How to appeal Medic to the playerbase?

The medic is the least played Infantryclass(12 Out of 100 People play it)...i think it should appeal more to people.

What would you suggest?

I think the problem isn't appeal but lack of desire to support allies.

Probably 10 out of those 12 players are useless "Medium Assaults."

Grenade launcher.

-About as strong as a rocklet rifle when semi-auto firing in terms of sustained AV/AA damage.
-Has a weak but moderately sized AoE for pressuring stalemates in infantry fights. (Low refire time would make it obsolete compared to primaries for a single infantry target)
-2m flak detonation range.
-Arc and velocity I can't decide on... Either the same as the underbarrel grenade launcher, or better than it but with a projectile lifespan auto-detonating the shot at medium range.

Exact numbers on things like infantry TTK with direct/indirect hits and AoE range are up in the air.

I personally would use medic more if I didn't give up my support AV/AA damage (Archer, rocklet rifle, etc.). Yes I run explosive crossbow on it, but that's hardly meaningful. (Though it does a ton of damage on ESFs if the pilot is silly enough to get close and fly slow)


...Not sure where it would go in terms of loadout UI. But that's not important!

I always liked the medics from Team Fortress and would like to see something similar in PS2. Basically a medic would become an actual force multiplier instead of just another soldier able to pick up the pieces between engagements.

Everything else would remain the same but the med tool would gain an ability to make another soldier taking damage able to withstand more damage while healing them.

How it might work.

1. Med tool now links to a target while activated, all damage taken by the linked target is reduced by a percentage while also healing damage the target takes.

2. The link can extend up to 10m but must maintain LOS.

3. A Linked target can only benefit from 1 linked med tool resistance but multiple medics can link and heal a single target.

4. Med Tool now has ammo and must be reloaded.

Obviously it would make a soldier harder to kill but a dedicated healer should be able to do that. The current medic doesn't really help a team survive DURING engagements. It's unlikely someone being actively healed won't just die anyway. Instead a medic primarily heals damage or revives fallen enemy's after the shooting stops. With how easy and available medkits and respawns are the medic is just not very critical in most battles.

They can be a total game changer, but usually only in very specific specialized outfit squads.

I play medic if I want to farm certs by healing / reviving, but every time I jump on medic seemingly 70%+ of friendlies I see are playing medic for the same reason - which results in me switching back to engineer because its more productive if I can't compete for revives. Can't tell you how many times I have thrown a revive grenade at a pile of bodies and gotten no points because suddenly 2-3 medics show up and pick everybody up before my revive grenade even goes off. Outside of healing and reviving medics have nothing special about their class, medic support in this game doesn't mean much when most people die in under 2 seconds - you can't heal through that, and if you revive them in a bad spot they just die instantly upon standing up. Not to mention people in proximity chat screaming for revive grenades on contested points, with the frag grenade spam in this game (among other things) those players become nothing but fodder. Be honest, how many times does mass revive on a contested point go well for people because I have never seen it benefit anybody but the cert farmers.

In my opinion darklight barriers should have gone to medics because its defending / supporting infantry by preventing damage, sounds like medic stuff, whereas engineers have more offense oriented deployables. Unless medics can somehow temporarily boost health/shields of friendlies (on revive), or give temporary damage reduction / invulnerability (for a few seconds on revive + weapons lock to be fair) medic support will never be very meaningful outside of cert farming.

All that said, medics tend to have some of the best guns - especially TR medic. But enjoy the rage tells if you go for combat over revive whoring.

The Medic already does:
Damage removal (healing, shield repair)
Damage reversal (reviving, much more important than healing and much more often practiced from my experience)

With the recent change to shield regen, the shield regen device has become a lot less useful. So the Medic just got another small kick to it's capabilities. Here's what we could add to the Medic:
Damage reduction (a device that reduces damage for friendlies within it's AOE. Does not stack with other damage reduction effects).
Damage prevention (Shields! That barrier the Engineer got but better! Allow vehicles and infantry to drive/walk through and make it high enough to actually protect something! Utility shields that cost resources for some specialized and powerful shielding! Make the shield itself powerful but put a generator behind it that can be destroyed).
Pushing frontlines (The hopefully coming Forwards Station).

All you need to appeal medic to the medic role is to improve the class witch need new items and real choice between them (not false choice like between nano armor and adrenaline pump)
The works should be focused on medic's loadout, not medic's weapon witch are fine.

Add grenades, ability, utility and tools.
Improve the shield regen device.
Improve healing grenade.

