Nerfs to Combat Medic Hurt Leveling

So I've been working on my Trooper for several days now following the release of patch 1.2. While I was looking forward to the patch in terms of the expansion of the Legacy system and the changes to crew skills, I hadn't focused as much as I should have on the impact that the changes were going to have to the leveling capabilities of my Combat Medic Trooper.

There were really just a few basic changes that directly impacted the Trooper while leveling:

• Field Triage now reduces the cost of Medical Probe by 1 (down from 2).
• Supercharge Cells now restores 1 Energy Cell (down from 2) when used and increases all damage and healing dealt by 5% (down from 10%). The shield applied by Kolto Bomb now reduces damage taken by 5% (down from 10%).
• Trauma Probe now costs 2 Energy Cells to activate.

The net result of these changes is that on my combat medic, I'm running through ammo much quicker than I was before the patch. On most fights, I'm running out of ammo pretty quickly trying to keep Tanno alive. Combine this with the fact that my heals are not hitting for quite as much after the patch and it becomes a serious challenge to keep Tanno up on most encounters with Elites.

After several days of trying to get my groove back with combat medic leveling, I eventually caved this weekend and switched back to a Gunnery spec. So far, I'm having much better results with Gunnery, using either Tanno or Elara as a companion. Demolition round got a pretty significant buff in the patch, although Grav Round received a bit of a nerf, increasing it's cost and cast time. However, as long as I don't spam it constantly, I'm not finding ammo to be that big of a deal for Gunnery at this point.

I will say that I'm disappointed at the changes to Combat Medic. I was really enjoying being able to level as a healer and to have the viability of that approach significantly hampered by a patch is a bit annoying.

I have managed to get my Trooper to level 47 and am working my way through the Hoth bonus series before heading off to my final planet - Corellia.

After finishing the Trooper, I'll be switching next to finishing up my Imperial Agent who is sitting on Alderaan at level 29.