Doctor Archive
Thread: Are any of you retired combat medics?
Like almost everybody, I'm giving up my CM skills in favor of doctor. Why should Imaster CM if being a doc with the ranged healing tree works better?
I'm playing a healer/entertainerbecauseIwant to be able toheal all three bars, so I have very few skills points to spare. Once it came time to pick a healing profession, I figured COMBAT medic would give me the little combat edge I need to be useful in a support role with a hunting party. I don't want to solo anything. I don't want to be uber. I just want to stay alive long enough to heal my party. I want to be able to keep everybody alive and toss a few poisons once in a while to support their efforts, then tend to their fragile minds after battle like a space Florence Nightengale. Let the docs keep their revives and their buffs. That's a perfect role for them. Combat medics should be able to tend to their patients long enough to get them to the med center, like paramedics. What they lack in healing skills, they make up for in combat and mobility.
Right now, in order to fulfill my duties as a combat medic, I had to spend precious skill points to get scout, because I couldn't keep up with my troops. I had to take up pistoleer, because poison is a joke. MOBILITY and COMBAT ABILITIES are the two main components of the class after healing abilities, and they'resorely lacking.
Then there's the crafting issues. Then there's the resource issues. Then there's the lack of funds. Then there's the fact that people really don't need me, because they can use stim Bs (and Ds, if they get med boosted clothing!) to heal themselves.Wow. All that fun, at the same cost as commando!
Right now, there is zero need for combat medics.Ourbread-and-butter, our main special ability, the one that is so critical to the class that three of ourtitles refer to it is completely useless until you hit master, and then it's only sorta useless.And the threat of it becoming even more useless when the nerf bat swingsis so real we're all bracing for it and have come to accept it as inevitable. A few words from the devs could appease us, but... well... you know.
Freya'Rohe
Dancer/Healer/Pistoleer/Scout/Reluctant Jack-of-all-Trades/Master of None
I didn't retire from Combat Medic, but I did make a descision to pursue Doctor for the reason of enhancements. I find it a bit useless for a Doctor to be able to give fighters a boost in action points. I find it more useful for a Combat medic to be able to do this. Its ashame that this skill isn't something that maybe they can share. I will miss not having ranged healing. I value this more.
-Taiv
Shug_Ninx wrote:
We're wondering how many of you doctors were once combat medics that decided to migrate into the doctor profession. If you did "retire" from the life of the combat medic and decide to take up the role of a doctor, can you tell us why you made the switch?
Haden Blackman
LucasArts Producer
I went the other way... Was doctor and went CM.
The only regret is CM's massive requirements which prevent us from excelling properly in many areas.
Well, I did it, gave up MCM tonight. Figured I'd wait till this weekend to see if this new found interest from the DEVS would produce results, but the only person i was fooling was myself.
I went with a 10 person hunting party earlier and hardly had a chance to throw any stims. Everyone was taking care of themselves. Since I don't carry any weapons I was completely useless (although I did rez twice). Basically stood around and watched everyone else fight. Total bore fest.
The second I got back to my hometown gone went MCM. And I never looked back. Already picked up vendor and survey skills to give added support to my master doc.
Couple reasons:
-being forced into rebel due to non-human costs I didn't
know about beforehand (nice. real nice) made we want a
little power without 18,000,000 xp CM isn't it.
-zero combat use. pve CM is worse than useless. its
100% wasted skill credits. _especially_ solo.
-poor design. example: I have a coat that gives me better range on a medic's Stim heal, than I had as a novice CM.
Ranged healing is a total joke.
-though I still get a ton of "must wait..." messages as
a doc in combat, at least eventually the heals work. instead of using my points and never throwing the darn thing.
-so much of CM is busted. Ie: doesn't work. or gives zero xp. whats the point?
-too much PvP grief. Both sides cry like babies
when a CM hits town. whats the point of range if
you can't use it? Every battle I ever had in PvP
was either spammed knockdown or one hit death/burning
_unless_ I used area affect poison. I used it more
for defence than offence.
-devs can't even be bothered to hot fix one stinking
typo??? Why should I believe they care about fixing the rest? Kinda obvious CM is either nowhere near its designers vision, or was so under tested it was a surprise when people started playing it and the devs couldn't get time to fix things.
-most of doctor actually works
-more common resources used. don't need bizarre and occult resources that are only used by CM.
-can sort of make a living as a doctor more than I could
looking for bizarre and on my server STILL TO THIS DAY
never available resources. 2 out of 3 advanced comps are still impossible to make on starsider last I played due
to lack of resource shifting.
-no one wants to group with CMs. everyone wants docs for the res's and buffs.
-Can get away with not having a single point of artisan now. I felt forced to pick it up in CM due to the rare and odd resouces that NO ONE seemed to be selling or would take contracts to search for. I made a decent level of doc and while I have a couple personal harvesters, I can hire surveyors to find these common resources for me to mine.
Ever tried to hire a person to find Yavin-4 fiberplast?
CM just isn't worth the points. All it really has to offer if you're PvE is ranged/AoE stims, and they're really of limited use. I've never had a need for them in a good group that doesn't scatter like frightened sheep.
On top of that, A CM can never make the best meds because they get short-changed on experiments on the advanced medic components. Those extra 5 experiments on advanced biocontrollers and whatnot make a HUGE difference.
On top of THAT, the crafting burden is too big for too small a return.
Even more: Overly heavy prerequisites. Why on earth does a CM have to have RANGED SUPPORT specialization? The WEAPON prereqs for CM are harder to meet than for any of the weapon-based Elite skills, and yet they really benefit the class not at all. It should require Specialization in ANY combat tree, because as it stands now it's harder to meet the Marksman portion of CM than it is the Marksman portion of Rifleman or Carbineer or Pistoleer... and if you want to be a melee-type CM, you're just out of luck.