List of tools idea :
Revive medical applicator [current medical applicator] (fastest revive with longer revive range)
Guardian medical applicator (tool made to boost target's survivability : heal faster and also works on the shield, target get 20% resistance as long the medic is healing them; xp from heal-assist is quadrupled)
Drag medical applicator (drag trageted body whatever faction it is until it reach your feet. )
Syringe launcher (throw syringes at allies to heal them and revive them from a safe distance, has low RoF and can overheat)

This kind of stuff could appeal some medic.

The problem, as usual, returns to the HA being too good rather than the medic being underwhelming. Medic has some of the best guns in the game and the most useful squad grenades, but HA is a really effective all rounder so just use that instead.
The player-base is far too set in that HA should be the default fighting class or some rubbish to fix it though.

The deployable cover should have gone to the Medic.
Engineer didn't need yet another deployable object; medic could have used it as cover/something to draw fire while running out to rez teammates.

As long as players focus more on their personal stats than faction's goal what do you expect? Planetside 2 does not reward teamplay and playing per objectives. It doesn't even encourage team action much besides the more people is with you the highest chances you have to score more kills.

From this point of view Medics are basically out of place.

Ok but WHY? Because of that stupid childish e-sport mentality that turned the game into a lazy meatgrinder. Players prefer HA because they value KDR more than their faction's success. From this point of view LMG + Shield are better than any AR. And **** the teammates if they die that's their problem.

And the game does nothing to encourage them to play differently.

Depends of wich faction, i see at emerald, the TR has too less medics, but in VS most of ppl plays as medics.

I want a crossbow that heals people.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN COPYRIGHT?!

As a player, that mains medic I've wanted to point out a few things:
1) You ALWAYS have to switch between applicator and your weapon when doing from combat mode to "doing my duty" mode, which is very frustrating, considering how quickly footsoldiers are dying. And sometimes even yelling at you to "do your job" and revive their sorry "donkeys" just to see them going into stream of bullets and dying again.
2) The biggest problem, while playing as medic is how helpless you are, while reviving someone.
3) If we'll put equally bad HA and medic against each other, HA will most likely win. 30 rds is barely enough to kill HA, considering how often new player tend to miss.
4) When you've just finished reviving the teammate and the enemy shows up, you need a good "panic weapon". Maybe it's my personal opinion, but VS AR's (with the exception of Terminus and HV-45) are just bad. They are lacking in DPM, DPS and TTK. Other factions's ARs are more effective at almost any range, compared to VS's. (And it's not VS victim complex, I main NC).
At the same time TR has the most effective ARs: 40 RDS in the mag is enough to shred a lot of opponents, TTK is incredibly fast (to the point where Cycler TRV's existence with its 143dmg at 845 rpm is borderline unfair) and if everything fails, their sidearms are the best for panic situations.
NC has the best selection of ARs, meaning that we have ARs for every type of encounters. When you need fast RoF use GR22/Carnage. When you need a jack of all trades - use Gauss. When you need hard hiting weapon - Reaper/Tross are at your service.

So, considering everything I've said, I'd suggest the following:
1) Add 5 rds to the mag of VS ARs (with the exception of Terminus and HV-45).
2) Add an option of being able to revive mates by using interaction button (just like infils are hacking the terminals). That would give medics an option to revive allies without sacrificing their defencive ability. It would not obsolete the applicator, as it would have very limited range and maybe even the process would take longer. Alternatively, increase the swap speed of ARs, so that medics had less time being exposed.
3) Combat surgeon is VERY helpful implant, but is locked behind RNG right now. So make Class specific implants a reward for completing Tier 3 of their respective directive. This will encourage "young" medics to "do their job" more often.
4) Add a good birst fire/automatic sidearm to NC and VS (and maybe give TR hard-ish hitting SA sidearm to make things fair). Alternatively, remove that weird refire delay on Desperado and Spiker.

P.S. AR minimum damage decrease was unnecessary. ARs shouldn't have as much damage drop as carbines have. Revert it please.

something i wondered a bit since medics are kinda meant to help holding a position how about giving the shield regen device also a painfield ... also medics need something more intresting when in the open .. not sure what though

i am rather thinking that maybe add AV grenades to the medics grenadeslot and maybe to a infiltrator grenadeslot too ...
or what i also could imagine giving the medic smoke granades for defense instead of having to get huntersmokebolts ..

if medics were to get a grenadelauncher it should replace the primary imo .. in which case a medic would have to put the focus on antivehicle or antiarmor for losing his mid to longrange potential with assaultrifles .. his antiarmor capabilities wouldn´t be as good as the engineers archer in which case he would have to engage from midrange .. the grenadelauncher should NOT have flak like default rockletammo .. it should rather focus on grounded armor sooo kinda typhoonammo with less drop maybe slightly higher velocity and similar like most rocketlaunchers only have 1 grenade in the chamber .. so like a thumpergrenadelauncher

Change the name

Simply cross out the Medic part...

