Combat Medic (Horde Frenzy Mostly)

Gears 5
#1

Grinding this class to 20 as I have avoided it for quite a while and chose better/more fun classes first. Only at 17 but have a huge grind ahead of me even with boost. So…how do you guys make it manageable and perhaps even usable at 20 in high difficulties?

It feels like you need Suppressive Recharge (flat second reduction in Ultimate Cooldown on grenade kills) and to perk Ultimate Cooldown to level 10 to deal with Inconceivable Frenzy. But without Grenade Pouch (+max grenades), it simply is neither economical or feasible to get those critical grenade kills between waves when targets take a minimum of two grenades to kill. If you take both, you end up dropping something critical like Custom Lancer, Dodge (% ballistic resistance beyond 5m), HP stim on criticals, or any of the great Ultimate effect based cards.

I’ve been going full support with something like: Grenade Pouch, Suppressive Recharge, Overdoing It, Helpful Headshots, and Dodge.

#2

I didn’t in all honesty. I bought his cards and did the clock speed run to cheat him to 20 when boost was on. Quick and painless and the only one I did like this because he’s awful.

1 Like
#3

You don’t. Your best chance is a tri-shot with stim-headshots, healing bounty and the 3 dmg-res cards. I don’t know why you would ever do that, but it kinda works.

#4

I’ve seen some medics spamming shock grenades… and I thought that was pretty smart since it can area of effect for a bit, hit multiple flushers, and are probably most effective versus robots- but it really messed the team up a lot too by forcing a stun animation on them.

IMO, it seems counterintuitive to need the recharge so often if we spam their ultimate. Like, waltz over there and get them… don’t waste it on one, or even sometimes two blueberries!

I mean, I’m personally okay with anyone’s play style or experimental builds for any class (within reason), so, if it’s working, you’re having fun, and your time is fulfilling then keep on that wave.

My build is kind of tedious (not a damage dealer)- but we usually survive and I only need the ultimate a couple times a match, sometimes using it frivolously on a twelfth wave. It’s a support role reliant on headshots/team health):

Perfect condition (taking heavy hits when healed/stim)

Custom lancer (gotta have something/lancer GL late)

Helpful headshots (stim/etc for everyone)

Healing bounty (most important card for my build? Use it mostly for team assists—- this plus the passive is real strong—- spam marks even on easy kills… spam it!!!)

Intervention (revives without using ultimate if player skill, coordination, and awareness is attuned)

I swap out my gnasher for a hammerburst (stable headshots/plenty of free ammo), switch to lancer for larger threats. Spam marks for teammates. Perk up pretty evenly but start the rotation with cool down and health. After wave eight or so, I’ll splurge on a GL… sometimes.

Rinse and repeat!
You’re almost there!
No retreat, no surrender, no defeat!

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#5

Don’t get me wrong, I imagine I am playing it wrong–albeit probably the worst Horde Class outside promos. Intervention just doesn’t seem good to me. Outside of getting an active-GL kill on top of a teammate, I can’t imagine any other useful scenario outside of juvies where you can get the kill (assuming always execution rules).

#6

Intervention is sometimes useful in saving time… specifically chainsawing a reject or juvie that ambushes a close teammate. It’s better leveled up- I spent coins- even then it’s still only a 4.9
You could do without that card- but if you can’t GL them- down them then snub to kill… I’m usually only doing the dailies and execution rules modifier is usually not present.
Either way- there are a lot more enemies that DON’T go DBNO than it seems people think there are (as far as Intervention’s utility is concerned).
In the case that someone is out in a compromised position, then they might be punished for that by dying. It happens all the time when there isn’t a medic hehehe!

But yeah, shock grenades with the pouch can be strong too. For example, blood drive center taps with two or more leeches and on multiple taps… cherry pick the targets.

Really makes me wish we could save multiple quick-access builds (for ranged/execution nomad, ranged/face tank brawler, hijack/all purpose jack, or grenade/etc medics) instead of toying with cards.

#7

There’s various ways how you can play Combat Medic and the class can do surprisngly better than I initially thought, even on Master.

What I use is the three dmg res cards, Custom Lancer and Helpful Headshots. Combat Mediccan do surprisingly well with a Lancer GL, one-shotting Drones with a single GL round even when they have double health. The GL is also a fantastic Ultimate recharge tool when facing Scions, DR1s or bosses and can do serious damage if those are frozen.

I usually tend to get the GL around wave 7, maybe a bit later and hold on to it until the Engineer provides me a locker. Once the locker is present, I get 4 GLs and start perking up the damage perks. Before that, I keep depositing. Combat Medic is one of the last guys to get a locker usually. With ammo boxes he can do fine when swapping between Lancer and Lancer GL a little bit.

I tend to choose a spot that’s usually less guarded (Allfathers Arena is a good example with the taps on the side of the map).

And I generally just use Team Revive whenever someone is down on the battlefield or down for like 5 seconds within the base. Getting it back shouldn’t be too much of a deal.

You can of course also work with Tri-Shots, then you don’t need the Custom Lancer card. In that case you can use Overdoing It so your revived teammate has a better chance of survival. If used on yourself, you’re basically invulnerable for 11 seconds because of the absurd dmg res and instant health-regen.

EDIT: Just realized you mentioned Frenzy mostly. In that case my build is rather not suited for it and you’re better off with the builds the others suggested.

#8

I think combat medic isn’t a DPS class really, but it’s weird when people compared to Tactician of the reason why combat medic can’t have the potential to do much DPS.

My Build, as a supporter, is very basic.

  1. Suppressive Recharge

  2. Grenade Pouch

  3. Perfect Condition

  4. Team Repair

  5. Get Up

The reason why using Team Repair is mostly reduced cost for engineer and for the emergency use when your fortifications are all broken, especially for the Poison modifier.

For the grenades, I use to buy Frag and Incendiary grenade. Frag can have faster reload on your ultimate while Incendiary can have special uses when your bosses are Matriarch, Snatcher, Carrier and Stump.

It’s fun and useful in Master level especially when your team don’t have Jack. If you seem combat medic as a DPS, you would be disappointed. If not, it would be surprised when your grenades do much damages in Boss Waves. It has the potential to get the MVP with Grenade pouch.

PS：I’m looking forward that combat medic has the Incendiary grenade card because it’s really like dot damage and feels satisfied watching the HP slightly reduced.

To compared with Slugger, I would choose Combat Medic instead of Slugger, doesn’t mean to kick but a preference, at least combat medic has the essential ultimate to save teammates.

2 Likes
#9

Thank you for the good info nonetheless!

#10

I find myself not needing Razor’s Edge since if your health gets that low, you are boned usually regardless.

1 Like
#11

Yeah I’m kinda the same. With Perfect Condition you get that defence buff straight away. With Razor’s Edge you need to lose 51%+ of your health before it kicks in and even then it simply replaces Perfect Condition until you regenerate your health.