Doctor Archive
Thread: Are any of you retired combat medics?
First, you don't know how welcome a sight it is to see a Red Name posting on one of the Medic Profession forums. Thanks for that.
MD/CM here as well. I seriously considered not going CM, even thought it had been my template idea originally. But I decided to try it first and decide. So far my mind is still not completely made up on this. I won't drop Doc, as I still consider that the primary profession I enjoy playing.
But CM is still up in the air for me and I guess I have a wait and see on it right now. I cannot really use poisons in combat on the chance that my poison will amke the killing blow. I'm actually a hindrance in a group in that respect. Add to it that bug alone prevents me from getting loot or FPs (or even others from getting loot, harvest rights or XP) and that's a huge minus for me not being able to use the bread-and-butter skill of a CM. I've decided to start experimenting with secondary stat poisons in PvE to see if that will be of any use, but my hopes are a bit low from teh one time I did use a pretty well made Mind Disease on a MOB once, accidently. So I'm reserving judgement on that one. The problem there is that there are so many complaints about CM poison/disease on the other forums I really fear a nerf might be in sight, when the power of those items really isn't the problem (they are really not THAT strong, IMHO, considering the skill point cost to be able to make them and all the varied resources and complex attribute requirements required for them) The primary problem is the cure is not in line with the DoTs, I think.
As alluded to in that last paragraph, the schematic and crafting complexities in CM are a bit of a pain. Those schematics should probably be strongly looked at. (It will likely be #1 or #2 on the issues list that will be sent in by me, in the stead of the currently non-existant CM correspondent, next Thursday. See the floated thread there for the Issues List to take a look at it now.) Some of those schematics are also in the Doc line and I think if I wasn't also a Master Doc I wouldn't be able to really make a decent component for those CM products.
Overall the combat usefulness of CM is rather low. The points would probably be far better spent just Mastering something like a Weapons tree and getting back some of the points many of us so desperately need in Artisan just to get our resources. Heck I could even keep enough of CM to still make a decent enough ranged and AoE stim that the most useful part of the profession could still be used.
Communication is certainly an issue (especially for me, since I've been asked to put in the work as a correspondent and we have yet to receive a courtesy fo a response on our issues, or for most of the support professions for that matter.) However if that were a primary issue in dropping CM, it would also remain for Doctor, in my case.
However, I obviously do not directly fit your criteria. I went Doc first, then CM and I'm still a CM still, but those are some of the primary reasons I have considered dropping that profession.
Overall Doc has Buffs and Revives as the primary draws.
CMs have Poison and Disease as drawbacks due to complexity, bugsand inability to use them usefully in PvE since they can be a kill, XP and FP stealer from not just me as the CM but from the group as well.
I am a Master CM who has only gone up the rez tree in doctor. I don't plan on giving up the profession but I can tell you that everything Elimanning said was right on, and playing this profession has been an extremely tiresome outing due to many of our rewards for being a Master CM just can't compare to a Master Doctor who is delving into pitoleer.
Typos are killing our profession, i mean come on, 900 skill to use some of our offensive stims? Or the 13 identical CRDMs it takes to craft a Ranged Stim E? There is no way those are right, we have been griping about those issues since the first people became a Master....... I know I was one of them.
Plus, according to our CM boards a lot of people left due to the fact that a Doctor/Pistoleer combo is more rewarding for the time invested then becomming a Master CM, just calculate the skill points needed for both........ and ESPECIALLY if you lean towards the PvEnvironment type of play style. PvP is a whole separate can-o-worms, and the differences inherent between the two play styles seem to get meshed together when the nerf bat comes around.......... for any profession.
This is in no way a scream to nerf Doctors in any way, I feel their ability to heal wounds and dmglike crazy, buff people insanely, rez the dead, counter a CMs poison and disease, anddelv fairly far into the pistoleer treeallow them a diversity not many classes have. All I am saying is that people tend to go the path of least resistance and right now for support classes the Doctor/Pistoleer is that path. I mean really, when the FEW gripes about a profession are that they don't have holsters or a gun twirling maneuver, you know just from that the profession is working great (sorry pistoleers, I have too many commando friends hehe).
