WildStar Medic Class Guide

Overview

The Medic is close quarter, medium armor wearing healer or damage dealer. Wielding Shock Paddles, they're not only capable of dealing massive damage but they are exceptional at looking after their allies. What makes Medics the so different to the likes of the Esper or the Spellslinger is the fact that they're a melee brawler. You need to be up close and personal to deal damage and to heal your allies which makes this class particularly tricky to master.

Medium armor does offset some of the damage you'll receive but you'll need to be quick on your toes to avoid the abundance of telegraphs you'll encounter. Fortunately the Medic has a variety of skills that allow it to lock down opponents, create space or generally survive for long periods of time. The fact they can teleport, put other players in subdued states or excel at area of effect damage makes them highly desirable. Surprisingly, they aren't a particularly popular class with only the Esper being less popular. In think this is partially because of the skill ceiling but also its pump and dump mechanic (we'll talk about that below).

Strengths

• Large area of effect attacks and heals
• Powerful group healing
• Has some useful mobility skills to get in and out of combat
• Wears medium armor so isn’t as squishy as the Esper or Spellslinger

Weaknesses

• Often focus fired in PvP due to their healing and damage potential
• Relies entirely on building Actuators to use your skills
• Needs to be in the the thick of combat to be effective
• Has no viable ranged attack options

Terminology

• AMP – A system to buff your abilities by spending AMP points.
• AoE – Area of Effect 
• Base – This refers to taking an ability at its lowest possible value.
• CC – Crowd Control
• CD – Cool Down 
• Crit – Chance to critically hit
• Crit Sev – Critical Severity rating 
• DC - Discharge 
• DS - Dual Shock
• DPS – Damage per second
• FP - Field Probes
• GA – Genetic Archives 
• GR - Gamma Rays
• GCD – Global Cool Down 
• HoT -  Healing Over Time
• HPS – Heals per second
• KB - Knock back 
• LAS – Limited Action Set
• ML - Magnetic Lockdown
• RB -  Reduced Burden
• RH - Runic Healing
• SS - Shield Surge 
• SP – Support Power (the primary healing and tanking attribute)
• PP - Protection Probes
• PS - Paralytic Surge 

Mechanic

The Medics mechanic requires much more micro management than the likes of the Spellslinger and is a little harder to explain. Across the bottom of your screen you'll see 4 cubes with 3 visible sides. The cubes are known as Actuators. When you utilize some of the damage or heal orientated skills of the Medic you'll consume one or more of these Actuator's (these are known as dump skills). Once the Actuators are depleted, you'll be unable to use any more of the dump skills until you've built up your Actuators again. You can do this in several ways:

• Using a pump skill (Discharge for damage or Emission for healing)
• Getting out of combat
• AMP's
• Some skill Tiers. 

The primary method however is to utilise your pump skill repeatedly during combat, with each pump skill generating 3 "stacks" before being converted into 1 Actuator (thus 3 sides to the Actuators on the User Interface). Alongside this the Medic has an innate ability called Energize. This buff on a 30 second cooldown will restore all your Actuators and dependent on whether you're above or below 30% health will provide further buffs:

• Above 30% Health: Restore all Actuators and increase Assault and Support Power by 17%
• Below 30% Health: Restore all Actuators, restore X Shield and increase Shield mitigation to 100%

As you can imagine, utilizing this mechanic to its maximum potential is quite tricky. Not only do you have to monitor your use and the need to continually pump and dump but to also use Energize at the opportune moment. Many poor Medics I encounter make the mistake of fail with this class by pumping too little (thus starving themselves of Actuators), using their dump too little (thus crippling their damage output) or using their Energize too early (thus significantly reducing their damage spike potential). In order to be effective here you have to manage your Actuators precisely and pump and dump as often as humanly possible. 

