In addition to new GCW scenarios in space, they are also introducing the ACE Pilot System where you can battle against some of the best pilots from classic Star Wars™ lore. How would you fare against Wedge Antilles or other famous Star Wars characters? Find out in the GCW2 Space Update coming soon to a galaxy near you! I cant wait!!

Being able to fly against Wedge or maybe even Anakin, what a hoot that would be. He was supposed to be one of the best!! I’m interested to see these new scenarios they have lined up for us and there better be more than 1 for each faction.

Mark SWG Guru

DC Universe Online is set in, you guess it, the DC Universe. These are some iconic figures we are talking about here. Superman, Batman, Green Lantern.. and.. well… honestly I never really got sucked into comics, but there’s a ton of other important looking people standing around giving me stuff to do, and lets face it.. if your friends with Superman you got something going for you.

First Impressions
At first it reminded me a little bit of Champions Online, just re-flavored and smoothed out by a better development team. The graphics are pretty awesome when you stop to look at the scenery, some of the texturing and shadow work are amazing and there is a lot of little details.

Players will choose a mentor for their character (such as Superman, Batman or Wonder Woman for heroes and Lex Luthor, The Joker, or Circe for villains). Their starting location, principal quest rewards and mob loot will be influenced by that decision. The starting zones are either Metropolis or Gotham City, for both heroes and villains. Heroes get access to the Justice League Watchtower, while villains can enter the Legion of Doom headquarters. Other zones can be reached by teleporters from the two faction headquarters.

Character Creation
The character creation options in DC Universe Online are more limited than say City of Heroes or Champions Online, and the game uses a more traditional equipment system – so as you level up you will get new armor and accessories which will alter how your character looks. This is something that most regular MMO players are used to, but the thing that sets it apart from some of the other Armour systems is you can “lock” appereance items so no matter what item you equip you can maintain a certain overall theme for your character with little effort. This is one of those things I wish Blizzard would wake up to, my rogue wants to raid in his vanilla High Warlord set rocking glaives.

Overall as far as Character Creation goes, there are enough options available to keep everyone from looking like Batman, but compared to games like COH/COC where you can customize everything down to your spell effect colors, DC:UO could use some patch updates as far as character creation options go.

I’m not going to get into much about the class creation, because to be honest there’s so many options and specs and talents and spells it just makes my brain hurt. Essentially you can mix and max pretty much any power from the DC universe or comics in general and create a copy of your favorite hero or create for yourself the hero you always hoped you would be.

You can see my first character below, Kungfu, a duel sword wielding acrobatic ice ninja. I tend to enjoy melee characters so the duel swords was a no brainer, and the ice line of talents is awesome for tanking and has some good abilities for locking opponents down in PVP. There are so many different options though I’m sure as long as my interest is held in this game I will be rerolling alt’s to find the powerset the fits my playstyle perfectly. Right now there just isn’t enough information available so there is a lot of guess work.

Interface
The interface is built with console players in mind, but is slightly easier to navigate on a keyboard because of direct shortcuts. On the controller simple tasks like checking the map or activating missions requires navigating menus on a directional pad. Otherwise as a whole the interface felt a little clunky, much like the combat I wouldn’t say it was “bad”, it just feels like something is off.

Movement
Maneuvering is well controlled, but with a few flaws. Flying sometimes feels tight and you may get disoriented while flying inside small buildings. Superspeed is great when you’re running straight but poses some difficulties in tight areas. You may be turning a corner at one minute to find yourself halfway up a wall and turned around the next. Acrobatics is the other movement type in DC Universe and controls virtually without any problems but isn’t quiet as fast when navigating the city as the other two and has a small drawback in pvp combat against flying opponents. All three control rather well with a controller and only present an issue when moving fast through tight areas.

Combat
The problem for me, and personally it’s going to be the “deal breaker” if I can’t get used to it, is the combat. The basic combat should be familiar to MMO players. You have a range of abilities, some of which have cast timers, and some of which have cooldowns. Some abilities can be blocked, some can break blocks, and some can be interrupted. In low-level PVE you can get away with simple casting and a bit of blocking and movement, but I can imagine that you’ll need to make use of roles, and be more judicious with the block/stun/blockbreaking abilities at higher levels. The combo system feels a little cumbersome on the PC – remembering (and correctly performing) mouse click/click and hold combinations is annoying compared to pressing certain keys in a certain order.

For example, my Duel Sword Wielding Frost Ninja (sorry I just like saying that), has a attack called Ultra Flurry. They could have called this thing “Whirlwind of Death” and no one would argue. The problem is that in order to perform this attack, you have to click your left mouse button exactly 9 times, and then hold the button on that 9th click. If you accidentally click 10 times, you perform a completely different attack. So unless your a Mortal Kombat/Street Fighter god, or at least have an xbox controller you can plugin, you might find the combat system to be a little frustrating at first. It’s all about chaining attacks together, blocking, and interrupting blocks.

