Is Medicine Pool Worth It?

[drgantz]

I plan to make an StJ/SR Stalker.  Someone suggested that I take the Medicine Pool for self healing.  To fully take it, I would need 3 slots.  I  have 2 empty slots, but I would have to eliminate something useful for the 3rd slot.  I'm thinking of removing Hasten since SR already quickens recharge.

I've looked at other builds, and none used the Medicine Pool.  This makes me wonder if it is really that great.

[Groovy_Ghoul]

There are better power pool picks. I would find a spot for the Preventative Medicine Absorb Proc, build for high(er) levels of regeneration and carry green inspirations. When you have very high levels of defense, you won’t get hit much

[StrikerFox]

I would say it depends on your build and playstyle. I skipped the Medicine pool and have no regrets. To help compensate, Power Transfer proc slotted in Stamina, Physical Perfection and Superior Conditioning plus Panacea proc in Health. They heal an average of 14.90 hp/s on top of regular regen. On my build, it works out to about 32 hp/s total. 

Three Power Transfers + one Panacea, in one minute (19:56) healed for 1041.44 hp, about 17.36 hp/s. The next minute (19:57), they healed for 852.04 hp, around 14.20 hp/s. Final minute (19:58), healed for 972.52, about 16.21 hp/s. It seems higher than 14.90 hp/s but I did a 30 minute test in the past and the average was lower than this 3 min test.

 

Advantages: 1. No endurance cost. 2. No cast time. 3. No interrupt time. 4. For Regen enthusiasts, they're not effected by -regen debuffs.

Drawbacks: 1. Heals less than Aid Self. 2. Untimely, random when the heals happen. 3. When getting pummeled, there's a good chance when PT/Pan heals, it won't be enough to make a difference. 4. Four dedicated slots without set bonus.

Slotted Preventive Medicine +absorb and took Rebirth Radial Destiny. Also Reactive Defense unique to stack with SR's scaling damage resist from Agile and Dodge. Also Spinning Strike's KD effect can be useful at times. 

[Uun]

No need to heal if they can't hit you. Once you're fully slotted you'll be at the defense soft cap to all (the AoE toggle comes fairly late though). I'm leveling a Psi/SR scrapper now and did a BS/Shield last year and had no need for a self heal with either.

[Gobbledigook]

If you are soloing you won't get hit a lot and can use inspirations even temp powers and regen.

 

If you are teaming then there is a good chance someone on the team has a heal of some sort. You may well have buffed resists as well and be extremely durable and won't need healing much.

 

Rebirth Incarnate offers healing if you wish.

 

The more SR loses health the higher the resists become also. In my opinion you do not need it. Take hasten.

 

Hasten will boost dps. Dead mobs....i mean arrested mobs are no threat. I am going to arrest you after i have hit you with my big axe a few times 🤣.

Edited June 30, 2023 by Gobbledigook

[Without_Pause]

The Medicine Pool was much more a pre-IOs thing. I can't fathom finding room for it on a build now.

[Hyperstrike]

On 6/29/2023 at 10:55 PM, StrikerFox said:

I would say it depends on your build and playstyle. I skipped the Medicine pool and have no regrets. To help compensate, Power Transfer proc slotted in Stamina, Physical Perfection and Superior Conditioning plus Panacea proc in Health. They heal an average of 14.90 hp/s on top of regular regen. On my build, it works out to about 32 hp/s total. 

Three Power Transfers + one Panacea, in one minute (19:56) healed for 1041.44 hp, about 17.36 hp/s. The next minute (19:57), they healed for 852.04 hp, around 14.20 hp/s. Final minute (19:58), healed for 972.52, about 16.21 hp/s. It seems higher than 14.90 hp/s but I did a 30 minute test in the past and the average was lower than this 3 min test.

 

Advantages: 1. No endurance cost. 2. No cast time. 3. No interrupt time. 4. For Regen enthusiasts, they're not effected by -regen debuffs.

Drawbacks: 1. Heals less than Aid Self. 2. Untimely, random when the heals happen. 3. When getting pummeled, there's a good chance when PT/Pan heals, it won't be enough to make a difference. 4. Four dedicated slots without set bonus.

Slotted Preventive Medicine +absorb and took Rebirth Radial Destiny. Also Reactive Defense unique to stack with SR's scaling damage resist from Agile and Dodge. Also Spinning Strike's KD effect can be useful at times. 

Yeah.  I've been watching my combat monitor for a while  Between Power Transfer, Numina and Panacea, I'm realizing some huge (for a Blaster) swings in HP.

