Development Cycle Archive
Thread: IC 1-4: Combat Roles; Combat Medic
What offensive abilities?
Ok, we have poisons/disease DOTs. Thats pretty offensive enough as they stand right now.
What defensive abilities?
I would think that the CM's would be best suited for providing temporary buffs (i.e.one fight), positive status changes such as adrenaline, and temporary defensive boosts to other players. The CM should be weak himself. "(TheLonelyCombatMedic)". If we are considered Chemical Warfare Experts, why not have some debuffing effects, for ex. a blinding agent/chemical or somethign when thrown can you make you sick/puke once or twice stopping you from escaping momentarily while the other members in the group finish you off. With a timer of course to avoid griefing...
What unique abilites?
I really liked, again The LonelyCombatMedics idea of throwing the person over your shoulder to haul them to a doc, maybe CM could carry incapped/dead people away from battle to recieve whatever treatment necessary. Dragging an Incapped player with just the medic tree should not be near as effecient as the CMs.
Should add what advantage or asset in group combat?
Basically they keep the fighting members alive, while slowing/hindering opponents. Not owning them with uber poisons, but enough offense to be a problem, if poisons/disease etc are lowered too much, then the Combat Medic would not be worth it, b/c then all you would have is Ranged Heals.
How could/should they interact with other professions?
I really dont like the idea of realying 100% upon another profession in order to pursue oneof my choosing. Again going back to thelonelycombatmedic's post, getting the best of the best in poisons/diseases etc you need help from Bio-Eng. but you shouldn't have to rely upon that profession to do it all, b/c BE could set prices and CM could be in trouble.
What interaction / dependencies should exist with other combatants?
Just a Master Combat Medic should not be much to deal with, but MCM with another profession tied in should be somewhat of a challenge. The MCM should really shine in group situations, if you have a 5 member group without CM when people start to get injuried/killed off etc it gets tough, but the CM is there to keep the core PURE offense guys going strong to win the fight.
The ability to keep people alive with minimum time.
The ability to inflict damage to opponents.
The ability to hinder opponents.
> What basic combat elements should they possess?
DoT ability (as they should deploy it and then concntreate on healing)
Ranged heals (so they don't need to chase their party members)
Good anti-state defence (so they can commence healing)
> What offensive abilities?
DoT in it's current form is sufficient for PvP.
It needs 75% damage INCREASE for PvE.
I don't think diseases are a good idea as most of the time they affect people AFTER combat.
> What defensive abilities?
Ability to stand up (self-remove dizzy)
> What unique abilities?
DoT and ranged heals should be unique.
> Should add what advantage or asset in group combat?
They should soften up enemy and then commence healing.
> How could/should they interact with other professions?
Would be nice to have game encourage Artisians to sell resources in bulk quantities to CMs.
> What interaction / dependencies should exist with other combatants?
There needs to be a counter to DoT (doctor currently), however it would be nice if the DoT would be reworked in such a way that:
#1 CMs can not apply it constantly
#2 Doctors can not remove it completly.
DoT should allow CMs to make up for time they spend healing.
One idea is to give doctors ability to decrease tick damage of the DoT after it's applied - without removing DoT effect. This way doctors do not need to run around reapplying "cure poison" and CMs do not need to spend time throwing poisons over and over again.
Combat Medic needs to pull away from this poison stuff I think. They are a support class, like Medic and Doctor. They should not give a team the upper-hand in combat because of there offense. They should be used as part of defense like the other medical classes.
CM’s should be given more defensive type things. For example, area fog. Which is basically a non-toxic gas. Which surrounds team people in area. This would
increase the miss rate of attackers.
Chemical Splash. Hit teammates with a chemical that will anti a certain weapon damage type. The type idea is that a persons body is covered in this chemical and helps resist the damage type. End result, a 10% damage taken reduction.
Area poisons and diseases. These should not be thrown, it should only effect the area around the CM. Then I suggest, either reduce the DOT damage or stop them from being
used if person is under attack.
Normal poison and disease, cut the range in half.
Poison over all, I suggest remove mind poison. Keep mind disease.
I think it’s quite clear, the most people find that CM current poison state is unaccepted. It’s gotten to the point where PvP isn’t all that much fun anymore because surely someone will toss poison. Doctors can not keep up with the cures, I am master doctor and find it pointless to cure anyone’s poison because it takes too much mind and it’s slow. The person will be re-poisoned soon after anyway.
