Mercenary/Commando Healing suggestions for Game Update 2.4

[Akam]

With Game Update 2.4 coming soon, I think it's about time Mercenary/Commando's receive some attention in both PvE & PvP. For the longest time, we have had the overall worst representation as healers and that is just sad, considering we have the most unique play style. Sure, Game update 2.0 was a great start to our overall healing capability, but it's a far cry from the potential we SHOULD be able to achieve. Even played at the highest skill level and gear set up, we far short as compared to the other 2 healer classes with skill that could be defined as average and even worse gear.

 

I propose the following suggestions to bring this class/role more in line with the other 2 classes as well as explain why I think they should be included. The names are universal and I'll leave it to yours and the imagination of the game designers to come up with names based on mercenary/commando faction respectively.

 

• Dual Life Support - Places a DLS on a targeted friendly player for X amount of seconds. While affected by Dual life Support, this target will also benefit from 50% of any heal received by another group/raid member. Costs: 25 heat Cooldown: 3 minutes
  

This ability functions much like the Paladins ability "Beacon of Light" in World of Warcraft. Since the staple of Mercenary/Commando healing is single target healing, despite Kolto Missile/Bomb is our strongest heal, it makes sense to add this ability to further enhance that aspect of our play style

 

 

• Bodyguard - Jumps to a friendly target, immediately resetting the cool down on Emergency Scan but increases the heat cost by X. In addition, if the Target is below 30% HP, the chance to critically hit on Emergency Scan is increased by 100%.
  

How many times have you felt like Emergency scan was an absolute amazing ability but sometimes felt lack luster? How many times have you been in a position where a group/raid member was about to die and you wanted to try and save them but the time it would take to get a heal off didn't line up with the amount of time they were going to die and emergency scan was already used? You want to save them but you don't have that "OH*****" button.

 

• Power Surge (redesigned) - In addition to it's current effect, for X seconds after the charged is consumed, you may freely move and cast abilities that would otherwise require you to be stationary.
  

 

Nobody is asking the Mercenary/Commando to play like an operative/scoundrel but movement is one of our core issues, and is a reason whey ops/scoundrel overly excel in movement heavy fights which is to say....all nightmare modes LOL We need some help in that regard in order to be effective as a healer.

 

That's it for now. At a later time, I will be going over our talent tree and offer suggestions as to what I think should be changed, what's good and should be kept. Please feel free to comment on the above mentioned suggestions and or add your own list to the pile. Let's bring this issue to the developers and let them know (if they don't already) that we love this class and just want to see it perform well as a healer!

[idnewton]

I don't see much of an issue with any of these suggestions. Certain abilities or effects might have to be balanced so as to prevent this class from becoming impossibly overpowered, but these suggestions are of good quality. I will also suggest, as I did a while back on another merc heals thread, that we be given a passive somewhat similar to the operative's, to help with our heat issues:

 

Kolto Coolant

Passive

0/3

While in Combat Support Cylinder, critically healing an

ally with Rapid shots has a (33%/67%/100%) chance to

vent 2 heat.

That, or:

Kolto Coolant

Passive

0/2

While in Combat Support Cylinder, critically healing

an ally with Rapid shots has a (50%/100%) chance

to vent 2 heat.

Edited August 23, 2013 by idnewton

[Hxxr]

With the global +15% Surge talent that makes critical chance uniquely strong for Bodyguards, why not give Mercenaries a more unique way to regenerate resources than to cover the tried and proven Operative Version.

I would prefer to see something that works the same way, but with an unique twist to add more flavor.

 

How about:

Kolto Coolant

0/2

Every critical heal builds one stack of Kolto Coolant. This can only happen once every 1.5 seconds.

Once 4 stacks are reached you will vent 8 heat over 2 seconds, during which no new stacks of Kolto Coolant may be gained.

 

This would also interacts nicely with multihit heals (Rapid Shots, healing residue effects) and Kolto Shell.

 

 

In addition some adjustments to the following wouldn't hurt.

Emergency Scan cooldown - could be reduced by using other skills eg. Rapid Shots and/or Kolto Missile.

Power Surge stacks and cooldown.

