Besides ammo management in PVE, this is probably the biggest problem and I don't know if they'll ever touch it. Commando is the only specialist healer, while the others are "generalists". Scoundrels and Sages can do group healing and single target healing. Commando, however, can only do single target healing and does not excel so much at it over the others that the weakness makes sense. This is also why negative changes to Commando's single-target healing hits them particularly hard -- its arguably all they're good at. I don't see them ever improving their group healing weakness, especially with Kolto Bomb outside of the skill tree. Trauma Probe would be the biggest candidate of changes with a higher cap, but other changes to make single target stronger (not numbers-wise but it frequency and in synergy) would help improve group healing indirectly while respecting the weakness.

This actually an interesting point, but it'll probably end up like the backwards version of what happened to Sorcs: "you guys heal less because you can do off-damage." I understand that Commandos can do more off-damage than the other healers, but that's a really awful excuse for cutting into their healing if that's what they're thinking. Especially after all this "we hate hybrids" non-sense.

In this case, make sure that question 3 is: "Does the Commando wear underwear under their armor?" Surely this is just as relevant as the questions they used to answer in the Community Q&As about lightsaber colors.

I suppose the good news is with PVP no longer having a FTP restriction, there's no point in being subscribed if there aren't going to be changes for another year.

I have to say that this right here is blatant misinformation. If you are unable to do any healing 90% of the time, stop healing and go do something else. You've clearly chosen the wrong role to play. It's one thing to say the class is struggling, which it is, but there's no point in throwing around such ridiculous exaggerations.

Wait a second --- how does the storyline of the classes have anything to do with the balance between them? I haven't heard something so stupid since "its okay that Powertechs got nerfed, they get their healing companion first". But yes Sages, welcome to the world of not having a guaranteed spot in PVP. We've kept a seat warm for you. There's liquor -- lots of it -- over there.

Problem is, the developers have explicitly said that when it comes to class balance, they prefer to nerf the outliers back in line rather than buff everyone to that overpowered level. Why? Because this game isn't just PVP, it's actually mostly PVE. And if you buff everyone so extremely, all of that content will need to be redone. And whether or not any of us PVPers like it, historically, the developers have refused to go down that road. And Scoundrel, in PVP, is overpowered compared to the other two healers, which are balanced with respect to one another. Sages and Commandos have distinct strengths and weaknesses, whereas Scoundrels have no such weakness. Enlighten me, name me one weakness that a Scoundrel faces that neither of the other healers also deal with. I can list out all of the pro's and con's if that's what you'd like, but at the end of the day, Scoundrels have way too many strengths for their minimal number of weaknesses. The best starting point in dealing with them is to bring their resource management in line and after that, if there still needs to be more changes, reduce some of the passive buffs in their skill tree. And bonus fact: as I've said before, one thing that has made Scoundrels even more powerful is that they have the same overpowered system Combat Medics had (and got nerfed for in 1.2), only the present version is better suited to them, way more potent, and way more efficient. Class designed for PVP + overpowered mechanic = overpowered class. Who woulda thought?

You know, LordKanter, some people don't have any energy cells at all.

It'll be interesting to see if these are the only class changes in 2.4. If October is the targeted release, there is plenty of time for other tweaks.

I don't think they'll edge Scoundrels -- but Sages I think may be a different story. They are squishy, have one defensive on three minutes that also disables them for the duration, and very interrupt-prone. They're going to have to rely on their channels and bubbles because I don't think Salvation will be practical. You're going to be sprinting around a lot unable to stay in it, or there will be an AoE on it, or you'll get knocked out of it. And since you most likely won't have more than 2 people in a small area (you and your tank most likely), Salvation's effectiveness is going to take a hit. Compare that to Combat Medics who have 2 defensive cooldowns (one on a much shorter cooldown), have heavier armor (it does make a difference -- get Smashed on a Sage then play as a Combat Medic, you will appreciate the extra padding), and better single-target efficiency. Hold the Line will bump up their mobility somewhat and Kolto Bomb doesn't suffer from the drawbacks of Salvation since most of its healing is up front. Electro Net is also a huge utility and looks primed to be a game-changer in arenas, potentially so much so that it might earn them a spot in arenas. That's not to say that a skilled Sage won't be there -- same is true for a Combat Medic. I think skill is going to really be the determining factor. Those big numbers on scoreboards may look good, but if you're only doing fluff healing, it's not going to cut it. I think that's going to bring Combat Medics closer to the bunch, at least at first glance, inside arenas. Scoundrels of course will still have the edge, especially if they don't get a good nerfing to their resource management.

