Is this actually useful on the ptr?

The entire idea that I have to fire hammer shot at an enemy to heal myself feels wrong. I hate the fact that probe medic is tied to frontline medic. Is this ability designed so that instead of fleeing under duress, I stand there and shoot my attacker to heal myself? They should just let us hammer shot ourselves.

Is this actually useful on the ptr?

 

The entire idea that I have to fire hammer shot at an enemy to heal myself feels wrong. I hate the fact that probe medic is tied to frontline medic. Is this ability designed so that instead of fleeing under duress, I stand there and shoot my attacker to heal myself? They should just let us hammer shot ourselves.

No, it is useless. This talent just proves that BW do not understand this class AT ALL.

It's incredibly useful in pvp, actually. Otherwise, yes.

Of course, I'm not a huge fan of it being a prerequesite for the much more useful-for-everything Probe Medic either, given that the number of times I've put trauma probe on myself in group pve is somewhere around never.

I have also been wondering if Frontline Medic is useful at all in 2.0. You never have Trauma Probe on yourself in flashpoints or Ops and it costs too much to use alot in PvP for way too little gain. Having to use Hammer shot on a enemy to trigger Frontline Medic is really lame. What if I have them CC'd and truthfully as a medic your Hammer Shot on enemies does pathetic damage and is a waste of time.

Hopefully Probe Medic makes Trauma Probe more useful and worth the ammo spent. The bad thing is you have to take Frontline Medic to get to Probe Medic. I still dont want Frontline Medic because it is so situational to have Trauma Probe on myself and then Hammer Shotting an enemy with pathetic damage and chance of breaking CC. I dont understand why they would put something this useless so high up in our tree and then force us to waste 2 points on it to get Probe Medic

If you could put Trauma Probe on someone else and then able to Hammer Shot friendlies, Frontline Medic could be useful but then you have the problem with the green beam of death that eveyone follows and you end up dieing because it screams out "here I am".

It's realistically a PvP only talent. In a flashpoint or an operation Trauma Probe will almost never be on yourself, so you cannot even benefit from healing with Hammershot. In PvP it is a good idea in concept, especially in combination with Hold the Line, but it is a liability if you are breaking CC as a method of healing yourself and thus is poor design in practice. Compounding this is the fact that it is required in order to get Probe Medic, which is really frustrating because of how valuable Probe Medic is.

Here's my issues with it even in PVP:

If you're being attacked it's not going to heal enough to be worth doing instead of casting an actual heal on yourself.

If you're not being attacked and there's an enemy to use it on he's probably attacking one of your allies and you should be healing him instead.

Where is this useful?

Here's my issues with it even in PVP:

 

If you're being attacked it's not going to heal enough to be worth doing instead of casting an actual heal on yourself.

 

If you're not being attacked and there's an enemy to use it on he's probably attacking one of your allies and you should be healing him instead.

 

Where is this useful?

Yep, basically this. I guess it has some basic uses if you get stuck solo guarding a node as a medic (which is just stupid of your team overall if that happens) cause it'd let you kite and heal some what while trying to LOS enemies. But the heal is so minor it's not going to do a whole lot in the large scheme of things. Just a poor concept of an ability.

A nice change I thought would be to completely scrap the self healing part of it and have part you spec into cause smart healing to up to 8 allies within 15 meters of the ally with an active trauma probe every time the trauma probe loses a charge for x healing. Don't make it very much... maybe 0.5% of targets health gets healed. Basically a little splash healing. Would be 5% of someone's health over the course of a trauma probe for mostly the melee.

I don't know, anything would be more useful really.

Here's my issues with it even in PVP:

 

If you're being attacked it's not going to heal enough to be worth doing instead of casting an actual heal on yourself.

 

If you're not being attacked and there's an enemy to use it on he's probably attacking one of your allies and you should be healing him instead.

 

Where is this useful?

In exactly one situation: a 1v1. Which is idiosyncratic, because healers should always be near teammates. Yeah you might get caught alone at fringes of objectives, like if you are transitioning between two objectives (ie. Alderaan or Voidstar) or if you are running along the "sidelines" of Huttball and a DPS jumps to you (it is only ever a melee), but if you are doing your job correctly and are moving with your team Frontline Medic is marginally useful for the reasons you outlined. It is nice if you are alone, but outside of that situation, it's worthless.

In exactly one situation: a 1v1. Which is idiosyncratic, because healers should always be near teammates. Yeah you might get caught alone at fringes of objectives, like if you are transitioning between two objectives (ie. Alderaan or Voidstar) or if you are running along the "sidelines" of Huttball and a DPS jumps to you (it is only ever a melee), but if you are doing your job correctly and are moving with your team Frontline Medic is marginally useful for the reasons you outlined. It is nice if you are alone, but outside of that situation, it's worthless.

