WildStar Medic Leveling Guide
WildStar Medic Leveling Guide by pseudo
This is a basic guide on how to level a medic for anyone who may be considering it for launch. I’ll try to update this moving forward so that as class changes arise, I’m able to quickly make changes to keep it up-to-date. I’m starting this build at level 10 since before that there really isn’t any choices to make. Every five levels, I will give an updated LAS loadout complete with any AMPs that I would recommend taking.
In terms of gearing, I would usually recommend Tech > Moxie > Grit. However there is a caveat to this. Since gearing in Wildstar revolves around stat thresholds, it behooves the player to keep an eye on where they are in terms of reaching these thresholds for all 3 of these stats. For example: if a chest drops that has less tech on it, but helps me break a threshold for grit, it is statistically an upgrade in survivability as long as I don’t lose any thresholds for tech.
This guide is based around my play style which involves mainly solo questing while nuking small packs of 3-5 quickly and moving on with as little downtime as possible. This isn’t for the player that wants to shell 10 mobs at the same time, nor is it for a medic in a group although I’m sure with some tweaks this build would work fine in either of those roles. To find the builds for each level, simply click on the headers for each section.
A little about me: I’m the host of the original Wildstar podcast Nexus Weekly and I play a medic for Drow (we’re recruiting!). I’ve been playing medics since they first showed up and I absolutely love the style of the class. If you have any questions about the guide feel free to ask!
Anyway, without further ado… Medics: The Guide.
At this time, there’s not too much to watch out for. Use Dual Shock and Gamma Rays whenever they are available and otherwise use Paralytic Shock to create moments of opportunities & Emission when necessary.
In terms of AMP allotment, always buff your assault power and crit chance with your first six AMPs. It’s a no-brainer and leads to some important AMPs down the line.
It is also important to note here that at level six there will be a quest in every starting zone that has a reward of a tier 2 AMP. One of the selections is Empowering Aura which is an incredibly good AMP that provides a static 6% boost to crit chance to you and your party. This is a mandatory AMP for leveling and max level DPS medics, so we may as well pick this up now, right?
Also it’s highly recommended that you go ahead and get to 8000 reputation to attain “Popular” reputation with your level 6-13 zone of choice so that you can pick up the requisite AMPs available from the quartermasters. A recent change to reputation vendors in the two starting zones (Algoroc and Celestion or Deradune and Ellevar) means that you will be getting different AMPs from each of the two factions, however the change does not affect your healing output until some niche level 45 leveling builds because of Reboot. You have no specific need for this through your leveling process, but it’s incredibly strong if you ever decide to heal and — let’s be honest — did you really roll a medic without ever wanting to heal?
Because this AMP is available from each of the vendors in their respective zones, you can really go either way.
We get Quantum Cascade at level 13, so it is a good idea to get that immediately and switch out Gamma Rays as soon as possible. Obviously Gamma Rays is OP on single targets, but since we’re questing here, you’ll see a pretty substantial dip in your TTK by picking up Quantum Cascade to take on multiple mobs. It’s also somewhat important to note here that whenever you’re taking on particularly large nasties mano-y-mano, remember to switch out QC for GR. It might be clunky at first, but do it a bit and it’ll become second nature. Just remember to switch back after the encounter!
With the expansion of the LAS comes the inclusion of Collider. This is the medic execute ability and very powerful even without tier points. In proper execute form, the ability gets a substantial damage boost if used while the target is below 30% health and has two charges, meaning that you can spam these back to back without incurring a GCD! The best way to know when to cast Collider is simply when the mob’s health bar turns RED. As soon as that happens, you’re in the clear.
In terms of AMPs, we’ve maxed out crit% and now have Empowering Aura so that we can get more consistent Dual Shock (and later Atomize) procs.
Also make sure to do enough quests in your starting zone to attain Popular reputation with either Auroria or Galeras so that you can pick up Null Zone next.
At 20, not too much changes in our LAS except increasing our tiering on all Assault abilities. It should be noted that at 21, you can switch out Dual Shock for Atomize which I’ll explain the benefits of in the next section, but it will be a pretty substantial DPS boost, but it will not heal you… so choose from these abilities at your discretion. If you’re finding yourself using Atomize, but healing up often after pulls, it may be worth your time to use Dual Shock instead to keep you in the fight longer.
Speaking of keeping you alive a bit longer, remember how we picked up Null Zone after reaching popular with Galeras/Auroria? Well, it’s time to use that. 8,000 reputation can be gained quite easily, so even if you’re leveling up via Pvp or instanced PvE, you should still do the requisite quests to get the AMP.
Sweet, sweet tier 4 abilities. As soon as you hit 25, you’ll immediately want get Tier 4 Fissure and Quantum Cascade for a pretty hefty DPS gain by allowing for more efficient actuator gains and spends. Also its important to note that at level 25, we’ve done away with Dual Shock. Why? Well, at level 21, you pick up an awesome new ability that will significantly cut down on your time to kill, and paired with your shiney new T4 abilities, heals become much less important. Things will (should, at least) be dead before they can even work their way through your shields. This new ability is Atomize.
Now, it doesn’t heal you the way that Dual Shock does, but it scales with assault power instead of Support Power, procs a shorter-than-normal GCD, AND has a 50% chance to restore an actuator on every cast. Pretty cool, right? It is cool. The question was rhetorical.
AMPs maintain form and don’t break from what we were doing before. The only two imperative AMPs picked up at this level are the two extra levels of Cooldown Reduction. Remember here that if we follow the AMP guide in all level ranges, we’ll be able to make it 1-50 without ever “respeccing” your AMPs for a hefty price. If you find that the guide doesn’t always use every AMP point available, understand that it is for a good reason.
