Doctor Archive
Thread: Are any of you retired combat medics?
I am a Master Doctor and a Master Combat Medic.
I love both but dont use the poison or disease much as they are resisted to much and dont seem to have much effect.
My main thing for the Combat Medic is the Range heals with all advance parts my Range D's average over 600 heal and a distance of 26m.
My area heals do the same and rock.
Hate the fact that I have 4 usless points need 6 for Carbineer or anything else in the marksman field.
I have though of dropping Master Dr and Master Combat Medic for the2 points I need but the terrain navag I got with master combat medic was sweet now I can almost keep up with my group . . .
Zeli
I had a few boxes of CM (in live), then sold them back for more Carbine skills.
CM's really can't do anything useful...
Ranged stims are pretty, but a decent doc can get close to whomever he needs to heal pretty fast.
Area stims... with current tanking methods, these are a waste unless a combat goes totally wrong and a lot of mobs hit a lot of people close together at once (that is if they are working now.. they weren't when I sold back my CM boxes).
Poison and Diesase are a gimmick, and not a great deal of fun (along with buuggy).
Docs heal the same, for far less points.
Docs craft Combat medic medicine components better than Combat medics do.
Cm's need more rares than doctors to make their meds.
...
With basically equal healing... CM's need to have some combat effectiveness, for the extra points they have to spend, and all the drawbacks they have.
If they had some kind of combat skills, equipment certifications, weapon modifiers, special attacks... or anything that made them worth their poits, I would be inclined toi get soem CM boxes back.
-T
I'm not yet retitred, but im not actively persuing CM anymore. My roommate keeps asking me why i dont just drop it, but i worked fairly hard to get where i am, and i have faith (misplaced?) that things will be fixed.
top 3 things? (in no specific order)
1) the time it takes for things to go off.
2) the horrid animation that has to take precedent over anything else that your doing, even moving.
3) no real field support, anything i use in the field comes from either doctor, or medic.
truth be told if the animation didnt take over my character completely (and look kinda **edit** to boot) iwould look into continuing the CM tree, but for now i can just run towards people and hit stim when im about 12 meters out and it usally goes offby the time i get in range. /shrug
Hey! Good to see a LucasArts dev poking around. 
I'm nearly master CM thinking about retiring. Simple math, really. We need much more diverse and multiple resources than doctors (since we need both doctor and CM materials), and therefore must set up more harvesters and travel more often than doctors.
That takes money, obviously.
Where does the money come from? Doctors have enough experimentation points to outsell a CM any day on the open market, so selling med supplies is out. We can't loot after poisoning enemies, so that's out. We don't have enough skill points left over from making CM to master another profession to support our combat habit, so there's really just no way to support a Combat Medic lifestyle.
As it is, I have to log in and mindlessly do simple Specialist destroy missions for three hours a day just to fly around the galaxy and keep my extractors from exploding. (Obviously can't do good destroy missions because I had to surrender Pistoleer to master CM.)
***In short, the catch-22:
You can't be good withoutgood meds. Good meds cost money agood player can never acquire.
P.S. The typos? I really don't mean to be rude, but if you like, I'll drive down to your offices and correct them myself in an afternoon. Considering the relative complexity of adding a 'practice' crafting option, revamping Bestine and other major cities, shifting resources, and retitling combat masters, would it really be so hard to hit a backspace key a dozen times and make an entire community ecstatic? Maybe it's more complex than I think, but you have to understand - from our perspective, it seems such an undescribably minoreffort for such an enormous relief. It feels like we're struggling with a door, carrying refrigerators on our backs and you're standing inside, filing your nails.
Ya...i switched to doctor after i had the ability to use C class poison....ididnt see any reason ot raise the CM skills up, no bang for your buck.
This doesn't directly answer your question Shug, (why does that make me feel like Nancy from 'King of the Hill'?), but I hope this will give a bit of insight, or at least a piece of datum for a player who started with the aim of going combat medic.
After playing an enchanter in EQ, and a scout in Shadowbane, I approached SWG with the goal of being an in-combat support character who was in the thick of it. I had the idea that a doctor was more of the EQ cleric, with the big heals, rez, buffs, and the combat medic was more the 'think on your feet' type with a more subtle role and the need of keeping an eye on the state of the battle. These preconceptions were based on beta boards (as an outsider as I wasn't part of any of the beta stages). I created my first character with the goal of becoming a combat medic. I read a few guides out on the net and followed the recommendation of starting as an artisan, adding medic and marksman, and using carabine for the 'crowd control' specials it gave. As the server I started on was a newly opened one (I purchased the game several weeks after launch), I found my medic skills very useful in the med center. I got surveying IV and master medic before I got 2 levels into carabine and ranged support. I then picked up novice doctor as I was still gaining medical experience and couldn't spend it for the far forseeable future.