Thunderheart wrote:What defines theCombat Medicrole in combat?
Considering there is no thread for Doctor & Medic's role in combat, I would have to say CM should be that "healer" you mentioned. I sort of understand why medic & doctor aren't included in Combat Role list. Although med/doc are immensly important in Combat, who have any doubt as to what their role is in Combat? They heal and thats that. All other points are interesting but ultimately insignificant for medic & doctors.
CM different since without poison/disease I would have to say they are also "healers". There are reasons why most MMORPG don't let healers do damage. All combat professions compair their damage with other combat profession. When healers heal, the amount of damage they heal is equated to the amount of damage combat profession cause. But I guess SoE didn't want SWG to be just another MMORPG and they want something different and unique with their CM.
But they tried something different with CM without really solving the problem why other MMORPG don't do it. Which is when healers start causing damage, then for some reason amount of damage they heal and amount of damage they cause are kept separately. When people look just at the amount of heal CM do, they are fine with it. If CM can only poison/disease, then most people will be fine with the amount of damage they do, even mind disease. But I think it never escape our attention that they heal and they do damage. And that fact never quite get resolved in our head and no matter how much they nurf the CM's poison/disease, it will never get acceptance unless there is some kind of reason people will accept. (Like no one care how much damage cleric do with their smite as long as it only work on undead)
Ofcourse this don't really answer the question what should CM's role be, but I just wanted to say you got one heck of problem here.What basic combat elements should they possess?
Most basic of all combat element. Heal the fellow players. Unless you want that to be the combat role of medic/doctor in which case I guess part-time healer & part-time throwing monkey wrench into enemy's tactic with poison/disease. Ofcourse the debate is should this monkey wrench go poof and cause confusion or should it explode with neuclear force and wipe em out which also cause confusion of sort.
hannerf wrote:
I really can't believe the way people carry on about CM. The obvious class that needs some major "balancing" is the TK class...but god forbid I say that because everyone and their brother is a TK. I personally love how Tk's fist's and feet are the most powerful weapons in the game. Oh yea this is a CM thread...in my humble opinion if CM takes anymore hits...the class will dry up and disappear..it's really not that flashy of a class to start with...we suck in PvE...and PvP we can hold our own...so what if our poison does good damage...so does many other classes..I have been mind shot many times by Rifleman,had my mind worked by smugglers,and let's not forget the BH eyeshot (spam it as they all do). So don't cry about posion damage because this class will disappear if they "balance" it. Sad thing is it will just continue on down the line...so keep your ticket number's handy TK's they will get pulled very soon....
You might wanna express your thoughts about TKAs in the TKA thread! (wondered about the similarity in names?)
Dogg
What defines theCombat Medicrole in combat?
As a CM I can say without a doubt that they are easily the most misunderstood class in the game. There are two types of advanced physicians. One that branches into dealing damage and one that specializes in healing it. Many of the people here fail to realize that if you give a CM more doctor abilities and useless poison...you simply might as well eliminate one of the classes and merge the two, because there is nothing unique that separates them anymore. A ranged heal versus a non ranged one is not enough to justify an entire class, and most of the shortsighted posters here have overlooked that.
What basic combat elements should they possess?
Making poisons, making debuffs that "cure" doctor buffs, making diseases,
What offensive abilities?
Apply poison, disease and debuff.
What defensive abilities?
More dodge, evade, etc. We should be able to survive battlefield conditions. At present we are given no defensive mods.
What unique abilities?
Ranged heals, poisons, debuffs, diseases, the class is useless without at least 3 of 4.
Should add what advantage or asset in group combat?
Good at present.
How could/should they interact with other professions?
Unfortunately, CMs have a horrible lack of use in most groups. Except for large raids, a CM is about useless. They have nothing they can sell, except to other medics, their PVE damage is a joke, and basically AE heals on large raids are their only use...a use that more and more is becoming obsolete.
What interaction / dependencies should exist with other combatants?
I like the doctor /CM setup. One deals, one heals. Leave it that way. A CM at present is at the mercy of the group he is in. He is defensively weak. I can accept this, if we are at least given the chance to survive long enough to toss some poisons. At present we are ganked early.
What should be their unique role in the Galactic Civil War?
The CM should be the ultimate group support class, able to both heal and wipe out other groups. If that is done I can accept practically no defense.
