Best Skills and Traits for Combat Medic Background in Starfield

Who needs a doctor when you can be your own doctor in Starfield? Just by starting out with the Combat Medic background, you’ll set yourself on the path to becoming a self sufficient machine. You won’t be able to read your own handwriting, but at least you’ll have full HP. Here’s our advice for building a Combat Medic in Starfield, which includes the best skills and traits to help the background shine.

Best Skills and Traits for Combat Medic Background in Starfield

Starting off, the Combat Medic background will net you three excellent starting skills to build from. They are as follows:

• Pistol Certification – This skill is all about scaling up pistol damage. The pistols are actually quite nice to use in Starfield, so specializing in them is great.
• Medicine – This skill is all about improving the output and efficiency of your healing items, like Med Packs. At higher levels you even have a chance for them to cure status effects. This then lets you be your own doctor, and you won’t have to fly over to visit one when you have frostbite.
• Wellness – This is a skill you’ll want to level up on most characters. It simply increases your max health all the way up to a 40% increase at max level.

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Traits

Traits aren’t super impactful, so we’re going for some that are more thematic for a Combat Medic in Starfield.

• Empath – Performing actions your companions approve of gives you a combat buff. If you do something they don’t approve of, though, you’ll get a de-buff. As a Combat Medic, you’ll be doing plenty of shooting, but also plenty of healing and helping others. Just don’t go around pistoling children, and you’ll probably get this buff often.

• Neon Street Rat – Raised on the mean streets of Neon, you’d have to know how to look after yourself and your friends, making it the perfect place for a Combat Medic to come from in Starfield. You’ll gain extra dialogue options and loot on Neon as well, which is nice! It’s a very cool planet.

• Extrovert – Traveling with a companion means you expend less oxygen when exerting yourself but more when alone. We’ll always have a companion to get the Empath buff, so this trait lowers oxygen consumption on top of that.

Related: Can You Do a Pacifist Run in Starfield?

Skills

We already have a strong base to build on thanks to the starting skills of the Combat Medic. Here’s how you could build this character out further:

• Pistol Certification – Might as well lean into this and max it out to create a pistol-based build for your Combat Medic. Pistols deal a ton of damage, don’t worry.
• Lasers – Going for a laser pistol build is even better. It’s clean, surgical, if you will. This skill increases laser damage and can even set the target on fire for some nice damage over time.
• Medicine – Max this skill out for the best healing and the chance to cure status effects and ailments.
• Chemistry – Cook up a storm like Walter White to create some mind altering Chems. These stimulants can provide you with a wide variety of effects. Some even let you run at what feels like 10x speed, which is awesome for getting around on planet.
• Fitness – Got to stay in shape! You’ll be rewarded with significantly higher oxygen so that you can sprint around for longer.
• Environmental Conditioning – Gain resistance to airborne environmental damage. As a Combat Medic, you’ve probably smelled far worse anyway.
• Pain Tolerance – Reduces physical damage taken. No one hits you and gets away with it. Take it on the chin and show them who’s boss.
• Cellular Regeneration – Grants a chance to recover from injuries naturally and even avoid them entirely when you would otherwise be injured. Can’t break a leg if it regenerates instantly.

Those are the best traits and skills to try out with the Combat Medic background in Starfield. This is a fun background and build to try out. The laser pistols feel nice to use and when you invest in them they really tear up enemies. Chemistry is also amazing and being able to create your own Chems is a massive benefit. They’re formidable, and you basically get to give yourself super powers all the time by using them!

If you’re looking for more guides for Bethesda’s latest RPG, find out how to get the Lodge’s spacesuit really early and why you should do Starfield’s main quests first.