Combat Medic Woes in Hard Modes ....no combat in combat medic

[Lorealin]

Ok i'm looking for tips or tricks to save my more fingers...

As a combat medic in hard modes I feel like i'm NON STOP casting I never stop.

 

My sage friends have it much easier in my honest opinion.

I seriously would give up some other spells if I could just get something that healed for crap.

 

I'm keeping hammer up on most 50 instances fine but in hard modes I can't even use it hardly it's no longer a viable option to keep anyone up.

 

I am basically mashing adv med probe on cool down and med probe with bacteria infusion on cool down as well. I'm using my other spells as fast as I can but seriously this is not fun.

 

My hands hurt after some of these fights.

 

Who's bright idea was it to force a healer too non stop mash hammer shot? Talk about horrible mechanics. I"m actually leveling my sage now because its just not fun healing on a trooper its horrible.

 

I cleared Tarval V hard mode with the optional bosses hard mode last night and it was not fun.

 

So what are people stacking? And am I missing something on healing these?

 

I'm looking at Alacrity and Crit. But even with the Alacrity levels I have now its not making that much difference. I just run out of cells faster..lol I'm thinking of dropping some Alacrity for Power. It looks like the Ratio for bonus healing is higher with Power (5 for 1) then say Aim (10 for 1).

 

What kind of bonus healing are you hard mode Combat Medics supporting? I'm at barely 400.

 

And finally can we remove the title combat from combat medic. I rarely if ever get a chance to do any damage. Again i'm literally just mashing keys every encounter to heal. My sage is a joke easy to heal on.

 

Very disappointed in Combat Medic build as is.

Edited January 24, 2012 by Lorealin

[RuQu]

We've got a nice little guide floating around here awaiting a sticky. It's usually on the front page. In the third post is a calculator I built that helps assess stats using an assumed sustainable rotation.

 

I think your biggest problem is misgearing.

 

Alacrity is pretty terrible. It only benefits Adv. Probe and Med. Probe.

 

So you are busting out a quick but weak AP/MP combo, and then spamming weak HS casts at their stock 1.5s GCD because instants don't benefit from alacrity.

 

For sustainability we are limited by the cooldown on AP, and that means we want to heal big, since we can't heal often. Also, since Hammer Shot is a fixed cast time, we want to increase it's strength.

 

Power is king, and Surge is also quite nice for us. The calculator will estimate a balance for you as a guide.

 

Not sure why the Devs decided to stack alacrity and crit on our gear, since that is our worst possible combination, but they did. Luckily, you can trade out for Adept enhancements and get to Power/Surge.

[Lorealin]

So are you saying you do ok with the removal of all the crit and alacrity?

 

I was thinking massive bonus heals would be king.

 

So Power > Surge > Crit > Alacrity?

 

 

Ouch ok yeah low pop server so not many items if any ever up for purchasing.

I was throwing my hands up and going to level my sage.

 

I can easily see how say +500 heals would help a lot. Right now I'm at about +384 Heals.

[Freeborne]

They're called "Hard" Modes for a reason. : )

 

 

I agree though, I wish our heals were designed at bit more optimally, especially our kolto grenade. : )

[Refmo]

We've got a nice little guide floating around here awaiting a sticky. It's usually on the front page. In the third post is a calculator I built that helps assess stats using an assumed sustainable rotation.

 

I think your biggest problem is misgearing.

 

Alacrity is pretty terrible. It only benefits Adv. Probe and Med. Probe.

 

So you are busting out a quick but weak AP/MP combo, and then spamming weak HS casts at their stock 1.5s GCD because instants don't benefit from alacrity.

 

For sustainability we are limited by the cooldown on AP, and that means we want to heal big, since we can't heal often. Also, since Hammer Shot is a fixed cast time, we want to increase it's strength.

 

Power is king, and Surge is also quite nice for us. The calculator will estimate a balance for you as a guide.

 

Not sure why the Devs decided to stack alacrity and crit on our gear, since that is our worst possible combination, but they did. Luckily, you can trade out for Adept enhancements and get to Power/Surge.