To try and make playing DC Universe Online a little easier I hooked my computer up to our monstrous 56″ Display, plugged in a wireless XBOX controller, and went to work. Personally it made playing the game a lot more fun. The square and triangle button are your primary close and ranged attacks, then abilities and consumables are assigned to the four buttons when you’re holding either the R2 or L2 buttons, effectively giving you 8 slots to assign. Attack combos begin very basic but can be upgraded to different combination’s of square and triangle as well as holding the buttons for different effects. That said, it never feels too much like an action game. Damage is still listed as “damage per second” and combat always comes down to how fast you can wail on the attack buttons, just like other MMOs. This all leads to a system that boggles expectations. Don’t go in expecting Batman: Arkham Asylum combat controls, but don’t expect standard PC MMO controls either.

Overall
Overall I think it’s a fun, casual game. It’s not going to affect the warcraft core player base, but I think a part of the warcraft community that is tired of the elitist attitude and hardcore mentality that has been taken to the extreme might find DC Universe Online to be a nice change of pace. It’s not going to be for everyone and it does have some issues that need to be worked out in order to make gameplay as smooth and polished as we have come to expect. I’m still not sure if it was worth the $50 bucks or whatever, we will have to see what the current “endgame” content looks like. However, if there is one thing that gives me hope in this game, it’s what my future tank set looks like:

Tags: dc universe, first impressions, gameplay, MMO, MMORPG, sony online entertainment, sony online entertainment soe 0 Comments
The Epic of Tol Barad
Posted on Saturday, January 8th, 2011 and filed under Warcraft.

Tol Barad has been the talk of the Pvp world for the last week due to it’s honor exploit that was just recently hotfixed. It is the level 85 outdoor PvP zone, similar to lvl 80 Wintergrasp, located off the west coast of the Eastern Kingdoms. Every two hours the island fills up with players in a huge capture the base scenario that take no longer than 30 minutes to complete.
Tol Barad originally gave the winning faction 180 bonus honor. Which was a nice change of pace for the battleground honor grind. The problem was that TB is extremely in the favor the defense, so if you held TB at some point in the morning, there’s a good chance you’re going to hold it all day and reap the bonus honor,daily quests, and boss in the zone.

Blizzard thought that if they increased the honor reward for winning on offense that the attacking faction would be more encouraged to win. I’m not sure if someone hit at extra 0 in there, but for a short period of time if the attackers won they would receive 1800 honor! The factions began to talk and a truce was signed on many servers and the win-trading began. Every 2 hours the the attackers won within minutes, and those lucky enough to get in the zone received their 1800 honor, essentially a Pvp piece. Since TB lets you in at a 1-1 basis only a select few that won the “TB Lottery” got in.

A couple of days into the lottery a bridge exploit was found. On the nothern bridge of the Tol Barad Pvp zone that connects TB and TB Pennisula you began to see hundreds of the attacking faction stack. Those who didn’t win the lotto stood and waited. It was discovered that if you could time it right as the third base was being capped if you ran into the zone, before the zone queue warning ported your character out, that you would also receive the 1800 honor. Another truce was made between horde and alliance throughout servers that allowed those on the bridges to remained unharmed so they could time it right. I found about this after I just finished grinding out honor for a week and a half. I was able to make it two or three times and it worked, and finished off my blue honor set. Then when Blizzard realised that the zone was no longer contested but being fully exploited, they did a hotfix on the honor. Their 1800 honor attacking “gift” (as they’re putting it) was available for a week, exploited in days, then hotfixed within hours. Truce treaties were broken and it became a pvp zone once again.

Now Tol Barad awards 360 honor if the attacker wins. Which is more than originally obtained yet we’re unsture if it’s still worth it or not since the zone once gave out just too much honor. Of course this is just another hotfix and the zone is subject to even more changes. We can only hope they’ll find a balance between offense and defense and provide us with a reward that isn’t out of this world yet still worthwhile.

The pet i use the most is my Nexu hes a 60 point pet and because i have full Beast Master skills he does some wicked DPS. That goes for all of my pets except for my Kliknik. My Nexu has a Damage of 1030-1583 with a base DPS of 871. He has all 4 abilities, as do all of my pets, Bite 4, Claw 5, Provoke 5, and Slash 5. the provoke comes in handy for running instances. here is a pic of my Nexu.

Nexu – Most Used

This one is my Rancor. Hes my goto pet for PvP. He’s also a 60point pet but i need to get a better Shaken ability for him. Here are his stats. Damage 1005-1545 with a base DPS of 850. he has Charge 5, Dampen Pain 4, Shaken 1, and Stomp 5. It’s the Stomp and Charge that make him so helpful in PvP. Stomp is an AoE attack and Charge will root the target, good for catching a Jedi on the run. here’s a pic of my Rancor.

Rancor – PVP Pet

This next pet is a 60 pointer too but I don’t use her that often, mostly for show. The coveted Kimogila. She doesn’t have all 4 of her abilities yet because I have yet to learn them myself. Her Damage is 1038-1596 and base DPS of 878 but her abilities are only Bite 4, Disease 2, and Provoke 5. If I had all level 5 abilities for her I think she’d be my goto pet for PvP. here is a pic of my Kimogila. imagine if I had all lvl 5 abilities, I’d love it.