It has potential to be a good class, but the prereqs aren't very well thought out, and the benefits aren't worth the work and skill points needed.
Falin
Ok, you have the feed back. Now what are you going to do?
As a CM, I'm coming to the conclusion that there is not enough healing content to make 2 good healing branches. Apparently, so are most of the other Combat Medics. Lets face it, there is not enough content in the CM branch to justify our being here. Most of the really valuable skills and abilities are in the Doctor branch.
Resing, buffing, cure poisons and cure diseases are needed in the field. When is the last time you hauled a corpse into the med center to get revived? Never. It's a skill that reduces downtime.
In this game, time is the valuable commodity. Doctors add value by turning that run from the cloning center into a few minute rest and recover period. Doctors buff up the group so you die less. Doctors can do massive heals to keep you from dying. Doctors can cure wounds and disease.
Combat Medics can use their only weapon, poison, but wait, that steals the kill, grants no exp, and no looting rights. Please don't use poison Mr. CM. We can heal less effectivly, but over a longer range. The problem is the delay. I don't really see much of a differencebetween the delay time between hitting Ranged Stim C, and the time it takes me to run the extra 15 M and hit Stim C. I can't res. I can't cure poison, I can't cure disease. If I attack, my heals are delayed even more. So much for the combat part of Combat Medic. We really have no skills that we add to a group that a Doctor doesn't do better, for less cost.
Why don't you just take the one useful branch of CM, and replace the one wasted branch in Doctor, and stop our suffering?
Ranged stims are pretty. I love the graphics, but it's not enough content to base an entire class on. I'm really sorry to say that. I have invested days and days into my Combat Medic. The more I look at the class, the more I realise the reason I wanted a Combat Medic was to be an offensive healer. There are other combinations that do a better job of that.
I'm in the process of surrendering my CM skills now. You have to get master or pretty close to get much use out of the CM profession, and the abilities gained just don't seem like they are worth the points to me. I was originally planning to get master CM and also just enough Doctor to get rez and buffs. Now it seems to me that just having the Doc rez, buffs, and heals is enough. (My wife is a master Doc, so fortunately I can get my meds from her and not train the crafting skills.) But here's a quick list of things that lead me to the decision:
- I refuse to craft poison/disease packs. While it seems like a useful ability, I already spend an unnacceptable amount of time and money gathering the materials to make good stims. The resources needed for the poisons/diseases are a completely different set of specific materials. I can't bring myself to do it, and I don't really want to buy them, so that's an ability I don't get. Granted, it's my choice, but the implementation is what drove my decision.
- When players are properly buffed with good Doc buffs, the ranged and AoE heals are not as important. They are a damage buffer which absorbs extra damage before the person requires a heal. This gives you extra time to run within the 10m that normal stimpacks require or the extra time to apply a heal to 2 seperate people. Plus, the group of people I regularly hunt with know enough to stay close to the healers, so that makes the ranged heals moot. The ranged heals are mostly good for the pets, which tend to stray from the group when fighting. Also, Ioften hunt in groups that have more than one person with healing abilities, which takes some of the benefit out of AoE heals for me, since we can be applying more than a single heal at once.
- The amount of points to get to master is pretty large, and I can get a better return on a lesser number of points by just sticking with the Doc lines I mentioned. When I think about all the skills I can get with the points I save, it seals the deal. I plan on spending them on combat-related skills that will help improve the damage output of my group.
It saddens me that I have to give up the 12 boxes of CM that I had, since I spent a lot of time and resources getting them. In particular, the awful grinding I had to do to get all of the CM crafting boxes seems like time poorly spent in retrospect, as it was a painful process that I won't be reaping the rewards from. And now I'm wishing I'd spent the healing xp on the Doc boxes I'm trying to get now. But skill points are precious in this game, and I have more appealing places to put mine.
Feyd-Rautha wrote:
I'm in the process of surrendering my CM skills now. You have to get master or pretty close to get much use out of the CM profession, and the abilities gained just don't seem like they are worth the points to me. I was originally planning to get master CM and also just enough Doctor to get rez and buffs. Now it seems to me that just having the Doc rez, buffs, and heals is enough. (My wife is a master Doc, so fortunately I can get my meds from her and not train the crafting skills.) But here's a quick list of things that lead me to the decision:
[...snip for length...]
It saddens me that I have to give up the 12 boxes of CM that I had, since I spent a lot of time and resources getting them. In particular, the awful grinding I had to do to get all of the CM crafting boxes seems like time poorly spent in retrospect, as it was a painful process that I won't be reaping the rewards from. And now I'm wishing I'd spent the healing xp on the Doc boxes I'm trying to get now. But skill points are precious in this game, and I have more appealing places to put mine.
Well said! I have the same feeling, although I have invested much less time in CM than you have. (I only have 6 boxes completed at this point.) I've been gaining medical experience but not spending it, contemplating my next move. I think your post has helped me finally decide on Doctor instead.
A few weeks ago, I was checking out the CM tree, getting kind of excited for the AoE heals. Then I started considering the Master Surgeon line and res, and seeing the effects of buffs on people. Amazing.
I picked CM not because I am heavily in to PvP and want to poison people (and, like you mentioned, it's a PITA to make these things in higher levels), but because I wanted to provide ranged support for hunting parties. I couple friends of mine all went BH, so I thought having a healer in the group would be good. And it's made a great difference-- but investing more skill in CM for ranged heals doesn't seem appropriate.
Being able to buff and res will better serve my hunting parties. I may even be able to make some money at it, as well. 
Humm.....
Almost 2 weeks since the LAST post.
Any word on what SOE is going to do about CM? Hints....anything?