Thermal Sensory Override stacks and cooldown.

 

ps: I stole your name, because it's really spot on for what this kind of talent does. :>

Edited August 24, 2013 by Hxxr

[Rambeezy]

Kolto pods should heal for A LOT more when used on less people.

 

Rapid scan shouldn't cost 25 HEAT! 21 or 20 would make more sense.

 

There's nothing wrong with SGC.

[PhatMcMuffins]

Also,

 

Stop making us spend 3 useless points just to buff kolto shell

 

Change Supercharged Gas. Who cares if we can use unload and power shot for free? we're supposed to be healing. Make it increase the crit chance and/or bonus of heals for the duration.

 

The other suggested ideas here in this thread are brilliant

[Akam]

Kolto pods should heal for A LOT more when used on less people.

 

Rapid scan shouldn't cost 25 HEAT! 21 or 20 would make more sense.

 

There's nothing wrong with SGC.

 

Not sure I agree with Kolto Pods healing for more. It's already super good regardless of 8 or 16 mans, although the zero cap limit makes it superior in 16 vs 8 mans. However, I think all mercenary/commandos can agree that the current Nightmare mode mechanics require ALOT of movement, making the current radius on kolto residue...painfully obvious

 

I would suggest increasing the radius so we can worry less (not completely) about someone moving out of the area of effect and still be smart about where we place it to begin with.

 

I believe the heat cost of rapid scan is fine in combination with Healing Scan.

 

Agreed. Nothing wrong with SGC. I used to hate the fact that SGC had offensive abilities tied in with it. However, new nightmare modes makes me glad it does.

[DkSharktooth]

I support all buffs to this healing class.

[Akam]

I don't see much of an issue with any of these suggestions. Certain abilities or effects might have to be balanced so as to prevent this class from becoming impossibly overpowered, but these suggestions are of good quality. I will also suggest, as I did a while back on another merc heals thread, that we be given a passive somewhat similar to the operative's, to help with our heat issues:

 

 

That, or:

 

While I've never agreed with Mercenary/Commando healers needing help with heat management as our heat dissipation is fine when played right...it's a valid argument to suggest some kind of passive like you did that helps with our dissipation when OTHER players screw up. We should not be resource starved for a mistake that is effectively out of our control.

[Akam]

Also,

 

Stop making us spend 3 useless points just to buff kolto shell

 

Change Supercharged Gas. Who cares if we can use unload and power shot for free? we're supposed to be healing. Make it increase the crit chance and/or bonus of heals for the duration.

 

The other suggested ideas here in this thread are brilliant

 

I would hardly call the 3 points in "Bodyguard" useless. Tell me, how is + 15% healing on Kolto Shell, 3 extra charges and a reduced rate limit useless? Kolto Shell is so much better now than it was pre 2.0.

 

While unload and power shot is situational, and while I can agree that this effect would be better served fully buffing our arsenal of heals instead of 50/50, The current nightmare modes require healers to do a little bit of DPS (especially if your guild or raid is just starting out in either of the two instances) and having that talent allows us to throw buffed heals and do free DPS at the same time.

 

Also, SCG already buffs the bonus to our healing by 5% for the entire duration....not sure how you missed that.

[PhatMcMuffins]

I would hardly call the 3 points in "Bodyguard" useless. Tell me, how is + 15% healing on Kolto Shell, 3 extra charges and a reduced rate limit useless? Kolto Shell is so much better now than it was pre 2.0.

 

While unload and power shot is situational, and while I can agree that this effect would be better served fully buffing our arsenal of heals instead of 50/50, The current nightmare modes require healers to do a little bit of DPS (especially if your guild or raid is just starting out in either of the two instances) and having that talent allows us to throw buffed heals and do free DPS at the same time.

 

Also, SCG already buffs the bonus to our healing by 5% for the entire duration....not sure how you missed that.

 

We're talking about 2 different things. I'm talking about the 2 (yes, i accidentally said 3) points in Peacekeeper that are required to put the 3 points into bodyguard.

 

I also asked for an increase to crit and/or bonus healing from crits. not sure if you missed that. 5% is not enough to call it good.