Kimogila

Here is a pet that I have just because he reminds me of a little green Jedi that we all know, Yoda. Hes a finicky little guy and isin’t always happy. Hes a 55 point Woolamander and hes green too, and I named him something close to Yoda. He serves his purpose well and I can use him for just about anything but hes usually used when I’m fighting ranged opponents. His stats are as follows, Damage 912-1402 base DPS 771. His abilities are Bite 4, Disease 2, Defensive 4, and Provoke 5. As you can see the Provoke is in there again. It really helps keep aggro off of you.

Woolamander – Tank

This one is my first level 90 pet, hes only a 37 point pet but he packs a whallop. Hes a Kliknik. I can use this pet for PvP or PvE it doesn’t matter he gets the job done. For only being a 37 pointer hes really tough his Damage is 953-1467 and base DPS is 806 and he has Slash 5, Claw 5, Dampen Pain 4, and Damage Poison 4. All of the stats I have here for my pets in SWG were taken while they were Ecstatic. It really helps to keep them happy.

Kliknik

I hope this gives some of you a reason to level up a pet in SWG or try the BM profession. I don’t make the pets I just use them to KILL!!!!

The SWTOR Studio Insider is written today by two artists: Senior Concept Artist Ryan Dening and Senior Environment Artist Christopher Reeves. These two creators dive deep into the design process of creating the Agent starship. “For the first time, we were making these ships exist in real space and giving the players the experience of owning their own Starship,” Dening said in regard to the difference in designing for SWTOR vs. Knights of the Old Republic. The community is not without its talent as well, and the community team is quick to acknowledge this. Greighson and Crypticgrrl of the official forums had their work displayed in this week’s Fan Friday. Grieghson designed propaganda posters for the Empire, and Crypticgrrl displayed her fine art talent. We have placed their works in the gallery below.

In another announcement, the development team confirmed that it will be at PAX East in Boston, Massachusetts, from March 11th to March 13th.

The thing makes a bit annoying is that game get slower as the interaction increases. The other characters have very large role to play and you have to wait for your turn. The good thing is that it gives you help in fighting or being healed. However there are many battle options to fight in the game if you like constant action you can choose only the quest which gives you more individual role playing. The buying of SWG credits makes the game turn around. As you can buy whatever you want and build your character according to your own needs. The other good thing about online credits is they are cheap and easy to get. You do not have to wander in the game spending half an hour to just find few credits that does not fulfill your need of specific armor or sword. Also you need credits as if you die carrying some costly and high value items on your corpse you have to pay to get your corpse back. So why just log on and Buy SWG Credits now.

Eligible characters must be at least 90 days old and on a game account currently in good standing. In addition, the character to be transferred must be on one of the original 10 ground planets (Corellia, Dantooine, Tatooine, Endor, Dathomir, Lok, Naboo, Rori, Talus, or Yavin 4). Assuming those conditions are met, any player will be able to execute a free character transfer upon logging into Star Wars Galaxies. For more details on the free service, check the official announcement. (And no, Starsider is not an eligible destination.)

With some of the biggest names in the industry jumping into the scene, MMO’s could have a renaissance in the coming years. Another Activision published developer, Bungie, is rumored to be working on an MMO that will be competing directly with SWTOR and WoW, as well as the Titan project that Blizzard is currently developing. EA recently announced that the we won’t be seeing a launch of the new Star Wars themed MMO until after the 2011 fiscal year.

Star Wars: The Old Republic faces the difficult task of making the Sith — traditionally the villains of the franchise — into a playable and likable faction rather than monolithic evil. As the developer entry points out, the Imperial Agent is a major part of that, of giving the chance to look at someone who is quite possibly a proud citizen of the Empire and happy to serve in keeping the peace and bring down the Republic. It’s also a look at the parts between the lines of the films, the spies and intel operators whose role was important but whose faces were rarely seen. But you might decide not to look at the full discussion of the class anyway — and as we’ve mentioned, really, that’s what the agent would want

So you want to know more about medicine. Awesome and welcome! You’re about to learn about what I personally feel is the most rewarding aspect of all of Star Wars Galaxies (SWG) to date. Yours will be the power of life and death; your well-being is directly linked to the success of your entire team, no matter where you are. People will depend upon you, trust their lives to you, and look to you when they have little else.

At the same time, unlike any other profession in SWG I feel that medics have a duty. We’re obligated to heal, not just for experience but for the others. Every person we refuse is damned to hours of sitting online waiting for their wounds to heal, or a search to find another healer. Yes, we have the right to refuse healing but be cautious as to whom you exercise this upon.

In this guide, I’ll describe each of the core medical disciplines: medic, doctor, and combat medic. I’ll begin first by telling you a little about each of them. Then I’ll go into how we relate to the other starting professions, continue with a discussion of each one in depth, and I’ll end with some comments about our tools, life as a medical professional, and the Master of Medicine.

Medical Profession Overviews

Medic – This is the starting level profession and still a highly useful one. While the other professions can choose which lines to specialize in with little penalty, the medic truly requires all their skills for they work together. Medics become adept at healing damage, which is white on a Health-Action-Mind (HAM) bar. This isn’t to say that a doctor or combat medic is not better at healing damage; they are. But all of a medic’s skills relate to healing damage. Medics also have the capacity to heal wounds (black damage to a HAM bar), but their skills are very limited in this respect. There are really two types of medics in the game: field medics and serious clinicians. I’ll go into each of these a bit later on.

