Charged Barrel Grav Round grants Charged Barrel, increasing the damage dealt by the next High Impact Bolt by 6%. Stacks up to 5 times. Has anyone came across the fact that no matter how many stacks you put this talent it doesn't actually change the damage of HIB? I have done everything possible to test when this talent may work but to no luck. Without a combat log it is extremely hard, due to the fact that you must collect damage numbers that float over an opponent. Both with the talent purchased and then in a spec that doesn't have it. After posting several discussions in the "General Forum" as well as "Suggestion Box" with no response from Developers. Any in-game tickets have been responded with the normal useless information droid.

DISCLAIMER: All of the following information is my personal belief. Collected by personal experience and reflection with other players. Due to the comparing of this class to others, my view points may not be the same as yours. I have done extensive research on the other classes that I have compared. If you disagree or think I am wrong, you obviously may freely post your thoughts below. However, I will not return and argue with everyone that has a different point of view. Most importantly because this is the internet, and the requirements to post are not that you are fair minded or well experienced in the game. In truth this post is only in hopes that a Developer comes across it. Please, Forum Representatives do not move this to the Trooper or Commando thread. Developers RARELY venture out of the most basic of forums. A in-game Customer Service Representative informed me to post here, so I have. There are many bugs, imbalances, errors, flaws, etc. about TOR that I understand. Each player sees them from their point of view as they appear to them. Therefore, I am fine with the fact that issues I have, may not have changed. However, one such issue has been present before launch in beta, following pre-launch, and is still here today as I post this. This issue is plainly the Commando class as a whole due to the fact of only minor/moderate bugs or imbalance here or there. In the attempt to not say that Developers have been totally blind to the fact of such errors I write in a calm demeanor. It is possible they have not noticed numerous in-game tickets or the list of forum posts. Personally, what excuses they have doesn't matter to me. They may say mustard from lunch each week has splashed onto the print outs of Commando related requests. List of Imbalances, Bugs, Errors, etc. Following short to long explanation. Combat Medic (CM) is one of the most neglected and imbalanced specs for the Commando to choose from. Being the reason I played TOR and have put extensive interest in, I will make sure to go in depth in its imbalance. For unknown reason, this healing class has gone unchanged since early beta. Even though it was lacking. There has been one change that was introduced to all healers after the game was launched named "Trauma". However, I will go deeper into that later. Commando - Combat Medic CM AoE (Kolta Bomb) heal is restricted 3. Why? Kolta Bomb is a weak heal. Even when specced its weak. Reduce it by Trauma and its almost worthless. Kolta Residue does not increase % with more talent points. Wouldn't make it great, but easily more useful when battling Trauma Debuff. Charge Bolt is not a Tech Ability, however the only ability for CM to damage with. Therefore, they lack ANY Dps luster. Making one wonder where the "Combat" for Combat Medic comes in. Med Zone increases healing for self only. Why? Its use is to try to reduce the hindrance of Trauma a bit. However, it does not reduce it totally and only lasts 15 to 18 seconds. Treated Wound Dressing - Worthless. 4% removed damage when a 18k HP player is dead is 720 HP. At no point with having reduced an attackers damage by under a thousand will save you. First Responder - First, two talent points for this is useless. The Alacrity increase doesn't change for more points. With a 50% on all abilities used, will still remain on your character almost forever. Second, Alacrity is worthless! No one, not even a drug induced Developer could argue otherwise. Combat Shield - May say immune to interrupts, but not to stuns or other CC. Therefore, a shielded player may remain stunned the total of the shield's activity. This is partly to the fact that the Resolve System/Bar remains buggy or broken. Cell Capacitor - The increase of Ammo gained is not worth the talent points. Unless you are balancing it compared the other bad talents in this tree, then I can see some players seeing it as useful. Picking out trash from a pile of trash. Trauma Probe - A pleasing ability, but also lacking luster in usefulness as it is only useable on one target. A restriction given as if players only PvE. Also weak when battling Trauma Debuff. Potent Medicine - Would actually be more useful if it increase bonus healing by a %. With the hard cap on secondary stats such as Critical Chance, you are reducing a CM's top tier talents by the games system. Note: This concept is difficult to understand. Please re-read several times to understand. 25% Crit is still 25% even if you increase the abilities effect when Criting. Bacta Infusion - Too weak. Instant heals are seen as savior heals. With big cooldowns and big heals. This ability may have a big cooldwon but low healing output. It better can be imaged as a DoT. A CM should us this ability every time is up, so as if they had a continuing weak DoT on their character. Comparably to a Sages Seer ring that does multiple individuals for the same HP as CM's Bacta Infusion does the same heal that Sage ring does when casted. Also, the Sage ring continues to heal even after placed. I'm not saying that Sage ring is too strong, but that CM instant cast is too weak. It should be increase significantly (Developers keep in mind 30% of its healing ability is removed when in Trauma Debuff, a fact I know you didn't see in beta for the lack of Trauma Debuff not existing.) Not to forget, Smuggler Sawbone's ability Salvation