Doctor Archive
Thread: State of the Profession: Doctor (Preliminary)
Several of the other Correspondents are working on "State of the Profession" posts to sort of baseline where we have been and where we currently stand. I can't say that I am the best at doing this kind of thing or even that this version I have thrown together is even a decent one at all. But I thought I would trymy hand at it and put it up here for comment.
Please provide any fedback and/or suggestions you may have on this. I don't always say it, but all of your comments and assistance has always been welcome and greatly appreciated. I'm happy to have been the Doctor Correspondent because compared to some of the profession forums, you are all a great bunch of folks!
November State of the Profession: Doctor
Overall Doctors are in pretty good shape. We have a fairly large set of issues, currently, sitting in the 90s, but only around 25 of those are actual bugs, the rest are either issues which are frustrating to folks in varying degrees, even though one or two of them have been consistently bothering the majority for a while, or they are content additions or changes which would help to improve the profession.
Since launch some of the worst of the issues have been rectified. Factories were a MAJOR problem for many Doctors and many of the bugs and associated problems with them have been fixed. Mind Damage is a longstanding issue that has at least seen some form of resolution being introduced with the inclusion of a healing skill being given to the Combat Medics. Several of the Enhance Pack issues, such as where they would drop just by leaving a city, and the addition of fixing droid Med Modules have helped out greatly. Many other minor fixes and promises of fixes for the November publish (I need to get onto Test Center to check on these, but a hardware problem has precluded me from this) are also indicators of the good things that have occurred for Doctors.
On the problems with the class, however, there have been several persistent issues over the months. There are still several issues with Enhancements, some of them have been acknowledged and are being looked into, some of them we are still waiting for an indication on, such as HAM Bars not resizing after a buff on oneself (or for the person receiving the buff, the personal HAM never resizes, while those on others do.) Mind Damage healing going to CMs at such a high level seems contrary to the damage healing for Health and Action and many feel that perhaps Master Medic would be a better location for the skill, Monetary issues in MANY forms, whether through the need for some form of secure trade for healing services, some kind of “insurance” option or even just through added content like Medical Mission Terminals, has long been a persistent issue that pervades and exacerbates many of the other issues, even to the treatment of members of the profession by other players and even if the specific issue itself has not made it into the Top 5 of Doctor Issues. TEFs, Crafting, Experimentation, Faction Points for healers, and curing of AoE Poisons have all been long-standing issues often varying in their location but normally jockeying for the upper levels of the Doctor issues lists.
While few of these issues are totally game breaking for Doctors, the many minor bugs, gameplay issues and balance issues do add up. Many of the issues may even require an extensive period of time to cover and code and to get into the game. In all the Doctors are a very understanding and level-headed group of players and can be very patient when it comes to being told that some of these issues may take time to complete. However, one of their biggest issues has always been simply communication. Getting feedback from the Developers on acknowledging the issues and entering into a dialog with them, even if it is through the Correspondent position, about their issues. I believe the Doctors are willing to accept that it may take months for any particular item to be implemented, but knowing that the process is occurring and being kept up to date would prove to be of tremendous assistance in keeping the player base happy and their enjoyment of the profession in a hearty and healthy state.
Hello Zarlor,
Thank you for your continued support as a Doctor Correspondent. 
I just wanted to add for myself as listed in your other thread of to be fixed items. That #10 for combat query heals is crucial, i've been incapped or death blowed many a time where button smashing the heal damage icon couldn't save me. Since heal damage in the combat query isn't considered a priority action.
My other lesser annoyance is #11 of medicine management in the inventory where a simple system of less than or more than can select the appropiate wound pack for a heal. For example if someone has 9 points of health damage, and i select heal woundhealth from the radial menu. It would check the players damage and then check to see if i have a health wound pack A to fire it off. Instead of chewing up a health wound C that i have in my main inventory likewise. That's the most simplied manner i can conceive for medicine management in the main inventory.
Thanks again for your role in the community.
Zarlor, you're fantastic. Couldn't have asked for a better person to be our voice to the Devs. 
