Combat Medic Archive

The Combat Medic's effectiveness as a support role in a group is greatly hindered by the fact that, even though they can heal health and action to keep a group member from being incapped, nothing can prevent their eventual incapacitation from mind damage. Its a fact, if you are in constant combat for long enough, that Mind Bar is going to drain to zero and you will be incapped, regardless of how hard your medic is trying to keep you alive.

Thus we are presented with a kind of quandry. The simple fact that we must wait for our mind bars to regen, risking incap if we do not, is not only an inconvenience, but a hindrance on our ability to have fun in combat. So what can we do to remedy this quandry? To me there are two feasible answers:

1. Allow for a 'Mind Damage Healing Kit' - Now, the traditional problem with this idea is the fact that it is taking from the importance of entertainers. We can however, allow for them to craft and sell this item to bolster their strugglingcredit-generatingabilities. In addition, we will not completely undermine them by creating Wound or Battle FatigueHealing Kits that can be used in the field,thus we can keep the cantinas stocked with tippingcustomers.Riflemen and even the Combat aligned faction of the Combat Medics will scream nerf for their decreased effectiveness (Headshots and Mind DoTs would now be much less effective). This item, however, would level the playing ground with Health Damage Dealers (like Pistoleers) and Action Damage Dealers (like Carbineers) whose BodyShot and LegShot are reduced in effectiveness due to the fact that the damage they deal can be healed.
   


2. Make Mind Damage a Non-Incap Bar - This one is the controversial one. But if SOE is not going to let us heal this bar, then they shouldn't let us die from it. Under this system, when a Mind Bar reaches zero, the player would incur massive secondary stat penalties and a plethora of state effects. For instance, upon losing all of his mind points, Unfirth the Pikeman's Strength, Constitution, Quickness, and Stamina bars are reduced to near zero. He is dizzied andblinded, maybe Knocked Down. He is as good as incapped, but it is still possible to keep him alive with regular application of normal stimpaks. The obvious arguments to this massive overhaul is the total nerfing of the Rifleman's HeadShot ability and a general difficulty in working this large of a change into the code. So realistically, Option 1 is the only plausible choice.
   

It is easy to see the imbalance caused by not being able to heal mind damage. Riflemen and Combat Medics using Mind DoTs are given an unfair edge. In addition, the downtime generated by waiting for the Mind Bar to regen is often frustrating and generally not fun. For these reasons, I suggest that one of the two above measures be taken to, as the Developers are so often trying to do, balance things.

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The only thing they should allow is a medpack that can heal a tiny bit of mind, and only when people are incapped.

The mind pool keeps medics from being godlike.