Medic: Am I Missing Something or Is This Supposed to Happen?

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by TheShrapnelKing, Aug 1, 2014.

  1. TheShrapnelKing

    When I first started playing I played a lot of medic to get more certs. One I certed up I kind of left it behind to play with other classes. Now that I'm out of guns to Auraxium for other classes at the moment, I went back to Auraxium the Carnage using a Close Quarters Assault Medic loadout with revive grenades and whatnot, for being right at the frontline reviving people as soon as they get killed, keeping everyone up.

    Now I haven't played Medic for an extended period for quite a while but shooting wise it's not functionally any different from any other class except the infiltrator, obviously. I wish I'd recorded what I'm talking about to make this easier but suffice it to say that while I was medicing (is that a word?) around last night, two things happened:

    - in about 4 hours I raked in ~800 certs with no XP boosts; don't know if that's considered good but goddamn it's waaaaay more than I rake in playing HA
    - I played like ***

    To expand on the latter: literally, I did so ******* bad you'd swear I'd just got the game yesterday. I'm fairly sure without revives my K/D was negative (<1), which is...well, I flat out NEVER go negative, ever, I don't think I have since early last year. Now I'll admit that I intentionally put myself in harm's way a lot because I try to be the medic few other people are willing to be: the guy who revives everyone realistically possible (the calculus is: can I revive you before I die? If i think I can, I'll go get you, if I don't then I won't). I do it because I feel I should - when there's a guy a couple meters away who's just been downed, I could keep shooting at the enemies, or I could go revive him. I'm sure we are all constantly in situations where we go down, and there's a medic right there, but he's too busy shooting at people to bother reviving you, or you died a little ways away from him and he doesn't feel like hiking/backtracking/moving more than 10 meters out of his way to help anybody. I don't want to be that medic.

    I'll also admit my CQB twitch skills are *** so playing with the Carnage doesn't exactly suit my skill set but I did just fine with the GD7-F or the Anchor, for example. Nevertheless it seems like half the time I can't win shootouts with the thing, even at close (but not too close, cuz I suck more there) range where it's supposedly good (hell, I bought it in the first place because it's supposedly good). People act like bullet sponges against the damn thing, and I can't recall a specific instance where I've ever killed a Heavy Assault with it except from shooting him in the back. If a heavy comes into a room and he sees me before I empty several (not just a couple, cuz overshield) rounds into him, I lose, it seems to be that simple.

    Again, this'd be easier for people to analyze if I had game play so you could see what I was doing wrong but I usually don't record. I'm just curious if anyone can relate to what the hell is happening to me. I know a lot of 'pr0s' or whatever they call themselves say you can still kick *** and be a good medic at the same time but unless I'm sitting in the back picking people off with a Reaper (ie doing more killing that medicing (again, word?)) I'm finding the oft-cited SPM-KDR trade-off to be in full (and bruuuutal) effect here-

    - unless, that is, I'm missing something.
  2. Scr1nRusher

    Medics are the best class in the game(and most played) and have the highest battlefield impact.

    Without medics a assault or defense is dead(literally)
  3. Rift23

    Cert gain as a whole has gone up thanks to getting ribbons for everything, so that might have had something to do with it. Also support > Kill farming otherwise no one would do it.
  4. DeusExForever

    Support roles it seems in FPS games are filler, but not a role to specialize in (as some fighter roles -- like pilots or tankers or even snipers). That they're so busy with tools, they make easy targets as well.

    Even though I play a dedicated healer in WoW and other MMORPGs, I just can't stand playing a glorified med kit in FPS games. The role is just too situational; hindered because of some tool to trade for defense even; and often just used to farm for XP or some other gain. It's not busy enough either. After folks are healed, literally nothing else to do but switch to another role.
  5. Pirbi



    Yes, playing a support class well pays good but lowers K/D. Thus why people will say K/D is not important. They want a medic or engineer to actually do their job. You got classes that can focus on killing things. They are going to be able to concentrate on killing things. Their KD should be good. Medics and engineers have other jobs. They can't (or shouldn't) focus only on killing. Thus they are easier pickings. They have distractions and don't have a gun in their hand at the ready all the time.
    • Up x 1
  6. current1y

    Not trying to be "that guy" but did you perhaps get a refund of some kind skewing what you think you got? Stats show you only earned 380 certs in 5.7 hours of play last night. So thats ~250 score per min which is good with no boots but its not 200 certs an hour good lol.

    For example last night I played 4.1 hours, earned 660 certs and had a score per min of 625 at a 50% boost. I think you must of got a refund of some sort giving you extra certs? You would have needed like a 800 score per min last night for 4 hours to get 800 certs. Or maybe I just looked at the wrong character. If you did get 200 certs an hour with no boosts that is some good dead body farmin for sure ;)
    • Up x 1
  7. Pacster3

    That sounds a lot to me. I play medic often but 200certs/h without any boosts? That sounds more like you have had a lot of luck being the medic in some nonstop biolab fight without many other medics around...for 4 hours. Not to mention that nonstof reviving is a really dull farming task...
  8. TheShrapnelKing

    What stats?

    I'm just doing math. When I started playing medic last night I had ~600 certs. I had 1100 at one point, spent 1000, leaving ~100. So there's a 500 cert gap between the two. Then I made ~200 more certs (to ~300), spent 100, then made about a hundred more. So that's ~800. I mostly played medic during that time, if something else caused it I don't know what it is.

