meant, but mind poison doesn't do much of anything against creatures.

But health and action poisons do, and rather well against high level creatures.