Medic Archive

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hamhamthe3rd wrote:

a lot of ppl are missing the point here. the medic HAS to be apart of the battle to gain experience effectively come the changes to be made. when specials are placed on a timer and no longer damage the tumbler for example, where is the medic going to find his exp? thats right on the field. i suppose he could group with some peoplethen sit outside the combatand wait for people to walk over to him for healing but that doesnt change the facthe mustengage in the same dangers of combat as a combat profession. his role is different, yes but the dangers are the same. no im not saying he should be as effective as the frontrunners but he should have some.

We could use the same logic to argue that marksmen should be able to make CDEF weapons, and brawlers should be able to make survival knives and such. They can't gain XP without them. Just as they have to get some artisan if they want to make their own weapons, medics should pick up marksman or brawler if they want combat abilities (including defenses). No profession is supposed to be self sufficient.

as for having leftover skill points to use, thats a non-issue. medics arent the only ones missing defensive mods that i think should have some. rangers get "rescue" but they are no better against creatures attacks. squad leader has no defense mods of his own. bounty huntersand cms are lacking but they do have some.

As Texxie already said, you're comparing a starting prof to elite profs. Just the same though, master rangers do get some ranged and melee defense, though not much. CMs have no defense mods, other than what we get in the ranged support line. As I said earlier, that is something that needs to change. I would say the same for the other professions you mentioned. That doesn't mean medic should get any though.

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Message Edited by Obata on 02-14-2005 03:40 AM

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CasualMaker wrote:

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Obata wrote:
I don't. Medic is a completely non-combat starting profession. It is, and should remain, 100% about healing. You bring up that dancers and musicians have defenses. I have no idea why that was added and I don't think it's a fitting justification for adding defenses to medic. If you want to talk about adding defenses to CM, then that's different.

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First Aid
Drag Incap
The first is arguably an EMT ability (though combat is the only place it's used much in SWG), but the latter is certainly a battlefield medic ability. The Medic profession covers a lot of things, from medical manufacture to major healing to emergency treatment. Claiming that it is completely non-combat is disingenuous at best.

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Nothing disingenuous about it. First Aid and Drag are both healing related abilities. The medic profession is where docs and CMs learn the basics of healing and where other professions (combat mostly) can pick up some skills to help heal themselves. I never said that medics don't belong on the battlefield. In fact, I spent a great deal of time in combat as I worked my way up the medic tree. That doesn't make medic a combat profession, however. Healers will always be needed in combat. A healer without a combat profession is, and should be a pretty easy kill. SWG has a profession for battlefield medics, it's called Combat Medic. I would agree with that CMs need more defenses, but it should be in the CM skill tree, not in medic. Placing combat skill modifiers in a non-combat, starting profession just wouldn't be right.

Now that I've read this, I'm starting to see the issue from a slightly different angle, which may not even be the angle Hamham is trying to convey, but oh well. What I gather from the above replies is that many people think that a medic shouldn't have defenses on the basis that his training has made him tough or nimble. But perhaps he should have a "defense" associated with him trying to keep himself (and his patients) out of the battle entirely?

I can think of some other abilities that would accomplish this kind of "defense," which have the possibility of making the enemy ignore him or attack somebody else: taunt and rescue (though these are counterproductive for a medic who's trying to keep a low profile), threaten or warning shot, knockdown attacks, etc. I guess in a strictly PvE sense, all this boils down to is making medics less likely to be aggro'ed.

Personally I don't think that this is a kind of defense that a medic should get, if a medic should even get any. But I want to put it up for discussion anyhow.

= Andrew
Chilastra.Palacek

Message Edited by Jagii on 02-15-2005 10:01 PM

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hamhamthe3rd wrote:

anyway, comparing the professions in swg is not like comparing apples and oranges. some wanted to say that because the medic isnt a combatant he shouldnt have any defense for better survival. we can look at other professions, both combant and noncombatant, to see a conflicting trend.

Comparing a starting profession (can be picked up by anyone who wishes to invest the SP) to an elite profession (requires skills from a starting prof to even get novice) is comparing apples to oranges. In your case, you were comparing a starting profession to an elite mastery. There is no conflicting trend, only 2 elite masteries that have defense mods, though they are not combat professions. That is hardly justification for putting even higher defense mods in a non-combat starting profession. Even the elite medical professions have no defense mods.

so what themedic is a base profession. should it be only of use for those who want to take doc or cm? i think not. the base professions are to augment our other ones. if you thought i was saying for 15 points i wanted everyone who takes medic to get 20 melee/ranged defense right off, then i guess the error is mine from not explaining that. i think the bonus should be at least ten and spread out up to master medic to simulate his experience in field treatment, which isnt a lot and doesnt "break" anything. its not going to make the master medic on level with any combat profession.

