Should combat medics be more common?

[zgrssd]

The combat medic is a important class.
https://startraders.gamepedia.com/Combat_Medic
Since I learned of them and tried them, having 1 in my combat team is mandatory. It is a healer that can heal morale and has pistol skill. It also offers anything from Boarding Skills to Offensive Cpmbat abilities.

Unfortunately, they are also rare. Only 3 Contacts allow you to hire them and none of them can be picked at the start. Not even the unlockable starting contacts have this Recruitment option by default.
It is so bad, I tend to multiclass my Officer/Doctor into at least 2 levels as Combat Medic. It allows the signature heal "Cleansing Purge" and gives a nice +4 buff to Doctor.

I think they should be more common and I wonder if I am the only one?
For references, these are the comonality levels/ease of recruitment I can think off:
1. Current approach (Contacts only; None of hte starting contacts)
2. Contacts - including starting contacts - can recruit them
3. Spice Hall
4. Spice Hall + some in the starting crew.

Personally I tend towards 4. But I could work with 2 - it simply means a fixed starting contact.

So, where do you guys think Combat Medics might fit better?

[Trese Brothers]

Originally posted by zgrssd:

It is so bad, I tend to multiclass my Officer/Doctor into at least 2 levels as Combat Medic. It allows the signature heal "Cleansing Purge" and gives a nice +4 buff to Doctor.

Great tactic!

[GrimSentinel]

If I want to do crew combat, I pretty much always go the route of turning the starting Doctor officer into a Combat Medic. At least 8 levels, to get both Cleansing Purge and Lifeline. Plus Combat Medic gives you another Doctor skill save.

If you need to replace the starting officer with another Combat Medic officer, you could recruit one of the other two jobs you want them to have and then multi-class into Combat Medic.

Honestly, I haven't found myself needing to recruit Combat Medics very often. If you're recruiting non-combat crew, Doctor has better talents available. For combat crew, you only need one and I always go with an officer for that.

I think having more "advanced" recruits available from the Spice Hall sort of diminishes the importance of contacts, which is part of the game's style. Having a starting contact that can recruit Combat Medics would be alright, though.

[Dr. Spendlove]

Combat Medics really only shine when they're officers anyway. It's too dangerous to have a character with 0 Evasion routinely enter combat. (Of course, on some occasions a pure combat medic might have some bonus Evasion skill, but that's the exception.) My point is, you'll want to multi-class them anyway.

[Zephiel]

I have a different outlook on the combat medic and his importance in a boarding crew. Namely, I'd say the current strength of his utility is more indicative of him being too important in the nature of crew combat, as continual treatment of wounded is currently a critical linchpin of most boarding parties. While perhaps beyond the scope of a simple fix, I'd say the solution would be to reduce the effectiveness of combat healing by having crew take some damage that can only be healed at a station or by out-of-crew-battle talents.

The reason for this would be to reduce the importance of a dedicated combat healer, strengthen personal healing capabilities (Such as the Swordsman and Bounty Hunter's personal buffs), and add a sort of attrition to continued boarding actions against enemy ships. Without continued healing, even non-combat classes such as the pilots, navigators, crew dogs, etc, would present some risk to a boarding party after the initial boarding action claims the four combat classes defending a ship -- even though the remaining characters wouldn't be as strong in combat, the few hits they do get off would be lasting for the rest of the combat session, necessitating the need for additional combat personnel to take the field after your original boarding crew became too wounded to carry out their duties.

Another solution would be to have a class able to reduce, mitigate, or redirect damage in crew combat, such that one could forgo a medic by blocking or dodging attacks. For example, by making a buff that can be placed on a crew member to provide a "free" dodge (Think like the current skill save talents, in that they activate if you've failed a roll to provide a free save), or an ability to take damage in place of an ally at a reduced amount (IE, take an attack meant for an ally, and reduce the damage you'd take by 50% for that attack), you could have another class that can fill a similar niche to the combat medic by greatly increasing the durability of a boarding party.

Ideally, not all boarding parties should be reliant on the combat medic to provide sustaining power, or if continued combat healing is the intention, having an alternative class capable of healing (Perhaps something different from the combat medic-doctor line entirely) would be a nice solution as well. Or even moving Lifeline to Doctor and having him focus on providing strong healing without the morale bonuses the Combat Medic gets, while Combat Medic retains his weaker HP and MP heal.

[219A730]

My officer combat medic only has 3 evasion but has a lot of attributes. I would imagine a non-officer version of it would survive just fine, but said version would be harder to find of than simply multiclassing anyone with good stats from the spicehall.

Keepers plate heavy armor with melios scale defensive mod is extremely protective. Especially with armor buffs. The only hits I've to worry in term of damage are piercing attacks, sniper rifle, or any other very high amount of damage at once. The (very) low damage taken would make a templar jealous. I think whisper tactset gear would also work well with the 20% deflection bonus. Salvage ops gear can be even better but I don't remember, since I haven't got to that stage again yet.

My combat medic is not unescorted though. The frontline consists of a evasion tank critical sword captain and a 2nd sword support officer.

My crew combat team is so protective and self-sustaining at this point I could drop the combat medic. But the combat medic remained that guy who heal everything.

I'm also at the point when I can just park the ship in combat and watch the fireworks. I never need to board if I don't want to except for more salvage value.

[Buuh]

Originally posted by Dr. Spendlove:

Combat Medics really only shine when they're officers anyway. It's too dangerous to have a character with 0 Evasion routinely enter combat. (Of course, on some occasions a pure combat medic might have some bonus Evasion skill, but that's the exception.) My point is, you'll want to multi-class them anyway.

