Okay, now you understand the Medic attack skills. The problem with Medics is twofold: they have one skill that obsoletes their other healing skills, and then they're obsoleted by Efficiency on Survivalists once you have the skill points for that. It took Atlus until EO5 to make a Medic-like class that doesn't end up being obsoleted by another class or just pointless entirely. That being said, again, Medic does hae a few really good skills--it's just a question of "do you really want to cart a Medic around for them?"
Stats
(Full stat table)
Medics have overall middling stats. Their STR, VIT, AGI, and LUC all hover around the middling range of around 50 at level 99, their HP is below average, and their TP is above average. Their TEC's not bad, but it's still nothing special.
Common Passives: HP Up, TP Up, ATK Up
Gathering Skill: Take
Heal Mastery
- Requirements: None
Required to learn healing skills. Increases the amount of HP resotred by Heal Mastery skills.
Cure
- Requirements: Heal Mastery level 1
- Body parts used: Head
Restores one party member's HP.
Cure is the absolute most basic healing skill, and while it'll do the job for the earlygame, by the midgame it starts really falling behind, and in the endgame it's going to be woefully inadequate. Its slightly higher speed modifier compared to Healing does not matter much, to be honest.
Medic practically requires this skill to function for most of the game. Take it, it's pretty good and can last you a very long time.
Salve
- Requirements: Cure level 5
- Body parts used: Head
Restores all party members' HP. Has an 80% speed modifier at all levels.
The big problem with Salve is that its speed modifier, plus Medics just being a slow class due to staves and their naturally mediocre AGI, means that it's going to always go woefully late in the turn order. It cannot be used for reactive healing at all. Just stick with Dealyed Heal--you will thank me.
This skill gives me complicated feelings. It's very powerful, but I've had one too many instances of the speed modifier causing injured characters to get killed before Salve could even go off. It's nice with Act First if it actually procs.
Unbind
- Requirements: Heal Mastery level 3
- Body parts used: Head
Removes binds from party members. The amount of binds removed, and what party members the skill targets, depend on Unbind's level. Has an 80% speed modifier at all levels.
Unbind scales super weirdly, as you can tell from the table. The sweet spot, in my opinion, is level 6. You really don't ever need to remove three binds at once from someone in EOU. As for targeting type, if you need to remove binds from both rows at once, chances are good that something bad has happened to your Medic at the same time, and they almost certainly can't cast Unbind.
Situations where you want a full-party bind are fairly rare, and lower priority members can be singled out with Theriaca As.
Refresh
- Requirements: Heal Mastery level 3
- Body parts used: Head
Removes status ailments from party members. What party members the skill targets depends on Refresh's level. Has an 80% speed modifier at all levels.
Much like Unbind, Refresh's sweet spot for me is the lowest TP cost level that targets one row. Again, if both rows have ailments inflicted on them, something bad has probably happened to your Medic too.
This probably has more value in a full party restoration, as party targeted ailments are more common than binds. Some particular encounters later on involve some really nasty situations involving ailments that you'll want to get rid of fast, and Lv10 helps with that. It's not like Medic's hurting for SP by then, anyways...
Immunize
- Requirements: Unbind level 5, Refresh level 5
- Body parts used: Head
Increases all party members' elemental defense for a set amount of turns. Has a 150% speed modifier at all levels.
Blech. I don't like buffs that only target physical or elemental defense exclusively.
There's a small amount of situations where I can see this skill getting some application; notably, when there's multiple elements that require coverage but your setup only allows for one at a time. Despite that, though, Mists do get twice as much effect...
Regenerate
- Requirements: Heal Mastery level 5
- Body parts used: Head
Places a buff on one party member that restores their HP at the end of every turn for a set amount of turns. Has an 80% speed modifier at all levels.
Regenerate doesn't restore nearly enough HP for it to even begin being worth something. However, three points in it is necessary for arguably the most broken skill in the Medic skillset.
Absolutely horrendous turn economy. Don't bother with this, it's not going to keep anyone alive. Just put the SP in for the actual good skill.
Delayed Heal
- Requirements: Heal Mastery level 3
- Body parts used: Head
At the start of the next turn after casting, restores all party members' HP. If the user's head becomes bound, or if they have a debilitating ailment inflicted on them, between casting Delayed Heal and it going off, Delayed Heal will fail. Has an 80% speed modifier at all levels.
Say hello to the Medic skill that obsoletes their other healing skills. Delayed Heal's base healing amounts are matched only by Healing (in fact, they're exactly the same at every level), but Delayed Heal has the advantage of healing everyone, and is also helped by the fact that you generally aren't going to be spamming Salve from turn to turn.
The numbers on this skill are frankly absurd and I'm not quite sure what they were expecting, but I won't look a gift horse in the mouth. The only major downside is that you can only use it every other turn as you cannot cast it when another one is prepped to go off.
Healing
- Requirements: Heal Mastery level 7
- Body parts used: Head
Restores one party member's HP.
A stronger form of Cure with slightly worse speed modifiers. It's useful to have in case of emergencies that Delayed Heal can't necessarily fix, I suppose.
This has a fairly decent flat value at level 1, but the poor speed modifiers makes it slightly less suitable as a panic singletarget heal than Cure. I'd probably say to move to this eventually at endgame, but maybe hold off on Lv.10 due to the cost increase. Heal's also a bit overkill for post-battle patching up, which might be better suited to Cure depending on the situation.
