kolto bomb.. good or no?

[Zaitana]

building a commando to run with a 4 man rp troup. planning a dps/off-heal build. was only planning to get kolto bomb and kolto residue and spend the rest of my points on dps skills. is kolto bomb/residue worth it for an off heal? we have a sage who's going straight heals for our primary health dealer so this is pure backup for operations and such.

[bsparky]

Kolto Bomb is pretty awesome and I spam it whenever it is up, both in PvP and PvE. However, you have to invest in quite a few points to make it as good as it can be.

 

If the goal is to have kolto residue on people to buff your sage's healing, then go for it. Though getting it for that one purpose seems inefficient.

[SpaceGaunt]

I'm 40 Commando heals. If you're going for full commando heals, Kolto Bomb is a must in my opinion. It's a great buff for other heals. However, if you're only going to go Kolto bomb for an off heal, I don't think it's worth it. Without other CM skills, the Kolto bomb will be pretty lackluster.

[Zaitana]

this is what i was thinking, more or less. totally a work in progress since my commando is currently only lvl 12. but as a ranged dps/off-heal (occasionally taking agro to give tank and off-tank a respite) i thought it would serve.

 

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#800MfRoRzZrIkdRbzokZb.1

[Proctor]

Depends on one thing:

 

Are you off-healing/DPSing with Combat Support Cell, or another Cell active? If CSC is up, you can Supercharge Cells and throw a Kolto Bomb to reduce any damage the targets receive by 10% for 15 seconds. This is a Combat Medic exclusive buff, no other class can provide it--same goes for Kolto Residue's 5% healing received buff.

 

If you're using any other Cell buff, then you shouldn't be speccing into CM at all. You will still have Med Probe and Advanced Med Probe at your disposal no matter what, and that's easily enough to get someone out of a pinch. But CSC and SCC are the true defining aspects of the CM spec, and without them you just aren't going to get anything done that a full DPS build couldn't do.

 

Kolto Bomb by itself is a very weak heal, keep that in mind.

 

It's your toon, play how you have fun, but; no matter what, a half-and-half build is going to hurt your group more than help in almost all scenarios. Good luck!

[Proctor]

Looked at the talent tree you posted (while I was replying), and guessing by the fact that you took SCC that you will be using CSC. That being said, yes take Kolto Bomb and Residue.

 

I don't personally approve of hybridizing, but if that's your thing then knock yourself out and have fun.

[Zaitana]

granted i'm hybridizing. but changing between cells takes only a couple seconds. i guess the real question then boils down to, if i launch a kolto bomb, and it activates kolto residue, then i switch back to another dps oriented cell before the 15 seconds are up, does that negate the remaining time on the kolto residue? kind of like interupting a channeled action as it were.

[Proctor]

No, Kolto Residue will remain on the target.

 

However, swapping Cells mid-combat is a very, very bad idea for several reasons:

 

1. CSC generates 3 charges via Hammer Shot and Med Probe (3 or 6 if talented), these are vital in that you need 30 charges to activate SCC, your identifying skill as a CM. The problem is that if you switch Cells, you will drop ALL your charges.

 

2. I haven't played it, but I assume debuffs from Grav Round will also disappear when you change Cells. Even if they don't, the debuff doesn't last forever, and will be gone by the time you get back to DPSing.

 

3. You'll need to generate 30 charges of CSC to use SCC (otherwise why even swap Cells to begin with), meaning that you'll have to drop 10 Hammer Shots or 5 Med Probes before you can use your first SCC.

 

So, let's say that you're DPSing away, rocking out with your jock out using a half-powered Grav Shot (one that isn't talented to return Ammo on crits, no less) during a flashpoint. Suddenly, the group's HP starts dropping faster than your Seer can handle, and you need to step in to help heal.

 

You take 1.5 sec to drop into CSC and lose all your vortices, and now during the chaos drop 5 Med Probes to rush your stacks to 30. Even rushing, your 2 sec cast time Probes add up to 10 sec gone by, 11.5 total now (13 if you stopped to apply Residue at the beginning) and you've had to pop Recharge Cells to have any Ammo by this point. If you've been conserving Ammo with Advanced Med Probe procs, then add in 1.5~3 more seconds.

 

Somewhere in the neighborhood of 11.5 to 16 seconds later, you are now able to lob a SCC-boosted Kolto Bomb for the damage reduction. With GCD and animation factored in, you've spent 18 or more seconds to cast a buff that was needed 18 seconds ago. With all that said and done, you swap back to Armor-Piercing Cell with hardly any Ammo left, your SCC canceled, and after the 1.5 sec cast time you can resume DPS.

 

Now your DPS will of course have fallen below rock bottom, and building back up your vortices slows you down even more, and your group has either experienced casualties or the enrage timer has hit.

 

Bottom line is this; you can play this game however you want, and have fun doing it. I don't discourage that at all, and think whatever floats your boat is golden. But do note, that if you take a half Gunnery/half Combat Medic to a group and try to cell swap your way through, you WILL be disappointed. If it comes down to needing a spot heal to help save the tank, drop a Med Probe or two. They won't be super duper effective, but you can still save a life with an all-out DPS build.

 

Food for thought.

Edited January 9, 2012 by Proctor

[Zaitana]

food for thought indeed... thanks

[snaplemouton]

Kolto bomb only utility is while under supercharged cells and usually you don't have time to use it because you have to heal with heals that can't even be compared to a sage heals to keep up people in your group and spending a global on using Kolto bomb might just end up in someone (mostly the tank) dying because the healing from it heals as much as throwing a pile of desh and screws.

 

I really hope Combat medic get to have the healing buff it require or that sage get the nerf they deserve.

[JLapp]

I've found Kolto Bomb practically worthless.

 

The issue is mainly that it is fairly weak and is a pain to target. And since you have to deal with a 1.5 GCD afterwards, it really isn't that quick of an ability.

 

While supercharged I think spamming adv med probe + med probe around the group to be a better use of the time.

[jedip_enguin]

Pick a focus and spec for it, you can still offheal as full gunnery (I know because I do )and you can still do dps during low dmg phases as a healer.

 

If you half *** your spec you end up middle of the road (not enough healing to be a proper main healer and not enough dmg to carry a dps spot), and that will hurt your group rather than help it.

Edited January 9, 2012 by jedip_enguin

[Syas]

I've found Kolto Bomb practically worthless.

 

The issue is mainly that it is fairly weak and is a pain to target. And since you have to deal with a 1.5 GCD afterwards, it really isn't that quick of an ability.

 

While supercharged I think spamming adv med probe + med probe around the group to be a better use of the time.

 

I disagree, I can see the issue with targeting for someone who clicks abilities (and this is not a click vs. hotkey debate), but as it is one of the abilities I hotkey, with Supercharge it is a GCD in exchange for -10% incoming damage on whoever it hits.

 

Now, outside of Supercharge? Very rare that I use it. Even with residue I feel it isn't quite great enough. Though, I am only at 40 - I can see it being a buff (residue) that you want to keep up for harder content.