Doctor – It has been said before that if medics are the masters of damage treatment, doctors are the masters of wound treatment. Doctors have the capacity of healing any sort or type of damage in the game that isn’t mental. They can treat states, make a mockery of even the most serious wounds, and eventually learn to resuscitate the dead. Again, there are two types of doctors: field docs (resuscitation specialists) and clinicians.

Combat Medic – The combat medic is the medical profession’s offensive line. In my opinion this is the most difficult of all the medical professions for several reasons. One is that in addition to mastering medic (the requirement of a doctor), you have a requirement of field training in a ranged weapon. Second, the components of your medicines are drastically specific, and you will be on goose chases to find them all. Finally, your abilities appear paltry at first. (There’s also several major development issues with current combat medics, but I have faith that these will be resolved quickly). In return for all this difficulty, combat medics gain something that no other line of medicine truly has: you can directly and effectively help people on the front lines. When I get into combat medicine, I’ll tell you what I mean.

Medicine and the Other Professions

Brawler – Medics and Brawlers get along very well together. Traditionally the brawler steps up to the enemy and begins to pound the damage out. Traditionally, brawlers take a lot of damage. A good medic behind the brawler will keep him alive and well, and unless the brawler’s mind pool is low this is a tactic to almost assured victory. Remember well that no medical profession can heal the mind, and remind your brawler that retreat is sometimes a necessity.

Marksman – The medical profession that has the most to offer a marksman is the combat medic. Marksmen typically are sniping and not taking damage, or they’re running and shooting. Only a combat medic can heal for any sort of range. In addition, combat medics can poison and disease the stat that most of the marksmen are aiming for. Doctors do have a very necessary role to the marksmen, for they often don’t run soon enough and end up as corpses.

Artisan – Medicine relies on the artisan in many ways along its path. First and foremost, the artisan has the abilities medicine needs to get its resources. (Forget medical forage; it’s a waste of a command because it will never get you enough of any one resource to create a medicine). This becomes really important when looking for the stranger things in life like Lokian Wild Wheat or Dolovite Iron. Second, no medic is complete without a host of droids, including medical droids for healing and crafting on the run and combat droids to protect us while we heal and resuscitate. The factory is also a necessity, as we cannot make our highest level medicines without their aid. A few words about medic/artisan characters – this combination as well as scout/artisan has the ability to survey AND sample for organic materials. This ability makes choosing an organic resource much easier when setting down a harvester.

Entertainer – By far the medic’s best friend. When a player dies so many times that their HAM bar is entirely black, the entertainer always has to treat them first (medicines have greatly reduced effectiveness in the presence of battle fatigue). In addition, entertainers are the only people that can keep medics themselves going. I remember well my first days in Mos Eisley. It was day 2 of the game (couldn’t log in on day 1), the clinic was filled with wall to wall people bearing some of the most horrendous wounds, and I didn’t know what a woundpack was yet. I would come crawling into the cantina with hundreds of fatigue and gaping mental wounds from tending all day, and I remember well the kindness with which the entertainers put me back into the clinic.

Scout – Scouts are invaluable to medics in the field. Their tents allow us to heal wounds (remember that the higher tents come very close to hospital quality in terms of helping us heal wounds, so if there’s a lot of wounded in the party ask for the best tent possible). Their tents also allow us to call upon our droids for crafting or field wound tending. Furthermore, scouts harvest organic materials that serve excellently for components (and are required for some medicines). With a good scout in the group, a medic can work indefinitely with a stock of inorganic materials and a crafting tool.

An In-Depth Discussion of Medics

As I’ve said before, medics are trained to treat damage. At master medic level, a clinician has learned every they will ever know about the treatment of damage; the difference with doctors and combat medics is that the latter gain more experimentation points and higher level schematics.

First-Aid: This line of medical training teaches the medic how to treat damage more effectively. Every dose of medicine you use becomes more potent and more useful. In addition, advancement in this line grants the ability to cure bleeding and is thus a core necessity for field medics.

Diagnosis: This line allows the medic to heal damage more quickly. A novice medic must wait six seconds between damage treatments; mastering this line reduces that time to three seconds. This has obvious applications in the field.

Pharmacology: This line allows the medic to use more advanced medicines. An early note here about medicine at the medic level – a novice medic with no other training is capable of administering B level medicines. Pharmacology IV is required to use the next level, C. (It is possible via experimentation to reduce the required level to the Pharmacology III range on level C medicines). Thus, pharmacology is really a field that should be reserved for those aspiring to go on to higher medical education.

Organic Chemistry: This line provides more experimentation points and more schematics for the medic to use. A field medic needn’t worry about this line as they can ask a clinician to produce the medicines they need. Thus, this line can also be reserved for those wishing to be field self-sufficient or those who are going on to higher medical education.

