History Main / ShoottheMedicFirst

** The Star Magician is actually something of a subversion... to elaborate, he summons four kinds of "balls". Thunder (which spams lightning attacks at your party), angry (which self destructs on your party ForMassiveDamage), Refresh (which heals Star Magician for way to much to be good.), and Guardian (which makes the Star Magician NighInvulnerable for the turn... usually. Sometimes it just attacks for piddly damage.). Obviously, you don't want the Guardian or Refresh around. This leaves the self-destructing ForMassiveDamage Anger ball and the Thunder ball. The subversion? He has four out at once, and if he ever has less than that, he spends one of his turns summoning more. Even if you kill a Guardian or Refresh ball, he may just summon another. And if you lock down the combination of balls to just Thunder and Anger balls, the Anger balls self-destruct, leaving him to summon a new ball. The only seriously effective tactic is killing balls over and over again until you get the golden combination of 4 Thunder balls. Not a complete subversion, but it's there.

* Subverted ''and'' played straight in "optimized" games of DungeonsAndDragons. The healing spells available to divine casters could easily cause this trope, but these spells don't tend to be used in combat because the caster has [[LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards better things]] [[StatusBuff to be]] [[MagicKnight doing]]. That, more than any healing ability, is why you shoot an optimized divine caster first.

* Subverted in both the ''FullmetalAlchemist'' manga and anime in different ways with the death of the Rockbells during the Ishvallan War. In the former, after providing medical aid to Scar, an enemy soldier, he kills them; in the latter, Roy Mustang kills them for providing medical aid to the enemy.
** Later in the manga Doctor Marcoh uses a Philosopher's Stone to heal an incapacitated ally mid-battle. When Pride figures out what's happening he starts attacking Marcoh instead of his more dangerous and battle-ready opponents Alphonse and Heinkel.

* You can manualy advert this in MegamanX Command Mission, as leaving the enemy healer alive after all other enemies are gone nets you a 25% heal. Of course after that...

* Averted, to a degree, in the turn-based strategy game ''Age of Wonders''. Cleric-type units , hich boast the Healing ability, can only do so once per game turn (and thus once per battle, or not at all if they already used healing before battle), but tend to be targeted anyhow because they boast a reasonably powerful ranged magical attack. More advanced units with Healing also tend to be targeted quickly because they usually possess other, dangerous, abilities, and finally, Leaders are * always* targeted first, when practical-more pointedly than potentially having healing spells they can cast multiple times per battle, they tend to be the most dangerous units on the field.

** It also applied in reverse during dungeon raids. Take, for example, the Deathwatch Bunker which was, up until [[SoBadItsHorrible the NGE,]] the hardest dungeon in the game. Part of the challenge was in the fact that one of the players in your party had to be a non-combatant crafter so you could use the forge at the end of the dungeon to make a piece of Mandalorian armour as a reward. You would think this fragile little non-com would be your most valuable member who had to be protected at all costs. However, every single guide published on the matter specifically stated that your crafter was second in priority to any Doctors you brought along, as they were the only proffesions capable of resurrecting dead players.

* ''[[DarkForcesSaga Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast]]'': the Disc One Boss [[spoiler: Rosh Penin]] is restored to full health by two Dark Siders every time he's running out of hit point. Made worse by the fact that you can only hard the healers when they're healing him.

* In the second ''DungeonsAndDragons ''film (the one that everyone ''didn't'' hate quite so much), the group's cleric is the first to get himself killed. One of the speakers in the audio commentary sums it up for us: "They are ''doomed'' without a cleric!" That commentator was none other than GaryGygax himself, creator of D&D.

* In a rather shocking 7th season episode of [[StargateVerse Stargate SG-1]], during a massive battle [[ItWasHisSled Dr. Janet Fraiser]] is struck by a Jaffa staff weapon blast in the middle of reviving a fallen soldier. He makes it, she didn't. The fallen soldier's pregnant wife was having a baby when this was going down, which they expected to be a boy, but it turned out they had misread the ultrasound. It was a girl. They named her Janet.

In video games, medics and other Healers are usually the ''first'' ones targeted. Most times, this is an AcceptableBreakFromReality because ''in real life, medics don't magically heal people to full combat efficiency in a matter of seconds''. If an enemy soldier is down, he will ''stay'' down. Even if the Medic(s) save his life, even if they bring him back to full combat efficiency, he's out for the duration of the battle. And that medic might just be the guy to save your life - video-game medics don't help you out on the side.

In video games, medics and other Healers are usually the ''first'' ones targeted. Most times, this is an AcceptableBreakFromReality because ''in real life, medics don't magically heal people to full combat efficiency in a matter of seconds''. If an enemy soldier is down, he will ''stay'' down. Even if the Medic(s) save his life, even if they bring him back to full combat efficiency, he's out for the duration of the battle.