I'm actually really looking forward to Combat Medics in 4v4. The lower player count favors single target healers. Not only that, the lower cap also means the group healing weakness of Combat Medics will be less of a drawback. Match that with their sustainability (fewer players --> easier resource management) and durability and I think they stand a real shot of being capable of holding their own in arenas. Again the skill curve is still higher, but I think their tools may really start to shine when there is more focus on staying alive.

To the developers. Their design process has been flawed for a while now. And if their philosophy match their own statements, their decisions actually make sense. It doesn't happen often, though. And I know you're making a guess -- I'm just frustrated that your theory (which makes complete sense) apparently is not comprehended by the developers.

Now if only I could ride a Thranta. They are dolphin-pterodactyls and I must possess one. [Puts away monocle.]

True, but it in my opinion it depends on your tank and co-healers. If you've got a good tank and another healer on your team, all you'll realistically need to do is toss the tank one heal every so often (in combination with the other healer) and they're good to go. So at that point, I usually keep Trauma Probe/Kolto Shell on whoever is taking more damage -- myself (usually) or the other healer. And I know it may sound blasphemous -- but I like having Trauma Probe on my self for Frontline Medic. No, it won't save your life in a 1v3 but that extra tick of Trauma Probe by just managing my ammo with Hammershot can help take the edge off. (To me, the difference is clear. When I do duels without Frontline Medic I die in under 30 seconds. When I do them with Frontline Medic, I can usually get two Reactive Shields off meaning I can last more than 2 minutes against the same DPS. Obviously this is limited to 1v1s or light DPS 1v2s, but these do come up time to time in PVP. Besides, you have to put the two points there, might as well use it).

Then with all due respect, the developers have no idea what they are doing. Tech Override's cooldown makes no sense. Limiting to fewer abilities reduces its versatility and utility, which means the cooldown should be even lower than what we're presently discussing. Tech Override is used in four ways: - Damage: Grav Round/Charged Bolts. - Healing: Medical Probe/Advanced Medical Probe - Area Denial: Plasma Grenade (note: this is a terribly ineffective form of area denial compared to say Force Storm, but it is an option. Others may use it for damage alone, since it is also quite nice). - Crowd Control: Concussive Round There should be a fifth option: - Emergency Medical Probe (in-combat revive). It has an activation time and Tech Override's effect explicitly states "the next ability with an activation time" is activated instantly. Now on a regular basis as a healer, I'm using 2/4 of those choices (healing/crowd control) and sometimes damage. I am by no means an expert on Gunnery, but I use 3/4 of those choices (healing/damage/crowd control) and will also use it for area denial when I have nothing else to use/can't get close enough otherwise. The majority of the abilities that can use Tech Override on are: long cooldowns, ammo expensive, and/or part of your rotation, which requires their own management. Said another way: they balance themselves. I usually don't make demands when discussing class changes because they aren't constructive generally, but in this situation, there really is no other option. A 2-minute cooldown on Tech Override is terrible design. There is no nice way of saying it. It was terrible design for the class to have no interrupt and no in-combat revive, too. The cooldown needs to be in the neighborhood of 1 minute with its present effect. I'd love to see the developers give their reasoning against it, but I fear it would be translated to damn-if-we-know.