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Types of Medics

There are really two types of medics, field medics and serious clinicians. I use the term ‘field medic’ to refer to a character for whom medicine is not a focus but a suppliment. These characters tend to spend a lot of time in the field, and so they need or desire little medical education. The bare minimum you need to administer any medicine is Novice Medic. My personal recommendation is to get novice medic and first aid to the second level: this will allow you to treat any damage or wound on the field (with the acquisition of appropriate medicines) and you will also be able to treat bleeding. I also recommend purchasing your medicines from a master doctor, who has the most experimentation available to make the highest quality medicines. You want to purchase StimpackBs by the crate, perhaps two packs of health/action woundpacks, and one woundpack each for strength, stamina, constitution, and quickness. That should serve for most expeditions you go on.

Serious clinicians are those who intend to go onto further medical education, whether it be as a doctor or combat medic. You have no other option but to master medic first. My recommendation is to move up first-aid and diagnosis simultaneously, saving pharmacology for last. Craft all your medicines yourself, even if they aren’t as effective. If you have extra medicine, donate it to other medics below you.

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Gaining Experience as a Medic

This section really only applies to serious clinicians, as field medics will have little problems getting the small amount of experience they need on the field. A few notes about medical experience in general:

1) Wounds grant experience at a 2:5 rate. Thus, two wounds treated equals five experience.
2) Damage grants expereince at a 5:2 rate (as far as I can tell). Thus, for every five damage treated, two experience is granted. Note that you can treat action and health damage simultaneously.
3) Medical crafting experience is not at a strict 1:2 resource to experience ratio as it is in most artisan fields. Some components of medicine give more, coming as close as 1:3 resource to experience. My personal experience is that crafting biological effect controllers is the most resource to experience efficient at 6/6 organics/inorganics for 35xp. The fastest crafting experience is Stimpack Bs, which can be made completely without a crafting station. These give about 200 xp when hand-crafted from bare resources.

Some tips for levelling your medic quickly:

– Novice Medics: At this level you’re just starting out. You can only make stimpack As, and rarely does someone come into the clinic with white damage. So what do you do? Get a pile of organics, whether by bazaar purchase, donation, hook, or crook. Get a pile of inorganics, and get a generic crafting kit. Walk into the local cantina and start crafting Stimpack As and using them endlessly on the entertainers. Entertainers have a neverending supply of damage for you to treat, and as long as you are using stimpacks you’ll get experience as well. If the local cantina is full, find out where all the artisans are macro-harvesting and repeat.

– Intermediate and Advanced Medics: At this point you have figured out the basics of a woundpack. Once you have Action and Health woundpacks, you are now ready to handle a small frontier clinic yourself. No, you won’t be able to handle the wounds coming in but people are generally patient as opposed to having to purchase a roundtrip ticket to the nearest healer. You also can serve excellently as an apprentice to a doctor in a medium or large city clinic. Doctors generally handle major wounds, as their skills and medicines are wasted on the smaller ones. An apprentice handles the light wounds, and if your mentor is decent you’ll also get free teaching and a portion of the tips as well.

– Mastery level Medics: You’re now ready to handle a small city clinic with the help of an assistant or two. Craft more medicines than you need, and give them to your apprentices for their use. You’re almost ready to go on! Congratulations!

An In-Depth Discussion of Doctors

As said before and earlier, doctors are the masters of wound treatment. When an entry level medic can heal perhaps 8-10 wounds every 20-30 seconds, you can heal 600+ per 10-15 seconds at your peak. You have the ability to add 1000-2000 to any stat you’d like (barring mental) for as much as an hour or more. Your stimpacks aren’t rated for humanoids; you can heal 3-5k HAM pets with ease. And you can revive the dead. A master doctor is just as formidable in their element as a master of Teras Kasi, or Bounty Hunter, or even creature handler. Let’s look at your skills:

Wound Treatment: This line is your bread. With it, you heal more wounds per application of medicine. A master of wound treatment has the potential to revive a player, although you’ll need more than this to apply the resuscitation kit.

Wound Treatment Speed: This line is the butter that goes on your bread. Healing wounds every half minute is novice medic level. With this line, you can cut that down to quarters of a minute (sometimes it seems faster). A master of this will walk into a hospital full of heavily wounded patients and clear it in a few minutes.

Doctor’s Medical Knowledge: Your higher level medicines have some insane requirements, and this is the only way you’ll be able to use them. For simple stimpacks, it’s possible to get a StimC into the 2000s with perfect resources and advanced components. If you’re going to triage a medical tent in a major assault yourself, you want E level woundpacks under your arms. And the resuscitation kit’s requirement is not a trifle, either.

Doctor’s Crafting: Only a master of this can create resurrection kits. Most doctors will know a master of this line if they are not one themselves. In addition, mastery grants up to ten total experimentation points for medicine.

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Types of Doctors

Similarly to medics, they are dabblers and then there are serious clinicians. Field docs care only about the ability to revive their comrades, and thus must master wound treatment and touch upon medicine knowledge. Gaining experience for you is simple; go into battle and stimpack the incapacitated. Each administration should be good for 300-400 experience, and by this time you can perform that every three seconds.