works on multiple targets as well. 4 in total that over a period gain the same if more often more healing than a CM's Bacta Infusion. As Bacta Infusion is cast only once and allowing it only to crit once. However, a DoT like Salvation can Crit multiple times at each tick. Given the Smuggler the ability if luck or stacking stats correctly, the chance of increasing the expected healing to higher amounts than CM would ever expect. NOTE: This is the same for Sage Seer's ring, both when casted and when healing over time. Trauma Trauma Trauma Plain and simple CM its not as good as Sage Healers, period. This is not because Sage is overpowered per say, just to the fact that the introduced "Trauma" is more hindering to CM. It is my personal point of view that "Trauma" should be removed from the game totally. At no point when a game finds that a single class that may be well structured to healing multiple players in PvP that such a game has decided to instead of reducing said class or more intelligently balancing other classes to that class. It should be noted that Sage's power comes mostly from its top tier ability. That causes players to stand in one place. Strategic opponents should be able to deal with this. Such as the fact of pulling targets, placing of multiple AoE templates in healing rings, or other such healers placing their own rings on same ring, such that melee may combat said ring. As stated earlier, Smuggler Healer has a significantly stronger top tier heal as well. Adding to the lacking of luster of CM over Sawbones. It is easier to point out how weak a class not basing it on a moderately good to great class. But to a great class such as Sage. Armor - An Ignorant Argument It would seem that a balance of classes has weighed too much on the fact of armor. Developers and brainstormers wrongly balanced what armor actually does in combat. The reason classes such as Vanguard or Guardian that wear Heavy Armor are good is not because they have Heavy Armour, but the fact that they have Defense, Absorption, Glancing stats. Also they have a number of abilities in their class that make them better at reducing damage. CM even though a Heavy Armor wearing class, it does not have these abilities or stats.They must stack stats the same as other healers. Therefore, making the point from more armor way less important than most people understand. Commando Gunnery This is the only class that a Commando can relitively play and be balanced of other classes on the style of play that produce DPS. However, there has been a number of issues with the Spec that since the beginning of time like the CM's issues that has all but been ignored. This is commonly joked as because all the Developers play Imperials and just want their characters to work when they get home. Rather than balancing their "supposed" mirror on the Republic side. As this is probably nothing more than a joke rumor, after playing as Republic you do get a sense as if this may have more truth than one may think. Such examples: Full Auto - A common ability when used does not beginning damaging as quick as its mirror ability for Bounty Hunters Mercenary Unload. Mortar Volley vs Death From Above - Another common ability when used doesn't begin to do damage till almost half way into the action. Compared to the Mercenary who begins shooting in less than a quarter of a second after the animation of them flying up. Charged Barrel - This ability just doesn't work, period. Not with 1 stack or 5. It just needs to be looked at and thus far has been ignored by the bug team. These are minor errors easily fixed and quickly fixed. Gunnery is lesser than its mirror but still a good spec. Compared to the other specs of the class it is a god send. If these bugs/errors were fixed Gunnery would possibly work perfectly and allow Commando to at least play a spec that isn't hindered my neglect of TOR. Commando Assault Compared to the output of burst damage of Gunnery and other Ranged/Melee classes, Assault spec it scratching the bottom of the barely. Now many argue that in WZs they get top Damage every time and are real mobile compared to the Gunnery. Yes and no. Yes being sure you can get top Damage, as long as you tab dot every target in sight. This is great at making you look good but not at making you useful. Assault lacks any significant burst damage that is need in PvP. IMPORTANT NOTE: Vanguards abilities and Stockstrike proc in the Assault tree makes the tree useful. It is not the same for Commando. So readers do not think they are same, they are not. Assault also burns through a lot of ammo to produce results that kill opponents. If not being stunned or cc'ed by these opponents then they will run out of Ammo and be useless. The key reason they are not as viable spec in Top Level Operations, as Gunnery. This is fine, but this leaves them as a PvP class. Which the problem can happen also. In PvP they lack much of the abilities other classes have for mid to close range or mobile combat. They do not have stealth or sprint, to heal them retreat when low on HP or Ammo. One may again point to Armor as an excuse for this. However, as stated earlier this does not answer the problem. Due to the fact that when stacking a DPS they would not have the stats that a Tank class would that uses Heavy Armor. Without a escape or sustainability, a Commando Assault is plainly not a contender of specs for its own class or other classes. Due to the fact that Assault is a DoT damage spec I will not point out each ability that makes it not useful. Anyone that truly understands PvP knows that burst damage is king. DoT based PvP classes need direct connection with crowd control, or sustainability. For a Commando they do not possess the abilities or template to produce such expectations. If you got this far! Thank you! I appreciate you taking the time to read this and hope that I was able to produce the argument in a way that you were able to understand. Due to it's length I may have produced grammar or sentence structure errors, or names of game material incorrectly. My apologizes.