And as a note on questing here, per usual, before moving on to Farside, get to 8000 rep with Whitevale so that you can pick up the AMPs provided from the vendors (Recycler in particular). We’re going to be using these later.
Welcome to level 30 and that elusive 8th action button! It’s a shame that this button won’t see it’s full usefulness until later on, but hey at least no more pesky holes on your LAS.
While the first seven abilities remain static (it’s almost as if this guide has been iterated on a ton), we’ve added Mending Probes to the LAS for a short time to allow for a survivability boost until something more attractive comes along. It should be noted here that there are a few people who do swear byMending Probes as part of their LAS by ensuring a constant stream of healing, thus increasing uptime a bit. However at level 30, the 8th ability can literally be anything you want. Go crazy. Explore. This guide shouldn’t define every choice you make, after all! Now, take that last sentence and forget it as you read the next paragraph. It’s important that you do exactly what it says.
If you were going to skip a zone’s reputation, Farside is NOT the place to do it. The quartermaster there sells THREE very important AMPs to improve your leveling time (In Flux, Quick Dodge, and Danger Zone), so it is imperative to not move on to Wilderrun until you hit 8000 reputation with Farside. Luckily we get this before we even get to the surface of the moon, so as long as we do a bit of questing in the biodomes, we’re going to be just fine.
For AMP choices, you see that we’ve utilized that Recycler AMP we picked up in Whitevale. At the time being, it’s one of the stronger choices you have.
Level 35 sees two pretty huge DPS boosts to your character. We now have T4 Devastator probes to allow for insane Collider damage, and, of course, Danger Zone. (PRO TIP: Any Kenny Loggins-themed ability or AMP is ALWAYS MANDATORY)
Devastator Probes is a great tiered ability and a super underwhelming untiered ability which is why we haven’t used it up to this point. Because of it’s tiering potential, it pairs well with Collider by allowing us to essentially double the already doubled damage of collider. With this new spell, it should be noted that DProbes should be cast right AFTER your opening fissure and Colliderx2 should be saved until we are right around 40% health or less. Soon we’ll have the ability to cast that at even 70% mob health and have it be super effective, but try and get used to the DoT and DoT wiping mechanic. Since the amount of damage that detonating DProbes is fixed and is not based on the time left on the probe, it’s usually best to cast with 1-2 seconds left on the DoT. This will also mean that you have 100% uptime on the probes.
Also Danger Zone just gives you a straight 17% AP boost with close to 100% uptime. Like, yeah. You read that right. It costs six AMPs, but there is nothing else that we can pick up that is that efficient.
There aren’t any mandatory AMP pick ups in Wilderrun for a DPS Medic, but there are some good healer and utility AMPS such as Converter, Solid State, Shield Protocol, and Power Cadence — all of which you will most definitely use at some point if not for leveling. Feel free to level through Wilderrun at your leisure or do some dungeons instead — it’s really up to you here.
You can smell max level now, can’t you? Only ten levels to go!
This build looks the same and in most cases it is, but it is significantly stronger. How? There’s a couple reasons for this. Now that we have the levels necessary, we have Empowering Aura, In Flux, and Recycler activated which greatly increases our uptime for our spenders by increasing the amount of crits we have coupled with T4 Fissure, and empowers our spenders by 12% 75% of the time with In Flux.
While our damage is pretty great now, our survivability has increased as well because now we also have 4% lifesteal on our attacks. A nice little boon to our attacks, for sure.
Welcome to level 45 and welcome to Grimvault! By this time, we’ve done a lot and we’re feeling pretty good about our ability to destroy things efficiently and effectively. We change out Quantum Cascade for Gamma Rays as almost second nature now when we need to, and we’re masters of dodging even the most ridiculous of telegraphs. We pretty much have this leveling game down pat, right? Well, Grimvault gleefully tell you that you’re not. You’re pretty much nothing. What you thought was a light at the end of the tunnel was really just a thousand egos burning to ash. I’m adding two builds here because while you’ve been having a great time pumping out as much DPS as you can up until this point, the fact is that you may very well hit a pretty sizeable brick wall at this point and become super frustrated. It is important to note that it is TOTALLY POSSIBLE to continue your leveling in the “Base Damage” spec, but if you find yourself wasting time to regen after pulls, I suggest switching up the build. There’s no shame in it!
The first build is the one linked to above. This is what I refer to as the “Base Damage” build which is pretty much the evolution of the build we’ve been using up to this point. The final tier of abilities has opened up, allowing us to finish off Quantum Cascade/Gamma Rays. Because of the increased cost of T8 abilities and what we gain from them, we’ve done away with our long-beloved T4 Fissure since it leads to a lot of wasted actuator ticks and is essentially useless now.
Now that’s great and all, but what about those of us who maybe can’t avoid all the red or may have slightly sub-par gear? Well, don’t you worry because now there’s a second build just for you. The survival medic can keep Mending Probes up almost 100% of the time, and can create some space between his opponents by using urgency whenever they need it. The build will still output pretty decent DPS so it’s not like you won’t progress at all — just not quite as fast. But you’ll be alive so you’ll be progressing a lot faster than those Medics who are face down in the dirt.
And with that, you can simply make the decisions you’d like to level 50. I definitely recommend keeping both the pure damage and survival builds at your beck-and-call so you can switch out as the situation mandates. You’ll find that even at level 50, you’re going to need multiple builds to do a number of tasks, so may as well start practicing and refining to your taste as you see fit.
Thanks for reading! I hope that you learned something from my guide and that it sparked your interest to play a medic at launch. If you have any questions about any of the decisions in the guide, feel free to ask and I’ll try to respond as quickly as I can.
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