I had flak armor up til today, but I just bought flak for a tech plant fight and it is awesome. So many explosions get me when I'm wearing nano, but with flak I could run around battle priest style and resurrect my teammates without being to worried. I'm guessing the 15% covers damage to shields as well? Bandolier does look awesome, but I can't afford that yet, and res grenades are stupidly expensive.
I play my medic a little different. I do the normal revive/heal and stay behind the gun classes and stuff, but I also lone wolf a ton (but still provide medic duties) when there isn't an outfit platoon going on. In terms of defensive abilities and suit upgrades, I maxed out the Nano Regen Device ability as well as Advanced Shield Capacitor. I've got 4 in Nanoweave and Flak armor. Medic Role: For a dedicated medic role, I'm leaning more toward Flak Armor being the most ideal (with nanoweave a close second). Most deaths (for me) in this role have been from explosions and grenades. However, I run out in front of the front lines and in the middle of roads to revive people - and thus take small arms fire as well. I'll get shot at when doing this but circle strafing around the corpses negates a lot of damage. If you don't do stupid stuff like this then I'd imagine you'd rarely get shot at unless someone flanks. "Lone Wolf": I loved Advanced Shield Capacitor way more than Nanoweave.... Until I maxed out Nano Regen Device. It would allow for quicker engagements. Kill someone, hide for a few seconds while the shield came up, pop out and get another. Nano Regen Device changed all this - or at least for me. I much prefer the higher HP cap of Nanoweave now. I'll do the same back to back engagements, but I don't wait for the shield. I'll kill someone, pop behind cover, heal to full, then pop out a couple seconds later to kill another. Shield never has time to come back up. I've gotten in the habit of tapping F during every close range encounter with another player - much like HAs pop their shield buff. I played an HA for a while and I actually feel "tankier" as a medic. In head to head encounters with HAs there are very few that I've lost. Here is my reasoning: In no way am I a pro player that does nothing but headshot. I am prior military and had "center mass" ingrained into me so it's rather difficult for me to aim for the head. Weird, I know. I always aim for mid chest - I've tried to change this habit and i'm slowly getting there. I've preferred the "run and gun" gameplay so I am never stationary. When I run into most players and especially HAs, they will pop their ability and just sit there firing. Easy target. Some move but normally never enough to miss shots. Since I'm moving around while firing, they (the average player) will miss a lot of their shots. It takes about 5 seconds (just guessing from memory) to full heal with nano regen device. For every cumulative second that this other player misses me, I essentially have 20% additional HP. The ability to get 2.5-3 full heals from a single charge (and charges quickly) is huge and makes me feel much tankier than the class probably is. This allows for continuous back to back engagements with very little downtime (and not wait on the shield to recharge) I don't know. The abilities on their own with a "medic" playstyle are pretty underwhelming and probably doesn't make much of a difference choosing one over the other. I've found a set of abilities that works very well for ME with the playstyle I prefer. Try them out for yourself - up to the second to last rank, all are pretty cheap.
Does the ammo belt 'extra clips' apply to all attachments to your primary gun? IE., if you have the Cycler-S with underbarrel grenades or underbarrel shotty...does the ammo belt add to those reloads, as well? I know (per up-thread) that the bandolier doesn't, but that's not really a surprise as the underbarrel grenades aren't really "grenades", anyway.
To blow stuff up... Honestly, the C4 on the medic is a HUGE boost to their ability to F stuff up. With one C4, you're a huge threat to lightnings, and it helps you take down MAXs. With two C4, you can take out MBTs and do quite a hurting on Sunderers. With a maxed out self-heal ability, its not very difficult at all to get up close and personal with a vehicle. However, the BEST use for C4 on a medic is placing it on the one-way shields to spawn rooms and teleport rooms. Bullets may not pass, but fire does...
Did some Googling on this, and found a thread on the SA forums where the question came up. A poster there said that it didn't do so in the beta, but there didn't appear to be any conversation on whether that was true of release or not.
Nanoweave is king. Coupled with medic special ability level 4+, it's theorycrafted to be the best hands down. Increased effective health will always be king - i.e. comes down to flak vs nanoweave. Infantry deaths are predominantly non-explosive, thus higher hp is the go.
I still depends on your playstyle, but I think the odds will be more in favour of Flak after the patch. As far as I am concerned, it is already worth as it is now, and I only have around Level 3 or 4.
You are probably right about individual deaths, but squad wipes and multi-deaths are almost always explosive. And that is where its important that the medic survives.
Personaly i have level 4 nano-weave. I find thats enough for me to absorb the few shots that come my way while i work the fringes of the battle, and also often gives me an equaliser in the more direct fights (not the fastest of reactions, so more HP means i have a better chance of killing the other guy before he kills me)
I started out using nanoweave as a 1 point wonder until I got my lvl 6 medgun but recently I've been using the shield capacitor. I'm confident in my ability to win 1v1s at most ranges, so I would rather get my shield back in time for the next fight than have an extra bullet worth of health left after the first. It synergises well with the self-heal, imo. I value it less on other classes.
At max level nanoweave gives 125extra hp. Which is only 1 more bullet... BUT you can survive headshots. Im at lvl3 nano atm and have survived many a headshots with 1-3bars left. Must make those bolt users angry haha. Extra ammo is possibly the best when fully upgraded.. For TR (depending on weapon) you'll get around 244 extra bullets.. thats ALOT more firepower.
I still like nanoweave on my medic. I don't wait for the shields to come back before engaging other targets. Max heal ability though. Performing a pure medic role where you only have your medic gun out spam rezzing people @ choke points - flak armor.
Currently I have equipped: Nano-Regen Device 5. Nanoweave Armour 4 (+20% HP) Between these two utilities, you become one tough bastard. I use the GR-22 which is great in close to medium range fights; it too is fairly equipped with addons. Forward grip, 2x reflex sight, soft point, etc..
I have found myself on very many occasions lately, either killing my enemy at the same time as he kills me, or winning with 1 bubble or HP. That to me is a clear sign that i should be buffing my HP/Resistance to small arms. Now, on the other hand... being a medic gives me the ability, should i be ambushed... to AOE heal myself while i run like a *****, back into cover. Given a quicker Shield generation, i would be able to reveal myself and then fire back quicker. In theory Advanced Shield Capacitor is better for medics than Nanoweave... but i think in practice, maybe Nanoweave is better
