Combat Medic compared to other healers?

[varactylking]

I had always thought I would make a Jedi healer but then I discovered the option to be a combat medic. In comparison to the other healers, how do the combat medics measure up? Are they a fun and viable class for PvP, instances, and solo play? Or is there some kind of gimp I'm not seeing?

 

Thanks!!

[Miallen]

I had always thought I would make a Jedi healer but then I discovered the option to be a combat medic. In comparison to the other healers, how do the combat medics measure up? Are they a fun and viable class for PvP, instances, and solo play? Or is there some kind of gimp I'm not seeing?

 

Thanks!!

 

2 Medical Probes, Kolto Bomb area heal, Supercharged Cells, Trama Probe HoT, Bacta Infusion at the top of the tree, and the "OMG Kill Me" Beam. That's what you will be working with, and they are decent options.

 

It's fun for PvE (according to my fiancé) but if you are looking for something that has more impact in PvP, I'm not sold on Combat Medic yet.

[hadoken]

No gimp, different playstyle. You can't spam heals like you do with the Sage/Sorc because of our resource, and you don't have the hots that the Scoundrel/Operative have. But you do have reactive heals (trauma probe) and some really good burst (supercharged adv/med spam).

[varactylking]

Is there a better healing option?

[varactylking]

I came from medic in SWG, and the combat med. seemed like it could be loads of fun in PvP, and a good help to my guild. Or is it just a leaning cure kinda deal?

[Sylanaris]

I can tell you one thing, you will have plenty of time to do some serious DPS while healing =)

 

Things that work while you are pew-pewing:

 

Kolto-Bomb Residue: 5% increased healing, 10% damage reduction for 15 secs

Advanced Medicine: 10% target armor increase, Healing over time for 9 secs

Traumba Probe: Heals Target when takes damage (5 minutes or 10 charges)

[monimoni]

2 Medical Probes, Kolto Bomb area heal, Supercharged Cells, Trama Probe HoT, Bacta Infusion at the top of the tree, and the "OMG Kill Me" Beam. That's what you will be working with, and they are decent options.

 

It's fun for PvE (according to my fiancé) but if you are looking for something that has more impact in PvP, I'm not sold on Combat Medic yet.

 

You've obviously never seen a pro pvp as a combat medic. This dude just ... doesn't die...

and he always carries his teams.

 

http://www.twitch.tv/kiaskaria

[Miallen]

You've obviously never seen a pro pvp as a combat medic. This dude just ... doesn't die...

and he always carries his teams.

 

http://www.twitch.tv/kiaskaria

 

Now that is sweet! You're right, I've never seen anything like that.

[Negative]

You've obviously never seen a pro pvp as a combat medic. This dude just ... doesn't die...

and he always carries his teams.

 

http://www.twitch.tv/kiaskaria

 

I can speak from experience as well, it is extremely hard to kill me unless I am being focused by most of the team and they stun me at the correct times. Mot of the time people give up trying to kill me as a combat medic. In the beginning it is a little rough until you get higher level and get all the required talents and abilities.

[mfryder]

Medic is a viable option for pvp, instance, and soloing. You will find that the higher you go up in the medical tree the better healer you will become. You start off with two heals, medical probe a strong heal but long casting time and medium cost, and advanced medical probe, which is a medium heal fast cast low cost but long recast time. Now, without talents you will find that after 3-4 heals you will be out of ammo, which is what people complain about. However, you can talent advanced med probe to lower the cost of your med probe making it low cost. Now when you couple that eoth super-charged cells, which let's you cast adv med probe with out recast for 15 secs, you have some serious healing power with little cost, not to mention combat med cells + super- charged cells let you use your free attack to heal friends for free and build up charges. Now on top of that you can get a talent to make your adv. Med probe have a hot attached to it and talent that togive + 10 armor rating. Plus your aoe heal give a bonus +5 to healing for those in the residue + if you use it in supercharged mode, everyone hit by aoe heal gets 10% dmg reeduction. I think we are highly viable. If you go combat med. I highly suggest taking the cybertech tradeskill, our tank guy is a Droid and you can trip him out with the best Droid gear. I solo boss mobs easily. Anyways, hope that gives you a good look at combat medic.

