Can anyone tell me why we were nerfed? (Combat Medic).

[MagnitudeZero]

Hey, I quit this game in January, and came back a little over two weeks ago.

 

I raided and PvP'ed in pretty much equal amounts - 10/10 NM, and Valour 50 with full Champ (Valour 50 was harder to get than it is now). I always felt that Combat Medic was in a pretty good spot, and it was really fun to play.

 

But since coming back I have felt quite underwhelmed with Commando healing, mainly the ammo management. Maybe I was looking at it the way frost mages look at themselves in another game (There's nothing wrong with us, if anything we need buffing - I own so much because of my mad skill)., but I really felt that there was nothing wrong with the way our ammo worked - if you played well you'd never go oom, for serious spike healing situations there's always recharge cells. A bad player could still oom himself on a Commando, and in PvP it was almost a certainty that I would go oom at some point.

 

But now, it's not "if", but "when" I go out of ammo. There is no fighting it, however good you play you just go out of ammo. Usually fast and sometimes quite early on dependent on how special the dps are feeling that evening. PvP I can't really comment on, I'm still pretty much in full champ, and the prevalence of people playing Jedi Knights/Sith Marauders makes me not want to gear my Commando up, considering our weakness against anything that comes within 5 miles of us.

 

Maybe I could understand A nerf to one ability, test the water see how it changes our playstyle, maybe try and keep us on our toes a little bit more re:resource management. As I understand our nerfs are Trauma Probe costing two ammo instead of none, Supercharge cells restoring one ammo instead of two, and AMP reducing the cost of MP by one instead of two.

 

All that, really? We weren't even the strongest healers to begin with, and now it seems as though we're at the bottom of the pile. I think the mass exodus of people leaving the Commando class as a whole shows that. Seeing another Combat Medic is a pretty rare thing.

 

And then we had that joke of a talent applied in 1.4, Frontline Medic - cheers for freeing up two talent points to allow me to get the 4% dmg reduction. It's like they're completely ignorant to how the class is played.

 

So yeah back to the original question - what was our crime that we were nerfed so harshly?

[SpaniardInfinity]

The nerf, I think, was due to the effectiveness in PvP under the expertise curve. Basically, if you didn't nerf Combat Medic and introduced the new expertise curve in 1.2, this is what you'd have (once fully geared):

 

Expertise: +14% healing bonus/20% damage reduction/25% damage bonus

Supercharged Cells: +10% healing done while active

Kolto Residue: +5% healing receive

Defense Screen (the Supercharged Kolto Bomb): +10% damage reduction

From skill tree (depending on build): +11% healing received naturally though passives

 

With all of those buffs, we would have been able to break even on the PvP Trauma debuff (-30% healing received) and be the only healer capable of doing it. In other words, we would be able to heal at full power, as though it were a PvE instance. I do believe this would have been utterly overpowered if left unchanged.

 

With that said, I still don't understand the nerf to ammo management for Combat Medics. Reducing the effectiveness of our buffs and their synergy means you are healing for less which demands that you heal more frequently for the same effect. Thus, you are less ammo efficient naturally. On top of that, they nerfed Field Triage and seemingly out of nowhere, increased the cost of Trauma Probe significantly, while making Supercharge return less ammo than before. This makes the resource pool even tighter to manage. As I've said before, when you really start getting geared (late on the gear curve), you do reach a point where you hit hard enough that you can be ammo efficient, but that happens after LeveL 50 for the most part and its very unforgiving to newcomers/lowbie Combat Medics. I don't think I'd be wrong to say that Combat Medic has the highest skill floor (difficulty in picking up a class) of any of the healers. The nerfs to ammo management -- which I think took it a step too far -- only raised it even higher.

[SPrime]

Healing in general was nerfed. To be honest here, it was. Commando healing was easy mode. Supercharge AMP to MP was a game breaker. Working that hard you essentially were hitting your big heal every other heal. Was it awesome?? Yes it was. With the adjustments, I would argue that it would make you a better player. To me it is still a viable advance class in PVE and PVP. When I first heard about the Nerf I too was up in arms. But came to realization that it was needed.

[Jenzali]

The PvP balance between healers is very good right now, with Commandos being the most sturdy and having the highest single-target burst. Quite frankly, pre-1.2 Commando healers were god mode that didn't require much management of resources at all.

[Apothis_]

The PvP balance between healers is very good right now.

 

WHAT! Were did you come up with this hypothesis, for us mandos/mercs when were full BM we can find it hard to pull off a 5K heal in some wz's, and probably at the end we would be looking at 3-400k maybe 500 on a good day. Where as take an operative/scoundrel in recruit gear they can get 5K heals nice and easy on people with both trauma debuffs and by the end of the wz pull a nice 700k consistantly, IN RECRUIT BY THE SAME PERSON. Now tell me were is the balance in that. If anything operatives and scoundrel healers need to be hit with a nerf batton.

