Doctor Archive

Personally, I'm half way up the doctor tree, and chose to supplement my character with few CM skills.

After spending quite some time (days!) trying to obtain the materials required to craft my first class defining object, I was absolutely stunned at how utterly useless it was. An average player's character can heal their HAM through natural regeneration faster than a well crafted poison A can damage them. I made only two poison packs and basically gave up. It's simply not worth it. The complexity of the simplest of the schematics is beyond many advanced schematics for other classes. The end result is a weapon that is resisted at horrible rates (my ratio to date is about 65-70% resisted). And on top of that, it does insignificant amounts of damage with absolutely no side effects.

The only reason I did not completely surrender CM skills, is a hope that I will be able to raise my combat med use skill to a level that would allow me to purchase and use master level poisons, one day. On top of that, this skill would be fed through XP gained by my doctor skills, as they are the only viable way of obtaining med XP.

I originally planned to pull combat medic, but after being in the game... I found myself pulling a weapon tree and doctor.

1: In the thick of it, kill first... heal later.

2: The perks vs. costs of CM didnot seem appealing.

3: People I knew were switching from CM to Dr. ... gotta be a reason.

Regards,

SevinJa

I had to give up combat medic because of the skill cost. Those 29pts in marksmen make combat medic a tough choice for those that want to be a healing type class and do other things.

From what I've seen the CM is awesome in PvP. Their damage is incredible compared to weapons. I guess this is because their poisons haven't be scaled back like other damage. A lot of PvP players are both Master Doctors and Master CM's. They buff themselves up insane amounts that last for hours and then they throw poisons in. The latest rage of course is mind poisons that can't be healed by anyone.

It seems that CM poisons and such don't scale up very well. An A poison is very bad and it isn't till master that these items become useful. It's a bad progression. I've always thought that making items super hard to make to pay for their back end power was a bad idea. Making it a royal pain to make a combat med, doesn't balance well with their usage in combat, espeically PvP.

One final aspect is the doctor is a continuing profession of the medic. To me of all the professions in the game, it was the most well done. The combat medic, like all the other elite professions, you have to start over from the beginning, which means novice skills aren't as good as starting profession skills.

Ah, a heal for an edit button.

Should have been Shug, not Shrug, sorry.

Re-reading my post, I think it's about what's wrong with the profession. Some ideas to improve the profession:

1. Instead of area poisons and diseases for every individual stat, how about 3 each? Health disease and poison that effects all 3 stats, Action D/P, and Mind D/P? Area and individual, that's 12.

2. How about adding individual and area State Effects?

Pepper Spray - individual blind

Tear Gas - Area blind

Flash/bang grenade - dizzyindividual attack

Concussion grenade - area dizzy attack

Lube grenade - individualslow (so they don't slip and fall)

web grenade - group slow

Itching powder - individual slow attack (you can't pull the trigger and scratch at the same time)

Itch Gas - group slow attack

3. How about Defensive modifiers?

Reflectance powder- covers your group in a reflective powder, reflecting energy damage.

Charcoal Powder- covers your group reducing poison damage

Retardant - covers your group reducing heat damage

Dramamine - reducesdizzy attacks

Innoculation - reduces chance of disease attacks

These skills would add defensive capabilities to the CM class. They would help the group by reducing the damage the group takes. Dr.s add stats, CMs reduce damage. Both professions heal, both professions add value to groups by making them last longer in combat, they just get there through different methods.

I just went for the first few CM skills and I'm disappointed as well. Sure, I know the A stuff (as on the medic tree) is usually nothing useful but if A poison only drains about 45 health or so in PvE (so even less in PvP I guess?) but you have to buy stuff like expensive radioactives, well, you get the idea to do something different.

The main problem is that the more advanced the poison and other pharmaceutics are on the CM tree the more exotic become the required resources for crafting those. It is soooo hard to get some (or most?) of the resources that are needed later on (I hardly found yavian fiberplast for example, actually until now I haven't even seen it available on Eclipse!).

So either the poison and other stuff needs to be stronger or (what I think is the better idea) make the needed resources less exotic or less specific.

I currently think about dropping CM again and doing something more useful instead...

I was a master CM, and I droped it because I couldn't do anything solo. I don't have enought skill points to do master CM and master another profession so I droped it. As a CM you have one and only one thing to do in the game, and that is healing groups.

I also was at a loss for money. I can't craft stims B's near as good as a doctor (because doctors get 5 extra experimentation points) and stim B's are the only stims that sell.

If you like to heal people and make some cash doctor is the way to go. (you'll even have some skill points to pick up a melee combat tree)

I got to admit, the path to Master Combat Medic is a labor of love. CM's really are not that effective until they hit the master level. I pushed through to be a CM because I liked the idea of poisoning folks from afar and healing from afar (I'm lazy and don't want to have to follow someone to heal them). I've stuck with the profession probably out of stubborness more than anything else. Doctor does seem to be a more 'thought out' or at least 'rounded' profession than CM. You hardly ever hear people yelling to nerf a Doctor, but lately we've been hearing nothing but nerf the CM.

