If you don't out level it the last boss can be very tough. When I first went through it would be taking people down to about 25% of their life when they got hit by it. The only thing special about the fight is avoiding the fireballs and I think you got that part down. Just do what you can to heal and keep your ammo towards the top so it can regen. Don't over react and burn through it since that is just going to hurt you later. Having someone else in the party that can toss out a heal now and then can help as well.

As a combat medic I use plasma cells when leveling.

You start earning quite a bit more between 20 and 25 but if you are broke before 20 you are probably not going to have a whole lot if you keep it up. I maintained about 10k on me between 13 and 20 or so. Most of what I earned went towards training skills and they were getting more expensive and you were training 2-3 every level. Once leveling past 20 you usually only have 1 skill to upgrade when you level (if that) so you save a little money there. I seemed to earn a good bit of money on Taris. I was just about always sending my other companion off to do some mission at and level 23 have somewhere between 25k and 30k credits on me. My biochem is level 140, bioanalysis around 170, and diplomacy around 70. I don't spend any credit on buying gear...only use quest rewards/drops/commendations. Haven't sold anything on the GTN either.

As far as stims go...there is no stat difference between green, blue or purple. Blue just lasts twice as long but it requires more materials and you need items from diplomacy as well. So if you are just looking for use it is probably best just to create greens and use those. Purples are a pretty big pain since you need the rare item from diplomacy missions and my stim needed 4 of them (compared to two for the medpack) so it ended up taking probably 20-25 diplomacy missions to get what I needed for the purple stim.

My first reverse engineering was the surgical medpack (level 16 item) and I got the blue in the first few items I did it on. Got the purple from probably 5 or so blues. Tried doing it for a stim that I was using. Took maybe 7-10 greens to get the blue. Took probably 15 blues to get the purple. That was not worth it. I'll probably wait till I get to a couple higher tiers of crafting before bothering to get the advanced items.

That one actually doesn't look that bad. The first one I got as a quest reward had this big *** goofy goggles on the top....so I made Aric wear it.

The reusable (and blue) schematics are obtained through reverse engineering. Took me maybe 5-10 to get the blue...and probably 10-15 to get the purple from reverse engineering the blue one. Alien Blood is from diplomacy but its a rare item so it might have taken me 10-20 missions to get what I needed. (Can't remember exactly....only I was annoyed at how long it was taking).

For Biochem the lower level purples aren't really worth it. The blue medpacs add a hot which is nice but I rarely use the medpacs anyway. The blue stims are the same as green but last twice as long. The purples provide the same benefit but are reusable. But to get the purple I had to reverse engineer about 10 greens and 10-15 blues so basically I gave up about 30 hours of stim usage to get a reusable stim.

I've been working the biochem ones. Up to level 60 or so on the crafting with bioanalysis at 90 or so. Got schematic for a reusable medpac but my worthless companions can't get a damn alien blood sample!

My Opinion: 10/11: Quick Thinking 12/13/14: Field Training 15: SuperCharge Cells 16/17: Field Medicine 18/19: Steady Hands 20: Kolto Bomb 21/22: Kolto Residue 23/24: Cell Capacitor 25/26/27: Field Triage 28/29: First Responder 30: Trauma Probe 31/32: Preventive Medicine 33: Armor Screen 34: Psych Aid 35-39: Potent Medicine 40: Bacta Infusion 41-43: Iron Sights 44/45: Havoc Rounds 46: Special Munitions 47/48: Advanced Tech 49/50: Weapons Calibration

I thought having a ranged DPS companion really helped...really no need to heal while questing. Then again I was a combat medic (but used DPS cells while questing). Smuggler gets their second companion on nar shaada (later than the trooper). Same with Consular it seems. Don't even know what the sith planets are so can't really comment on those. Even without a companion....nothing on the starter planet is that hard. Just don't do the heroic quests until you get your companion.

My guild is trying to work through this currently as well. My opinion for my guild: Need: Will use it. Greed: PRIMARY companion will use it. Pass: Everything else. With PUGs it will probably end up being need to use it, greed on everything else.

PVE combat medic: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#800rfRMR0cdkqZrcoZb.1 Only points I am not too sure about are 2 points in weapon calibration 4% alacrity. Might move those two into treated wound dressing to reduce damage by 4%. But those are going to be my last two points spent so I have a while to think about it.