Serious doctors belong in the clinics. In a medium to large city, you will be the cornerstone of the medical effort. Any wound over 150 should be brought to your attention, and you’ll have to deal with everything if you aren’t fortunate enough to have an assistant. Get a crafting droid because you’ll almost never have time to run out to a private station. Eventually you’ll need access to crates of components; I recommend collecting all the doctors on a planet and distributing cost and access time. One factory can probably serve the component needs for five to ten doctors. You are essential to the health and well-being of your community, just as a doctor is in real life.

The only real tip for levelling a doc is to go where the wounded are. On Tatooine, I had a network of medic assistants in most cities, and when seriously wounded came in I took the shuttle over and helped them. Towards the end of my career enough docs had surfaced and I just concentrated on my own clinic in Mos Eisley. When your PA or faction is involved in a siege, set up a triage tent with a ranger and treat the wounded there. And so on. The tips for getting through your massive crafting requirements are the same as with a medic: get a pile of organics and inorganics and go craft biological effect controllers or StimpackBs. As a doctor, you can either donate, destroy, or sell the StimBs you produce (with your training, they are very useful to field medics).

An In-Depth Look at Combat Medics

Havoc walks in your footsteps. With an arsenal of diseases and poisons at your command, you are among the masters of damage over time (DOT) in SWG. Picture this: your faction is drastically outnumbered and being sieged. The enemy is collecting for their final assault. One lone combat medic goes out, and from fifty meters throws an Area Mind Disease. Can you imagine the horrors as one in five of their offensive line slowly watches their charcter take direct wounds to their mind? This sort of damage can only be treated with the combination of a skilled doctor (to cure the disease) and an entertainer (to cure the mind wounds). You’ve just doomed at least 20% of their force to 15 minutes in the cantina if they were ready for you. And that’s if they had disease resistances.

With ranged stimpacks, you can be as much as fifty meters away from your tank and keep his or her life well replenished. In terms of field work you trump a doctor save for resuscitation skills: your stimpacks are nearly as powerful, ranged, and only require a little bit more materials for a casing. Let’s not forget about area stimpacks as well. And should it be necessary, you still have the wound treatment abilities of a master medic. Your skills:

Combat Medicine Healing Speed – similar to the medic skill but your ranged stimpacks (and attacks, I believe) base their rate of fire upon this skill.

Combat Medicine Range – This acts as a multiplier, as much as doubling the range on your arsenal. With decent materials and no advanced components my ranged D stimpack has a range of 26 meters base. Doubling this to 52 meters is quite useful.

Combat Medicine Support – This is your ability to use more advanced combat medicine. This is much more important for combat medicine than the other medical professions, because combat medicine has its own technique for using it. You won’t be able to apply the lowest level disease units without a level or two in this track.

Combat Medicine Crafting – As with doctor, this adds an additional 5 experimentaion points (to a max of 10) as well as gives you access to more powerful schematics. As with the other lines, medical experimentation is extremely powerful.

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Types of Combat Medics

There’s really only one type of combat medic. You’re in the field, healing from afar and supporting your group with diseases and poisons. Depending on which weapon you chose to fulfill your combat experience requirement, you’ll probably specialize in one of the diseases/poisons. Stat poisons and diseases seem only effective against player characters, but it’s a load of fun watching the enemy wookie Teras Kasi master take slow strength wounds until the point of ineffectiveness. A combat medic really isn’t much better than a medic in town, save for the fun of sitting at the other end of the cantina and lobbing stims at the entertainers.

There are two strategies for levelling a combat medic. One: master medic, get into the field, and get to work. Two: Master Doctor first. Medical experience is medical experience, and when you can throw around 600+ wound heals for 1.5k experience a shot it doesn’t take very long. This is the route I took, and I went from Novice to Master Combat Medic in under sixty hours including power crafting and good sleep. I believe you could do it in 48 hrs. Even if you intend to surrender doctor afterward, I suspect it’s a good deal faster than combat medicine alone. Additionally, you don’t need to really bother with doctor crafting if you acquire the good woundpacks another way. And you can keep the resuscitation skills if you so choose.

The Medical Tools

Part of learning what medicine about is dealing with the various components and medicines we can create. Here I’ll describe each of them and give a few thoughts.

–Main Commands

* /tenddamage – This basic medic command requires no medicine and heals damage (white injury to HAM). Be warned that this will cause around 180 mind damage to you, as well as inflict battle fatigue and mind, willpower, and focus wounds. Note: this command grants no experience points.
* /tendwound – This basic medic command requires no medicine and heals a wound type (health, action, constitution, strength, stamina, or quickness). This command will cause about 350 mind damage and double the wounds as /tenddamage.
* /healdamage – This command uses the first stimpack in your inventory to heal your target. The command will select between ranged and small stimpacks depending on your distance to the patient.
* /healwound – This command uses the first woundpack in your inventory to treat the largest wound your patient has.
* /firstaid – This command requires first-aid II and will treat bleeding. Several applications may be necessary to completely stop the bleed.
* /quickheal – This first-aid IV command obliterates your mind bar to quickly heal damage to your target. I can’t even tell you the wounds it causes because I never use it. Keep some stims handy.
* /resuscitate or /revive – Master Surgeon (Wound Treatment IV) command to bring a player back to life. Successful use of this command *requires* that your patient is a) either in your group or has given you /consent, b) is within 5 meters of you, and c) has not cloned yet. If in a group, advise your groupmates to not hit OK on the clone window until you have told them resuscitation is beyond hope (usually due to aggros sitting on them that you can’t distract with your droid). Don’t close the clone window either; they will clone. You can send and recieve tells when in corpse state, so use this to gain consent and revive targets. Revives give 750-1k medical experience per application and should be followed immediately with a stimpack. Note that resuscitation is not necessary for incapacitated patients; use a stimpack only for that.
* /applypoison – Combat Medic command to administer a poison to the target. At time of this writing, four in five poisons fail. If successful, the target will take damage to the poisoned stat.
* /applydisease – Combat Medic command to administer a disease to the target. At the time of this writing, four in five diseases fail. If sucessful, the target will take wounds to the diseased stat (not as quickly as poison).