* [[ZigZagTrope Zig-zags]] in DungeonsAndDragons. The healing spells available would easily cause this trope. The cleric doesn't tend to actually use them in combat because s/he has [[CoDZilla better things to be doing]]. THOSE are why you shoot the divine caster first.

* In a rather shocking 5th season episode of [[StargateVerse Stargate SG-1]], during a massive battle [[ItWasHisSled Dr. Fraiser]] is struck by a Jaffa staff weapon blast in the middle of reviving a fallen soldier. He makes it, she didn't.

** In ''WarhammerOnline'' this is pretty much the basic of any tactics.
** In the free browser-based [=MMO=] ''UrbanDead'', while there isn't an explicit Medic class to attack, zombie groups will tend to target [=NecroTech=] buildings because these are the only buildings capable of producing [[ReviveKillsZombie revivification syringes]], which can return almost any character (particularly dead defenders) to life.
*** There is an actual Medic class in the game, but its inital skills make it so difficult to gain XP (which is notoriously hard in the game alredy) most players give up on the class before they reach level 2.
** Prevalent enough in ''WorldOfWarcraft'' that the term "pvp tank" refers predominately to healers, especially priests.
*** Lampshaded in-game. Lord Victor Nefarious is infamous for his quote when his {{mooks}} are not doing a good job against the players: "Foolsss...Kill the one in the dress!"
**** A more direct quote "Concentrate your attacks upon the healer!"
*** Subverted by the princess of Ironforge in Blackrock Depths (if you were Alliance). She would run around harrassing your healer, and healing the crap out of Thaurissan. If you touched her at all -- damage, crowd control, stuns, mana burn, anything -- she wouldn't flag friendly after Thaurissan died and you [[{{Unwinnable}} couldn't complete the quest]]. [[hottip:* : And then sometimes she wouldn't flag friendly anyway, but that's [[GameBreakingBug something different]].]] So you had to just let her run around and try to [[MoreDakka burn the boss]] faster than she could heal him.
** Sorta averted in ''AnarchyOnline''.
*** The Doctor profession is fairly easy to kill in the beginning of the game, but towards the end requires a coordinated effort from a strong force to take down, all this while throwing out gigantic 'Battle Group Heals' that give ginormous amounts of life to every ally in the immediate vicinity, and this isn't counting the ultimate 'nyah-nyah' heal...on top of all this, Doctors are unlike 'clothies' in other games in that they tend towards HUGE amounts of hit points and nano points.
*** The Adventurer, the nominal backup healer, has various tiers of healing capacity, and the ability to both evade many normal hits as well as soak up damage on top of all that.
*** The Meta-Physicist, the closest healer after that, typifies the 'priest' stereotype and also was MadeOfPlasticine for most of the game's history until recently, when they became [[NighInvulnerability Nigh Invulnerable]].
** Kind of averted in ''EVEOnline''. Ships designed for extended combat are usually fitted specifically so that they can heal themselves. There are dedicated "Logistics" ships that are specifically designed to heal other ships, and these often get targetted pretty early in the battle, but the most common primary target to be called is usually actually electronic warfare vessels, a kind of [[AnAdventurerIsYou mezzer]] which can, without even dealing a single point of damage, prove unimaginably irritating in combat. Also very popular in PvP is a well-coordinated "Spider-Tank", where EVERYBODY has some healing capability and the enemies have to get through all of it at once.