 

Alacrity isn't terrible because it only affects AMP and MP. Those two spells will get spammed the most, it would only make sense to want them to uh land faster. It's weak because of the amount it takes to see any real benefit on two spells that are already fast.

 

There's almost no room for HS end game. Alacrity/crit combining is probably FR's fault.

[Lorealin]

So are you saying you do ok with the removal of all the crit and alacrity?

 

I was thinking massive bonus heals would be king.

 

So Power > Surge > Crit > Alacrity?

 

 

Ouch ok yeah low pop server so not many items if any ever up for purchasing.

I was throwing my hands up and going to level my sage.

 

I can easily see how say +500 heals would help a lot. Right now I'm at about +384 Heals.

 

 

K just spent over 150k credits and badges etc...

Removed a lot of my crit and alacrity.

 

pushed my bonus heals up from 363 to 388

pushed my critical heals up from 50% to 72%

 

I can see a decent diff now on hammer shot is criting still a lot but at 255 now

My AM probe on a supercharge is over 4200 now so that is not terrible.

 

I will just keep stacking Power > Surge > Crit >Alacrity

[IGsChevy]

What's your crit % at? Surge doesn't do anything unless you crit, so you need to have a pretty solid crit % to take advantage of surge.

[Sidnonia]

I'd have to say I stack my stats in this order by priority:

 

Aim > Power > Alacrity > Crit > Surge > Cunning (datacrons)

 

I have been healing hard modes since I first hit 50. I have had no issues and I have completed ALL of them including bonus bosses. Alacrity shortens all CDs including GCD. I heal so well that I can DPS at times during boss fights.

 

[x] I keep Trauma Probe on tank.

[x] Use Kolto Bomb (AOE heal) on those taking damage on CD (boosts healing by 10%, provides 10% armor boost when using Supercharge Cells)

[x] Always keep my Supercharge stacks at 30 (using Hammer Shot and will spam Medical Probe once or twice if Adv. Medical Probe is on CD and Hammer Shot isn't healing enough)

[x] Use Supercharge Cells at 30 stacks (Kolto Bomb Shields, Adv. Medical Probe temporarily has no CD)

[x] I make use of my Shield, Self Heal and Threat Reducer when getting attacked hard

[x] Make use of Reserve Powercell (removes ammo cost for a skill), Tech Override (auto cast on castable skill), Recharge Cells (recharge ammo)

[x] Make use of Concussion Charge (push), Cyro Grenade (short CC), Concussive Round (long CC)

[Lorealin]

Good post...

 

I do everything you do absolutely everything and that is a lot of key mashing is all I am saying. I have that build with the extra cells as well.

 

Your suggested stat priority is a bit off from what I have seen most....

 

Aim > Power > Surge > Crit > Alacrity

 

You are saying

 

Aim > Power > Crit > Alacrity > Surge

 

That seems odd...

 

I do use koltor on aoe all the time when people are grouped.

I do all that so i'm assuming just better gear...still in some 43 pants and and my belt could use more power and my bracers.

 

I re-tooled a lot so I will see how this goes.

 

I was looking for a magic bullet but none to be had. ><

 

Thank you for that post.

Edited January 24, 2012 by Lorealin

[Sheridyn]

It can often feel like a bit of an uphill struggle as a Combat Medic when you first hit 50, because our AoE healing is lacklustre compared to Sages and Scoundrels. However, Kolto Grenade combined with Supercharge Cells + AMP/MP spam should suffice for all 4-man content. There are a couple bosses where you will fall behind on AoE healing, but these should not be a problem if your group has enough DPS to make the enrage timers of other bosses. We also have no combat rez, so no mistakes allowed!

 

Initially I hated my Commando healer at 50. Did a bit of raiding and then started leveling a Scoundrel. Got that to 50 after some late nights, and started raiding on that to find the healing incredibly clunky. I happily went back to Combat Medic, and have stuck with it since. I can safely say that in nightmare 16-man content, our Sage healers simply cannot pump out as much single-target tank healing as I can over extended periods of time. I leave them to handle the raid healing, because that's their forte, but tank healing is where Combat Medic shines.