I then created a new character on an already established server to join some co-workers. I again started artisan and added marksman and medic. I also picked up scout on the theory that I would perhaps organically grow into a different profession based on my playstyle. This time, I wasn't able to quickly find someone to sell me a good CDEF carbine, so I stuck with the pistol I started with and grew into it. I found sitting around sampling for resources very boring and didn't progress very quickly into surveying. As I started in Dearic, Talus, and had access to a Rebel mission terminal, most of the missions I did were faction based and against NPC's vs creatures and my scouting skills advanced very slowly. Also, since I was already familiar with how to advance in the medic tree, I did that fairly quickly. Again, I found myself with master medic, and with only 3 boxes in pistol and 2 in ranged support, I added novice doctor.
With my playstyle of mostly running rebel missions solo, hanging out in the cantina healing and chatting with entertainers, and very occasionally, going to the med center to heal (very little now that I have a droid with a medical module in it), I now find myself with Master Wound treatment (with research, I decided that I definately wanted the res ability), Advanced Medical Knowledge, and Intermediate Doctor Crafting. This is fairly advanced, while I am also a Novice Pistoleer, and still have 1/3 of the Ranged Support IV skillbox to go to even start Novice Combat Medic. I take difficulty 11 missions solo, run out to the location, health shot 2 the closest NPC, spam bodyshot 2, and if I get low on health or action, hit my heal hotkey. If I happen to get jumped by red cons, I hit health shot 2, and alternate between warning shot and bodyshot 2. Even if it's a horribly tough mob, or multiples, I die and am sometimes better off for it as I'm back in town after I've run my missions.
I have migrated my stats (as a human) to minimum health and action (700 each), minimum secondary health stats, and minimum action regen. I have my mind, and secondary mind stats maxxed (1100 mind), and the leftover points in action cost reduction for my pistol specials. I simply do not die to anything other than multiple red cons.
I still plan on adding combat medic, but I know that I'll need to keep Master Wound Treatment to be able to res, and unless crafting is changed, I'll need some Doc Crafting for the component crafting and experimentation points. I however, don't like the idea of the combat medic as 'ranged healing plus bio warfare'. I'd much rather see ranged healing and something else.
I haven't PVP'd much, but my large mind pool lets me last for a decent bit as I essentially have an unlimited health/action pool (and even more once I get better than A level enhance packs).
In short, to return to the original question, I am not a combat medic who retired to become a doc because I'll be 2/3rds through doc before I can even train novice combat medic. Unless my playstyle is significantly atypical, I would believe that most players will qualify for doctor far before combat medic and would have a hard time keeping from spending the medical experience on doctor as they see it being wasted while they wait for ranged support to catch up. I still plan on adding combat medic, but I don't see it as a very effective path without doctor skills as well.
Haven't made the move yet, but am seriously considering it. I am Master Combat Medic and I think I made a mistake. I did not understand that this was strictly a PvP character. I thought I would be able to PvE with some effectiveness, but I can't. I mainly wanted to provide in the field healing for my PA groups, but it appears with Doctor buffs and resucitate I would be more useful in the field as a doctor than as a CM. Add to this all the frustration over enormous, esoteric resource requirements, broken components due to typos, howls to nerf what little CMs have due to their quasi effectiveness in PvP and total lack of communication from devs (till now....maybe) and I think I made a mistake. Plus, I am going broke flying all over the galaxy to find resources, place and fund harvesters and I can't even sell what I make as a CM.
I took this road thinking I would have some effectiveness in PvE and would be able to help my group in the field. Instead I find my only effectiveness in PvE comes from the 2 boxes I have in pistoleer and I would be of more use to my group, thru buffs and rez than I am as a CM. I'll probably keep some CM for distance healing, but it is becoming obvious to me that Master Doctor with more pistoleer and some CM would work far better for my purposes of PvE and group support.
First, thank you so much for posting the question...as you can see from many of the posts the simple act of asking the question (and presumably dealing wtih the feedback) is a prime concern.
There's a ton of correct and valid points in this thread already, and I'll try not to regurgitate them, but rather come from a different perspective.
I'ma Master CM, Master Surgeon...and as long as I'm in SWG I can't imagine changing. But I can see why some/many would have dropped CM and here's my perspective as to why....'the path of least resistence'.