Its strange just because at launch, Merc and Commando were obvious in two ways. Mercenary had a really obvious sound effect (three-tick-ticks) but a very subtle visual cue. For Commando healers, the reverse was and still is true: almost no sound but a very blatantly obvious visual effect. Depending on what cues you pick up on, either could be a pick your poison. I've seen players that will pick up on the slightest audio sounds while being oblivious to visual cues (which would be death for Mercenaries), but the same is again true for the reverse. Personally, I'm a fan of the beam just because it reminds me of other games that the Combat Medic has similarities to (mainly FPSs with a healing class). I can understand why people dislike it, though. I still think a better solution would be to make the effect less obvious overall or just to enemies, but that's probably too much work for a single ability. Though I would like to keep it, it's not as though it would be a problem to streamline it. The one thing that always blows my mind is when people don't use Hammershots because of it. The fantasy world where good DPS won't find you because you're not a neon sign doesn't exist. You're the only healer with a stance. They will find you when they realize stuff isn't dying. If they don't, then they weren't that good and they'll probably start claiming someone is hacking.

My question probably counts as more than one, but here is my Combat Medic question (for both PVE and PVP) - Combat Medics have always seemed to be designed for a different game. From the get-go they were missing basic utilities (healing cleanse, in-combat revive, interrupt)and there never was a clear strength present that justified these. Repeated nerfing to the class' survivability, output, and ammo management has only caused them to continue to fall behind the rest on average. Although the class is very well-built for single-target healing, sustained healing, and survivability, other healers can arguably do the same or better, while at the same time outperforming in group-healing and utility. The spec has always been viable in PVP and PVE by skilled players, but the amount of effort it takes to do well is not reflected in the results (especially when compared to the other healers). So what is the philosophy behind Combat Medics healers and are they performing to this standard? Combat Medics have a distinct group healing weakness, so why are the other healers encroaching upon their role? Why are Combat Medic strengths routinely undermined, while exacerbating their existing weaknesses? Why (and this is true for the AC in general) are the utility cooldowns so dreadfully long and why is the ammo management so punishing for anything less than perfection? What is being done to improve these issues -- both to Commando healers themselves and the other healing ACs -- and how do they factor into the design for the spec/role design?

The alacrity is really a matter of preference. You want it to be long enough that you can generate enough ammo during the channel, but fast enough that people don't die while you are casting it. I've seen high, low, and no alacrity builds work -- they all have their own strengths and weaknesses.

Rapid Bacta Deployment would work like this: if you have 3 points in Probe Medic (similar to Field Triage), there is a 100% chance that healing from your Trauma Probe grants one proc of Rapid Bacta Deployment. This proc lowers the cooldown of your next Bacta Infusion by 100% (in the same way that Supercharge Cells lowers the cooldown of AMP by 100% for 10 seconds). This proc can only be generated once every 10 seconds. Bacta Infusion may be used without the proc (such as if you have no Trauma Probes out), but will always consume 1 proc whenever there is one available. When there are no procs left, Bacta Infusion goes on cooldown for 21 seconds (18 with set bonus). This is a hard cooldown and future Rapid Bacta Deployment procs will NOT end this hard cooldown early. You may generate new procs during this cooldown. By default, you may only have 1 proc of Rapid Bacta Deployment. In order to get more, you must spec into Frontline Medic which will raise the limit by 1 or 2 (allowing you to have a maximum of 3 procs at a time).

I'm probably going to anger the Nerf Gods, but oh well, I bet you can't nerf Combat Medics that they already have been.

Clearly, Electro Net should last an additional second for every second you played before your Commando or Mercenary received Disabling Shot. Seems fair to me.

To be honest, this is the kind of thing I'd really want to see more than anything. I'd love to know what their vision of the class is supposed to be because that way, when we make suggestions on our own like good little forum warriors, we know whether or not they conform to that plan or not. For instance, I usually argue that Combat Medics are justified in being weak at group healing since they are strong at group healing. But the other healers don't seem to have that restriction - the other healers can both group heal while also doing comparable single target healing. So has the Combat Medic outgrown their group weakness at healing, or is that a weakness they have intentionally been designed to respect, in which case, how will you reinforce the single-target aspect of it? I think the same kind of discussions could come up for the other specs as well (like why has Commando Assault Spec been the red-headed step child of Vanguard Assault Spec, in the same way that bologna is the red-headed stepchild of steak).