 

At the end of the day you will be standing around spamming MP/AMP a lot, with TP and BI mixed in as appropriate, and using Hammer Shot as filler to keep First Responder up. It's not the most involved of rotations, but it does the job just fine. It's actually pretty hassle-free because you don't need to monitor any self-buffs apart from your Supercharge Cells count (and that's just noticing when it's lit up).

 

In terms of gearing, combat medic gear by default has too much Crit Rating and Alacrity. I would advise taking a look at RuQu's guide because he's done the most in-depth analysis of anyone on these forums. The short of it is that you want to trade your Crit for Power, and ramp up your Surge rating as well (trading Alacrity for Surge can be quite favourable).

[JLapp]

So Power > Surge > Crit > Alacrity?

 

I don't heal on my commando anymore but that is the order I determined was efficient.

 

Power doesn't suffer from nearly the same diminishing returns as the other stats.

 

A lot of people write off surge but it scales much better than crit does.

 

Crit you get plenty of from aim, skills, and possibly a smuggler buff. Having a few pieces is nice but the value drops off very quickly.

 

Some people hate alacrity, a few points in there are nice and I'd get first responder and weapon calibrations. For points I think power/surge are more useful.

[Tryte]

Aim>crit(to 30%)>surge (to 80%)>power>surge>alacrity imo

[Lorealin]

I don't heal on my commando anymore but that is the order I determined was efficient.

 

Power doesn't suffer from nearly the same diminishing returns as the other stats.

 

A lot of people write off surge but it scales much better than crit does.

 

Crit you get plenty of from aim, skills, and possibly a smuggler buff. Having a few pieces is nice but the value drops off very quickly.

 

Some people hate alacrity, a few points in there are nice and I'd get first responder and weapon calibrations. For points I think power/surge are more useful.

 

Excellent post! Love hearing from the big hitters or um healers.

Yep I did my do dilligence today and picked up a very strong purple ear piece with loads of power. Did some pvp got a purple token for the high aim high crit one...no power but had loads of aim so i'm not to down about it.

 

I have about 411 bonus healing now. Working on Tarv 5 see if I can get the medic gloves to drop this time.

 

Thanks you guys and gals

 

Much appreciated all posts

 

~ Juggarnaut - FaFartha

[Beyoncia]

/sigh

 

Crit rating/Surge rating –> Alacrity –> Power.

Soft caps are 300 for crit/surge and 350 for alacrity.

 

Power is in my opinion the fall back stat, especially if you are a fresh 50. Focus on first 3, till you get columi or better gear. Then you can start stack for power, but still need to keep you crits high enough. Alacrity is nice to have too.

 

My selfbuffed stats:

Bonus healing-457

crit chance-40.58

crit multiplier-78.6

activation speed-11.32

I have only 1 columi and 1 racata item, rest is tionese, pvp and hm FP drop.

[Ellie_]

Aim >> Power >> Crit(until ~200 rating) >> Surge(until ~270 rating) >> Crit >> Alacrity(until ~138 rating) >> Surge >> Alacrity

 

For Columi gear onwards. Not entirely sure on fresh level 50 since your stats can vary wildly.

 

The problem with alacrity is that there is too much of it, and it doesn't do enough, so you dont need a lot of it to reach the "optimal" number of alacrity after which it becomes complete rubbish and isn't very helpful even for clutch healing in the current content.

 

Alacrity is the only stat that only benefits 2 of our spells and doesn't do a very good job at it either. It's also why the other stats are so much stronger after 138 alacrity for single-target healing.

 

I use the listed stat priority order for healing hard-mode flashpoints and operations and moving onto nightmares shortly, and healing has never been an issue. The only relatively intense fights are HM-Soa and the Fabricator droid(in Karagga's Palace).

 

Hardmode Soa because it can get messy when people are forced to soak their thunderballs so they dont kill everyone else as well, while you also have to heal the tank, and occasionally your co-healer will be in the air or mind trapped so you have to solo it.