    Edit: regardless, if you're correct then I basically failed all around. Got my *** kicked in exchange for a marginal SMP boost.
  9. Boildown

    I think we killed each other yesterday. :cool:

    You're NC, you actually have capable medics playing with you. Vanu on the other hand don't play medic (other than me and one other guy with only 11 certs in his revive and healing tool). Actually this has only been a problem since the merger, but I've never seen so few medics, and of the medics there are, so few that will actually bother to revive the skulls on their minimap. At any given time on my stream over the past 4 weeks, there's a 40% chance that I'm going on some profanity-laden rant about how horrible Vanu medics have become.

    Having played NC to well past 100 and Vanu to however far I've gotten, its my conclusion that Vanu are OP as hell, but their players are dumb**** selfish players good at dying at not much else. The latter has gotten far worse since the merger.

    When playing medic (which is the majority of the time I'm not piloting a vehicle) I transition between a frontline assault type with free self-heals who can revive the few others with the balls to push ahead, and a backline find all the skulls revive medic for uber cert gains but with terrible K/D. I consider the latter to be the most important role for a medic to assume to support the objective, but its too boring to do all the time, unless my cert gain needs outweigh my need for things a Jedi need not need.

    But lately I'm trying hard to Auraxium weapons and that's changed my playstyle such that I'm not a proper medic so much as usual. Not that Vanu would notice, there are no proper medics on Emerald Vanu, so they don't even realize anything amiss.
  10. TheShrapnelKing

    You kill-stole from the heavy that took out 95% of my health you jerk. Be more considerate of others.:p
    • Up x 1
  11. patrykK1028

    Kd 6,45, SPM 715... Are you an alien?! I have that SPM in.. cod mw3 where you easily get 15kills in minute

    Back to topic - its not hard to kill HA, you have better weapon (at least in TTK and CQC), and you can use standard ability as shield, which will give your enemy 1 more hit to kill you
  12. hostilechild

    Carnage is a great weapon, HA are a pain so headshot them. Most run 2x scopes so you can hipfire ADAD and they have a hard time tracking you. Typically though i duck and cover when i see one if i can. Other classes though i don't recall losing to if i had the carnage out. Downside of medic though is you rarely have the primary weapon out.
    Medic is my highest SPM just under 500spm even better than MAX (AA max is a big cause of that).

    New to medic myself after auraxium all the LMGs, and really like it. Just have to remember that sometimes a grenade is better than putting away primary rifle. cover is your best friend. And the HAs your with (assuming he is good and offers some cover)
  13. SavageBacon

    Sounds like you're more or less doing it right, but just need to get a little more experience with the guns and deciding when to whip out the tool... Often it's good to finish the gun battle then rez.
  14. Axehilt


    You do realize assault rifles are some of the best infantry weapons in the game, right?

    A well-played medic cannot be summed up as "glorified medkit".

    Necromancer, maybe. But not medkit.
    • Up x 1
  15. Unsp0kn

    I average about 100-125 certs an hour playing medic if I stay busy in big fights, which I don't always accomplish haha. Been enjoying Medic a lot lately and people appreciate being rezzed (I know I do.) Plus I love the rifles!

    Like Axehilt said, medics have some of the best rifles in the game and are much more than just givers of life. They can be an essential assault class as well, but instead of jetpacks we can heal and revive.
  16. DeusExForever

    Oh, yes it feels exactly like a glorified medkit.

    In WoW I have other things to do than just heal, and a tool (my main way to heal that is) is w-a-y more advanced...



    It doesn't compare, which is why I regard it as too boring to play. I play other roles because FPS games don't do ENOUGH to specialize in being a healer.
  17. SeanFree

    Nah that sounds about right on par with what happens to me. As an LA I average a K/D of 2-5 depending on how oblivious the enemy is, as a medic I hover around 1 thanks to revives. During OPs (2 hours) I play medic and get about 20ish kills. I can get 20 kills in less than a half hour easy as LA. I play medic to be an asset to the team, I play LA to dominate the battlefield :)
  18. Huxer

    I'm sure part of your poor score was indicative of the main reasons medics get burned.

    medics often get caught with their revive tool out in combat situations. This is because when an ally dies it's usually because an enemy killed them in exactly the position that they died. You are now moving into that position to revive them and you have a timer on getting the revive done and during that time you cannot shoot back or run away. This is further exacerbated by experienced players such as myself and I'm quite sure many many others. When I down an enemy if I am not in any immediate danger, I am totally camping his body for the first medic.
  19. Axehilt


    If you want to pretend that the depth of the medic class stems entirely from the variety of how they heal others, then that's a rather narrow definition of game depth which conveniently ignores the majority of ways medic play is actually deep.

    Maybe you're playing the medic in a very shallow way (only ever having your medtool out) which makes you think it's a shallow class?
  20. Ghosty11

    I tend to die more when playing support classes such as medic and engineer because there is times when I get caught flat footed with a healing or repair gun in my has instead of something to shoot with. The second thing you will notice as a medic is that the enemy will often target the medics, and rightly so. Why bother trying to kill the MAX or engy repairing the MAX on the point, when there is a necromancer (medic) behind them that keeps raising them from the dead.