Part 146: Medic

Anyway, when the patient woke up, his skeleton was missing... And the doctor was never heard from again! Ahahahaha!
Heeeeh-HAHAHAHA! Ohh...
Hah... Anyway, that's how I lost my medical license.

Whoops, wait, wrong game.

Medics in EO started as supports who could make your party near-immortal while contribuging significant damage in the lategame. Said near-immortality was thanks to one particular skill, Immunize; on the tin, Immunize was just a buff that gave your party extra resistance to elemental attacks. Immunize, however, had two very important internal aspects that made it supremely broken. The first was that "resistance to all elements" meant "resistance to all types of damage," since the different types of physical attacks are technically "elements." The second, and the absolutely broken part, was that EO1's damage formula meant that (in the interest of length, I'm leaving a lot out here) defense buffs would make certain damage types go from triple-digit damage to single-digit. Combine that with the fact that Medics are already healers, and it became incredibly difficult for your party to ever die outside of being disabled or having buffs purged.

Unsurprisingly, when EO2 came around, Atlus severely nerfed Medics. They didn't try to balance Immunize, or even just leave its numbers as is and let EO2's new defense formula do the work--the ability was flat-out cut entirely. While Medics did gain Salve 3, which completely restored every party member's HP, and CPR, which gave each party member a chance to survive mortal damage (55% at max level), it wasn't enough to compensate for the fact that Medics really only did one job, and they weren't even that great at it due to being really slow.

While Medics technically weren't in EO3, Monks were basically just Medics with a different name and different attire. Monks were really, really good--they didn't really suffer from the same slowness issue that Medics did thanks to EO3 completely redesigning how fast or slow characters are, and thanks to subclassing, could do the job of Sovereigns (who first appeared in EO3 under the name Prince/Princess) better than Sovereigns themselves when they didn't need to heal. Then, in EO4, Medics reappeared with the male portraits sporting pretty much the same clothes as EO1/2 Medics, while the female portraits wore schoolgirl outfits for reasons I'm still unsure of. EO4 Medics were very, very good at their job--in fact, they were a little too good, as they healed for way more than the party would ever really need. An Arcanist with a Medic subclass was, pretty obviously, "inferior" to an actual Medic due to how subclassing in EO4 worked, but they still did the job of healing the party well enough that they were preferred over a Medic main class.

And then we come to EOU. Thanks to the action speed changes from EO3 becoming the new series standard, Medics avoided the same major slowness issue that plagued them in EO1/2...aside from the upper-level healing skills, which tended to incur speed penalties. The EO4 issue of being too good at their job without much else to do popped up again, though. Which leads us to EO2U, where Atlus has finally put in a skill that allows Medics to put the fact that they tend to heal for more than necessary to work: Overheal. I'll leave what Overheal actually does for later in this discussion, but suffice to say it provides a really damn good reason for putting a Medic in the party compared to any other class. The Combat Medic build also is finally usable again; it kind of requires a party being built around one particular skill, but man oh man is it effective with the right party composition.


Stats:

Level 1:
HP: 27
TP: 37
STR: 6
TEC: 9
VIT: 6
AGI: 6
LUC: 8

Level 50:
HP: 184
TP: 288
STR: 30
TEC: 37
VIT: 30
AGI: 26
LUC: 20

Level 99:
HP: 428
TP: 540
STR: 58
TEC: 70
VIT: 57
AGI: 50
LUC: 35

Innate weapon choices: Staff

Innate armor choices: Clothes

Common passives: HP Up, TP Up, Phys ATK Up, Elem DEF Up, Take

For STR and AGI, Medics have pretty middle-of-the-road values; not great, but not awful. Their TEC is pretty great, second-highest value out of all the classes, while their VIT is similarly middle-of-the-road like STR and AGI. A good thing, too, since healing skills use TEC and VIT in their calculations. Medics don't have good LUC, though. In fact, they actually have the lowest LUC out of any class, which not only means they inflict disables less often, they're more susceptible to being disabled than any other class.


Heal Mastery
Requirements: None



Required to learn healing skills. Increases the health that healing skills restore.


Cure
Requirements: Heal Mastery level 1
Body parts used: Head



Restores one party member's HP.

The most basic healing skill Medics have, and the cheapest. I'd say it's not worth leveling it up, but it honestly doesn't lose out on a lot of healing compared to, well, Healing, and it has a much higher speed modifier.


Salve
Requirements: Cure level 5
Body parts used: Head



Restores the entire party's HP.