The power of a CM is a tactical specialist in a larger group...against a larger group. They, I believe, are intended to add a great dynamic to more strategy-oriented PvP and possibly even PvE. When I look at them along with a classes like commando and squad leader, that is the vision I see for them.However, the progression of bugs/imbalances have made following that path far from optimal. PvP is all about mind damage, and recent posts have shown that not to be the ultimate intent (which I think all cheer).
CMs have a great role here with area DOTs but a PvP fight for a CM is always an FP losing venture (no FP for application/kill but lose when you die). Until the last patch, there existed a STRONG incentive to kite (run-and-gun), and as such there was no tactical incentive for groups to support what in a kite-fest brawl environment if often a 'suicide run' to apply the DOT by a CM. They're on their own, and there's **edit** few of us CM who feel good about our chances when it's our range/specials against those of a BH). There has been much bemoaning about the LOS fix, but beyond the crowded corridors of cities or say fort Tusken, in my opinion there has not been a real tactical reason for the group to support the CMs charge. These things are powerful weapons, but there has to be a reason for the larger group to stage the diversion/punch that makes the risk to the CM affordable on the whole. Those reasons as of yet do not exist.
There is also a fear that 'the nerf bat tolls for thee' on the boards.The problem is mind damage and the pools themselves, not the DOTs. There are instances in which the offensive CM DOTs are compelling but few,and in the recticles oforganizingthe Million Man Nerf. Diseases are useful primarily as a griefing/anti-grief tool, and with such stigmata/liability hanging over our offensive weapons, it's understandable why someone would have put their points elsewhere recently...
I use the past tense here because I have great hope for the CM class in light of changes and a tone towards balance that I thnk I've been seeing. It's 'path of least resistance'. The skill point, resource, crafting and patience requirements for CM are very, very high.CMs have little defense, and in a game where up until recently kiting fighters spamming KD specials taking just enough medic to self-apply stimDs could solo even krayts...why wouldn't a doc who wants to fight just go doc and crank the pistoleer class for the spammable specials? That's what happened.
The game balance has only recently started to encourage/enforce benefits of tactical grouping to kite fests. Like SL, CMs viability is in a group...unless you're a griefing bioterrorist. Until the game dynamics effective encourage groupingwhere cohesion is required (which means dealing with mind damage as the end game of pvp) then the benefits of ranged and area stims over doc buffs won't really show and seem advantageous.
Money and PvE is another important factor which CM is far from the path of least resistance.CM DOTs are worthless in PvE once you reach master (i never tried to use them prior). The critters have HAM is so high relative to damage per tick that you've either killed it using another profession's skills or you're dead. They're honestly a joke. I know that people bemoan that the DOTs didn't get 75% PvP reduction. Maybe, just maybe they could tone down a bit in PvP (but the DPS is still far below a pistoleer or BH and they don't have the risks), but the damage for them in PVE should be MUCH higher.
A master CMs PvE scenario requires a tank and a bit of a ranged weapon (i have yet to see a CM/TKA). Again, this has been the path of high resistance until recently given that running in circles around a lair and up and down hills when a player has better terrain neg than the critters can get them cash quickly. It takes longer with a CM because points normally prohibit the TN training of scout. 10% of all skills poitns just to have +20 in terrain...few CM do it. So not only have missions taken longer...but importantly they pay out less. Don't overlook this point. All misions right now are baed upon weapon certs/abilities and what weapon you're carrying. I get no benefit for having dots or ranged stims to heal my cowardly gurreck acting as tank...I get mission difficulties and payouts that are far less then the people i normally group with because the payouts don't factor in my skills. They factor in skills I can't get because i spent so many points to help out group warefare that isnt' really encouraged yet. So the missions take longer and pay out less...my income is doubly hit, and my resource needs are very high. Compelling reasons to take the path of lesser resistance and go master doc and some ranged specialist.
Or better yet, because Adv-StimBs are so powerful and used by anyone, or because i can spend 29 points in medic and self-use stimDs for soloing if i buy them from someone else...why be a CM? There's so many self-healers in the game using docs as vendors rather than healers. It's a large part of why you have people soloing things you think they shoudln't and a maassive disincentive to grouped conflict in the 'path of least resistence' mindframe.
When i see the changes that have been made recently, I have become increasingly optimistic...not about our class directly, but about what I think is the vision you're working towards. When I picked up this game there was zero incentive not to be a soloist. But changes to SL and commando leave me optimistic. Optimistic that a tactical wind is in the air. Optimistic groups will be favored and soloists viable instead of the other way around. Optimistic that when that day comes, the value of combat medics will be realized. Optimistic, that in the end, Robert Frost was right. And optimistic that you're willing to read such a long winded post, this far back in the thread.