[SpaniardInfinity]

WHAT! Were did you come up with this hypothesis.

 

It might have been in the other three sentences he wrote, namely that the class is best at single-target healing (especially on tanks/heavy armor wearers) and has best survivability amongst the healers.

 

or us mandos/mercs when were full BM we can find it hard to pull off a 5K heal in some wz's, and probably at the end we would be looking at 3-400k maybe 500 on a good day. Where as take an operative/scoundrel in recruit gear they can get 5K heals nice and easy on people with both trauma debuffs and by the end of the wz pull a nice 700k consistantly, IN RECRUIT BY THE SAME PERSON.

 

The reason Scoundrels and Sages can put up better numbers is this: both have ways to inflate their numbers. All of those bubbles that are put on teammates by Sages count as healing done; all of those HoTs Scoundrels have up are always ticking and are great ways of keeping those numbers up. Commandos don't have a realistic way of putting up gawdy numbers, but you don't need to. As a Trooper healer you are awful at group healing but are really strong healing a single target. Plus (at least for Sages), they realistically have less downtime than the other healers (I know for a fact that Trooper healers need to fill in every other heal with a lesser heal if they plan on healing long-term, and I think Smuggler is much the same way).

 

Now tell me were is the balance in that.

 

Balance is quite subjective, but it usually means that you excel in a field where the others are weak. Namely, survivability.

 

Have you ever paid attention to your effective HP as a Commando (that is, the average amount of damage it takes to kill you, so damage taken/deaths)? You should notice that the number is quite high, from scoreboard-watching, its usually above 100k for Combat Medics. Compare that to Sages, for instance, who have way more deaths but often less damage taken. Their effective HP is usually more like 50k. In other words, you can kill two Sages in the time it takes to kill one Commando. Surprisingly enough, that's also why they tend to get focused first (because if the Commando is all that's left, they will be very weak at group healing).

 

If anything operatives and scoundrel healers need to be hit with a nerf batton.

 

Based on the example you've given, no, Scoundrels don't need a nerf. None of the healers do. They all have very clear strengths and weaknesses and all of them require a unique playstyle and mindset.

 

Also, the scoreboard is a terrible way of guaging "balance" between classes and specs. Some classes are flatout built to be scoreboard heroes. There are plenty of stats and variables that don't show up on scoreboards that have a massive impact on gameplay and balance, like team compositions, support, skill; among others.

[Apothis_]

It might have been in the other three sentences he wrote, namely that the class is best at single-target healing (especially on tanks/heavy armor wearers) and has best survivability amongst the healers.

 

If were best at single target healing then why does are biggest heal crit for less than the other AC's biggest heal?

 

Also armour counts for pretty much nothing in pvp since every class has an armour penetrating debuff. Also if i wanted to play a class with high survivability i would play a tank not a healer, if i play a healer i expect to heal not tank damage which is what you seem to be implying. Plus mercs/mandos have a lower survivability due to the fact we cant escape and our heals heal for less and cost more of our resource bar. As well we have no way of healing ourselves with out paying heat/ammo due to the fact we can't perform rapid shot on ourselves.

[SpaniardInfinity]

If were best at single target healing then why does are biggest heal crit for less than the other AC's biggest heal?.

 

It depends on how you build your character. I think all the healers are right around the same neighborhood in single highest heal. I've seen excess of 6k crits on Commando healer, so it comes down to RNG, surge rating, the buffs on your target, etc. There's a lot of variables that come into play on a highest hit, and I've seen all three healers break 6k under the right circumstance. So in terms of raw numbers, I don't think there is enough of a difference to justify a nerf.

 

Also armour counts for pretty much nothing in pvp since every class has an armour penetrating debuff. Also if i wanted to play a class with high survivability i would play a tank not a healer, if i play a healer i expect to heal not tank damage which is what you seem to be implying. Plus mercs/mandos have a lower survivability due to the fact we cant escape and our heals heal for less and cost more of our resource bar. As well we have no way of healing ourselves with out paying heat/ammo due to the fact we can't perform rapid shot on ourselves

 

Armor has a massive impact in PvP, trust me. Sure, a lot goes through armor and has armor pen, but I think we can both agree that heavy armor is better than light armor. I mean, if you couldn't survive burst on a Commando, you weren't going to survive it on Sage or Smuggler either.

 

As for being a tank-healer, its the way the class mechanically plays. I guess if you don't like that fact, you are playing the wrong healing archtype. I think it makes a lot of sense for a healer in heavy armor that struggles with group heals. You'd expect them to be able to take a beating and heal a single target quite well, even if that means yourself. But the viability of a healer with high survivability might not appeal to every one or every team, but I think we can agree to disagree there.