–Medicines

* Stimpacks – Stims are our damage (white HAM injury) healers. They heal much more damage than a woundpack can heal wounds, and can treat health and action simultaneously. Stimpacks found as loot have been reported to treat mind as well. Advanced stimpacks require berries and fiberplast as base components.
* Woundpacks – These treat wounds. They are not found as loot and are crafted only by medics and doctors. You must have a woundpack for each of the six types you can treat (health, action, constitution, quickness, stamina, or strength). If you have all six, using the radial and selecting ‘heal wound’ will show you a list of what medicines you can apply (and thus rule out which areas are not wounded). Advanced versions require tubers and polymer for components.
* BioEnhancements – Doctor only medicines that boost stats for a period of time. You can look at the duration by examining the drug. (NOTE: At time of writing these are severely bugged. Administration of a health or action boost freezes the HAM bar, and all other stat boosts wear off in about five minutes. Good for experience, though). Advanced versions require avian meat and reactive gas.
* Biological Effect Controllers – These are required in every healing medicine beyond level B. They are most directly related to how powerful the medicine is. Advanced BECs require Lokian Wild Wheat and Tatooinian Fiberplast. Higher level medicines require more than one BEC, and thus they must come from a factory.
* Chemical Release Mechanisms – These are required in every healing medicine save for resuscitation kits beyond level B. They control a good deal of the medicine’s power as well as the number of doses. In stimpacks, they seem to share the load for decay resistance with liquid suspensions. Basic versions require chemicals and any organic base. Advanced chemical mechanisms require class 4 petrochemicals and herbivore meat.
* Solid Delivery Shell – These are required for woundpack and bioenhancer construction. They relate most closely to the decay resistance but also affect overall power. Basic versions require any metal and any organic base. Advanced versions require dolovite iron and domesticated oats.
* Liquid Suspensions – These are required for stimpacks and resuscitation kits. They enhance power, doses per pack, and decay. Basic verions require water and any organic base. Advanced components require Talusian water vapor and Dantooinian berry fruit.
* Ranged Stimpacks – Similar to ordinary stimpacks save that they can work at range. Require additional materials for a weapons casing (non-ferrous metal).
* Area Stimpacks – Again similar to small stimpacks and requiring a dditional materials.
* Injection Amplifiers – Component required for poison and disease units. Basic versions require reactive gas and aluminum. Advanced versions require eleton gas and titanium aluminum.
* Dispersal Mechanisms – Component for poison and disease units. Basic versions require Liquid Petrochemical Fuel and Inert Petrochemicals. Advanced versions require Class 2 Petrochemical fuels and “fiberplast_yavin” (a bug at the current time; fiberplast from yavin will not work).
* Resilience Compounds – Component for Poison and Disease Units. Basic versions require reactive gas and radioactives. Advanced versions require Tolium Gas and Class 1 Radioactives.
* Poisons – Combat Medicine that does damage (white injury) to the target’s stat over time. These can be crafted to affect any stat, including the mental ones. Much faster and of limited duration than diseases. Requires fungi and liquid petrochemical fuel.
* Diseases – Combat Medicine that causes wounds (black injury) to the target’s stat over time. These can be crafted to affect any stat, including mental ones. Much slower, but of longer duration than poisons. Require insect meat and radioactives.
* State Packs – Doctors can, given the right ingredients, cure any status including blinds, dizzy, poison, and disease. Very few of these are of long enough duration to require curing, so I haven’t experimented much with them.

Some advice on surviving as a medic

The practice of medicine in SWG is very similar to real life: all of the respect, none of the money. Seriously, you’re looking at one of the poorest professions in all of SWG. The economy of a healer is based largely on tips. Most players believe they’re entitled to free healing since they’re giving you free experience, and very few tip in general. Initially, when I played I read a beta FAQ that suggested asking for five credits per wound point healed. The amount of shun I recieved was so great that I learned a valuable lesson about medical economics in SWG. To this day, other doctors have reminded me of that shame in meetings of our colleagues. Don’t make that mistake.

Never let a patient go unhealed unless their offense against you is great. This doesn’t mean that you can’t put people typing in all caps, speaking d00dish or l33t, or cursing you until you heal them at the back of the line. This also doesn’t mean that you can’t give priority for those who are willing to tip. It’s is the truth of SWG that harvesters require money, power generators require money, factories require money, and if you’re in the clinic all day then you can’t go out to get the money.