Much like Cure, Salve outclasses its beefier sibling Salve 2 by having a much higher speed modifier. You definitely want Salve maxed out, since it's what you'll be using most of the time if you're not relying solely on a Beast.


Unbind
Requirements: Heal Mastery level 3
Body parts used: Head



Removes binds. The amount of binds removed depends on Unbind's level, and the range increases from single-target, to row-target, to all-party as the skill is leveled up. Has an 80% speed modifier at all levels.

You'll probably want Unbind leveled up to at least 5 at some point. I personally wouldn't go beyond that; if your front row or party are fully bound, chances are you've been screwed by a boss that binds every body part of your entire party, at which point Unbind isn't going to help much. Removing two binds from one row is usually good enough.


Refresh
Requirements: Heal Mastery level 3
Body parts used: Head



Removes status ailments. Leveling up Refresh upgrades it from being single-target, to row-target, to all-party. Unlike EO2, Refresh purges all status ailments starting from level 1. Has an 80% speed modifier at all levels.

Unlike Unbind, you'll probably want Refresh maxed out by the end of the main game and the postgame, mostly because your entire party being tagged with ailments isn't that unlikely, and isn't as big an indicator of you being screwed as your entire party being fully bound is. The TP cost is massive at that point, though, so you might want to put on a Refresh Grimoire to lower it.


Revive
Requirements: Unbind level 3, Refresh level 3
Body parts used: Head



Brings a dead party member back to life. Has an 80% speed modifier at all levels.

A skill you should probably take, and definitely take to level 20 if you do. In EO2, Revive was kind of weak due to the fact that it left whoever it revived at pretty low HP, even at higher levels. That is very much not the case here; in fact, Revive is a skill you definitely want at level 20, because look at how much it heals! 800 HP is enough to revive pretty much any class but a very high-level Beast at full HP. The TP cost gets pretty steep there, but Medics can eat the TP cost by the time you'd be able to get level 20 Revive. I assume this was done to compensate for the fact that Nectar IIIs and Nectall IIs no longer exist in EO2U.


High Regen
Requirements: Revive level 2
Body parts used: Head



Applies a buff to one ally which recovers their HP at the end of every turn for a set amount of turns. The game says "Also increases ailment/bind recovery," but the @wiki says it increases the buff owner's resistance to bind and ailments, which seems too specific to be Google Translate being Google Translate. Has an 80% speed modifier at all levels.

A pretty decent skill if you have a Beast or Scapegoated party member on your team. Otherwise pretty meh, since it only targets 1 person at a time.


Healing
Requirements: Heal Mastery level 5
Body parts used: Head



Restores one party member's HP. Has a 90% speed modifier at all levels.

Healing's main disadvantage over Cure is that it's much, much slower. Cure is already faster than Healing at level 1, and the fact that Cure gets faster with level ups while Healing is always slow does not help at all.


Line Heal
Requirements: Healing level 3
Body parts used: Head



Restores HP to one row. Has an 80% speed modifier at all levels.

Line Heal has the same problem that Healing does: it's really slow, which you almost certainly do not want when you need to ensure your party won't die.


Salve 2
Requirements: Line Heal level 5
Body parts used: Head



Restoeres HP to the entire party. Has a 70% speed modifier at all levels.

Same issue as Healing and Line Heal: incredibly slow. Take it if you want for emergencies where you don't want to use Medical Miracle for some reason, I suppose.


Chase Heal
Requirements: Heal Mastery level 7
Body parts used: Head



Targets one party member. When that party member takes damage, for a certain number of times per turn, the Medic will immediately heal them. Every time Chase Heal activates, its chance of activating again for that turn goes down.

Chase Heal, much like High Regen, is very good if you have a Beast or Scapegoated party member. It's immediate healing, unlike High Regen, but it's also unreliable.


Delayed Heal
Requirements: Chase Heal level 5
Body parts used: Head



The Medic prepares to heal the party. On the start of the next turn, Delayed Heal will activate.

Oh man. Delayed Heal, in EOU, required a lot smaller point investment, and was basically all a Medic needed for the first two Strata or so. Here, the amount of skill points you need to invest has been massively increased. The amount it actually heals for also ate a massive, massive nerf.


Overheal
Requirements: Heal Mastery level 10
Body parts used: Head



Increases the amount of HP restored by the healing skill used next turn, and allows healing skills to increase the max HP of whoever is healed by the amount of healing that goes over the patient's max HP, up to a certain percentage of their normal max HP, for one turn. Has no speed modifier at all levels.