Revive
- Requirements: Heal Mastery level 10
- Body parts used: Head
Revives one dead party member with a fixed amount of HP. Has an 80% speed modifier at all levels.
I don't know why Revive is so far down the Heal Mastery tree, but here we are anyway. It revives dead party members. It means you can save a lot of time and money compared to buying Nectars over and over again. It's stat-independent so you can throw it on another party member and it'll do its job just as well.
This is going to be the reason you bail out of forays a lot of the time (the rest of the time being Salve). Revive is pretty expensive and if you're taking a beating it can add up very fast and exhaust your resources.
CPR
- Requirements: Revive level 3
- Body parts used: Head
Gives all party members a chance to endure fatal damage at 1 HP for a set amount of turns. Has an 80% speed modifier at all levels.
Firstly I don't know why the fuck this thing is called CPR. The skill itself is a preventive measure, while CPR in real life is very much a reactive measure. Atlus why do you do this to me.
Anyway, the skill. CPR's a fucking amazing skill and can give you a lot of leeway with tougher fights in EOU. 70% at level 10 is nothing to sneeze at, but the real big part is 100% chance at 15. Giving your entire party a guaranteed endure is extremely powerful for a bunch of reasons that I can't accurately sum up.
Anyway, the skill. CPR's a fucking amazing skill and can give you a lot of leeway with tougher fights in EOU. 70% at level 10 is nothing to sneeze at, but the real big part is 100% chance at 15. Giving your entire party a guaranteed endure is extremely powerful for a bunch of reasons that I can't accurately sum up.
Endure effects are really good outside of multihit attacks, and this is a pretty high proc rate for one. Some later encounters are extremely nasty and this is a potential solution for dealing with what they throw at you.
Caduceus
- Requirements: ATK Up level 10
- Body parts used: Arms
- Required equipment: Staff
Deals melee STR-based bash damage to one enemy. Attempts to stun the target.
There's so many things wrong with Caduceus I don't even know where to start. Firstly, Medics do not have particularly fantastic STR, ATK Up does nothing to fix that, and staves usually don't have the biggest ATK values. Secondly, 360% damage at rank 10 is not enough to compensate for any of that. Thirdly, stun is absolutely worthless in any situation that actually matters. Fourth, if your Medic is in the back row, where they belong, even a rank 10 Caduceus would deal 180% damage.
360% at Lv.10 for 20TP on one of the weaker weapon types in the game... The only classes I can see making use of this are the three frontliners and they frankly do not have the TP to sustain this kind of attack. Dark Hunter could probably inflict stun well with it, but then you have a Dark Hunter with a staff.
Anaesthetic / Curare
- Requirements: HP Up level 1
- Body parts used: Arms
Attempts to inflict sleep (Anaesthetic) or paralysis (Curare) on one enemy. Has no speed modifier at all levels.
Medics aren't the best at inflicting ailments, but the drugs actually have fairly decent base infliction chances. You could toss Curare on a Hexer (Anaesthetic is not needed because they already have Torpor Curse).
Curare is one of the few player-side sources of paralysis in the game and it's got a pretty good infliction rate, so it's fairly valuable. Anaesthetic is pretty good too, but making use of Sleep can be tricky.
Toxin Injection
- Requirements: HP Up level 1
- Body parts used: Arms
Attempts to inflict poison on one enemy. Has no speed modifier at all levels.
Toxin Injection doesn't really have the base poison damage needed for me to think it's worth looking at.
There's like one or two conditionals that I can think of that this would help with, but that's about it.
Diagnosis
- Requirements: HP Up level 5
- Body parts used: Head
Increases one row of party members' critical hit chance for a set amount of turns. Has a 150% speed modifier at all levels.
"Crit rate buff" is quite possibly the most pointelss type of buff in EOU, given that only normal attacks can crit.
Whyyyy don't critical hits work with Strike/Perfect chaser, EOU?
Clear Strike
- Requirements: HP Up level 10
- Body parts used: Arms
- Required equipment: Staff
Deals melee bash damage to one enemy. Uses the STR damage formula, but with TEC substituted for STR. Has a 90% speed modifier and a base accuracy of 98% at all levels.
Clear Strike's a bit of a weird skill. The fact that it's based on TEC helps quite a bit given that Medics have considerably higher TEC than STR, but on the other hand, you then have to deal with the fact that you're still using the standard STR formula, and it's still melee range.
I guess an Alchemist could get some damage out of this, but you're still on the front row for some godforsaken reason and using something that doesn't scale very well.
Safe Passage
- Requirements: TP Up level 1
Can only be used in the Labyrinth. Reduces damage taken from damage tiles for a set amount of steps.
Nope.
Guard Sole.
Scavenge
- Requirements: TP Up level 3
Increases monster drop rates.
Ugh. Barely does anything at all, especially when up against atrocious drop rates like 15%.
Begrudgingly, this has some uses. EOU absolutely screwed me up with its drop rates, and there are some quests later that involve a large amount of low rate drops. Anything to make that less bad is welcome.
Focus
- Requirements: TP Up level 10
Restores the user's TP at the end of each turn if their HP is full.
Ewwww.
10TP can be useful, but you're still dumping a ton of SP just to get to that point. A Grimoire Stone could make this more appealing, I guess.