 

This is all from a PVP perspective so dps is never my prerogative. If I'm popping SCG, its to get more heals off.

Edited August 29, 2013 by PhatMcMuffins

[BigDumbViking]

Just brainstorming some ideas...

 

Make Kolto pods stick to any ally who runs through the residue, so the HOT will tick on them if they get pulled from the area.

 

Replace the Bodyguard talent with something that will give Kolto shell the ability to be cast on multiple targets.

 

Make Kolto Shell healing speed up if target is below 30%.

 

Make power surge reset the CD's on Emergency Scan, Healing Scan, and Kolto Overload.

 

 

I also love the idea of doing something with rapid shots... they could be made more powerful and would really help us out while on the move.

[Rambeezy]

I think our own form of "beacon of light" could go a long way. Not sure kolto missile would reward 50% without being over powered. All our other moves would work fine at 50%. Rapid scan cost too much heat to not reward 50%. Healing scan and emergency scan have pretty long CDs so it would be dumb if they didn't reward 50%. Kolto missile is my priority move so it would have to reward some ammount. Maybe KM could reward 20%. Gonna guess that would be around 6k on average.

 

Possible healing increase with buff:

 

Kolto missile average would be about 6k.

Rapid scan average would be around 3k

Healing scan average would be around 2.5k

Emergency scan average would be around 2.5k

 

It's hard to get an accurate number with the cd on healing scan and emergency scan has a long cd that its almost not worth factoring in for this buff. Theres also lag, downtime, and many other factors tha cant be determined. But taking everything into account from an average(RNG), a beacon would raise our hps by at least 1000. Maybe even as high as 1900. This number is based off a 300 second fight. Healing scan and rapid scan are both cast every 9 seconds. Emergency scan every 21 seconds. Kolto missile every 6 seconds. Etc. rapid shots was not factored in though. Troll if you want but I like the beacon idea more than anything. I also like the "dual life support" name.

Edited August 29, 2013 by Rambeezy

[cashogy_reborn]

Posted this in the commando forums a while back:

 

Combat Medic

- Field Training -> changed to the following: "Increases ranged/tech critical chance by 2/4/6%"

- Supercharge cells -> Now restores 16 energy cells (up from 8)

- Field Medicine -> add following effect: "Healing an ally with Hammershot now has a 100% chance to heal you for 25/50% of your bonus healing and recharge 1/2 energy cells"

- Field Triage -> add following effect: "Advanced Medical Probe has a 33/66/100% chance to make the next Medical Probe immune to interrupts. This effect cannot occur more than once every 12s"

- Treated Wound Dressings -> add following effect: "Emergency Medical Probe has a 50/100% chance to activate instantly"

- Med Zone -> add following effect: "In addition, critical results with healing effects reduce the active cooldown of Reactive Shield by 3s. This effect cannot occur more than once every 6s"

- Armor Screen -> change to following effect: "Preventative Medicine now also increases damage reduction by 5% while active"

- *Swap Probe Medic and Frontline Medic talent box positions*

- Probe Medic -> change to the following effect: "Increases the healing done by Trauma Probe by 5/10/15 percent, increases its upper limit by 1/2/3, and reduces its rate limit by .33/.67/1.00 seconds. In addition, healing from Trauma Probe has a 33/67/100 percent chance to grant Rapid Bacta Deployment, which reduces the cooldown of your next Bacta Infusion by 100%. This effect cannot occur more than once every 10 seconds."

- Frontline Medic -> change to the following effect: "Increases the number of Trauma Probes that can be deployed at one time by 1/2. Also increases the maximum stack limit of Rapid Bacta Deployment by 1/2."

- Bacta Infusion -> change to following effect: "Heals a friendly target for <current weapon>. Using Bacta Infusion does not require Rapid Bacta Deployment, but will consume 1 stack whenever possible. When all stacks of Rapid Bacta Deployment are consumed, this ability goes on cooldown for 21 seconds"

[Wichahpi]

I agree there needs to be some changes to our healing class. We are currently not as good as the other 2 atm. I hope they do look more into this and some of the suggestions here sound really good but I don't think we want to be op either....