Playstyle

In comparison to the Spellslinger and Esper (though both those classes can last a long time in the right hands) the Medic is particularly hardy. With Medium armor and if you're damage focused it can survive a reasonably long time by itself without healing intervention and if healing focused, it's super difficult to die unless you screw up your pump and dump rotation. That isn't to say they are indestructible because if they're pressured heavily they'll struggle to build Actuators quickly enough to use their dump skills. One of the biggest difficulties facing a Medic, once you've gotten to grips with their mechanic, is to stay in amongst the fights without taking too much damage. There are a couple of options here:

1. Equip a skill such as Urgency which can be used aggressively to teleport you into combat or to teleport you out of it.
2. Use Restrictor to escape danger or and with some practice, use it backwards so you teleport into a fight (I love doing this). 
3. Dispel skills are incredibly useful on a Medic as it will keep you debuff free from slows, roots and snares. 
4. Utilize skills such as ML or PS to keep your foes in place. 

Other than that, you'll need to ensure you've practiced plenty at recognizing which telegraphs you can withstand and which you should avoid. I'd always say try to stay out of them but for the majority of the time it isn't always possible. If you're to maximize your damage output you need to resist retreating from fights and instead get stuck in.  Just be aware, as mentioned before, that as a Medic your damage output is entirely reliant on your pump and dump mechanic. To talk about this element of the Medic a little bit more, there are two pump skills and 4 dump skills (two healing and two damage dealing)

Pump

• Assault - Discharge: Deal technology damage to 5 foes and grant 1 stack of Power Charge every 0.41 seconds. Builds 1 Actuator at 3 stacks.
• Support - Emission: Restore health to yourself and 4 allies and grant 1 stack of Power Charge every 0.41 seconds. Builds 1 Actuator at 3 stacks.

Dump

• Assault - Gamma Rays: Deal Technology Damage with 3 Beams. Each beam can hit 1 foe but all 3 beams can hit the same foe.
• Assault - Quantum Cascade: Deal Technology damage to 5 foes every 0.5 seconds.
• Support - Crisis Wave: Restore Health to yourself and 4 allies.
• Support - Shield Surge: Deal Technology damage to 5 foes and restore shield to yourself and 4 allies. 

As you'll see from the list above, the damage and healing options are limited for pumping, making your reliance on these two skills crucial but also relatively repetitive. Filling 4 Actuators will take 4 casts of Discharge or Emission while two uses of Gamma Rays, Quantum Cascade, Crisis Wave or Shield Surge will deplete your Actuators entirely. Although we'll talk about builds in a separate guide, most people don't equip 2 dump skills though it is viable to take both Crisis Wave and Shield Surge.

Tips & Tricks

1. Remember to always use your pump skill. Whether you are healing or damage dealing, it's your default damage skill and is paramount to you acquiring Actuators.
2. If you're DPS specialized, always dump your skills whether using Gamma Rays or Quantum Cascade. There's no real benefit to keeping hold of your Actuators because your other skills don't use them.
3. If your healing specialized remember that Emission costs very little Focus, so even if you're running on empty you'll still be able to heal your allies.
4. As a healer you need to be a little bit more conscious of Actuators and Focus as even if you have the right amount of Actuators, if you don't have the focus you won't be able to use the skill. 
5. Remember to chain skills together to make maximum use of Actuators + Focus based skills. A great example is to use Paralytic Surge (stun) > Annihilation > Fissure > Quantum Cascade (until Actuators are depleted). 
6. Energize, your innate skill, is your "Oh shit!" and your "DIEEEEE!!!" button. It will recharge your Actuators to full and allow you to double-spike your heals or your damage output. It's easy to melt faces with Energize because if your Actuators are already full, you can use Quantum Cascade or Gamma Rays 4 times (QC > QC > Energize (Full Actuators) > QC > QC). 
7. Remember that Energise also provides a shield boost when you're below 30% HP, meaning you can fight for that little bit longer and hopefully win the fight. 
8. Medics can survive for long periods but you need to remember that being in melee range is filled with risks and you need to be prepared to take damage and be debuffed regularly. 
9. Under heavy pressure from damage received or if you need to heal others repeatedly, the Medic can struggle. Relying so heavily on Actuators for your big heals and damage skills means you need to predict fights. Remember that Energize is designed for those moments when you need back to back heals and/or dps.

WildStar Esper Healing Build Guide
WildStar Esper DPS Build Guide
WildStar Esper Class Guide