KyniO & Mope1 ... Shug is the producer for Lucas Arts incase you guys can't see to well. He has graciously taken his time to try and help with the discussion about what Combat Medics desire to be more up to par with other medic profession in the field. This is nothis specific job and taking the time to posta question aboutthisissue should beevidenceof the hard work and dedicationthese guyscontinue to show.
Posting about a DE issue is obviously misplaced and typing an all caps response that is off topic is a waste of space as well.
I have gone to 2/2/2/3 in combat medic skills, turned all of them in (retired) and then took up Combat Medicine again and worked up to Master. I re-trained combat medicine mostly because I hated the idea of quiting, not because of any outstanding ideas it gave me.
Crafting as a CM is very frustrating. I am not able to fully experiment on ANY of my components. To fully experiment on my components i would have to train the doctor line of medical crafting (I still would not be able to fully experiment on them because I would need Master Doctor). I cannot affort to take medicine crafting (let alone the effort to get the crafting exp) because my CM needs both artisan survey skills and scout skills to abtain all the resources I need. I suppose I could buy my resources but that is made difficult because of a lack of money. I could sell medical supplies, but Doctors make them better than I do. Because destroy mission payoffs (along with faction points) are based on combat skill instead of the skill points I spent on the CM elite profession, it is hard to make enough money that way. And there is no such thing as a medical mission terminal. Tips are hard to get as a combat medic, as i can't treat wounds any better than a master medic and damage heals fast enough that players are loathe to pay for it.
Right now poisons and diseases are not worth the trouble because of exp/looting problems.
It is my opinion that Combat Medics need a little pick me up in the support role too.
I guess what I am trying to say is that.... I have already given it up once. I am very patiently waiting for there to be an improvement. At least once a day I have to tell myself to wait instead of dropping CM skills and taking a combat skill and master Medic, or become a doctor again (Did I mention that there is very little combat in large battles for me (heals being added to the que and timers that worked would help with this)). If I did not have a second account I would have dropped CM a second time long ago.
Respectfully
As an example, look at this thread. I am totally thrilled that you are looking at some combat medic issues, but, why are you posting in the Doctor forum? Seriously, if you want some information about CM issues, is it really so much to ask that you actually ask the CM community in our own forum? It really does reinforce the notion that CM's are not worthy of the Devs direct notice.
Anyway, I hope you get the information you need from this thread, and I invite you to come visit the CM forums as well.
Pollaxius
I tried out the CM line after hiting doctor and when I noticed just how worthless it was compared to what I could already do I dropped it. Besides, I'd heard my guild's CM do nothing but complain about how it only became better than regular medic when she hit finally hit the Master level. Then she posted screen shots showing how well her posions worked. They showed the mob up and moving around and her corpse. Throw in typos, requiring more specialized resources than a doctor does.
Quite frankly, it just doesn't seem like CM is worth the investiment of skill points. Thier attack abilities seem only good for PvP, and thier healing abilities just aren't that wow. I mean as a Doctor I can give everyone in my party enough buffing to give me time to run to each of them and stim them. Plus revive.
KyniO wrote:Oh and ask Raph to answer this logic question below.
ham : cheese::
bacon : eggs::
star wars : _______::
A. creatures
B. droids
And slap him really hard when he answers A
Sorry to post this here, It's just I can see that you work for lucas arts and may actually realize that the magic of your star wars franchise is slowly being erroded in the minds of the players of this game. It happens everytime they reluctantly choose a powerful creature to companion with over the star wars droid that they really want just because the power and diversity of combat droids are so weak by comparison.
There, thats how it is supposed to be done.