Also - the CM is a perfectly fine class in its current state. I love my Medium Assault.

It would only be okay for the grenade launcher going in the primary slot if the same is done for HA and their rocket launchers.

Which is a bad deal for everyone. So no.

The medic is not used much because the HA does nearly everything better and doesn't need to worry about anyone but themselves.

What makes you oppose this right away? Infantry aren't allowed to defend themselves from aircraft?

Let's review an example: AA is not pulled much because of it's (usually) abhorrent versatility and near/complete uselessness vs non-air targets (not to mention it's lack of effectiveness in it's intended role). Therefore next to no one is carrying it preemptively (unless they're a masochist like me). The same is true of the medic; it cannot respond to vehicles or aircraft, only stand around until those that can engage go down.

We can talk all day about how good ARs are and how vital medics are to a push, but it's simply not an appealing class to most. For me, the biggest reason is lack of versatility.
-LA has rocklets without sacrificing anything
-Engineer has Archer and lots of equipment
-HA has rockets without sacrificing anything
-I'm cautious of giving too much AV/AA to the stealth class if at all, so I'll leave the infiltrator out of this.

Before you say that the medic's ability to revive is it's "thing", consider that the LA has a primary, sidearm, rocklets, and utility slot while still retaining it's flagship ability: flight. Same with the HA; they have all the things and retain their instant "more HP" button.

While yes the medic has self heal... Would you consider that anywhere near as valuable as flight or ~45% more HP on demand? The gap needs to be closed.

I like playing medic in the right situation but sometimes it feels a bit like the LA before the rocket rifle.............slightly lacking in tools/abilities compared to other classes.

Take the slot where you get med packs, C4 or aux shield for example. Nothing much in there that attracts me personally (I run aux shield for a bit of extra protection myself but it is purely passive and I'm not aware of using it in gameplay).

Then there are the 'nades - rezz 'nade is too good to go without but I sometimes miss having a frag to hand (UBGL not worth the hassle for me as the AR is slower firing and switching takes time).

The new forward base deploy thing might give the class a bit more interest, assuming you don't have to sacrifice shield repair or nanite healing device to use it (when I play engie I ignore the hardlight barrier because it means giving up mines).

Maybe some explosive deployable like AI mines or even an EMP mine, flash or smoke pot (something to hamper people trying to stop you doing your job kinda thing)? or a field dressing pack you can drop like the engie drops ammo packs?

Perhaps the issue here is that when picking CM, people believe they will be shoehorned into playing a weaksauce healer type character, which is completely untrue. Truth be told, the Combat Medic is a very well rounded class; it doesn't have any spectacular bell and whistles, but is deadly competent at AI work (oftentimes more so than a HA) and the backbone of any push/point hold to boot.

1) While useful in some situations (ex. holding a control point when no respawn options are available), medics really don't bring much to the table. Which for a class who is billed as "able to turn the tide" rather disappointing. Sunderers and their ilk provide respawn options that are often almost as convenient as a revive, especially if a player doesn't really care about their KDR, and at times preferred as its the only way to resupply certain items, change class, or change ones equipment. Med and regen kits can heal a player as quickly (or faster) than a medic, don't require staying in range of said medic, and are cheap enough that most people don't even think about automatically buying them. Compare that to self-cloaking, the ability to circumvent almost any obstacle, an on-demand shield that can survive even hits from vehicle weapons, or an extra fixed weapon that protects most of the body. All of those abilites are something different that can change how a class plays, while the medic is basically a convenience to others with little to no personal advantage.

2) Other classes have simply more & better options for more common situations. Heavies have 3 options for shielding as well as the option to focus on AV, AA, or more general types of rockets. Engineers have their array of turrets and mines, and the option for an anti-material rifle, and so on. Medics however are relegated to two choices - a mobile healing field or a static shield repair field - our utility slot options are universal and aside from C4 don't actually add any capabilities.

3) Vehicles are our bane. Quite frankly nothing shuts down a medic more than a MAX or vehicle. We lack the mobility to use C4 as effectively as light assaults or the temporary shields of heavies to close the range and survive, and we don't have other options for dealing with vehicles - either killing/ driving them of like other classes or avoiding them as Infiltrators and Light Assaults can do. Add in that we have to be outside of any vehicles of our own to actually use our abilities and we're basically

I would definitely agree with the option for AI (or even AV) mines and our new (if it ever gets delivered) forward station. But I think we need a bit more than just a few utility slot items.