** Although [[GaiaOnline zOMG!]] does not have player classes, it does have a few rings that grant healing abilities (and one of the ring sets is titled Medic). [[UltramarineAlizarin This editor]] has discovered that the simple act of using a healing ability once on another player is often enough to draw aggro from the enemies that were previously menacing the patient (or to make new recruits in a boss battle initially target the healer). After this got the healer mobbed to death, he has made sure to include a crowd control ring when equipping his healing-oriented setup.
*** Thankfully, you can equip two sets at once! Couple the Medic set with something like Pirate for armor/CC or Chef for dodge.
*** Also, some enemy types can now heal their cohorts, such as Tiny Witch Doctors. Unfortunately, there's no visualization for this besides seeing the HP bar jump back up, so you may need to [[AllThereInTheManual read the updates or the wikis]] to figure out who the medics are.
*** Still, the only enemies capable of healing seem to prioritize on healing themselves, which would help a new player find out about their existence. It kinda doesn't, since only three enemies heal others, and one is too fragile to be noticed, and the other two come coupled in swarms of other enemies where people would rather use targetless AoE attacks.
** ''DreamOfMirrorOnline'' uses a job system that let every player to have his own healing skill, and dedicated healers to wear enough defences to survive the team warriors. Anyway, as they can buffer allies and resurrect (a skill that requires both specialization and a specific weapon type), it's better to deal them first. And then, there is a ''monster'' family that works this way. The Septic Snake (a combat monster) can call for help, attracting the Herb Snake, a monster that automatically heals nearby snakes. The Herb Snake, if attacked, calls for help, attracting Septic Snakes...
** ''StarWars Galaxies'' qualifies even more than most games. Pre-CU, the Combat Medic was one of the most [[GameBreaker broken]] classes in the game, as not only were they the only class (out of three healing classes) that could cast area-heals, they also were capable of laying down poisons and diseases on their enemies, which were typically virulent enough to render an enemy PC incapable of acting in combat until they found a Doctor capable of healing their wounds.
*** It also applied in reverse during dungeon raids. Take, for example, the Deathwatch Bunker which was, up until [[SoBadItsHorrible the NGE,]] the hardest dungeon in the game. Part of the challenge was in the fact that one of the players in your party had to be a non-combatant crafter so you could use the forge at the end of the dungeon to make a piece of Mandalorian armour as a reward. You would think this fragile little non-com would be your most valuable member who had to be protected at all costs. However, every single guide published on the matter specifically stated that your crafter was second in priority to any Doctors you brought along, as they were the only proffesions capable of resurrecting dead players.
** In ''GuildWars'', you pretty much have to kill monks and ritualists if you want to kill anybody else. Especially in the smaller (4-man/6-man)arenas. Fort Aspenwood is the worst example, since if there's more than one or two healers the Luxon team '''can't win''' without either being ''very'' good or ''very'' lucky. Even the ''monsters'' get into the act, especially in Hard Mode.
*** Partially subverted in that you may be called to put pressure on mesmers or elementalists if they're becoming too much of an issue to the party. Also, ArenaNet takes a perverse joy in nerfing ritualists, and they'll seldom ever be playing as healers, so you don't really need to target them first.
** In ''RagnarokOnline'', anything but an dangerously zealous effort to take down a high-level [[TheMedic priest]] will likely not succeed. Many would go so far as to say that the priest is the ''real'' tank of the game....

** ''FinalFantasyIV'' features a boss called the Magus Sisters, comprised of Cindy, Mindy and Sandy. Cindy can revive the other two bosses(!), so if the player [[PuzzleBoss doesn't catch on]] [[GuideDangIt fast enough]], death is inevitable.
*** Brutally subverted in ''Final Fantasy IV'' for the {{Nintendo DS}}. The Defense Module's recovery of the CPU is pretty negligible in comparison to the Attack Unit's amped damage output. If you kill both before the CPU, however, expect an all-you-can-eat diet of Globe 199, in all of its insta-kill cheesetasticness. Oh, and then it revives both modules. Annoyingly, the pre-battle dialogue, where Fusoya tells you to attack the Defense Node first, remains, even though it's utterly obsolete.
**** If you kill the Attack Node quickly, you can pretty easily kill the CPU by having Rydia continually summon Ramuh. His attack bypassed the CPU's Reflect spell, and the damage actually ''heals'' the Defense Node, making Globe 199 a moot point. Of course, this is assuming the Attack Node doesn't just Beam you twice, killing everyone, before you can kill it, which is [[LuckBasedMission pretty much a crapshoot]].
*** However, in the original ''IV'', you were better off killing the Defense Module, then attacking the CPU while the Attack Unit chewed up your HP. Unless, of course, you love to grind.
*** Also painfully subverted in one battle of ''FinalFantasyX''. If you kill the healers, they'll just be replaced, and you might get an attack to the face for your troubles. The only way to neutralize them is to steal their potions.
*** ''FinalFantasyXI'' has Beastmen imps that are healers in Campaign. The healing isn't normally a problem, however. It's the ''powerful area buffs'' that drive players nuts, especially Phalanx.
*** ''FinalFantasyVI'' has [[TheThreeStooges The Dream Stooges]] in Cyan's Dream. Protip: Kill Curlax first. If you don't, prepare to be pasted by some amazingly powerful attack magic.
** For a straight example, see the Golden Hydra final boss of ''SuikodenI''. It has three heads. The first two heads deal damage. The third head can't attack, and instead heals and revives the other two heads. Guess which head dies first?