I am a "retired" master combat medic. I'll admit I quit before the first major patch, where you marginally improved combat medic. First, I largely felt ignored by the devolpment staff. It took you well over a month to fix typo bugs like yavin_fiberplast. You still have left it at 13 commonents for ranged stim e's which is entirely inconsistent with what a regular stim E cost, or the normal progression for A-E. And you totally ingored the Advanced Reselience Compound bug when fixed the identical bug an architects 'harvestor mechanism.' But you devolpers are so narrow minded you didn't notice this, just like you haven't noticed dozened of other things. (like the fact that PistolMeleeDefense2 doesn't have a knockdown effect, so its cost did not need to be inline with PistolMeleeDefense1. But I guess it doesn't really matter. Nerf things that people don't use and you'll encounter less opposition.)
Beyond feeling ignoredwhen I first looks at combat medic I saw 3 things. Poison, Disease, and ranged stim packs. By the time I mastered combat medicine I realized that each of these things are close to useless.
Ranged stim packs, the item that works best for combat medics. The biggest problem is people die/incapacite too fast. So between the time they start getting hit and the time the are incapacitated there is a 2 second window for you to throw a stim pack at them. This is complicated by a very poor combat targeting system, the fact that you need to clear your combat queue before you throw the things, and you cannot move while throwing thing.
(Note healing is a powerful tool. But not in the combat medic sense, its a useful tool in the oh I just spent all my HAM on specials so I'll refill now. If you are losing ham in combat to being hit the fact is you die much faster than you can heal. This is the major flaw in the SWG, don't get hit combat system novices fight next to master foundation)
Poisons. I will admit poisons are a usable tool in PvP. Because they hit the mind they are unhealable unless by a doctor who is carring cure poison packs. (Even then its so unlikely they actually have cure poison on their hotkeys or no the /command they die the majority of the time anyhow). And it managed to by pass the 75% damage reduction that the other DoT's took.
However in PvE combat difficulty in having a DoT healing is irrelevant as nothing heal itself. So what you are left is a high delay, low-medium damage, DoT that is totally outclassed by the standard weapon bleeds (since they don't have to deal with the 75% reduction).
Disease. Just a greifing tool. Or to get someone off your back if they are repeatedly cloning and suiciding at you. But again in PvE it is entirely useless. Because Disease does damage off of the top of bar (where in all honestly they've probably already taken damage). Taking down secondary stats if off neglegable effect and will not to decrease your time to kill at all.
So what I was left with was a 169 skill point proffesion that was only neglibly more powerful than a 20 point medic with first aid 2.
.......................................
Why I went doctor. In all honesty I don't think doctors are a really well devolped proffesion either. But I spent all this time and money going up and down the medic tree I kind of felt like sticking with it. Again they have 3 main selling points. This time however 1 of them is actually very worthwhile. One of them of marginal use, and one pretty much worthless.
1. Enhancement packs have a noticable effect on game play. A character who is enhanced lasts longer has less down time, is generally a more effective at whatever they want to do. Enhancement packs and too a much less degree spice are the only thing worth buffing. They also make armor penalties barable.
2. Rez. Not really important in SWG. The fact is 99% of the time players are within 1.5k of a cloning facility. And since you still are out for 60 seconds after a rez, its not really relivent to getting you back in the fight. That said it works, and for those few times I went out to explore the corners of Dathomir and Yavin, when someone died it was worthwhile. (Unfortunitely the trips where so unrewarding I would never bother doing them again.)
3. Cure disease/poison. Creatures so rarely poison/disease you its pointless in PvE. Disease is only a griefing tool in PvP so its rarely used there. Cure poison, while occasionally useful in PvP, the fact that you can't cure the as fast as you can recursively get poisoned its by and large pointless.
a. Bigger wound healing gets is nearly pointless. Just like with stim packs, unless someone is buffed to the gills, and has wounds to the kills, 95% of the time wound packs B are more than sufficent.
So do the math. Combat Medic 0/3, Doctor 1.5/3. So I went doctor with no regrets.