 

Same thing with the Fabricator, depending on who do you assign for the puzzle control panels, you might be forced to solo heal the tank and the entire raid from time to time.

 

Casting speeds on AMP/MP dont really matter jacksquat there because you get to 1.73s anyway with 9% from talents and 138 rating on gear, if you cant push out enough raw numbers, then you cant and that's the end of the line for you.

 

Then there's raid buffs and stims that further skew the balance in favor of Aim/power, since you get larger crits and more of them by virtue of having higher base values that are being multiplied.

 

Trauma Probe is also possibly the most important ability for controlling damage income on tough fights and it doesnt scale with alacrity. It makes a big difference since you wont have to chain-cast things on the tank to keep him/her alive.

 

I've also never had any problems healing fights like Ironfist on HM Esseles, or Vokk. Other bosses it doesnt even matter how fast you can heal, since there is barely anything to heal anyway, and alacrity isn't good for HP/s after 138 rating.

 

For fights like Ironfist you can and should cycle in a kolto bomb while your Supercharged Cell is up and you know there is AOE damage coming in just to buy you more reaction time and prevent people from being gibbed with the +10% damage reduction buff.

 

If you can time it well you can outheal even the headshots from time to time if the interrupters drop the ball.

 

As for hammer shot, you're supposed to be using it a lot in your rotation as a filler to prevent ammo depletion, and when casting a large heal would be wasted. Building up 30 stacks of CSC is very important so you have to know when to use it and how much to use it.

 

But yes, you're kind of supposed to be constantly healing with *something*. If you dont have to, and you have time to DPS the boss for example, then the content is so easy for you that it just doesnt matter anyway.

Edited January 25, 2012 by Ellie_

[MagnitudeZero]

I guess it also depends on the team you go with, I'm struggling with stuff to heal for most flashpoints, 70% of the time SCC goes towards charged bolts spam, so you can rest assured that there is a lot of opportunity to dps as a Combat Medic, our first kills on HM Karraga and Soa I was pumping out dps as much as I was healing.

 

But at later gear levels the itemisation does really suck, I think when I dinged 50 I had close to 80% surge, and until I got my Rakata Off Hand and Implants I was running with like 0 surge on my gear, which is completely heartbreaking as I know how awesome it is. I can't find adept enhancements anywhere, at least the "Adept Enhancement 25" which is what I want, I can't see them in other classes tier gear either, I'm pretty sure there will be one in the Rakata Cannon when and if they fix stats, and seen 25 Enhancements drop in raids, just not the ones I want.

 

But yeah, I mean don't really worry about it, when I first started healing at 50, I always got frustrated with my lack of mobility etc, having always played very mobile healers previously, but Combat Medic just takes a while to get used to, at least for me, and then it's as easy as pie and probably the strongest healer in raids (obviously some deviations per encounter).

 

And don't underestimate Hammer Shot!

 

Off topic: Adept Enhancement 25, anyone know where?

[Sidnonia]

It depends on your level guys. If your main heals don't heal for that much and you don't have the access to 30% crit yet, than you should be stacking power. Surge will never have priority over crit (unless your crit is at 30%), because surge is the boost you'll get from crit. If you are never critting than surge is useless. Raw power is going to get you heals much larger than the few crits you'll get every now and again. When you get into raids, I'd say crit and surge is much more important. Once again I am currently t1.1-1.2 geared and I have NO issues healing, EVER (I have healed ALL of the Hard Mode Flashpoints). My main group is a shadow dps, sentinel dps and a guardian tank (guardians have a lot of buggy threat boosters, so I'm caught healing myself a lot as well and my dps are aggro pullers, because we fly through the runs anyway) You may not always be the one in the wrong as a healer. If your tank doesn't know what they are doing or your dps cant handle the damage well than they aren't playing their classes right. There are a lot of interuptable moves that some mobs/bosses do that reduces a lot of damage to the tank and/or group. My dps are prior pvpers and are used to popping defensive cooldowns when they pull aggro if need be. A skilled team makes up for any undergearing.

