Lethality/Medicine Hybrid for PvP - Viable?

[Loxxlie]

Hey, new to the boards, thanks for reading post yadda yadda-

 

In WoW I loved stealth and played rogue for a long time, but after playing a healer in PvP, I loved the idea of just being ridiculously hard to kill 1v1, while slowly killing my opponent with small damage.

 

I want to carry over both of these aspects to Operative. My first question is, can a hybrid spec like this work? Or is Operative on its own just far to squishy to expect to outheal damage from 1-2 people?

 

Now the specs. I was looking at two, one taking Surgical Probe and the other taking Culling. They look like this: 18/0/23 and 22/0/19

 

The idea behind both of these specs is that I can just generate crazy amounts of TA through Medical Engineering procs, shivs, and the occasional Kolto Injection and then I can dump them into either Surgical Probe or Culling.

 

With Culling I'd have my 2 DoTs on all the time while pulling TA's from ME. Also the spec has quite a bit of kiting ability between the Corrosive Grenade slow and Sever Tendon. I feel like the damage output would be great and the survivability decent, but I feel like I'd be energy starved most of the time.

 

With Surgical Probe I think that the survivability is far higher and energy would be higher, but I'm worried that my lack of damage would leave me reliant on my teammates, and I really want to be able to hold my own. I guess my big question is can this spec put out enough damage to remain threatening to take 1v1 or even 2v1?

 

Which spec do you think is more viable?

 

Finally, a few questions about point placement within the trees. Which 2 are best between Chem-resistant Inlays, Endorphin Rush, or Evasive Imperative? I'm leaning away from Evasive Imperative, but with the lack of mobility increased movement speed sounds really useful. If anything else looks off in the trees, feel free to let me know.

 

Thanks in advance!

[Andreasus]

I also would like to see such a video

[xtommyc]

I was looking to try out something like this because going straight healing spec was getting boring, plus it was harder to get medals in bgs. Also it was hard to 1v1 as a full healer. I have already respeced a few times trying out different trees. Ill have to give this one a go and ill let you know how it goes.

[Jooji]

I was looking to try out something like this because going straight healing spec was getting boring, plus it was harder to get medals in bgs. Also it was hard to 1v1 as a full healer. I have already respeced a few times trying out different trees. Ill have to give this one a go and ill let you know how it goes.

 

It's hard to 1v1 or get medals as a healer? And you think it'll be easier in a hybrid spec to do either?

 

Assuming it's a decently competitive match I can easily get 75k healing, 2.5 and 5k heals, 10 and 25 kills, killing blow, 75k damage(if a longer match).

 

Going hybrid spec doesn't help you get any medals beyond those. If anything it gimps your ability to get the 300k healing medal.

[Gzav]

I'm currently doing 22/19/0, mainly because deep mecidine doesnt really help your healing in pvp matches. Dont expect to be able to do a lot of damage, but you can actually do a decent amount of damages in 1v1 fights.

 

I'd say with that kind of talent tree, dont forget that you are first of all a Healer.

 

(Its the best spec for leveling imo btw)

[Achmed]

ful lethality works to a certain degree,

lethal/medic hybrid (with cull) and vise versa does too, but bleeds ur energy dry.

medic/lethal (with surgical probe) just makes a good healer (far far from great).

 

as full lethality dishes out enough damage to kill ur enemies. shield probe pretty much covers what koltoprobes would have healed you during that time. u should be able to fire a second cull and if they are not dead by now, they soon will be (dots).

 

as hybrid (cull/kolto probe) u allready need 2 cooldowns on kolto probe (lets jsut pretend they havnt been up allready) and u may gain extra extra TA, but its becomes pretty energy intensive that way. u have a pretty good chance that the enemy isnt dead by then, they migth die due to the dots (45% less dot damage). but this probably benefits the team the most in PvP.

 

with surgical probe and poison u cant realy defeat anyone. dots suck, no snare, no TA spender besides carbine burst. if they manage to get you to heal yourself, u are basicly a sitting duck just busy healing away the damge they just did to u. even with surgical probe since it triggers GCD everytime.

 

thats jsut my personal experience and ive tried alot of speccs.

if u wanna kill, go concealment. lethality is OK too (i love it ^^)

if u wanna heal in PvP, forget the hybrids speccs. i tried all of them and they all just make a some sort of "support" class. knows everything, masters nothing.

Edited January 7, 2012 by Achmed

[Loxxlie]

Thanks for the info guys Anyone have like, crazy success with a hybrid healing build? I was talking to a 50 operative who was running surgical probe/concealment, and told me he was essentially unkillable unless focused by 3 people, does decent damage in small skirmishes, and always gets ton of medals. Edited January 7, 2012 by Loxxlie

[Andreasus]

Still looking for this video.

[Spifnar]

First up: For everyone talking about using Medical Engineering as a TA "factory", don't think like that. You get, on average, one extra TA every 12-15 seconds (6 second internal cooldown). Or in other words, about 1/2 as often as you shiv. It's not something you can rely on in a running battle.