Of course medic isn't just for those moving on to doc or CM. But for what reason does anyone dabble in it? The answer, of course, is for healing skills. "Field treatment" refers to healing in the field. That is not the same as taking up arms yourself, though it is just as important. If you want the benefits of combat modifiers, then take the skills to get them. Yes, medics in today's military have combat skills. They have those skills because they are also trained as marksmen. Do you think they learned how to avoid getting caught in a cross-fire from the doctors and nurses who taught them to treat injuries?

as for healing IS defense, i have already gone over that. im not saying healing isnt defense, but so is killing your opponent. most of us probably die from lack of mind. we are constantly healing and even with a buffed mind, it adds up and can easily lead to an incap. as much as i like being incapped, i think that this makes healing a psuedo-defense, just as attacking your opponent is.

The weakness of the mind pool has been acknowledged for a long time. It is one of the largest reasons for the CU.

so as you see we all have ourown means of defense and i acknowledge that. ppl with combat uses hispunches as defense as he knocks you in the head to prevent you from damaginghim. us medic types let you punch us in the head then heal the damage. which one is more effective, i dont know you tell me. what i do know is that the guy that uses punches also has passive defenses that he uses whereas the medic does not. if a person understands how to use a blaster, should he really be able to dodge a blasters fire better than i? maybe he should, maybe he shouldnt but i understand the need that he should and i dont understand why i shouldNT be given any when i have to spend time on the field just as he has to. dont i learn anything from my experiences on the field?

A pure combatant could use the same logic to argue that he should be able to heal himself because he has to get into combat where he will take damage. The argument doesn't work any better for giving medics combat modifiers than it does for giving combatants healing abilities. It's not about spending time in the field. It's about what you do to get the skills. In medic, the skills are obtained by healing, not by fighting. To put combat modifiers into a profession (especially a starting profession) that can be leveled all the way to master without ever entering combat makes no sense at all.

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Message Edited by Obata on 02-16-2005 07:37 PM

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hamhamthe3rd wrote:

you get caught up on names too much. elite profession means nothing and in this case, master dancer only takes a lil more skill points than master medic but are skill points your real concern? No, balance is. the cost doesnt justify medics having any defense mods? When they are points spent in a healing profession, no. well if we go by that assessment then the professions that cost the most should clearly be the best but they arent are they. The should have the most abilities. Not all skills are about combat. regardless of what you think of it happening or not, a person can be a master musician and have a master elite combat profession and plenty ofpoints left over.the bonuses themselves are meaningless to a master musician but now he gets to benefit from them with his master combat profession. Ask any master musician/dancer if that profession is helping in combat. That very notion is rediculous. A +7 ranged/melee defense bonus is hardly worth the SP and XP needed to master either of those profs. Not to mention that those mods were just added for flavor and not even intended to be useful. this is what ill like to see with the medic. i think defense for him makes more sense than any profession without combat skills aside from scout maybe. It doesn't make any sense for any profession without combat skills, period. Ranged and Melee defense ARE combat skills. They are passive, but they are still combat skills. If you want combat skills, spend the SP to get them, it's that simple. Medic is NOT a combat profession, and the devs will never think of it as one.

i never suggested a medic learns defense from simply learning to cure. Yet healing is all that a medic learns. Take a look at the skill boxes. They all use medicine or medicine crafting XP. its being around danger thataffords him better knowledge and survival when he is in said situations. A medic can master his profession without ever getting into combat. the marksman/medic should have better defense then the medic alone, as would be representedby his ranged support tree, but that doesnt mean the medic alone should have none.of course the medic can add to his defense of ZERO, just as any class can,however that does not give reason for him to have zero. in the end this isnt about other professions. i dont care if other professions without combatget defense mods but i do care that the medic doesnt. hes a field warrior that doesnt kill but heal, still a warrior nonetheless.That might be how you play as a medic, but it can also be played as a pure healer who sits in a med center healing the wounded. If you want to be a "field warrior", you'd best have some of the skills of a warrior (i.e. brawler or marksman).

its seem to meyou have an issue with skill point investment or is it that this goes against your image of what a medic? in either case it doesntmake what i said about a medic less true. You are missing the whole point of a skill based system. You can make your character anything you want it to be. You do it by picking up the skills that fit your vision. You shouldn't expect any one profession to give you everything you want your character to have. That's why we get enough SP to master 3 and dabble in another. If you want to be a combat healer, fine. That's how I play my main toon also. You just shouldn't expect one profession to give you all the skills to be effective.

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