Doctor Archive
Thread: Are any of you retired combat medics?
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 made my character specifically to be a healer. As such the overhead of the Combat Medic skill-tree that is taken up with deliverable poisons and diseases doesn't appeal to me. I cannot effectively use them and still keep my group healed.
Add to that the fact that I totally dislike crafting, dislike tracking down stuff to use for crafting, and don't have the money rolling in to purchase resources or finished products, and you have a situation where I will never even make a poison or disease delivery pack. Much less use one.
For me, though, it finally came down to, "Do I want to have area and ranged heals, revive, or both (and nothing else)". I decided that I would rather have revive, and then play around with the rest of my skill-points to see if there was anything else I liked to do.
Yes, I had initially chosen to go combat medic and switched to Doctor.
I chose to do this because I enjoyed being able to sell my stims to others, primarily novice medics. I run a business with factories and vendors, etc. I find this very enjoyable, and this is something that is not part of the Combat Medic profession.
I'm in a similar situation that was mentioned previously: I really had my heart set on combat medic, but I discovered it was nigh-impossible to get my ranged weapon support XP. This was pre-patch, before medics actually were credited with combat XP for group healing. (We still don't get faction points for faction healing. I get more FP as a master ID, grouped with people in town doing their hair while someone else ganks the mission, than I get by being a healer. Go figure.) Anyway, by the time the patch hit, and I began to accrue combat XP, I had already entered Novice Doctor and had a few boxes under my belt. Given what I've heard about the problems Combat Medics have -- especially the fact that they're as bad a money sink as Doctor, or worse -- I don't think I want to be one any more.
(And to the person who doesn't think Cure Poison or Cure Disease is useful, I'll bet you've enver been to Endor.)
The question you should also ask, Shug, is why there are so many more Master Surgeons than Master Doctors? The answer: because it's possible to attain Revive at a sub-master level. It sort of makes me wonder what a Master Doctor could earn that would be better than resurrecting the dead, eh?
Escia
I became Master Doctor, then started to advance up Combat Medic, but quickly realized that I didn't become a better fighter with Combat Medic. Wanting to be able to solo too, I realized I had to take up something like Pistoleer to receive harder missions.
Funny, I found this forum just after I switched.
Combat Medics suck. The no-LOS thing was a clear exploit, their poison damage wasn't reduced to 25% in PvP, which was an exploit, and until very recently, their poisons didn't get them a TEF... which was...? An exploit.
I'm not a 'sploiter. I'd much rather buff my hams, whip out my now-puny laser rifle (we have no T21's on Bria yet, but LOTS of Lightning Cannons...) and get killed by mobs. That's just my nature.
I am a master combat medic heading up the doctor tree right now. As many have said, without the ability to revive or buff, combat medics are only marginally useful.I disagree with many of you saying that we don't heal for **edit**, when in fact I have kept large groups alive MUCH easier than any doctor could. Of course this is only after our area stims were fixed. But without revives and buffs its much harder to keep those people alive. PLUS almost every death is due tomind damage. Theres nothing wrong with people dying due to mind damage, but to make it completely unhealable is harsh imo. Buffable at the very least would be nice...and don't even mention that entertainer buff that lasts 30 minutes.. thats worthless.
One thing that has bothered as well is our poisons and diseases. While these are useless in PVE, I have found them to be slightly useful in PVP. Although there has been talk about them being nerfed down to the 75% damage reduction. If this is done I believe it will remove EVERY "combat" medic ability that we have. Of course we can heal very well. But if you look at what my poisons and diseases do on average.. im usually dead before they incap my opponent since i cant heal mind damage.
Im not saying these need to be buffed, but I think combat medics deserve a new ability for dealing damage. As someone said here perhaps a Bio weapon of some sort. I have thought that perhaps combat medics should take HALF of the HAM cost on weapons since they have used their "Combat" Medical knowledge to hold a weapon in a certain way so that their body takes less impact damage from their weapon. But we still need more for the massive 169 skillpoints we need... not including how many we need to max out doctor as well since we aren't very useful as CM alone. After those two skills which are the main basis of support, we have little to NO skillpoints left over to defend ourselves.
With all of the new weapons you claim to be adding eventually I really think you should give us a fairly useful weapon. Something that if your a combat medic you would WANT to use. I personally would love a weapon that could be more useful than just all out damage. Different pistols that we can craft, that deal different types of damage? Or the ability to take a crafted weapon and attach bio attachments. Either changing the damage delt with the weapon from say energy to disease or poison damage so its less resistable on some mobs/people, or adding a DOT to our attacks with the weapon powered up? I can't really think creatively atm but im sure everyone on this forum or at SOE could brainstorm a little to come up with something that is useful to us. But combat medics as a whole right now are not very good at all.
As much as I would love to get rid of combat medic and switch to a damage dealing class, I can't get myself to surrender all that exp with the chance that maybe, just maybe, you will make our class more fun to play. Im not going to do that grind yet again.
On opening day I knew I wanted to be a combat medic. I've always played a healer type in every game since EQ beta. Within two weeks I realized that SWG was different than all those other games in a fundemental way... most players can heal themeselves. With novice medic they can use Stim B's and with pharm IV they can use Stim C's.
Quite simply, for all but the most perilous of hunts the medic is unnecessary.
Seeing this I changed to doctor since peoplewere less likely tocure their own wounds. However, even that was not unaffected by the everyone-a-healer problem since all those part time medics were trying to raise their medic skills by healing wounds in the med center.
So there are specific problems related to the combat medic class, but there is also one overwhelming problem with the medical profession in general. We are not nearly as necessary as in other mmorpg's.