I'm not going to drop CM for Doctor; however, I fully understand why some have. Experimentation points a lacking, rare materials a plenty to gather, nerf bats a smacking, and lack of "combat" bonuses a happening all could lead someone to drop CM.

btw shug if you devs ever bothered reading the CM boards...you would have seen all these arguments before...

in fact if you have read our correspondent issues this was addressed...but again I bet you didnt even read those...

in other words...u didnt listen to anything the CMs said and then show up on the doctor's boards asking for answers to questions that have already been given to you in many ways...

so much for your vaulted communication...

I retired from CM to be a doctor. I like healing, I liked ranged healing and AE healing, the rest of the class plain sucked tho. I was reassured that poisons work better at the top end, and they are kinda useful in pvp but sorry, that wasnt enough.

Doctor allows me to heal and buff, along with my Pistoleer skills, a much better arrangement for me and the Commando I usually partner with.

In a nutshell, CM looked great but stank. A Doc is more useful to the situations I find myself in as a PA Leader of a 20 person PA and I usually duo most days with my commando buddy.

CM in fact reminded me of an EQ Shaman without the slows compared to the Cleric. Heals, dots. Doctor heals, heals more, rezz's, buffs, heals conditions and then heals some more. Much more useful and sadly, fun to play.

Shug, the perfect answer as to why people are quitting CM for Doctor lies not only in the messages in this thread, but in DevTracker. This thread has been active, constructive, and full of the CM issues and even some Doctor issues, but not one single response or even acknowledgement. Meanwhile, BE's and CH's get MORE information, even though they and Squad Leaders are the only professions that have gotten any real communication at all the last few weeks. I appreciate you seeking out this info, but the fact that we can't even get a wow, you guys need some stuff done, or thanks for the information here's how we're working on it, while CH's and BE's seem to get almost daily updates as to what's happening in their professions indicates that we are indeed the unwanted step children of SWG.

I gave up CM yesterday just because the issues and frustrations weren't worth the lack of skill points. Doctor has usefulness that outweighs it's frustration, but it's still tempting just to give it up and go BE/CH just because that seems to be the only thing anybody's paying any attention to. I don't think it's hard to see how one would come to that conclusion.

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TsunamiKata wrote:

Elenora, do I hear bitterness in your voice?

I love being a Combat Medic, it took longer for me to reach Novice Combat Medic than Novice Doctor because of Ranged Support Specialist but the final result was Master Combat Medic.

I can only see bigger better things in the future for Combat Medics because it can't get worse. Well, it could get worse if they slap the 75% reduction on poison/disease damage, but that's unlikely since Combat Medic cost the same as Commando but we're a far cry in dealing damage.

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You dont see how we could get worse? Get ready for the AOE mind poison nerf coming...

there was once a time where I thought CM hit rock bottom...before the big patch that fixed CM...

2 weeks later...CMs were destroyed again...

you dont see how it can get worse? Have you been paying attention since release?

CMs have been the devs little yo-yo

Me!

It's not because of Combat Medic though it's because I am switching to Carbineer from Pistoleer (another major change for me). I've been halfway and more on the Combat Medic profession (2/2/1/3) but I just got bored with Pistoleer and decided to take up Carbineer.

The problem with Carbineer though is the very high HAM costs which a Doctor with buffs can help to alleviate. So, I'm pretty much just switching to Doctor because of the buffs. And the experimentation points. At Combat Medic, I only had 5 for the regular medic stuff and 3 for the CM stuff (I think that's as far as I got in total experimentation points). Now, at Doctor, I have 7 experimentation points and I just started! I've always wondered how people were making 300-400 heal with 30 charges for small stimpack-Bs and now I know how. I was already able to hit that mark only at Novice Doctor (0/1/0/1). It was only once and I had tons of amazing and great successes and most of the resources I used had approximitely 700+ on the important stats but still that was a good chance of luck.

The experimentation points was definitely a bonus but I took Doctor mostly for the buffs since Carbineer is gonna waste a lot of my HAM just from using specials. If it weren't forhigh HAM costswith carbinesI'd probably sell back Doctor and half of my Medic skills and go up Fencer instead.

Elenora, do I hear bitterness in your voice?

I love being a Combat Medic, it took longer for me to reach Novice Combat Medic than Novice Doctor because of Ranged Support Specialist but the final result was Master Combat Medic.

I can only see bigger better things in the future for Combat Medics because it can't get worse. Well, it could get worse if they slap the 75% reduction on poison/disease damage, but that's unlikely since Combat Medic cost the same as Commando but we're a far cry in dealing damage.

If god gave me the tool to grief, then grief I shall. I don't do missions except to help friends gathering hides/bones, I don't have a guild because they're too restrictive, I don't sell medicines because it's worthless to sell for the pittiful price. I just run around the planets all daygathering better resources so I can make bigger Poison/Disease Packs. And then, I run around all night grieving those who deserve to be grieved. I am at negative Faction Points for both sides because I'm not in it to earn Faction Points and I get kill too often to have that faction points last.

It's quite satisfying to throw an Area Mind Poison C and drop 8 people. I love the fact that I can grief them a bit more after they TEF kill me. I live to make those Bounty Hunter, Creature Handler, TKA Masters' life a bit more interesting.

If GOD gives me to tool to grief, then grief I shall.