Hey Friend, First, Charged Barrel is broken and doesn't work so don't waste the point in it. This a easy first timer error that if you don't pay a lot of attention to floating damage you won't notice. Second, if you are stacking Alacrity and want to use First Responder only put 1 point in it. You will notice that with just 1 point in it will pop off enough with 50% to stay up all the time. - It is my opinion if your stacking Alacrity you should get Supercharged Cell, once you have built up 30 charges if you spam Charged Bolt you will get some good damage out. If you have the Grav Round stacked debuff on a target it can be ever the stronger. Notice Grav Round has a lower max damage than Charged Bolt, and with Supercharged Cell it makes Charged Bolt free. Meaning once you run empty from your Gunnery rotation you still have the ability to do damage as you are regenerating ammo. Matched with Recharge Cell you almost don't have to worry about ammo balancing. Don't forget the first 10 seconds after clicking Supercharged Cell you do 10% more damage also. Using Combat Support Cell also increases your Crit Rating and damage by 3% all the time when you have 30 stacks. This is a nice bonus when rotating threw the Gunnery rotation. Conclusion, yes I have gave you good reason to stack Alacrity but end game this isn't the best idea. If you are still forced to use Centurion PvP gear and working to get Champion than this would be a great spec to use (Centurion Enhancements are either Alacrity or Accuracy). However, once you get all Champion/Battlemaster you will want to stack other secondary stats than Alacrity. Making this spec less attractive.

I will surely get Trolled but... To be honest, never. I leveled all the way to 50 as a Combat Medic and got Battlemaster before the Patch to Ilum that caused it to become a Zergfest. It is my opinion that compared to other healers (Sage for sure) Combat Medic does not ever become beast in PvP. Though you will be useful in duos with your friends. Understand Combat Medic are by it's Tree Talents a single target healer. You do not have any significant AoE healers or target shield. Yes, there is a 3 player AoE and when used correctly the ability to get 10% armor (plus another 10% if you get Supercharged Cell off followed by Kolto Bomb) but this is nothing compared to the Shield, HoT or AoE heals of the other healers. I have been able to get some nice damage from Alacrity stacking then using Supercharged Cell and then spamming Charged Bolt. However, this isn't burst damage and will not kill any target that is mobile or healed. Much like the Assault Tree's burns it is false WZ chart fluffing. Not to forget, stacking Alacrity is from my point in a overall point of view a terrible idea. Your better off stacking power, crit, and surge then stick to healing. Conclusion, stick to Gunnery till the Dev decide to get around to balancing Healer classes. Though there is abilities even in that tree that just don't work and are bugged for several months (i.e. Charged Barrel).