 

So new 50:

Aim > power (you're choice on this one)

either crit > surge > alacrity

or alacrity (until medical probe has a really short cast)

 

Geared 50:

Aim > Crit (30%) > Surge > Alacrity

 

I personally don't like depending on the luck of crits. From experience power has done better fror me, but I also haven't been to Nightmares or Raids yet. Yay for low populated servers!

[Sylanaris]

Here is my dilema,

 

I went crazy with Crit and Surge, and IIRC I have 38% Crit and 80% Surge (Bonus to crits)

 

So a crit Medical Probe is around 5.2K, but it's more than 25%, sometimes 33% of someones HP... meaning if I cast it at say 80% and it Crits, it's wasted heal.

 

On the other hand Traumba Probe is a vacation ticket, and a Force-send for False Emperor, your friend will love it =)

 

I think I will start replacing some of those stats with more power to get a smoother healing output.

 

And about Hammer-Shot, it's about 1% EACH, so with no crits, 3%, but with crits it's closer to 5% of a character HP per GCD... ON THE RUN

[Suwa]

When I first hit 50, I started taking more alacrity than Crit/Surge, but it's definitely overrated. I've started getting more crit/surge (I think I'm ~38% crit, ~74% surge, and ~%16 alacrity self buffed right now), and hardmodes aren't bad at all - especially with a smuggler in the group.

 

 

I used to be something like ~23% alacrity, 62% surge, and only 28% crit, and that was awful. Surge and Crit seem to be much better, imo (though a little alacrity isn't bad.)

[Beyoncia]

I seriously don't get how ppl can prefer power over crit. Just do simple calculation. Every power gives you 0.17 to heal bonus. How much aditional power you'll have with only power "gems".

150-200, may be 250-300 with 56+ mods. 200 will give you 34 to heal bonus, 300 -51. Even for spells with 3.41 coefficient it's just 116(200)-173(300) heal increase. Does it safe anyone in raid? Absolutly not, while "aditional random" 2-3k crit can. No need to mention how much crit/surge/alacrity you losing, puting only power on you gear.

[Lorealin]

It depends on your level guys. If your main heals don't heal for that much and you don't have the access to 30% crit yet, than you should be stacking power. Surge will never have priority over crit (unless your crit is at 30%), because surge is the boost you'll get from crit. If you are never critting than surge is useless. Raw power is going to get you heals much larger than the few crits you'll get every now and again. When you get into raids, I'd say crit and surge is much more important. Once again I am currently t1.1-1.2 geared and I have NO issues healing, EVER (I have healed ALL of the Hard Mode Flashpoints). My main group is a shadow dps, sentinel dps and a guardian tank (guardians have a lot of buggy threat boosters, so I'm caught healing myself a lot as well and my dps are aggro pullers, because we fly through the runs anyway) You may not always be the one in the wrong as a healer. If your tank doesn't know what they are doing or your dps cant handle the damage well than they aren't playing their classes right. There are a lot of interuptable moves that some mobs/bosses do that reduces a lot of damage to the tank and/or group. My dps are prior pvpers and are used to popping defensive cooldowns when they pull aggro if need be. A skilled team makes up for any undergearing.

 

So new 50:

Aim > power (you're choice on this one)

either crit > surge > alacrity

or alacrity (until medical probe has a really short cast)

 

Geared 50:

Aim > Crit (30%) > Surge > Alacrity

 

I personally don't like depending on the luck of crits. From experience power has done better fror me, but I also haven't been to Nightmares or Raids yet. Yay for low populated servers!

 

I agree with that statement about not liking on depending on crits.

Most of the time during pulls up to the boss i'm using hammer shot and kolto grenades etc.. That extra power does help a lot. I think the 30% crit is a good measure.

 

I'm at 34% now and my surge is at about 74% with no Hard Mode gear on yet (not very lucky yet). My server has basically no one running hard modes. Like basically 2 guilds.