My personal experience (supported by the Intergalactic Health Association on Starsider) is that in a public clinic (in a town) everyone should be healed in time. Ask for tips, and if asked for an amount suggest one credit per wound point healed. Feel free to give priority to those who can pay, or ask an assistant to handle the others. In a private clinic, I believe it’s really your choice. You’ll survive or you’ll fail, in your own hands. Alternatively, scouts and artisans who bring tips of organic and inorganic resources can be a thousand times better. In most of my days I never had a harvester, relying on donated materials to keep going.

Finally, as with entertainers never forget to role-play. People tip well if you say hello and talk to them a bit rather than running over with an arm full of medicine and ramming it into them. You’ll never even need to ask for tips, because for the five you don’t get paid for someone will tip you 5,000 credits. You also get to learn about the world around you, what’s going on and who’s who. Just as in real medicine, it cures the monotony and makes the practice very exciting.

Some advice on surviving as a medic … in combat

Rule #1 – Never enter combat. If you must, take a few shots and then peace. Your role is to support (heals and resurrections, poisons and diseases if you have them). Especially for doctors; as long as you are alive, your party has a chance at resurrection.

Rule #2 – If you hear combat music, hit burstrun. Train until reflex. See Rule #1.

Rule #3 – Advise your group members that if they need attention to send you a tell. The yellow splits it out nicely from combat spam and you can get to who needs you. Also make full use of the ability to select a group member from the group profiles bar and use the tilde key to radial or hotkeys for the appropriate therapy.

Rule #4 – If a party member is incapacitated, throw them a stim. Unless they’ve fallen to mind damage that’ll be enough to get them on their feet without waiting on the incapacitation timer.

Rule #5 – If one or two aggros are camping a patient’s body or corpse, send a droid or have a party member distract while you perform medical rescue. Healing on the spot is usually the best alternative, though dragging is an option.

Rule #6 – If you are attacked in combat, run into your group, /peace, and see rules 2 and 1.

Rule #7 – If you are in PVP combat, take off your title. Trust me on this one. Ow.

Rule #8 – It is possible to healdamage in combat to yourself or others. Do not use any special maneuvers and enter the command. It will take a few combat rounds but it will come through.

Rule #9 – A crate of stimpacks in your backpack is invaluable on long campaigns.

Rule #10 – Overestimate the number of resusciation kits you need by 200%. Never forget to account for players who self-darwinate and the surrounding collateral evolution.

Crafting Medicine

Like other crafting disciplines, crafting to full effect requires good materials and experimentation. This includes your components! For medicine, overall quality is the most important thing regarless of intended application. Make sure to examine everything that you put into medicine and check for good quality. Second, experiment as much as you can.

Pricing Medicine

I’ve gotten a lot of questions on how much people should charge for medicines. In general, I believe a good rule is 3 credits per resouce involved plus extra for your time, factory time if needed, power, any travel (for advanced components) and the like. That comes out to around 50 credits for A level medicines, 150 for B and C levels, 300 credits for D levels, and 400 credits for E level medicines. If you add any advanced components or use special resources, go ahead and raise the prices. For that matter, feel free to charge what you wish; for example I need to add a little on Dantooine because it’s so hard for me to get some resources. I normally asked for about 500 credits per resuscitation kit given normal materials when I was on Tatooine (easy to get resources from the market).

The Master of Medicine

You’ve done it. You’re a master medic through long hours in the cantina or on the field, a master doctor through even longer hours in the clinic or grinding, and a master combat medic. You’ve got two lines in Marksman, one for your weapon of choice and another for your ranged support. And you have four points left to spare. Sweet.

Seriously though, life as a Master of Medicine has been something I never really expected. It was always a goal and never really came a thought of ‘what next’. As a master of medicine I can generally walk into any hospital and clear it in a few minutes regardless, or be in any battle situation and keep the group alive. Coupled with another resuscitating doc, there really is little I can’t do in my realm.

There are shortfalls. You can’t control enough harvesters for all the resources you need, especially from the combat medic side. You have almost no points left. You surrender your surveying ability from artisan, your small bit of entertainer you picked up on the side, your scout ability to make tents… it’s all gone.

What I can tell you is that the journey itself is worth it just to see the surrounding countryside as you travel. You’ll meet hundreds of great people, become an invaluable resource to all who know you, and have accomplished what little others will ever do in their SWG careers.

As a Master of Medicine, life does go on. From joining PA guilds to opening up a little shop, there are more doors open to you than you may initially think. One of my hobbies is to offer anyone who needs healing my services for free, so long as they pay travel. When there’s a group of people on Lok who need help, splitting 5k four ways doesn’t seem so bad. And I have a little shop, on a river on Dantooine. My advice to you is to get out of the clinic, teach whomever needs it, continue to serve the people around you, and explore the galaxy. And do whatever else you want!

To all the Masters of Medicine out there, send me an email. Just let me know how the trip was, and what you think of the summit. I’m still having trouble catching my breath.