[tidge]

I used the Medicine pool for a while on a Shield Tanker (pre-50), I made a point to use the powers (on teammates in trouble) but they simply weren't useful enough.

 

The only other character that I felt I got mileage out of Medicine was a Mastermind, but that was during the before times, and it was only useful (for me) to keep a small number of henchmen (i.e. when I had ONLY T1 or T1+T2) alive at lower levels... and I was doing crazy stuff like street-sweeping even level mobs in Perez Park. After getting the T3, I respecced out of Medicine.

[KC4800]

I haven't taken Medicine Pool on ANY character on Homecoming since I started playing in 2019. I may have taken it once when the game was live.

[Hyperstrike]

The basic formula for Damage mitigation is fairly well understood after nearly 20 years.
So the need for Medicine has been somewhat obviated.

[DyingLegacy]

It being able to be interrupted is what makes it garbage.  When you REALLY need, chances are it’s gonna get interrupted and you die anyway.  The final power in medicine should remove the interrupt from it 

Edited July 19, 2023 by DyingLegacy

[biostem]

On 6/29/2023 at 2:09 PM, drgantz said:

I plan to make an StJ/SR Stalker.  Someone suggested that I take the Medicine Pool for self healing.  To fully take it, I would need 3 slots.  I  have 2 empty slots, but I would have to eliminate something useful for the 3rd slot.  I'm thinking of removing Hasten since SR already quickens recharge.

I've looked at other builds, and none used the Medicine Pool.  This makes me wonder if it is really that great.

I've taken medicine before.  It's not bad per se, and it does heal for a good amount.  That being said, there are a few caveats:

 

1. You have to train yourself not to move to even press any other powers when you go to use aid self.  Even slotting an interrupt reduction enhancement only decreases a portion of the animation time, but still, it can literally save your life.

 

2. Certain damage sources, (usually area patch DoT effects), are auto-hit, and will truly become the bane of your existence.  You'll become very aware of these, anyway, as you're SR...

 

3. Though not a great debuff any any measure,  injection can be taken as one of the prerequisites to aid self, and it offers a slight -tohit, -rech, -dmg effect, which can give you that slight edge in surviving an encounter.

 

4. You have to pay the end cost even if you get interrupted.

 

5. If you plan on taking any ranged attacks, (from your APP/PPP or somewhere else), the Entropic Chaos special gives a ranged attack a chance of healing yourself and goes off rougly 3x/min...

[kelika2]

On all of my characters, none of them have Medicine anymore.

Builds are too tight.  my StJ Nin can softcap to most without it

Inspirations are a thing for those rare instances

Healing set bonuses all suck unless you are building for permahasten.  Numina has an OK 6 piece set but because the unique is better off in Health and can only be used once limits all Healing IO sets

And spending 2 power picks to have a rechargeable level2 respite is just something i cant justify anymore.

[Zect]

Medicine has never been a meta pick (which is what people usually mean when they ask if something is "worth it"). If all you care about is the meta, you can stop reading here.

 

Arguments against aid self:

1. It costs animation time to use, and hence, causes dps loss on a dps AT.

2. It can be interrupted, unlike most healing powers.

3. It competes with the meta power pool layout which is flight/leaping, haste, fighting, leadership (you can make an argument for no leadership on some toons though). You often do need hasten for top tier attack chains unless you are taking a recharge alpha (which, again, translates to dps loss on a dps AT from not taking musc).

4. There are many more sources of healing in the modern game, such as claiming super greens from email or various temp powers and procs. Note though that passive procs such as panacea are weaker on stalkers and other low EHP toons because you have less luxury to wait to see if they kick in. Tankers with high EHP buffers can afford to risk engaging even if they hit a proc drought.

 

Arguments in favor of aid self:

1. Like all healing and regeneration, it works against all damtypes, all vectors, irresistible damage, and autohit damage.

2. According to the Tanker Equation: survivability = mitigation x healing x DPS. On a toon with high mit and high DPS such as your SR stalker, small amounts of sustain can significantly extend survival times especially in a no insp no temps scenario.

 

Medicine sees some use in niche applications, mainly no insp no temps soloing of AVs and other hard targets on high-mit, low-sustain sets. If that's your playstyle, you may want to consider it. Otherwise, avoid unless you know what you're doing.

[biostem]

TBH, taking medicine has never been about optimizing performance or choosing the "best" possible build, for me.  It's about convenience and general self sufficiency.  Sure, I could store a bunch of greens in emails or slot IO set bonuses to maximize healing/regen, or I could find a way to fit in the 2 power picks and just click aid self as needed...

[SwitchFade]

Compared to any other option to improve survivability, no.