So, my master surgeon sits in his house and makes meds for my two alts. Not a doctor, a pharmacist.
It is simple. When I finished Medic I was wondering what to do. Then I found out that combat medic is just ranged heals and poison I decided to change to doctor. The problem with combat medic for me is simple. If I use poison and a creature resists then I have to wait the heal timer to apply again. This hurts if I need to heal myself or others, so I decided I would rather spend time healing in battle vs. trying to use poison.
Ok i'm gonna hafta say that SOMETIMES the bugs in combat medic are a drag, but they are definately not a gamebreaker.It would be nice to make ranged stim E's,but if you make really good D's you can heal someone at 50 meters for 1000pts on both health AND action.I NEVER have any problems with my area stims,and if they are made with good stuff, you can hit everyone in your group for 1000 on both pools.My diseases and poisons Alwayscome out fine ,Except action area disease packs..those come out requiring a combat med use requirement of 858..on a skill that maxes at 100???Yes poisons get resisted sometimes,but when you can throw area's It doesnt matter,as you will always hit a few.Other than Ranged E's and Action area disease C(which if i want to disease someons action i just use a single rather than an area)Everything else that I make works.In all honesty,I have to say Ihavn'ttried any of the lower-level diseases or poisons. When I decided to go master CM I made me up 200 regular stim-d's and spent all my time in the theed cantina healing dancers,and crafting stim A's and B's for my guild-mates.Once I finished I started scouring the galaxy for the best components.
One you get to master CM doctor xp is a breeze...except the crafting, which I wont be doing anyway. I made novice doctor and got to master wound treatment in 4 hours.Once you are a master CM and you can make good area stim c's get in a big hunting party..I went to dantooine.I could cap my med xp at 80,000pts in 30 mins..go see a trainer and come back.If you really wanted to work at it, and you have the stims, its nothing to ge a half million med points a day.
The only skills i have in the doctors tree now is master wound treatment.And I have 2 crates of reces. packs in my backpack. With each pack having 17 charges,and I have a hundred of those packs = 1700 revives..That'll last me a LONG time.It also solves my inability to fight while I'm healing,because everyone around me know not to respawn of they die, they wait for a break in the action, because they know that a soon as i quit firing. I'll revive them.
One skill to really get good at is knowing how to use your drag command.Between shots (if the player is within 18 meters)you can hit drag,and your buddies corpse is at your feet,on your next pause, Hit him with a revive and a heal, If your stims are good enough,It will only take 1 heal to fill his health and action up completly,and you can continue fighting..then tell him to have a seat for 60 seconds untill he becomes un-gimped.
Yes CM's have some crafting bugs,but atm there is nothing that would make me quit being a master CM,or a master wound treating doctor.
SOmeone mentioned that Poison was considered a "griefing" tool? How so? Let's face it for less skill points I can go up a marksman tree that will give me Bleed Shot (a DoT, like poison). Bleed shot is stakable (unlike poison), cannot be stopped with FA as quickly as a Poison can with Cure Poison, Bleed shot does damage with the hit as well as doing Damage over Time and can often do as much damage in a tick as a poison, bleed shots aren't resisted (although tehy can miss) where poisons often can be resisted, Bleed shots can befollowed very quickly with another attack or bleed shot, poisons have to wot for the heal timer, Bleed Shot can be used at a farther range than most Poisons and all Bleed SHot will do is a negligeable amount of damage to a weapon, where as posins (whcih taek a great deal of time and resources to make) lose an entire charge. 13 shots of a poison on your "weapon" is gone.
Considering that most poisons are really only effective at Master Level CM anyway, I just can't see how these could be construed as a grief tool. I don't see everyone complaining about Bleed shot, except maybe in that there are more folks around with FA2 who can at least provide some counter with First Aid then there are Doctors to counter poison with Cure Poison.
Posion=Grief? I don't think so!
Hey Shug, long time no see...
To answer you're question, I am not a master CM. Yet. I will be, eventually, but not because the class is 'so great'. But simply because, having mastered Doc, I had all this excess med xp. So I thought I'd try Master CM for kicks. Found that I love the ranged and area heals, but for the most part the profession as a whole is a waste.
I appreciate that you've finally come to one of the Medical Boards. However, the simple fact you have even to ask a question such as that is sad. We know the game better then you do, and Holo has admitted to that repeatedly. Yet, you've never taken anything we've said regarding the medical professions and put it to work. Our ideas, or pleas, our problems have long been ignored in favor of combat-specific professions or crafting professions(of which we ARE one, wether you choose to admit it or not).
Nothing we say now, regarding any question you ask, will matter worth a grain of salt. Because, in the end, you'll simply do as you've always done and ignore us as you come up with yet another plan to nerf us.
Or you'll simply forget about us once the cries to 'nerf commando!' reach the level of annoyance that you ignore us and move on. Again.
Thanks for stopping by, Shug. Shut the lights out when you leave...
It was just a question of skill points for me. Points spent in doctor crafting make all the regular medic stuff better, points in combat medic crafting don't. Poison is almost useless in pve and disease is totally useless in pve.Makingexcellentmeds as acombat medic basically requires master combat medic AND master doctor crafting.
The way the skill pointsare novice combat medic costs the same as master surgeon. Almostany kind of hybrid healer/combat player will obviouslygo master surgeon. They will be able to heal themselves just as well as ANY combat medic, plus revive and use enhance bs. The novice combat medic can onlyuse weak ranged stims that heal 15m out and 50 damagehealth poisons.