[AcerLerxt]

Well, count me among the dissenters.

 

I was in the top 10 on my server to hit 50 as a commando (#4 i think). PvP'd as heals from the moment I hit 50.

 

My problem wasn't so much keeping people alive as it was utility. I saw the writing on the wall, and have benched my commando to reroll as a sage.

 

My reasoning:

 

I prefer having a ranged interrupt, an instant CC (with talents), a spammable 1.5 sec heal, a reliable instant snare, and a lifegrip (friendly target pull) over having none of those. Also, I feel that the sage shield > commando shield in terms of overall mitigation over time, availability, and of course, the option to throw it on someone else.

 

And, I feel the sage's short term gap opener (force speed) is greatly superior to the commando's if spec'd (knockback on stockstrike).

 

yeah, kolto bomb, trauma probe, and bacta infusion are great tools. But, they just help me keep people alive, something I was already pretty capable at. The ability to CC and interrupt faster and more reliably, cover ground, get teammates out of bad positions, etc is worth a lot more to me.

 

So, sadly, my level 50 commando with his multiple pieces of purple pvp gear gathers dust, while I regrind.

[Dark_Rift]

anyone got a spec to share? I'm curious to see what people are working with

[Dark_Rift]

anyone got a spec to share? I'm curious to see what people are working with

[varactylking]

This is good stuff! Anyone discovered anything further?

[Jabatheruss]

Yes, you can heal and do well as a commando. However, if you were a sage/sorc you would be doing much better.

 

The lack of utility is my biggest gripe. That and how freaking weak hammer shot heal is. It is almost not even worth using it because all it does is put a huge bull's eye on you. It leaves much to be desired.

 

The main upside I see is that I rarely ran out of ammo unless I am trying to put out some damage. You stay above 50% ammo and you regen a good bit of the cost during the cast. Then again, I have no idea how resources are for other healers.

 

I would love hammer shot heal made more appealing and useful. Perhaps hide the beam to enemies, but visible so that your team sees it. I love the graphic of a beam healing and really want it to be more.

 

Not crazy about Kolto being an aoe targeted heal. I see it's value, but I would rather have it work like a grenade. Better yet, both. Not like there are a lot of choices for heals.

 

Oh ya, an interrupt would be great. That or a ranged snare, or better, both.

Edited December 31, 2011 by Jabatheruss

[DrDismemberment]

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

[Kenmuir]

Commando is a weak healer, mostly because they can't really heal more than one target at a time. The lack of HOTs, which both the other healers have, lack of CC, both other healers have a movement speed buff and Sage can even cast one on allies, and a lack of an in combat rez, really destroys CM's PvE viablity. And of course the completely unforgiving resource mechanic that Troopers have compared to Scoundrel and especially Sage. And an awful design of a talent tree, it just means everything you do with a Combat Medic you could do much better had you rolled a Scoundrel or Sage.

[DaveYanakov]

Commando is a weak healer, mostly because they can't really heal more than one target at a time. The lack of HOTs, which both the other healers have, lack of CC, both other healers have a movement speed buff and Sage can even cast one on allies, and a lack of an in combat rez, really destroys CM's PvE viablity. And of course the completely unforgiving resource mechanic that Troopers have compared to Scoundrel and especially Sage. And an awful design of a talent tree, it just means everything you do with a Combat Medic you could do much better had you rolled a Scoundrel or Sage.

 

I've actually been seeing the opposite. Scoundrels are great at spike healing but combat medics have enough mitigation abilities to throw on top of their specced HOTs that they can cycle very easily between two or three targets, whether that be for healing or dps, without ever having to worry about ammo usage as long as you're even a little bit skilled at its management. It's a very easy style of healing to pick up as well. I was healing flashpoints within fifteen minutes of respeccing from gunnery and getting compliments for it.

[Sheridyn]

Commando healing does not scale particularly well to a raiding environment. One problem is that Kolto Grenade, our AoE heal, only hits up to 3 targets. A Jedi Sage's AoE heal hits everyone in the radius. If you've seen Soa (last boss in Eternity Vault), having at least one Sage is pretty much mandatory for the transition phases.