HIB being a Tech attack as I can see it making sense, its not a must. As you Vanguards argue it is still useful for you all. However, this is not the same for Commandos. Though as the OP said in his final part he answered why. CHARGED BARREL This ability that stacks 5 times on your character (Important because it doesn't disappear if you are Grav Rounding multiple targets or if your target dies too quick!) which in all will make your HIB do 30% more damage. It is a White attack yes, but with a 15 second cooldown and basically free if select the right Tree Talents I wouldn't complain. Sadly, though Charged Barrel doesn't work at all. If you have 1 to 5 stacks there is no difference in damage. I personally spent several hours testing it both in PvP and Duels to see if it was ever going to work. Not once was I able to get it to hit for a damage out of the normal based on my stats. Dev PLEASE HELP

Presence?! NO! Kill it!

It does use up the stack but does not increase damage.

From my understanding and examination it does not seem to be working.

Your ideas are interesting and not game breaking. I truly hope a Dev pops into the look at this.

There is no 100% Critical Buff for either Bounty Hunter or Trooper. You have been wrongly informed or are greatly confused. The Tank side (Vanguard/Powertech) of both these classes has a 25% Critical Buff for 15 seconds, but again that is for the Tank side NOT the Healer/DPS.

If that was their intent they have not thought it out on any length. Lets say that a Tank Healer has to make sure to keep themselves and the Tank alive. As the secondary Healer pays attention to the rest of the raid (6 players). Who would you expect would have the 1.5 seconds to revive a fallen player? That does not include any Alacrity or skill points that may increase the casting time. One must also assume that their is a boss or mob in the game that does enough damage to a Tank to need a full time Healer. Which at this point I have not seen in al the end game material.

I don't need to post any more than you great gents and ladies have. Thank you for making a thread for this issue to be more easily noticed. Now lets just pray the Developers give two sh*ts.

Its not a trade-off that is equal. The bonus from a set AoE from Sage easily makes up for the Combat Medics Damage Reduction. It about a group not being hampered by having a healer without a in combat revive. As stated in in the part about "their tank is doing it wrong" I did say that there were AoE that could conflict with a tank. However, as the game works now a tank should be able to hold agro from a boss throughout a fight. Anytime he isn't is his fault or a player not clicking their detaunt ability. As it works for my guilds raids the Raid Leader constantly reminds each two minutes for people to use detaunt. Therefore, it leaves it totally on the tank. PUGs are excluded from this but as I said in earlier posts, PUGs are PUGs. They shouldn't be used for arguments of character equality because what is expected is not mutual. The Force mechanic is not exactly like the Ammo or Energy mechanic. Though I have seen players in raids able to keep effective amounts of each during all fights. A experienced player should have no problem with this. Such so that the differences of casting material is a mute point totally. Again, Armour has no direct importance for a healer in Raiding. Damage Migration is the Developers attempt to balance the AoE or HoT of the other healers. It "should" have no effect on each healer having a In-Combat Revive.

I posted a similar thread http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=1887448#post1887448 in General Discussion. They moved it here, without informing me or asking. So I assume they would do the same, however you already having thread here may just cause them to close it. On the subject material I agree that the 3 classes on a directly PvE mutual standpoint are imbalanced. These was possibly intended but wrongfully so.