_________--
An overall vision for the class, is that the CM is a killer. A rather sinister, disgusting human being who relishes in the twisted pain of others. The only healing vehicle he has exists because he managed to combine a healing device with a grenade in some sick way.
I understand some of the complaints against CMs, but cringe at the notion that they are healers. We werent given 80 poison and disease schematics to be healers. We are killers. Obviously.
The way to fix CMs imo is as follows:
1)Leave damage as it is, *or* if the 75 percent rule is applied, give CM's debuffs that strip all doctor buffs, and food as a substitute and give the other poisons real use. Make poison be so bad it slows down people to a crawl if encumbrance dictates it. In other cases it causes outrageous damage till armor is removed and the disease is cured.
2) Fix AE bugs through walls, etc. Most people want this fixed.
3) Provide a way to reisst poisons more...but only if the other poisons get real teeth. Again, as it sits no one uses most of the schematics cause they have no combat value. Either PvE or PvP.
4) Reduce the components needed. You shouldnt have to get nine different things for an object with a limited amount of use. A gun can be fixed, our poison (which many say should be nerfed), is useless.
StrikerNI wrote:
When you have two groups of 20 players fighting each other, and then one group has a CM to use an Area of Effect poison, the fight is over. It's unbalancing.
Now, any group knows to bring a doctor with them, but the problem is doctor's can hardly heal their own poison before getting killed. Let alone a group of 19 others. If a group has to have 5 doctors with them just to counter *one* combat medic, it's out of balance.
Two words for you here, "Spread out".
Maybe since I'm a master combat medic I'm more informed about aoe's, butI don't think that's it. If i see someone tossing ranged heals or poisoning/diseasing, I make sure to remind my group to spread out so they aren't as susceptible to aoe attacks, which aren't only used by CM's.
Yes, if 20 people are standing within 20 m of each other, a high lvl combat medic can basically wipe out the whole group. This is where tactics come in and you have to use a strategy such as the one mentioned above. I think it's a nice feature to the game, since it reduces zerging in a big way.
What defines theCombat Medicrole in combat?
I believe the role is dictated by how the battle is proceeding, if I'm on the defensive I tend to heal more. If I'm on the offensive I tend to poison and desease more. Givin these two position the role is as support in both offense and defense. Example in offence it is not the CM that gets the kill (usually), but the CM supported the effort to kill the target, in defense the CM supports the troops by healing so they can stay in the fight and hold position.
What basic combat elements should they possess?
I believe elements that enable the group as a whole to be successfull, ae area healing, dotting, healing bleeds, deseasing are these basic elements.
What offensive abilities?
The ability to cause dot damage to a clump of players. This is a defining CM trait, you will hear my screaming at my troops not to bunch up too much because of this cm ability.
What defensive abilities?
The ability to hold the front line together by way of rangedarea heal, fixing bleeds, preventing further retreat.
What unique abilities?
Ranged aoe heals, the ability to heal mind, the ability to harm multiple targets over time.
Should add what advantage or asset in group combat?
CM should in my eyes be at the core of the offensive push or defensive hold, without a CM either action would be much weaker. CM should add strength to the front line, while not a killer a CM should be able to weaken the enemy en mass. while reinforcing friendlies with healing.
How could/should they interact with other professions?
A few ways, as a supporter(heals/wound healing), a consumer(perchasing goods for stim and poisons), and a crafter(a creater of stims/wound med packs) to sell to lesser medic. CM also create a need for doctors, doctors can heal poison and desease. without that need doc would simple be a buff bot. On a side note I would like to see doctors givin a Point Blank AOE cure for both desease and poison at master level.
What interaction / dependencies should exist with other combatants?
Fighting proffesions rely on us for heals and wound treatement, we rely on pure fighters to finish the damage that was done with the poison/desease.
What should be their unique role in the Galactic Civil War?
CM should be at the foundation of attacking or defending. It is my oppinion that we are very close to this. When a group has a CM in they will have a much stonger offense or a tougher defense. Are roll is of combat support to do this we need to be able to heal damage en mass and cause it (slowly).
Wookiee of Flurry
jtrek wrote:
Two words for you here, "Spread out".
Last I heard,the AoE effect doesn't measure the distance from the initial target to the next target, it judges its distance from the recently poisoned target to anyone within "X" meters from him.
For instance, you throw a stim at target A.target Bwithin, let's pretend 30, meters from him is poisoned. Then target C who is 30m from target B is poisoned. Then anyone within 30m from target C is also poisoned.