Even in a 1v1 I don't see how it's useful. If you have a DPS focusing on you, you're going to need more healing than this will provide.

I imagine it is a animation issue.

They designed hammer shot to be a Commando's free no cost heal, but it comes with a unique problem - They never designed an animation for using on yourself. They realized that a commando lacked self healing and added this in as a "ad hoc" self healing ability.

The problem is that there is almost never an opportunity to use front line medic and when there is time, another ability would be a better choice. It is obvious that people are not using this talent which is why they tied probe medic to frontline medic. 6 talent points for a terrible self healing ability - unbelievable.

Even in a 1v1 I don't see how it's useful. If you have a DPS focusing on you, you're going to need more healing than this will provide.

There actually is a difference, but it is really only clear in an unrealistic situation like a duel (and by duel I mean you don't try to kill the DPS you are dueling, you just try to last as long as possible). The difference between using it and not using it is clear to me: when I make no effort to kite with Frontline Medic the duel is usually over within 30 seconds. When I use it regularly to manage my ammo and heal on the move, I can prolong that fight to over 2 minutes (and use Reactive Shield twice).

The difference is there, but really, in an 8v8, how many times will that kind of situation really come up? And if there is just one more person attacking you in a 2v1, the value of Frontline Medic is nullified. Healing yourself for 100% of your tech bonus healing when you attack an enemy or heal an ally would solve this problem for just about everything but breaking CCs.

I imagine it is a animation issue.

 

They designed hammer shot to be a Commando's free no cost heal, but it comes with a unique problem - They never designed an animation for using on yourself. They realized that a commando lacked self healing and added this in as a "ad hoc" self healing ability.

That's simple enough. Shoot yourself in the foot.

They have a different animation for Operatives to use Kolto Injection on themselves - instead of shooting it at their target, they inject it into their leg. It's not that difficult.

When you are being focus fired and healing yourself, wouldn't you want to put Trauma Probe on yourself? When healing your teammates (i only have a low level commando healer alt), wouldn't you want to squeeze in hammer shots as part of your healing rotation to keep your ammo/energy up? (especially when you don't have the ammo regen long cooldown ability). I think using hammer shot on an enemy to be able to do more healing on yourself is their way of incorprating the ability's heals-only-allies, on to yourself. In PVE on my low level alt, I do something like medical probe- advanced med probe- hs. or medical probe-hs-hs-medicalprobe repeat. In PVP when you don't have the ammo cooldown ability, don't you guys use HS on allies anyway for ammo regen? And if you are getting FF, this talent makes it so you can HS and have it heal you too. Just my 2cents.

^_^

That's simple enough. Shoot yourself in the foot.

 

They have a different animation for Operatives to use Kolto Injection on themselves - instead of shooting it at their target, they inject it into their leg. It's not that difficult.

Mental image of a commando aiming his huge auto-cannon under his jaw... o_o I don't think it's even possible to shoot yourself in the foot, using the auto-cannon. lol

When you are being focus fired and healing yourself, wouldn't you want to put Trauma Probe on yourself? When healing your teammates (i only have a low level commando healer alt), wouldn't you want to squeeze in hammer shots as part of your healing rotation to keep your ammo/energy up? (especially when you don't have the ammo regen long cooldown ability). I think using hammer shot on an enemy to be able to do more healing on yourself is their way of incorprating the ability's heals-only-allies, on to yourself. In PVE on my low level alt, I do something like medical probe- advanced med probe- hs. or medical probe-hs-hs-medicalprobe repeat. In PVP when you don't have the ammo cooldown ability, don't you guys use HS on allies anyway for ammo regen? And if you are getting FF, this talent makes it so you can HS and have it heal you too. Just my 2cents.

 

^_^

The way the talent currently works it only works for using HS on enemies. If it worked when you used HS on allies, too, maybe it would be worthwhile - *maybe*.

Any time you're around an enemy you need to actually be healing or DPSing (if in a PVP) - either the enemy is attacking you and you need more heals than this will provide, or the enemy is attacking a friendly and you should be healing that friendly (and he probably needs more than HS will provide).

Mental image of a commando aiming his huge auto-cannon under his jaw... o_o I don't think it's even possible to shoot yourself in the foot, using the auto-cannon. lol

I'll admit I considered this part more from a Mercenary point of view than a Commando. I'm sure they could come up with something, though.