This was the week of the [REDACTED] with some teasing about [REDACTED]…. only.. it’s not [REDACTED] anymore!
That’s right… the worst kept secret in WildStar is officially revealed, the last two classes are the Medic, and the Engineer!
Medic week started out with the Medic DevSpeak:
Our disclaimer this week, is a parody song to the tune of “Highway Star”.
In the DevSpeak we see:
- Carbine acknowledging some of the early peaks at the Medic
- Close range hybrid healer/damage dealer
- The class is described as “Tron meets Neurosurgeon, only weaponized”
- Don’t want healing to be about the “UI Minigame”
- Class abilities: Resonators, Probes, Fields, medium armor
- Just probe it! (probes can also go boom!)
We also got a new WildStar Flick! This one recaps all the classes, and gives us our first official look at an Engineer:
It looks like Nexus may not be safe place to visit after all, it seems there are quite a few psychopathic folks on the planet! Plan your travels accordingly, and watch out for those dangerous Warriors, Espers, SpellSlingers, Stalkers, Medics, and Engineers! (Note, I would avoid asking an Engineer to change the oil on your hoverboard).
The shiny new Medic page tells us that on the Exile side, we’ll find Human, Granok, and Mordesh Medics. While over on the dirty Dominion side, we’ll see Cassian, and Mechari medics (It was mentioned in the Medic AMA, that this will be expanded pre-launch to also include the chompy Chua, so look forward to being healed at ankle level only!).
The page also goes into some basic information on the Medic resource “Power Cores”, which seem to function a bit like ‘combo points’ used by Rogues in that other popular MMO… except, you can start the fight with full Cores:
The Medic’s resource is Power Cores. Power Cores start at full and are consumed by powerful attacks and heals. The Medic can use their basic attack or heal to generate Power Cores in combat. When you leave combat, your cores will quickly restore to full.
The Medic Reddit AMA was held on Thursday, and..as to be expected, there are lots of good tidbits in there. Here are some of my favorite Qs, and their As:
- Q: Would healing fields and I guess damage fields stack? Like in a raid setting could a few medics place extra damage in one area or extra healing in one spot or would the most powerful field be the only one to work? I’m thinking that medics could create a “safe” spot if a raid needs to eat a damaging telegraph for whatever reason.
- A: Healing and Damage fields are independent meaning they can be placed on top of each other. This is a viable counter medic strategy in PvP. In terms of PvE it’s usually inadvisable to place healing fields where the boss is dealing damage unless you have no other option. Groups will need to communicate effectively to get the best out of healing fields.
- Q: What type of dps abilities heal as well?
- A: Here are two examples of Hybrid abilities they more support centric. a. Shield Surge – Costs 2 Power Cores with a cast time. Deals damage to enemies and restores Shields to allies in a line. b. Paddle Shock – Can be used after a Crit instantly. Deals damage to enemies and heals allies in a frontal cone.
- Q: Do probes fade if they are never exploded? If so, do the explosions become less deadly/heally if you wait to the last moment or would that be part of the skilled player approach?
- A: Probes will expire if they are not detonated but the detonation is at full power regardless of how long the probes have been active. This gives strategy to decide when you want to detonate; sometimes it’s more beneficial to detonate early rather than to wait for the last second.
- Q: Most abilities seem to be aoe heals other than probes. Do the Medics have many single target heals?
- A: Medics are definitely more focused on AoE healing. Here are two examples of single target abilities. a. Treat Wounds – Instant Cast (10 second CD), Heals the target for a significant amount. At higher tiers will also restore shields and restore bonus health to enemies at low health. b. Barrier – Instant Cast (90 second CD), Restores a significant amount of Shields and applies a powerful HoT and Interrupt Armor. This is one of your primary Oh Sh@t buttons to save a tank.
- Q: Would you convince the marketing department that us fans need rowsdower plushies in generic and evil appearance? This would be the best collector’s edition/special edition item ever if you guys go that route.
- A: Sorry don’t know about plushies but I think they would be cool!
- Q: Would you say the medic has a high or low skill cap compared to the other healing classes? Eg. Should a new MMO player choose medic over esper or spellslinger healing?
- A: Our goal by launch is that a new MMO player could pick up any of these classes and will be effective with them by the time they start encountering difficult group gameplay. Experienced MMO players will find the Esper healing style familiar while healing as a Spellslinger or Medic should feel a bit different. While all of these classes are going to require skill to play effectively, different skills will pay the different… bills. For example: Due to their short range, Medic healers will need to rely on their mobility and their ability to keep allies close. On the other hand, Spellslingers have narrower skillshots that will have to be lined up properly to be most effective.
- Q: How effective will a medic healer be with ranged DPS in PvP? I am worried that I will have to stay close enough to them to heal, but that will almost always be too far to do support damage/CC?
- A: Playing a 2 ranged class Arena comp is always a bit of a tango regardless of which healer you play especially vs. double DPS teams that may try to separate you from your buddy. That being said I actually think that the Medic is pretty strong with this type of Comp because you have Medium armor and you take a bit more punishment as you will take incidental damage when standing near your DPS friend. Additionally because all of your heals are mobile you will be able to move when your buddy moves and still get heals off.
- Q: What kind of peels, slows, or roots will be available to the Medic?