Evasion is not necessary, just equip your Combat Medic with level 6 heavy armor, but they should be officers or captain for sure.

Reasons multi leveling and Specialist Gear. Basically the whole combat crew should be officers/captain, but not necessary because evasion (not saying its useless it depends on the build)

I run a Doctor/Combat Medic / Pistoleer, but he has only like 5 levels or so in Pistoleer for fading shot but all other levels are in Medic and CM, if he gets shot he can easily outheal any damage. With his heavy level 6 armor and specialist armor gear he is just a Tank and he can heal like 42 hp and Morale with a single Cleansing Purge

Same for my Captain, Commander just a few levels (he got inspiring trait so i decided to push a bit more in command for ship combat and commander has a nice crew combat skill which heals morale and buffs) , Militarys Officer 15 levels (good starting traits and decent crew combat skills), the rest in combat medic, he is highly skilled in Doctor, he heals like 38 hp/moral with his purge. He fights/buffs/heals in position 1, with heavy Armor, 0 Evasion, but he and my officer med outheal anything.
With his attributes he has like 188 hp.

2 Combat Medic officers in a fighting party can outheal most incoming damage, while the damage dealing officers kill the foe.

[zgrssd]

Okay, I did not expect so many people to use their officers in combat. Just to make one thing clear, however:
The paranthesis for Blades, Rifles, Pistols and Evasion are the value in crew combat, with or without being officer/captain. So your fighters will be as good at fighting, if they are officers or crew.

Of course officers do have quicker leveling, extra gear and the ability to class into other classes, wich grants them usefull skills (like Evasion).

[Trese Brothers]

Originally posted by Zephiel:

Another solution would be to have a class able to reduce, mitigate, or redirect damage in crew combat, such that one could forgo a medic by blocking or dodging attacks. For example, by making a buff that can be placed on a crew member to provide a "free" dodge (Think like the current skill save talents, in that they activate if you've failed a roll to provide a free save), or an ability to take damage in place of an ally at a reduced amount (IE, take an attack meant for an ally, and reduce the damage you'd take by 50% for that attack), you could have another class that can fill a similar niche to the combat medic by greatly increasing the durability of a boarding party..

Sounds like the planned Bodyguard job

[Buuh]

Originally posted by zgrssd:

Okay, I did not expect so many people to use their officers in combat. Just to make one thing clear, however:
The paranthesis for Blades, Rifles, Pistols and Evasion are the value in crew combat, with or without being officer/captain. So your fighters will be as good at fighting, if they are officers or crew.

Of course officers do have quicker leveling, extra gear and the ability to class into other classes, wich grants them usefull skills (like Evasion).

Indeed Crew Members can do the job aswell, but especially on highest difficulties, I think that extra buffs from specialist gear, bonus skills points (which don't apply to crew members if they aren't promoted) and optimized Multiclassing can be crucial to success.

For example, I give in any run, 1 of my officers 5 levels in mechanic, because the Thrown Wrench skill is an awesome Boarding skill, combined with the Combat Medics Bio Agent Bomb, it will greatly help to disable the enemys crew and ship components. While a pure crew mechanic would be mostly useless in combat, an officer can multiclass this few levels without suffering, since he will get more than enough classes in his 2 combat classes.

Multiclass gives just so many nice crew combat options, which crew members never can't achieve. And again, there is so strong specialist gear which gives insane buffs, if you are lucky, you get even the trait which allows to carry 2 gear on an officer.

[zgrssd]

Originally posted by Nimmsi von Hinden:

For example, I give in any run, 1 of my officers 5 levels in mechanic, because the Thrown Wrench skill is an awesome Boarding skill, combined with the Combat Medics Bio Agent Bomb, it will greatly help to disable the enemys crew and ship components. While a pure crew mechanic would be mostly useless in combat, an officer can multiclass this few levels without suffering, since he will get more than enough classes in his 2 combat classes.

I think you get all Boarding Skills of all Crew, if you manage to get into Range 1.
So multiclassing is not nessesary to get a wide array of boarding talents.

[Buuh]

No it isn't necessary you are right, a good combat crew can support some weaker member, it's just that multiclassing gives better options and officers are usually more durable in combat, since even without multiclassing they have gear and more skills due to boni.

Well on impossible difficulty fighting Xenos I'd rather bring an officer with a good boarding skill first though.

Anyway I don't want to say crew member can't do the jobs needed to board or fight, it's just officers do their jobs better.

[Trese Brothers]

To be clear, skill bonuses for crew combat skills apply regardless of officer or not.

[Whatever100500]

My typical builds are 11 Doctor/8 Combat Medic + either:
- at least 5 Soldier for 4th position.
- at least 5 Pistoleer for 3rd position.
But either way he's going to be a recreational shooter at best, since you want most levels in Doctor.
... Which means I can just hire them as common Soldiers/Pistoleers.

Single-class Combat Medic has no defensive or positioning skills, so at best it will be able to heal-bot from 4th position (then why even level Pistol).

1st and 2nd position need to be fairly dedicated swordsmen (since only high level melee can efficiently tank high level melee), so either non-officers or dedicated combat-only characters (captain super-combatant is nice option here).

[JimmysTheBestCop]

You can do a 4th spot Combat Medic/Doctor/Spy when stealthed the Spy has 2 talents that can fire from spot 4.

In important battles he will probably be healing or buff so won't have to fire. The Stealth is a good defense buff too. And he has the vaccine watch group buff. But he can help speed up offensive less difficult battles. But if you need him to fire he can as long as stealthed.

Lowest init pistol. You want all that init to heal. I wouldn't use the CM as a group morale healer. Good for individual morale heal but not so much for a group of people.