 

The other problem - a big problem in my book - is that the Commando doesn't get a combat rez. Anyone who has a full healer spec should have access to a combat rez, yet Commando healers do not, and DPS spec Sages/Scoundrels do.

 

Commando healing is very easy to pick up and there's pretty much zero complexity to the class. Spam (Advanced) Medical Probe, pop Supercharge when you need to top people up with AMP, use Kolto Grenade when it's off cooldown. But mostly just stand there spamming Medical Probes.

[Xtapolapodon]

I played a Sage healer til level 23, and my Combat Medic Commando is currently 30. I went in this game wanting to play Sage, but after playing it... It felt like every MMO healer ever. Not necessarily a bad thing, mind you, but I got kinda bored.

 

Enter Commando. The playstyle for it is far different from Sage, and I couldn't be having more fun with it. The healing beam is fun (Ghostbusters! Or TF2, I guess), and your two Probes do most of the work. Kolto Bomb is a nice little AoE heal with a (if specced for it) buff to healing and even minor damage shield.

 

As with any healer, you need to watch your resources. It can seem weird to only have a maximum of 12 mana in a fight, but when things go well, I never come close to emptying it. It felt like my Sage was constantly going low on mana and in a panic. Such situations almost never happen on my Commando.

 

Combat Medic for life!

[DrManse]

I'm curious for more info on people that post "Sage/Scoundrel rock healing Combat Medics are worse". Have they played both classes to a decent level? If so, what did you find that was a serious issue with the medics?

 

I'm playing a 28 medic now and was recently gunnery. I'm not too familiar with how the sage/scoundrel resources work but I tell you from experience that if you pace yourself (ie fit hammershot into your rotation), watch your cell regen, and pick your targets carefully you'll never run out of heals. No joke. 30 second fight or 30 minute fight my medic will be there healing at the same pace. The only question is if that steady output can keep the team up. From my experience in PvE, Heroics, and flashpoints at my level the answer is yes.

[ndruo]

TL;DR: Other classes drop heal bombs. We drop heal ICBMs.

 

Here is my planned level 50 spec, designed with pure PVE in mind. I plan on putting together gear with high Surge and Surge Rating as opposed to Alacrity. Alacrity is nice, but I'm a little worried about how it might affect ammo usage and conservation. Besides, if all we do is restore health in chunks at a time, then I want to be able to do so in such a way that makes other healers go "day-ummmmmmmmmmmmm"

 

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#800rfRMR0cdkqZrcoZb.1

 

The role a combat medic fills is that of a tank/melee healer. The Sawbones does great at multi-target healing, and the sage's shield is GREAT mitigation, but if you need to have one person's life bar filled RTFN, I don't believe that anyone does it better than a Combat Medic with Field Triage.

 

The Combat Medic's supercharged AMP/MP combo for 1-2 total ammo (after accounting for ammo regen) has got to be the highest, most spammable healing in the game, bar none, for the ten seconds you're supercharged. This, combined with the damage mitigation afforded by a Supercharged Kolto Bomb and a 0-cost Bacta Infusion make the Combat Medic the best "oh sh*t" healer in the game.

 

What it looks like to me, is that the combat medic doesn't really come into its own as a healing class until you get really deep into the tree (level 30+) allowing you to do your AMP/MP combo for around 1 total ammo (assuming high/moderate recharge rate).

 

And, as mentioned above, don't underestimate the value of being able to heal FOREVER with a stable rotation.

Edited January 1, 2012 by ndruo

[bigcfromrbc]

If you don't mind single target healing then this is the class for you. No one can heal a single target like us, and we're built pretty beefy too.

[ndruo]

If you are good at whack-a-mole, you will make an excellent combat medic.

[swpoop]

Combat medic is a great healer. It is all about play style. As far as pvp, we are nearly unkillable when paired with a tank.

 

No one can single target heal as well as a CM. Thus they are our preferred tank heals in raid environment. Sage and Saw bones don't come close.

 

Once you learn your rotations and resource management you should almost never have issues with needing to heal. Use super charge on cooldowns and you can easily make up up for only having a 3 person aoe (which you can spam on cooldown as well).

 

In summary, every healing class has its place and are ALL viable in both a pve and pvp environment. It is more based on play style and what you enjoy playing.