Doctor Archive

I think it's a real matter of playstyle. I took up doctor for myself (i was a master pikeman at the time and needed it) and for my guildmates. I offer free buffs to the guild and they suuply me with meat. I am, however, primarly a combat player, and secondarily a doctor, so I don't carry enough buffs to sell them, nor do I enjoy buffing in a city. I do look around when I get to a starport (say, on Dantooine) for a master doctor selling buffs so I can refer people who see me buffing my guild to those who are selling buffs. By and large this works quite well for me, my guild gets buffed, the people who want buffs find a doc selling buffs, and the doc selling buffs keeps his or her customers.

If I were to go into the buff selling market I would have to change how a I focus my playtime from combat to med harvesting. I can see that it is doable to harvest all your own resources, or find a seller, but it seems to me that you must dedicate a large portion of your playtime to doing so. So hats off to buff sellers and they deserve whatever they desire to charge! They should be making the equivalent of what a combat char would make doing missions in that time, fully buffed.

I definately agree that 5k is way too low. When I had low power packs I was originally charging 6k myself. Since hitting master and getting better packs I've been selling buffs for 10k with the current batch I've been using and offering arefund for buffs that don't hit a certain minimum (dependant on where my average stands for that day). At certain times people even offer up to 15k to get buffed if there is nobody else around, including myself,willing to do it.

Meat is a costly part of making the buffs but after awhile that cost is somewhat negligible, especially if you go gather some yourself. I spent the last 3 days actually harvesting the avian meat I need for a run of 50 crates of all stats. It took forever (naboo avian sucks to harvest), but saved me probably around 210k. At the same time I managed to also get some more ranger contacts for the future.

As for other resources, a friend tipped me off to a good source of gas and a fellow master doctor gave me a location for some pretty good class 4 petro. Thanks for that btw Symmetry, I should be set on class 4 for quite awhile now. About the only resource I'll have to buy at this point is the 10k herbivore meat I need unless it shifts soon (current stuff is crap or would take a month to collect at 4 units/harvest).

In all when I took a look at the total cost involved in producing the run I'm working on currently (not including harvesters and factories which are the least expensive of the costs involved) the profit margin at 10k/buff is definately not bad at all. If you are buying all the resources and only charging 5k then yes, you will not make much of a profit. But if you're using master level buffs with a good rating there's no reason to be chargin that low. Consider a good portion of the price the time aspect involved in getting materials, making schematics, etc.

those of you that switched over from selling buffs at lower prices to higher ones, how do you handle the flames when you raise your prices? I've been selling mine at 6k/10k (role playing a bit, those prices are for imps or rebels respectively) and regularly get flamed by those I charge 10k to which allows me to role play the evil doctor even better. However that may be, I don't want to annoy or turn away my regular cusomers but I feel that I'm one of if not the best doctor on the server and buff a fair amount to people, usually while I'm doing homework and don't feel like 'actively' playing.

FYI, all of my buff packs range b/w 850-920 power and actually buffed someone the other day with 2 stats over 3k and the lowest one was 2700 ..... I was quite excited to say the least

I think I've gone off the subject but to answer the original question, I enjoy buffing and enjoy the potential of getting better buffs everytime I craft (which is why I don't make crates of the stuff) I also enjoy the potential of beating my current best of 3319 everytime I buff someone ... and I love being the evil doctor when rebels are around

I certainly don't do it for the money since I sell all of my excess resources.

I've had no complaints really for the price. I have been fair and promptly refund stats that don't hit my minimum though which could be part of why nobody minds. I'm guaranteeing them a higher quality for a little more cost basically.

Buffing makes money. It's not necessarily as fast as running mission, but it's good money. Many people do not have combat skills. Many people don't WANT to run missions but prefer the buffing. I haven't done missions for money since I become a master doctor or even before that (hint: selling stim B's and wp B's is good business, even before you're a master with the best resources/components).

Also you don't have to reimburse for a flawed random system. Also as master I have not gotten any buffs below 1000 since I got my + to wound treatment, even after buff averages went down.

To me it seems that basically you don't enjoy the non-combat and crafting part of being a doctor but prefer to kill things. This is fine and I see no problem with that end of the doctor scale (it is after all what I PLANNED to do - man how things change). Personally I don't buff for money because I don't want to waste the buffs (and make more money from selling my products rather).

I enjoy doctor fully and plan to never drop it. I have even stopped my hologrinding because frankly, I love my heavy swordsman/master doctor combo way too much to bother with randomly grinding professions.

I've been guaranteeing based on how much the horrible buff range system likes me that day. The last day I spent buffing (had to take a break while I'm makin more packs) I was guaranteeing hitting at least 1.5k which was my average for the day. About 80-90% of the buffs I did completely exceeded that minimum pretty easily. On the other hand the few that did get below the minimum did appreciate receiving some money back on it. Really if you look at it you're still making a profit even if you have to refund a couple stats here and there.