 

Being a hybrid that does great damage and heals well on the side is not possible

 

Both Lethality and Concealment are very "top-heavy" trees. You get a massive 30% more damage by getting that 31 point skill. Kolto Probe is needed for even mediocre healing.

 

If you want to be a healer that can help a teammate burst for 3-4 GCDs, then Medic/Concealment is the way to go IMO. Even this is tough with our class' lack of ability to avoid knockback, snare, etc. But it can work if you are patient. This spec runs 22/12/3, and 4 more points wherever you like.

 

For a more CC/survivability based healer you go Medic/Lethality. Lower cooldown on Debilitate, snare grenades, -20% acc on flashbang, etc. 22/0/19, or thereabouts. IMO this is the closest to a hybrid build that the OP wants. Grenade spam will help you get to 75k damage for an extra medal too.

[Jooji]

Nanotech is too strong to not spec it as a pvp healer. We aren't sorcs. We don't have tons of utility in one of our dps trees.

[Andreasus]

Nanotech is strong? It gives me every tick 267health points. This means if someone is shooting at me, this will never rescure me. So why I should spec it?

[alanisUDL]

Nanotech is strong? It gives me every tick 267health points. This means if someone is shooting at me, this will never rescure me. So why I should spec it?

 

Do you skip KP because its a HOT?

[Andreasus]

Do you skip KP because its a HOT?

 

no but skipping nanotech gives me access to other skills. I need the other skills more for pvp.

[Oghier]

Nanotech is too strong to not spec it as a pvp healer. We aren't sorcs. We don't have tons of utility in one of our dps trees.

 

We may not have a ton of utility, but by skipping RN, you can get:

 

- Infiltrator and Slip Away (better stealth, faster in-combat movement and reduced cooldown on our stun, OR

 

- Infiltrator and Revitalizers (better stealth, faster movement and a basically constant self-Hot), OR

 

- Many other combinations

 

 

In short, dropping RN adds tremendous PvP survivability and/ or crowd control. In PvE, those added talents have less value. In PvP, I think you are much stronger as a healer if you have significantly increased survivability at the expense of one situational heal. The PvP/ PvE Hybrid Spec I plan on at 50 is some variation of the following (24/11/6):

 

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#401McfrzG0RzZMI0M0zZhR.1

 

The objective is plenty of healing (enough for Flashpoints, though perhaps not Ops) with multiple boosts to the "die less often" skill all healers need.

Edited January 10, 2012 by Oghier

[Urothefox]

I switched from basically pure Concealment to a ~50/50 split Medicine/Lethality last night. Though I don't have nearly the initial burst as someone with Acid Blade, I felt like I was contributing more to the group because I could switch to healing or dps as the situtation dictated.

 

Cull, however, seems pretty mehtastic. There's a lot of lead up with little payoff. If you want to do descent damage, you need to drop poison dart and the acid grenade on the person. It is kind of funny to see the reaction when half way through the fight, they take a big damage spike.

 

I tried Lethality/Concealment and kept thinking "why not just go back to full Concealment and save yourself the headache?" Plus, maintaining TA with Leth/Con felt more of a pain than Leth/Med.

 

I tell ya with a Med/Leth build you aren't going to be killing anyone swiftly, but you will eventually kill most people. It's also a big energy hog so make sure you got your energy regen going at all times.

[alanisUDL]

no but skipping nanotech gives me access to other skills. I need the other skills more for pvp.

 

Well I actually might agree with that, and need to test more on the hybrid specs. However, that wasn't your original argument that prompted my question.

[alanisUDL]

We may not have a ton of utility, but by skipping RN, you can get:

 

- Infiltrator and Slip Away (better stealth, faster in-combat movement and reduced cooldown on our stun, OR

 

- Infiltrator and Revitalizers (better stealth, faster movement and a basically constant self-Hot), OR

 

- Many other combinations

 

 

In short, dropping RN adds tremendous PvP survivability and/ or crowd control. In PvE, those added talents have less value. In PvP, I think you are much stronger as a healer if you have significantly increased survivability at the expense of one situational heal. The PvP/ PvE Hybrid Spec I plan on at 50 is some variation of the following (24/11/6):

 

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#401McfrzG0RzZMI0M0zZhR.1

 

The objective is plenty of healing (enough for Flashpoints, though perhaps not Ops) with multiple boosts to the "die less often" skill all healers need.

 

You might want to give http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#401McfrzGoRzZMIMRzk.1 a try as well. I have a feeling that Energy Screen will be a huge ability to have as a hybrid Medic.

[alexishomer]

I tried medic + lethality for pvp.

 

it was pretty weak. the global cooldowns are better used for heals than other stupid 'utility'.

 

but then, it is because operative's heal is soooo low when not critting. it only heals for about 2k AND not spammable. whereas a sorc can spam 3k heals.