[PhatMcMuffins]

Posted this in the commando forums a while back:

 

I like this. It creates a lot of synergy in the tree that isn't there right now

[DkSharktooth]

wTb Odawgg, where you at broski? We need your help to get devs to address if this class will ever see a beam of light.

[PerinnAybara]

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Commando%2FMercenary%20Treatment&defid=7149007

[PhatMcMuffins]

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Commando%2FMercenary%20Treatment&defid=7149007

 

Well played, sir.

[TseTse]

(1) Make Emergency Scan so that it instantly crit when SCG is active, (2) also add another +2-3% healing received while Reactive Armor (HOT from our Healing Scan) is active.

 

This buffs will line up with the healing style of the class (single target), and I don't see anything that would make this changes OPed.

 

(3) Also increasing the heat venting by 8 (totaling 16) when we use SCG would be a nice change, 16 energy is barely a "free" Healing Scan or Rapid Scan (with Critical Efficiency) but it would help us a lot with our heat management.

Edited September 2, 2013 by TseTse

[PerinnAybara]

My two cents.

 

Make two charges of powersurge default.

 

Make our vent heat/energy cells give us 30 stacks of supercharged gas cylinder.

 

Give supercharged gas cylinder a 3% alacrity boost to address the reduction in effectiveness of alacrity on casts.

 

Make it so emergency scan also builds charges of Supercharged gas cylinder.

 

Swap the two talents the two point bodyguard talent and the 3 point 30% increased kolto shell heal talent. Make bodyguard allow us to rapid shot our selves.

 

Make crits reduce the cooldown of emergency scan by 1.5 seconds. Can only happen once every three seconds.

 

Make it so the 4 % damage reduction talent also makes us take reduced damage when we're stunned.

 

Have crits with our rapid shots vent 2 heat, gain 2 energy.

 

Make it so critical efficiency buff reduces the cast time of rapid scan from 2 seconds to 1.5 or 1 second.

 

Increase the duration of hold the line from 6 seconds to 10 seconds.

 

Make the dots from kolto bomb apply the slow in the area.

 

Make our knockback apply instantly like the commando knockback.

 

Make kolto bomb apply instantly.

 

Make kolto bomb's hot residue cling to people.

 

Make emergency scan grant us a buff, that let's us cast kolto shell for free, increase our next healing scan crit chance by 60%, make kolto bomb have a 50% chance to shoot two kolto bombs or reduce the cast time of rapid scan to 1 second or any other cast by half. Or increases our target's movespeed by 30% for four seconds.

 

Or make kolto shell pivotal to mercs. Make ticks of it reduce the cooldown of emergency scan. As well as grant us a stacking buff that does the same thing tracer lock, but to both healing scan and rapid scan. So each stack reduces the cast time of your next rapid/healing scan by 20%. Stacks up to 5 times.

 

Make supercharged gas cylinder grant us 10% alacrity and 30% pushback resistance. (so no pushback while it's up)

 

Make healing scan uninterruptible.

 

Give us a chaff flare talent that removes force effects from us (to counter crushing darkness from smashers.)

 

Increase the duration of energy shield to fifteen seconds, or change it to be like marauder's cloak of pain (talented increased duration version) Where if we take damage the duration is refreshed.

 

Make it so when we take damage, we aoe out a small amount of weak heals. Like 20% of damage dealt to us is redirected to the area as heals when we have a certain buff. Tie it to say chaff flare.

 

These are just some creative suggestions I have.

 

Make energy rebounder a low tier talent so all three mercs can have it.

[Delmyr]

1) Supercharge gives splash healing on rapid healing scan or a chain heal reduced by 50% per jump for up to two times never hitting the same target twice.

 

2) Reduce Kolto shell charges to 6-7 and Kolto shell can be used on unlimited targets

-Bodyguard no longer just adds charges. A target with your Kolto Shell when healed by your healing or rapid healing scan will gain 1 charge to a maximum of 2/3/4 or 2/4/6.

 

3) peacekeeper no longer consumes charges of Kolto Shell.

 

4)Emergency scan provides interrupt and push back immunity to your next healing or rapid healing scan

 

5) Emergency scan's cooldown is reduce by 1 sec every time you rapid shot