** There are several roleplaying games where this rule applies to you, not just the enemy. Bosses love to target your healers first, and then pound you when you try to revive them.
** In the second ''GoldenSun'' game, one of the bonus bosses would be a very easy fight... if he couldn't summon his own personal medic that could heal about twice as much damage as you can dish out per turn. Guess what dies first if you plan on winning.
*** The Star Magician is actually something of a subversion... to elaborate, he summons four kinds of "balls". Thunder (which spams lightning attacks at your party), angry (which self destructs on your party ForMassiveDamage), Refresh (which heals Star Magician for way to much to be good.), and Guardian (which makes the Star Magician NighInvulnerable for the turn... usually. Sometimes it just attacks for piddly damage.). Obviously, you don't want the Guardian or Refresh around. This leaves the self-destructing ForMassiveDamage Anger ball and the Thunder ball. The subversion? He has four out at once, and if he ever has less than that, he spends one of his turns summoning more. Even if you kill a Guardian or Refresh ball, he may just summon another. And if you lock down the combination of balls to just Thunder and Anger balls, the Anger balls self-destruct, leaving him to summon a new ball. The only seriously effective tactic is killing balls over and over again until you get the golden combination of 4 Thunder balls. Not a complete subversion, but it's there.
** In ''KingdomHearts'', Green Requiems can't attack you. They just act as a healer to other Heartless and try to stay out of your reach.
*** Freaking Crescendos. If you let them run around, they heal everything to max health, but in 2, if you use a Reaction Command at the right time, they will drop HP orbs. Not very helpful if there are more than one of these little buggers and you can't hit them all at once, IE Chicken Little.
** [[InvertedTrope Inverted]] with Potos in SeikenDensetsu3. They will only cast Heal Light on the entire enemy party when ''their own'' HP gets low. Thus, it makes sense to target the Potos last.

** CityOfVillains has the final battle of the Lord Recluse Strike Force, acknowledged as one of the hardest battles in the game. 8 PC villains vs 8 ([[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard grossly overpowered]]) NPC heroes. For the villains to have any chance of winning it is '''vitally important''' to knock out the heroine Numina first, as she can heal and even revive downed heroes.

** Another episode had an incompetent North Korean bomber pilot (nicknamed "5 O'Clock Charlie") repeatedly flying over the camp attempting to bomb a nearby ammo dump (he misses every time). Burns, annoyed at the pilot's persistence, sets up an anti-aircraft gun to try and shoot 5 O'Clock Charlie down. However, due to his inexperience, Burns accidentally destroys the ammo dump instead. Thinking that he finally hit his mark, 5 O'Clock Charlie flies away and never returns.
** Not to mention that 5 O'clock Charlie isn't actually a pilot for the North Korean air force; he's just a local with an ancient plane and home-made bombs.
** Oddly enough it COULD have been a North Korean bomber using such an old plane, once the U.S. gained control of the sky the main bomber used by N.K (and possibly Russian) pilots was the PO-2 bomber, an ancient wood and canvas biplane that was so slow most U.S. planes zoomed past it (so fast they couldnt pull a shot before overshooting it)

* In ''{{Starcraft}}: Brood War'', it's advantageous to take out the medics first when fighting against Terran marines.
** Also, when fighting against troops in Bunkers, SCVs become quite annoying, since they can repair during the fight. One even managed to do this in one of the novels. (Somehow.) Unfortunately, the AI ''does'' shoot the SCVs (though not usually medics).
** It is possible to place a half-dozen medics in front of the enemy base, and [[ArtificialStupidity the enemy will focus all of their attacks on the nigh-invulnerable cluster]] while you prepare your own attack.

**** It's generally accepted that NPCs just love shiny things like plate armor and shields. And cuddly things in the case of Bear form Druids.
*** Then there are paladins, 'affectionately' referred to as cockroaches because of their hard shell and near impossibility to kill.
*** And healing druids, thanks to their instant cast (and thus uninterruptible) healing spells. In fact, the only healing class in WoW that ''can't'' pvp tank is the Shaman.
**** Recent patches buffed shamans for their ability to kite and get away, effectively making them a very anti-melee PvP healer. However, druids still currently keep the title of kiting masters, if they apply the use of crowd control abilities to their full potential.
*** The term "PvP Tank" for healers seems to be exaggerated since anyone smart enough can simply lock down the healer with interrupts and silences and stuns, if all used in one consecutive row in order to maximize the time they are unable to cast.
**** Unless you were stupid enough to decide to play one of the nine classes that aren't rogues.

In video games however, Medics and other Healers are usually the ''first'' ones targeted. Most times, this is an AcceptableBreakFromReality because ''in real life, medics don't magically heal people to full combat efficiency in a matter of seconds''. If an enemy soldier is down, he will ''stay'' down. Even if the Medic(s) save his life, even if they bring him back to full combat efficiency, he's out for the duration of the battle.

->''"You fools! Go after the one in the dress!"
-->'''Lord Victor Nefarious'''