 

The lack of an escape mechanic justifies our tankability. If we were as squishy as a Sage with our current skillset, Commando would be woefully underpowered. But it's not. It's just harder to manage because it's an unorthodox playstyle. The numbers on the heals really aren't that bad unless you are undergeared (your BI should be your second strongest heal; Kolto Bomb should be hitting for a minimum of 1k and critting for upwards of 3k; and AMP should be narrowing in a hitting for 2k guaranteed) or prioritizing stats wrong (alacrity is a big culprit, you don't need it). If either of those is the case, it would explain why you are having a challenge healing since the resource pool doesn't really allow for under-healing.

 

Last but not least is self-healing, which has been allievated somewhat by the new functionality of Trauma Probe. It isn't nearly as strong as a self-Hammershot, but it is nice. I do agree it costs too much ammo/heat, especially in a healing-intensive phase (I almost always prefer to heal through burst than try to cushion it with a Trauma Probe, it just isn't cost-effective presently with its ammo cost). With that said, there are a few ways to avoid this problem by carefully managing your ammo and cooldowns.

[KeyboardNinja]

Sigh…

 

For the record, Medical Probe is *exactly* the same heal as Underworld Medicine from a mechanical standpoint. The engine treats both abilities identically, except for the animation.

 

To the more general point. Commando healers were nerfed in 1.2 because they were *way* overpowered. They were basically unkillable in PvP when well played, and far far too efficient in PvE (like Sages). The 1.2 nerfs seemed heavy handed, but now that we've had a chance to see the results, I think they were actually pretty good changes. I play a commando medic, and I've healed over a wide variety of content (including HM TFB). I do find it to be more challenging, technically, than the other two healers, but not actually gimped. The maximum potential sustainable output from a commando healer is just as good as the other two healers (combat logs prove this), it just requires more skill to get there.

 

I don't run out of ammo except intentionally. You just need to know how to manage it. Trauma Probe was a really big change. It's still an insanely important heal, but it has an immediacy tradeoff associated with it that it didn't before 1.2. The change to SCC hurt, but the main strategy behind popping it still remains: need for immediate burst healing without burning out of ammo. The changes to the proc on MP result in more ammo usage overall (a LOT more), and this in turn means you need to be more aggressive about using BI and vastly more conscious of your ammo management, especially during SCC burns.

 

That's in PvE, where I have no trouble matching or exceeding the output of equally geared scoundrels and sages. In PvP, I feel like a god among men. Seriously, commando medics are border-line OP in PvP post 1.4. A geared commando healer is hardly unkillable, but you're really going to have to focus to do it. I've had matches where someone is beating on me the *whole* time, while I'm both keeping myself up and tossing heals out to the rest of the team. I can even do this when the DPS in my face has superior gear (in this case, augmented War Hero vs my augmented Battlemaster), though it's a lot harder and I generally need to kite them off within 20-ish seconds.

 

The auto-trigger TP heal is really, really nice, and it gives us a way to seriously kite under pressure, whereas before we had to just hunker down and take it. Between that, BI, KB and TO, I am sufficiently mobile to kite opponents like snipers and sufficiently survivable to live through opponents like marauders. And then there's the snare… (yay, voidstar!)

 

I do rather envy the mobility of scoundrels, especially in Huttball, but I don't feel like it poses too much of an issue for me. I just have a different role in the fight. In Huttball, I'm getting the ball carrier out of mid and ensuring they're topped off for the scoundrel (who should be ahead) or sage (who should be pulling). I would also be supporting the DPS as they clear things out. In any other match, my job is to a) stay alive, b) off-heal the melee DPS, and c) keep the second healer alive, who will be doing the bulk of the group healing. That's it. That is the role that commando medics play in warzones, and I can tell you right now that our class is perfectly well suited to that role, even in ranked.

 

For the record, I regularly get heals in excess of 500k in a warzone. 400k is basically a low minimum. If I fall below that, it generally means that I spent a lot of time on objective-oriented tasks (e.g. guarding a node in CW or kiting away over-zealous enemy DPS). I *do* run out of ammo in PvP, but that's ok. I generally do it on purpose, since PvP fights are so burst-heavy. I know the timing of my cooldowns, and I almost never burn myself out without a plan to get back up again.

 

I'm not trying to be boastful or make anyone feel sub-par. Just trying to give some encouragement to anyone who wants to give CM a chance. I am *not* the best commando healer on my server, or even on my faction. Not by a long shot. There are several who achieve far better results than I can. If even I am able to achieve all the above, imagine what the class can do in the hands of a truly skilled player?

 

Don't worry about the 1.2 nerfs. They basically turned CM into a very different class from what it was pre-1.2. So, you have to do a bit of relearning, but trust me, it's worth it.