May I ask how to stacked so much Power? Now from my observation the only armour that possess the Mods to stack Power would also have Accuracy or Alacrity. Yours showed no Alacrity so I was interested if you chose to take Accuracy armour. Also when Power and Alacrity are matched up, the Alacrity is normally a larger amount than Power. The same with Accuracy and Power. Thanks for the math though, I'm interested how this pans out.

@Dreamborn It is quite understandable to change your mind. I believe as you get more settled in you level that you have acquired as well as get into a high content raiding guild, you will see my point. PUGs are PUGs, you don't do Hard Mode Operations with a PUG or even think about Nightmare Operations. Each person has a set place to stand, job to perform, and all in a timely manor. All in all, the content of this game at the middle to top tier of raiding doesn't allow for such laid back or unorganized players. That being said, it also doesn't allow much leeway for lesser specs.

@Dreamborn Your opinion seems to change daily. Though so you know, as you get to max level and are doing more difficult material you will not be able to (or be requested not to) switch between ammo types or throw heals. Rage timers will not allow for a DPS to stop and heal. If your taking hits your tank is doing it wrong, its that easy. Now yes there is different types of AoE that bosses may have but nothing that will be the difference between one shooting you or a light armoured target. There is no fine line between all healing classes having a in-combat revive. Plain and simple it should be a ability given in the spec tree. Therefore, when a teammate does it they are being useful and filling a role. Not just having a randomly given ability because of the base class they chose. On to single healing, its not bad. But it is less effective in a team than the AoE or HoT healing of the other healer specs. As I stated in my original post, all material thus far can be done with a Spec such as Combat Medic though it will be more difficult.

@Shainra Thank you for your post. On the thought of 4 mans, there is times that a in-combat res would really help for the Combat Medic. Such as the fight in False Emperor vs HK. You all know that guy that is running to take out the turret buff and gets waxed. Now being the Healer I would like to get him up rather than pull the smuggler off to do it. That begins to bring the rage timer into play and as everyone knows HK is no boss that you want Raging. Now it isn't just one boss that is like this obviously. This is just one of the easy examples. The debuff that only allows a revive every 5 minutes is important factor that may be set to balance the fact that Combat Medics don't have a in-combat revive. I have nothing against the 5 minute debuff, just it does put a timer on when the other healer or DPS that can in-combat revive has to pull off what they are doing to revive someone. When very well if the Trooper or Merc were able to in-combat they could pick up the slack. The group may need a large AoE heal from the Sage or the Sawbones is keeping up HoTs, instead they have to stop and revive. @All Readers All in all, there is a bit of imbalance across the board. Now is that a difference in play style at times yes. Is play style all the time, no. The fact that mirroring classes to balance pve as well as make the starting class not stop you from being particularly what you want was the plan Bioware set out to do. So when you hover over a player just because you see Sage doesn't mean they are a healer, or Guardian mean they are a tank. Just as when you see Commando doesn't mean they are a DPS. So balancing the fact of a missing ability to revive teammates is what makes a Healers equal. Either its in Flashpoints or Operations.

^ Comparably to any other healers in the game yes they are. A great example would be on Warzone matches such as Voidstar. The class is able to easily rake up the most healing, all the while tactically guarding their door. You are more than welcome to disagree. This should all just be seen as my personal opinion mixed with digital fact.

The more information I give the better the Developers may be able to understand my post. Simple problem but a much more complex situation to actually get fixed/changed. Obviously, it isn't the end of the world but it is imbalanced. Being a representative and not a Developer I give the person a bit more leeway. Surely they should know the subject material they are working on but Swtor is a big game. The lore responses were a different way at answering to the ticket but it was better than saying "Hey, do you see it in your ability section? No? Then you don't get it because we said so." Obviously though I agree all healing classes should have a in-combat revive. I didn't even think about the Bounty Hunter having access to the black market. Good point! In all this is why I'm here. Hoping people will post comments and maybe this thread will blast off. I would be beyond pleased you see a Developer comment! Thanks for all comments!