Overheal was a skill I thought was trash when I first played EO2U, because I was trying to combo it with Salve 2. Then I did a 5 Medics single-class challenge run, where I very heavily abused Overheal combined with Salve. That run completely changed my opinion of Overheal. Overheal is a skill you need to combine with a fast-acting healing skill like Salve (or have a Survivalist with Swap Step in the party for). When properly used, Overheal can make your party functionally immortal to almost everything the game throws at them (or, alternatively, the party member that is tanking all of the party's damage). You really be knowing when you need to use Overheal, which involves knowing boss patterns, because just blindly spamming Overheal + a healing skill could lead you to not overhealing your party when you need to.


Staff Mastery
Requirements: None



Required to learn staff skills. Increases damage dealt with staves. Also increases the Medic's TP pool.


Heavy Strike
Requirements: Staff Mastery level 1
Required equipment: Staff
Body parts used: Arms



Deals melee STR-based Bash damage to one enemy. Attempts to stun the target. Has no accuracy modifier at all levels.

Not worth leveling up. The damage is really bad compared to Vital Hit in almost every situation because Heavy Strike uses the user's STR, which is inferior to how the other two attack skills calculate their damage. As for the stun, Medics also have the lowest LUC out of any class, so, uh, good luck trying to stun anything with it.


Medical Rod
Requirements: Staff Mastery level 5
Required equipment: Staff
Body parts used: Arms



Deals melee Bash damage to one enemy. Inflicts a debuff that reduces the target's resistance to Fire/Ice/Volt for a set amount of turns. Medical Rod uses the user's TEC for calculating damage instead of their STR. Has no speed modifeir and no accuracy modifier at all levels.

Medical Rod has a use if you have a party with elemental attackers and a Medic, but no Troubador or Sovereign. Otherwise it's really mediocre. The damage is really low to compensate for the fact that it substitues TEC for STR when calculating damage.


Vital Hit
Requirements: Staff Mastery level 10
Required equipment: Staff
Body parts used: Arms



Deals melee Bash damage to one enemy. Vital Hit's damage is based off the normal damage multiplier, which is then multiplied by the average HP percentage of the party. Vital Hit uses the average of the user's TEC and VIT in place of STR in the damage formula. Has no speed or accuracy modifier at all levels.

If you're building a Combat Medic, this is the skill you absolutely want to rush for. Vital Hit isn't just the Medic's best damage skill, it can become even more powerful if you build parts of your party around it. Let's say four of your party members are at 100% when you use a level 20 Vital Hit, and you have a Beast that's used Desperation. Desperation counts as the Beast being at 300% HP, so Vital Hit calculates the party's average HP as 140%, which means that a level 20 Vital Hit would deal 749% damage. Things get even more insane if you have two Medics in the party; if you have one buff the entire party up to 200% HP with Overheal, Vital Hit will deal 1070% damage. I say two Medics because you obviously can't Overheal the party and then use Vital Hit on the same turn (remember that Overheal's effect only lasts for one turn).


Final Gift
Requirements: HP Up level 3



When the Medic dies, they have a chance to restore the party's HP based on a percentage of their max HP.

If your Medic dies, you have much more serious problems than trying to restore the rest of your party's HP. Skip it.


Scavenge
Requirements: TP Up level 3



Raises the rate at which monsters drop items.

Not as incredibly broken as it was in EO2, but you're probably going to want to get levels in TP Up by the late game, and Medics sometimes have leftover skill points, so why not? It might make grinding for rare drops in the lategame less painful.


Safe Passage
Requirements: Elem DEF Up level 3



Reduces the damage the party takes from damage tiles for a certain number of steps.

Damage tiles show up a few times in EO2U starting with the 2nd Stratum, but I'd advise holding off on unlocking and leveling up Safe Passage until the 4th Stratum or so. The duration and damage reduced at low levels are pretty bad, in addition to the fact that you're essentially throwing away 3 skill points on Elem DEF Up early on.


Steady Hands
Force Boost

Increases the amount of HP restored from healing skills by 170%. Reduces the TP cost of healing skills by 50%. Increases the speed of healing skills by 500%.

Steady Hands is a decent Forse Boost, ruined by...


Medical Miracle
Force Break
Body parts used: Head

Restores the entire party's HP. Dispels all ailments, binds, and debuffs. Revives any dead party members, and heals them as well. Healing power scales linearly from 300% to 900% based on user level. Has a 500% speed modifier.

The ultimate panic button. As long as your Medic can survive damage, and don't get hit with debilitating disables, you can always fix even the worst of situations.