 

I get alacrity from gear out the rear...so i'm certianly not going to re-mod my power out for alacrity just yet. Once I get some nice HM piece I will look to boosting alacrity a bit.

 

Thanks!

[Lorealin]

Ok so I ran through Traval V and Maelstrom Prison Hard Modes last night with my changes to emphasize more Power and Surge with a reasonable crit 30%.

 

Awesome!

 

Previously because I was an early 50 and under geared a bit it was basically like throwing band aids at my group really fast. Because my power was so low albeit my bonus healing I was running out of cells (alacrity) to no affect.

 

I made the changes previously mentioned (removed my AIM/Crit and Aim/Alacrity) mods and purchased and or found more (Aim/Power/Surge).

 

The results were impressive. Some of the fights if you have under geared DPS are harder to finish but i'm not having issues prior to enrage.

 

I am a biochem so I was fortunate enough to get the two biochem blue mats to make my Rakata Aim Stim Epic and my Rakata Medipac Epic. I was thinking of getting the Alacrity Adrenaline for those burst ones but I will just pick those up later.

 

The Rakata Medipac is Nuts. I really don't have to waste cells on my self anymore...its the never ending 3750 to 4750 heal with a 15 sec +15% max health. (note: there is a 90 sec cool down)

 

My Crit is now 35%

My Crit Multiplier is now 74%

My Alacrity speed is now 7%

My Bonus Heals are now +450

 

I highly recommend the biochem crew skill and picking up the Rakata Reflex stim. The Epic Rakata Reflex stim is like +136 Aim and +52 power for 2hrs and the stim is never consumed on use.

 

One other side note...

if you are fortunate enough to have say a Jedi Guardian and Jedi Shadow (Kentic/tank) everything goes pretty smooth. So were taking down all the hardmodes pretty fast because the Jedi Shadow Kenetic does a great dps and can OT. The Shadow's dodge and block is so good for most trash pulls I can just throw my shield ("trama probe") on him and focus on the MT Jedi Guardian.

Edited January 26, 2012 by Lorealin

[Beyoncia]

You can't even imagene how fast is zones with guardian, gunslinger and 2 commando:) Who need OT, if most mobs dies before geting closer. And bosses is just explode with all that armor debuffs.

[Lorealin]

LOL

 

Yeah so we have 2 troopers one gunner and me

2 Jedi a Shadow-kinetic and Guardian

 

The dual Jedi buffs are amazing

 

Its pretty awesome.

 

We are going to start our Operations shortly. We have a sage and gunslinger etc...

Trooper dps is nuts. But I think gunslinger is even higher right now.

Edited January 26, 2012 by Lorealin

[Lorealin]

I'd have to say I stack my stats in this order by priority:

 

Aim > Power > Alacrity > Crit > Surge > Cunning (datacrons)

 

I have been healing hard modes since I first hit 50. I have had no issues and I have completed ALL of them including bonus bosses. Alacrity shortens all CDs including GCD. I heal so well that I can DPS at times during boss fights.

 

[x] I keep Trauma Probe on tank.

[x] Use Kolto Bomb (AOE heal) on those taking damage on CD (boosts healing by 10%, provides 10% armor boost when using Supercharge Cells)

[x] Always keep my Supercharge stacks at 30 (using Hammer Shot and will spam Medical Probe once or twice if Adv. Medical Probe is on CD and Hammer Shot isn't healing enough)

[x] Use Supercharge Cells at 30 stacks (Kolto Bomb Shields, Adv. Medical Probe temporarily has no CD)

[x] I make use of my Shield, Self Heal and Threat Reducer when getting attacked hard

[x] Make use of Reserve Powercell (removes ammo cost for a skill), Tech Override (auto cast on castable skill), Recharge Cells (recharge ammo)

[x] Make use of Concussion Charge (push), Cyro Grenade (short CC), Concussive Round (long CC)

 

I just re-read this section again.

So using Super Cells in addition to increasing heals makes Adv. Med Probe no cool down instant cast? That is fresh as a bucket of garden carrots. awesome