Excellent state of the profession report.
Ilya makes some great points and I'll see if I can find a good way to include some of those into the report. I've got family in town this weekend so my online time will be more limited, but hopefully I can get something botched together for Monday.
To be absolutely honest as you pointed out I don't really think anything is seriously broken with our profession, but I always want more More MORE! so here is more whinning for your pleasure.
I guess I would start with somewhat vague purpose of profession and questionable usefulness of many of the reasons for us to be out there with the group.
It seems like from the very beginning of launch there have been this weird debate where is Doctor Crafter or not. Should Doctor stay in Med Center and Craft or should we be out there with group.
Although it is common sense that people just play their toon as they want to regardless of what people say you should or shouldn't do, as profession I am not so convinced that doctors are grouping as much as I feel they should.
One of biggest indication is that although Doctors are one of most "Mastered" profession, we still have this problem of not enough of poisoned people getting cured in PvP. Before they fixed our cure we could've said it is because our skill is broken, but even after three weeks we still have "nurf Poison" thread happening almost daily at main forum. This shouldn't happen if doctors are out there curing. I have no idea why this isn't happening.
There is also question as to why we are in a group. Sure Rez is extremly useful skill, but in PvE no one really hang around group that consider dying to be part of hunting. Usually they have big pet tanking so death is kept to minimum. That also raise question of need for "big heal" since given all the tanking done by pets, group of 3-4 novice healing with enhanced stim-B is more than enough instead of one master doc with stim-E.
Ofcourse they are fixing to change the way tanking is done, but until that day comes, this is they way I see it.
And as for curing stats, there really is no real reason to ever cure them as they don't last very long nor do they have enough visible effect for people to ever cry out "please cure my diziness" or "Doc! I am intemidated!". When we ask what does Doc have that make us useful in group people always say "you can cure all stats!" yet at the end of the day, there really is no reason to cure them stats.
And that goes double for wound. It is perhaps our third defining skill after Rez and Buff yet currently there is no need for this skill during hunt. Again now that they fixed the third adv-comp for Disease as well as Disease C we might see lot more wounds floaten around, good majority of them would be Mind Wound which are not our Forte.
So there you have it. We have LOT of skills that *seems* very useful in group, but somehow never gets fully appriciated in group becuase it actually is not very critically important in group.
The *iffy* factor here is that every single one of those thing will cause more downtime, more frustration and more annoyance if they are ever *fixed* so doctors are more needed in field.
Thanks for all the great work Zalor.
All I know is between my enhances, super heals, revives, cure poison/disease, and cure dizzy, I find my services always marketable. Not bad for a total support/crafting class. My PA loves me, and there are quite a few people out there that toss me tells when they see my online as they really love having a Master Doc in the field with them.
Combat Que is important for certain, but for those of you who are complaining about not getting heals off, just make yourself a nice little macro: /peace; /peace; /healdamage; /pause 1; /healdamage (the redundancy helps in laggy situations)
Now if they'd just fix the stat bars and enhances we'll be set
Zarlor: don't kid yourself, you do a great job!
*clears the smoke from Zarlor's behind*
That said, I would add that I don't have much trouble at all applying my skills in the field whilst grouped with a bunch of would-be warriors. I will agree, however,that stat cures like stunned and dizzy don't seem to be that useful since those states don't last very long at all. I generally find it not worth the mind cost to use these abilities when I know it will wear off in a matter of seconds.
Aside from personal HAM bars not resizing and healing actions not being displayed in the combat queue, I would say my biggest complaint as a master doctor is that bleeding takes way too long to heal. I mean, seriously, when I can heal 500 wound damage in one shot, buff a stat for 2.5k and bring fellow adventurers back from death's door, I wouldn't think it would take five /firstaid attempts (in some cases) to stop some bleeding. I find stopping bleeding to be very time and mind consuming. Granted, /firstaid isn't even a Doctor's skill (it's Medic really), I am just of the opinion that a Doctor should be able to treat this like a state and apply a healing pack as remedy?
-Bel (Master Doctor, Dangerous Pistoleer)