Reserved

As you may very well know Jedi Counselors/Sith Inquisitors and Smugglers/Imperial Agents have the ability to revive fallen teammates when killed. However, these are not the only classes in Swtor that have healing specs in their skill trees. The Troopers/Bounty Hunters are able to choose to heal as well, even though they have a different healing style than the first two mentioned. Jedi Counselors and their mirror are masters of AoE healing as Smugglers and their mirror possess a knack for HoT healing. While Troopers and Bounty Hunters are based around single person healing and increasing that single heal. All seemly are healers of their own style but healers all the same. This all leads to my question, why does the Trooper/Bounty Hunter not have the ability to revive a teammate in-combat? Thus, far I have not seen a thread post point this out to the Developers. Why did you not give all healers in-combat revives? I am personally a full Commando Combat Medic at level 50 and have run every Flashpoint and Operations on Normal & Hard Mode. Honestly, I have found healing single targets as this class difficult but not impossible. The Combat Medic is a pre-casting healer rather than a reactionary one. This can be quite fun and is a different form of play that I have never seen before. One of my guild mates describes it as a Tank Healer but for the whole group. Sounds great! But in truth it is not all sunshine, as I find guilds running eight man operations with the other two healing classes because they are better at keeping everyone up. Their HoTs and AoEs can be more reliable than a single target healer. An example of their healing is at the Final Boss fight Soa where you leap down to the lower platforms. A Counselor Sage can quickly heal the group from falling damage with a placed AoE heal than a Commando Combat Medic trying to use single heals and their three person AoE heal that knowingly isn’t very strong. Also in fights a Sage is able to drop an AoE heal and continue healing targets that are not in the range of their AoE. Combat Medics do not possess such ability. Smugglers are able to use their four persons AoE/HoT and heal to better effectiveness than the Combat Medic. To knock the Combat Medic down another notch is the fact that they do not have the ability to in-combat revive at any time. One does not want to pull their DPS off a fight to revive a teammate when there is a class that is able to do their own job. A healer is just that, so one expects them to be able to bring their players from death. It seems obvious that the developers wished for healing specs to revive but they left it out for one class and their mirror. Arguments have been made that because the Combat Medic has heavy armour they have an advantage over the other healers. That’s not here or there, a healer class that can’t revive in-combat doesn’t matter if they have heavy armour. Armour doesn’t make up for another player. Healers in PvE shouldn’t be getting hit no matter their armour. After sending in an In Game ticket I spoke with a Swtor representative that was also unaware of this imbalance of reviving ability. Their first response was that “Counselors and Inquisitors have a in combat revive because they can focus the force”, to which my response was questioning the fact that a spacefaring trader would be able to “focus the force”. Their response was confusion about the fact that smugglers could in-combat revive, at first denying that fact that they could. I informed them of the ability “Heartrigger Patch” and they came back after a bit of time that “Smugglers are able to get such equipment from the black market that a trooper can not”. To that I wondered why a smuggler would be able to get better equipment than a Major in the Republic, Leader of Havoc Squad, and Savior of the Republic. In all basic sense there is no reason for the Combat Medic and the Bounty Hunter’s mirror to not have an in-combat revive. It is not game breaking in any way, as it only makes all the healing classes equal in raiding. In no way will this make the Combat Medic any better than the other healing specs at healing, as it is the other classes in a team are leading. Either by developer means or by minor errors such as the difference of amount of targets healed by the Combat Medic’s AoE heals. Useless Combat Medic Ability: Frontline Physician an ability that reduces the out of combat revive cooldown by 100%. When a group has wiped or after a fight where a teammate was unable to be revived, there is no rush on reviving. Anyone can revive so it is not like the Combat Medic is the only one running around reviving. It was a unique ability to give but has no actual game use. Never, have I ever been forced to use it. This talent could easily be swapped with a In-Combat Revive and moved to a higher level. Thank you Bioware and Developers for reading this and I am sorry for the lengthy writing. I did not want to throw out a single paragraph that was smashing a straw soldier. I am a longer term gamer and understand that Swtor is still new so I am more than willing to understand it is still going under changes.