- A: The medic has Roots and Snares. The Snares are fields so they have to be placed effectively. One field is a ground target spell whereas the other creates the field at your feet and then blinks you backwards. Additionally the Medic has Urgency which can do one of the following. a. Blink you forward 20 meters (this is if no allies or enemies are in front of you. b. Blink your to the nearest enemy and deal AoE damage c. Blink you to your nearest ally healing yourself and AoE healing.
- Q: Will Medic heals be less effective in 3s in arena because they can’t heal both their partners at the same time if they are far apart on the map?
- A: With all classes and healers the effectiveness of the group comes down to communication and positioning. If you have allies that are running around doing whatever they please without paying attention to where there buddies are and where the enemies are you will likely lose.
- Q: How did you decide which races would get the Medic? What was your reasoning for the exclusions (Chua, Aurin et
- A: We make these decisions based upon a few things like:
- How much time do we have allotted for class animations?
- What is the lore behind the race?
- Are both factions getting equal access to the classes?
- Using the time constraints and lore background for each of the races, we tried to create the best fit for the launch of WildStar.
- One clarification though – the Chua race WILL have access to the Medic class.
Not really medic specific, but an answer I was very interested in:
- Q: Are there any plans (assuming the game is successful 😀 ) to allow more races to be classes they are not currently like WoW has done in past expansions?
- A: The primary limitations for the current restrictions is animation time. This is definitely something that will likely push for post launch as many of the devs also want to be a Chua Warrior or an Aurin Engineer =P.
Of course, the week wouldn’t be a Class Drop weak, if we didn’t have a livestream!
The archive of the livestream on Twitch is in two parts. Part One can be found here. Part Two can be found here.
Here’s the notes I took during the stream:
- David Bass and Stephan Frost started off the stream looking very snazzy… they were wearing ties and everything!
- Engineer drop next week, including livestream. Still working on rescheduling the Stalker Livestream due to Thanksgiving.
- Carbine is the only source for keys, don’t go to sites claiming to have them, and buying one could get you banned.
- Get your Beta Survey filled out, they are prioritizing beta invites based on filling that out!
- After replaying the class flick, they jumped right into a Medic vs Stalker duel:
- Medic took round one pretty quickly
- Stalker won round two by the skin of his nano-suit
- Marc came back, with a decisive win for round 3.. the Medic takes 2 out of 3, and the championship! 😛
They did a walkthrough of the abilities for Marc’s current Medic skill loadout, complete with pictures about ranges. You’ll definitely want to watch the last 10 minutes or so of the stream’s archive to see that.
Quick Q&A while Marc swaps to a different build.
- Q: Kinds of Damage in WildStar
- A: Tech, Magic, Physical – Medic centers on Tech.
Part two of the stream starts with another ability walkthrough, going over some of the healing abilities Marc has slotted now.
Probes are applied to yourself, as well as any friendlies in range.
- Q: Medic healing vs Esper/Spellslinger
- A: Medic upclose, Esper/Spellslinger more ranged.. more AoE vs direct heals
- Q: Field abilities stack (from different Medics)
- A: Yes, can stack your own fields in some cases
- Q: Favorite role for medics in raids (tank healing/AE/single target/dps?
- A: Certain healers will have pairings with certain kinds of tanks (tank healing/group healing both work for medic)
Showing off some 2v2 dueling, Engineer/SpellSlinger vs Medic/Stalker.
Our Medic/Stalker team was handily defeated in round 1. We did get to see the OOC rez that all classes now have.
Round two started off with the Stalker showing the amount of damage they can do from stealth (and, behind a target who didn’t move), he almost took the SpellSlinger down. Unfortunately, it didn’t help. The Medic/Stalker duo lost round two as well.
More Q&A while Marc switches out to a healing build for the dungeon:
- Q: Boost defenses up close? or rely on armor?
- A: Few boosts, but you’re gonna want to stay mobile
- Q: Energy Cores? Replenish during fights?
- A: Basic attack restores Cores.
- Q: Special CC due to odd ranges?
- A: Snares, roots, stun
Preparing for taking on the final boss in Stormtalon, walk through of the healing build Marc is going to be using, complete with more graphics showing ranges.
The group handily defeated Stormtalon, the fight looks pretty interesting. Stormtalon has an attack that creates a “safe” zone around one player, and then proceeds to throw lightning bolts at the player, forcing them to run around StormTalon to avoid those.
A few more questions to close out the stream:
- Q: How do you heal in raid, without worrying about UI minigame
- A: Position, pay attention
- Q: More detail on abilities that do both damage/heal
- A: Shield surge — uses cores, damages enemies, heals friendly shields
- Q: How many repair stations?
- A: By default 1, careful timing will let you have 2.
- Q: Field healing in a game where everyone has to be super mobile.
- A: Players have to keep an eye on friendly, use extricate to pull friendly to you.
- Q: Do medics have any long range ability
- A; Single targets are both 30m
As if that wasn’t enough for one week… there was a Stress Test this weekend too! No tweets from WildStar about ram melting this time around, just one of someone banging their head on the desk.. so.. it must have been a pretty successful weekend for them!
Standard reminder: The only place to get a Beta key is from Carbine directly, make sure you head over to the WildStar page and sign up! If you are in Beta.. remember the NDA! Don’t go posting leaks, screenshots, videos, etc..