Jacore
Master CM, Master Surgeon, Tempest
Im kinda a retired cm, just doesnt make much sense to go into cm, with theo nly decent poisions being at master, and the extremely specific resources requirements, it way ot hard.
Not to mention if you want your poision to be good you MUST use ADV components. Just seems like a waste of time.
Put some kind of surveying for materials in the cm line, no one sells those specific resources they are to rare (especially at decent quanities), or allow artisan to make a charged survey tools.
make the materials more generic, or make the poisions more effective at lower levels.
not to mention the poisions are veyr weak in comparsion to other classes. at best with perfect materials, and adv components a master cm can do what 500 a tick every 8seconds? Well a bodyshot2 can do 400-500 a shot, bh can do much more with eyeshot or undershot,
I'm a CM and a Doc (3/4 trees mastered)
I have been a huge supporter of CM since release.
But even I have been comtemplating dropping CM.
Why?
Basically, you guys (the devs) keep taking away the unique skills of each class. All it seems you guys do is listen to the people calling nerf because they dont have that skill or they dont have that skill or that skill lets XXX class do too much damage.
You wanna know what killed CM...adding LOS to DoTs. Non-LOS was the "cool thing" about CM that made them the ultimate support role on par with SL.
But instead you went out and listened to all the nerfers and made CM dots just like every other weapon in game which turned them into a 70%-80% hit rate 40-50m range weapon that did terrible DPS at master level, was curable by another class in game, was limited to 25-30 shots of ammo before "breaking" and shot every 7 secs.
Whats worse is when people called nerf, they called it because of mind damage. Was the ability of the CM to throw down AOE mind poison overpowering? Yes it most definately was. But did adding LOS really even address this issue? No. The boards are still full of complaints of the same nature that they wer pre LOS nerf. People were and are complaining about mind poison. We have 12 dots (24) ifyou includeAE versionstotally and 90% of the complaints dealt with 2 dots. Single Mind Poison and AOE mind poison. Yet without doing any testing or research, you just automatically assumed that LOS was the issue. But yet the same complaints persist and all you did was destroy a class...
So make sure you are addressing the problems before you go and destroy a class...
Another issue: What did you guys envision when developing the CM class? Support? Combat? A miz of both?
Basically it was a toss up until the LOS patch. But then many people decided that with LOS in, CMs were all about combat and not support. Think about it. You give CMs the only AOE mind damage in the game. Thus you give them the ability to do huge amounts of unhealable damage. Then you say I have to get within 40-50m to apply it when before I could stay behind cover and toss it. To me that says...CM now need to stay on the front line and toss their unhealable AOE damage and risk getting killed rather than staying behind the lines and covered to heal and attack those enemies that get to close. So what was your original concept of CM? Why did you give us non LOS application then take it away? You guys haven't given any feedback as to why you guys are even making changes...
Crafting issue: That's been beaten to death in this thread...
Lack of viability of lower level CMs: People just get tired of having to be a master to do anything. And people not mastering CM when realizing this, quit the class. Granted being a master of a class should give major abilities that set you apart from non masters but right now there is no reason to do anything else but master the CM tree. Don't make dabbling easy. But make the 16 boxes below master CM mean something too...
Lack of communication: This is more genereal, but people got sick of waiting to see what yiou were going to do with the class and the notes for the CM class for the next patch didnt help...As I recall people got sick of waiting then we got a response that came off like...ooops well CMs are SOL on this patch but maybe next time. So people left.
PvP: It's a joke...CM is a huge PvP class since a lot of or skills are geared for it. New patch with KD timers may change PvP. But more than likely not. People who dont pvp or get sick of the poor state of PvP and decided to sdtick with PvE began to drop CM. Oh and guys Look at mind damage...thats all I gotta say about PvP.
Think thats about it for now...
So am I going to retire as a CM? probably not, I'm too stubborn...but keep up the "good" workdestroying all theclasses and making them the same and I'll just "retire" as a SWG player instead.
One another note I'm just wondering why this wasn't posted in the CM forum as it mainly a CM issue. And asking everyone why did you drop cm to become a doc? Sounds like your thinking of removing the CM class all together, If thats the case then tell me now so I can cancel and save wasted money and time. The cm class are highly dedicated, under appreciated group of players. It takes a lot of work and time to be in a class that anything less than master is usless. And even when we are at master lvl we're still gimped with the bugs in our schematics, not only the ones mentioned already but the fact many of the resources we need don't factor in the qualities needed for the schematics such as a component needing conductivity yet there is no conductivity on any of that type of the resource required. Fix the bugs, don't kill the class.