First, rework the existing regeneration and shield abilities as follows. Instead the medic gets 2 options unlocked at BR1 - nano-regeneration field and shield regeneration field - that have identical mechanics to the current regeneration field (affects a given area centered on the player, limited uptime, increased rank increases uptime and maximum range) but affect different stats (health and shield respectively). The biggest change from the current form being that the final rank adds a deployable that once in place applies that field to a fixed area as long as the deployable remains active. That way medics can still provide support, for example, to the engineers holding down a stairwell while still having one of our major advantages (self-repair without swapping to a med kit) if we need to help somewhere else or follow an advance.

Second, add new abilities that provide different ways for the medic to play.

One option often tossed about is an offensive "aura", usually one that does damage to hostile players. My take on that is have it do no damage, instead it causes abilities to burn their energy up at a much greater rate if actively used. So, for example, if a HA tries to use his overshield with a normal uptime of 15 seconds to win against this medic he's going to find that shield gone in just a few seconds (even more if the medic is shooting him). Ditto with LA jet packs, cloaks, etc. The aura would also negate recharging of said abilities while in range, and follow the mechanics above (max rank gets a deployable form). In effect an "offensive medic" whose method of keeping his allies alive is by denying the opponent their advantages rather than trying to undo damage done.

Another option would be turning the existing nano-regen capacitor into a multi-rank ability that increases recharge rate and/or uptime while also increasing its effect on the medic at the expense of reducing its effectiveness on others. Basically a more selfish ability that helps medics who would rather focus on killing first then picking up the bodies than trying (and usually failing) to outheal damage in a game (which is by no means unique in this) where most kills happen in just a few seconds if not sooner.

I like that idea someone had about a medical kit that could be dropped to heal allies in the area, but maybe that idea could be taken even further. Starts out as just pure passive healing (and maybe a progressively stronger instant heal if players actually interact with it) but as its ranked up allows a (slow) automatic revival of allies in the area during its lifespan. Not only would that provide another option (and free up medics to focus on defending their charges instead of having to constantly have their meditool in hand), but allow medics to still carry an AoE revive while packing offensive grenades. Maybe it could be our second ability (in the same way engineers have both their ammo box and turret).

Also, in that same train of thought, improve Triage to a point where medics might actually want to improve it. As it stands now I don't think I've seen one medic who invested certs into that ability until they had literally nothing else to put them into. One possibility, keeping to its name (which is French for "to sort" and refers to the process of determining the order that patients are treated based severity of injury & chance of their conditioning becoming irreversible), it to have it function as an automatic medical kit that functions if the medic is in a vehicle or not. In effect every so many seconds it selects the player within range most in need of healing (based on health left and if has taken damage within the last few seconds) then automatically heals them for a certain amount. The amount, range, and how frequently the ability "ticks" obviously would have to be determined, as would if it only functions inside a vehicle or can work outside one as well, and probably would start out low and increase as one ranks up the ability.

Third, add some sort of universal anti-vehicle weapons. My suggestion would be something comparable to PS1's decimator - a high-damage (but with a very tiny blast radius) short range (high velocity but very short projectile life), dumbfire rocket launcher with two shots - just enough to take out a MAX or maybe harasser if both are direct hits - that can't be reloaded by any means aside from replacement at an equipment terminal. Slot wise it would be either utility or possibly take up the sidearm slot. Potentially also open up the AV grenade to all classes with HA's getting a better version that also functions as a concussion grenade against vehicles. That way medics (as well as other classes) would have AV options that aren't tantamount to "rush them and hope they don't notice until you've already pressed the big red button".

In effect give medics tools that - like other classes - change how we play based on what we have, that open different ways of playing, and aren't simply convenience for other players but actually unique to the medic.

The medic has a slightly better weapon. Any kill ***** worth his salt plays HA. Anyone wanting to charge into a control point plays HA.

The issue medics face is their entire class specific roll is reducing peoples time to get back to fighting from 15-20s to 5-10 seconds. (only KDR padders wait longer than 10s for a revive) Often times it's better to just respawn all together if you need a refresh on consumable items.

I've played medic a ton and nothing says medics are unnescessary more clearly than running over to revive someone and their corpse vanishes. You have 10s to revive most players. After that they just respawn. KDR padders will let the timer expire hoping their death won't count against them. Glad I could help!

Besides we're not talking about making the medic a more competent killer (at least most of us aren't) since the game already has the HA. We're talking about making the combat medic a more competent squad asset in the hopes people will find a better reason to play them over another HA besides "ooo I get an AR!"