My objection with them is like this: if you have let's say 8 people grouped up attacking a boss in a 16M op, if you throw Kolto Bomb at them, four get hit with the up-front heal and then the rest get the HoT. The HoT may have no limit, but it really isn't that impressive for anything more than spreading Kolto Residue/Charged Barrier. In a smaller group, say an 8M, you'll probably only have 4 people grouped up, which allows the up-front heal to be relevant and the HoT is more effective. Basically, its the difference between healing 4 people for (crits only) 6-7k and the rest for 1-2k in a 16M, while healing everyone for 6-7k in a 8M. Yes, you're doing more healing in the 16M, but its what I would consider "underhealing" since the players who got 1-2k will still need more healing. Concussive Charge has a similar issue, but its more of an afterthought to me because Kolto Bomb is going to be used every 6 seconds, whereas Concussive Charge will only be used every 30 seconds IF you happen to be in melee range of the people you need to heal.

Hello, The main bug I wanted to post about was a bug that has continued to persist for about 6 months now. In the Combat Medics and Bodyguard trees, there is a talent (Efficient Conversions/Heat Damping) that lowers the cost of your three CC's: Concussive Charge/Jet Boost, Concussive Round/Concussive Missile, and Cryo Grenade/Electro Dart. This talent makes all three of these free of cost. There is also a skill that both classes have, Reserve Powercell and Thermal Sensor Override, both of which make the next ability with an ammo cost free. The problem is, although that talent makes those three abilities free, RP and TSO both treat it as though those abilities still have a cost. So if you have RP and TSO active when you are using one of your CCs, it is consumed for no reason. A lesser bug that kind of makes Mercenary healers more obvious than they need to be is Kolto Shell. When you put Kolto Shell around you, the animation plays and then glitches every other animation that plays on you. For instance, both of your casted heals (Rapid Scan/Healing Scan) have an effect that stays only on your character's armor and skin. When you have Kolto Shell on you, however, this animation "falls off" the skin and now appears as a giant sphere around your character, about the size of Guard or a Sage/Sorc bubble. This effect is not limited to heals -- the majority of abilities activated on a Mercenary will also degenerate into this sphere rather than playing as they should. There are several other abilities which cause this effect and it can easily be replicated by 1) putting a Kolto Shell on yourself, and 2) getting a medal in a warzone or healing yourself with either of your casted heals. Compare the results to how the animation looks when Kolto Shell is not active on yourself. Also, the Trauma Probe animation on Commandos does not play properly, or appears not to, but does not have the same glitch Kolto Shell has.

It would be a little more balanced for PVP, but it also would have no benefit for PVE whatsoever. The Bacta Infusion is more "economical" because it solves multiple problems at once. It helps ammo management (less underhealing puts less stress on ammo, Bacta Infusion costs nothing so having it available more often also makes it easier to manage), it helps output by bringing our burst off a dreadfully long ~20 second cooldown (which I think is the longest cooldown on a heal in the game, unless Salvation has a longer one), and improves the class universally rather than only one part of the game. The interrupt immunity does nothing for PVE, and whether or not we like it, the majority of this games content is PVE so there's no point in pretending that it isn't taken into account by the developers. Furthermore, Combat Medics suffer most of the same problems in PVE (ammo management/burst healing availability/group healing), and those problems become big enough to drive a walker through when you're looking at 16-man operations (I love Kolto Bomb to death, I really do, but there is no heal that is more useless at healing a group that Kolto Bomb when thrown on 5 or more people at a boss' feet). Allowing more frequent Bacta Infusions will indirectly improve group healing, while also reinforcing the class' single-target healing strength. And unless I read Cash's OP wrong (I really shouldn't be reading the forums after checking email and before bed at 3am), I think the 2 charges of Tech Override is exclusive to Gunnery Commandos. Combat Medics would have a shorter cooldown, but can still only get one charge in the same way they do.