TL;DR: Other classes drop heal bombs. We drop heal ICBMs. Here is my planned level 50 spec, designed with pure PVE in mind. I plan on putting together gear with high Surge and Surge Rating as opposed to Alacrity. Alacrity is nice, but I'm a little worried about how it might affect ammo usage and conservation. Besides, if all we do is restore health in chunks at a time, then I want to be able to do so in such a way that makes other healers go "day-ummmmmmmmmmmmm" http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#800rfRMR0cdkqZrcoZb.1 The role a combat medic fills is that of a tank/melee healer. The Sawbones does great at multi-target healing, and the sage's shield is GREAT mitigation, but if you need to have one person's life bar filled RTFN, I don't believe that anyone does it better than a Combat Medic with Field Triage. The Combat Medic's supercharged AMP/MP combo for 1-2 total ammo (after accounting for ammo regen) has got to be the highest, most spammable healing in the game, bar none, for the ten seconds you're supercharged. This, combined with the damage mitigation afforded by a Supercharged Kolto Bomb and a 0-cost Bacta Infusion make the Combat Medic the best "oh sh*t" healer in the game. What it looks like to me, is that the combat medic doesn't really come into its own as a healing class until you get really deep into the tree (level 30+) allowing you to do your AMP/MP combo for around 1 total ammo (assuming high/moderate recharge rate). And, as mentioned above, don't underestimate the value of being able to heal FOREVER with a stable rotation.