Since in a recent thread there appeared to be some interest in an aid to playing medic, I thought I might as well try to share a bit of my strategy when playing medic. Comments and criticism are welcome.
This “guide”, or whatever you wish to call it, covers 3 main areas: Skills needed to play medic well, tools of the medic, and the medic’s relationship with other classes. There will also be a miscellaneous information section at the end. Information taken from TF2Wiki and advice from http://www.teamfortress2fort.com/forums/t/MeDKiT’sguidetobeagreatMediclong-5703.aspx
As a medic, you are the only class in the game to have an effective, rapid healing capability. Your job is not to kill, but to heal. If you go “battle medic” and try to syringe everyone, understand that you are not helping your team. Your point income is from healing and assists. Your KPD will fall. However, you have the opportunity to assist your team in a unique, and important way. Without medics, teams generally fail.
Skills:
To begin, the medic only needs three major skills, each of which are easily transposed into other classes. Most other skills are trivial to the medic. Firstly, and of modest importance: Dodging. Because blowing up when you venture from cover doesn’t help your team. Secondly, is situational awareness. You need to know where you are, where your allies are, how much health they have, where your enemies are, how much health you have, where projectiles are falling, where that spy who just decloaked behind you… Ow. Finally, and likely most key, is the ability to make decisions rapidly.
Dodging:
Dodging is useful for any class. As a medic, however, you are a priority target. While the best way to avoid getting hit is not to leave cover at all, this often doesn’t help your team. Therefore, you need to be able to dodge the various projectiles coming your way. So, some advice on dodging.
Firstly, patterns. Do not stand still. Do not run in a straight line. These are easy to predict and hit. Jumping is only viable if there is no sniper in the area, as a sniper can take out a medic in one hit with a body shot (which are easy enough when you jump). Jumping is, useful for avoiding being juggled by soldiers and demomen, as hits to the ground below you don’t blow you very high up. Rapid, side to side, and most importantly, unpredictable, strafing, should keep you fairly safe from sniper fire. Random ducking can help as well. Using teammates as cover may also help avoid some fire. However, no matter how randomly you weave, if there is an objective you need to get to, you become a much easier target, as you’ll likely take an efficient route.
A helpful aid for dodging is also to never find yourself at close range with your foes (unless bonesawing or uber, which are rather obvious exceptions). At close range, weapons deal far more damage, and weapons are much more difficult to avoid. The problem with this is that the same applies to your teammates.
An interesting fact: If a rocket or explosion occurs underneath or near you, and you crouch-jump, you will be blown away as if you sticky/rocket jumped. This makes you easy juggle fodder, but also may blow you far enough away to be able to dodge.
Also, you should know where any medkit on any map is, as you need them much more than your teammates. Remember, you can’t heal yourself, except for that pitiful regeneration that only works out of combat. Practice is good for dodging.
Situational Awareness:
Situational awareness is useful in dodging, and is likely to save your life more. Knowing where things and people are is very important in saving your life, and making decisions. If there are 2 enemies around that corner, or 5, for example. While you can’t know everything, keeping track of everything you can is a good policy. If there isn’t anything demanding your attention (like being shot at) you should be continually looking all around you for ambush and spies, and so forth. I spot spies a good deal of the time, but when I don’t, I often regret it. Same with pyros and scouts. Also, knowing how much health you have, and what is coming to kill you, is quite useful. Otherwise, you are likely to die. Asking teammates who actually look out into the combat what sort of enemies they face (sentries, or no sentries?) helps with decisions like the ubercharge. Looking for red or blue dots on the walls lets you warn teammates, though it might lead to excessive conservatism. There’s not much to help with on this one except consciously and conscientiously practice. As well, keep track of all your teammates health, as it helps you prioritize your healing. Just turn, look at them, and their health bar appears. Wow.
Prioritization:
Finally, likely the most important part of playing medic is prioritization, tactics, and strategy. Your role, as medic, is the same as any other classes’ roles: To help your team win to the best of their ability. As a medic, the best way to help your team is to keep them in good shape, so that they have better chances of surviving fights. Survival is only good if you are helping your team by surviving. Standing in spawn and overhealing everyone, when the battlefront is so far off that the overheal will run out before they get there, is not helpful at all, no matter how many points you get. Healing priorities, and how to use uber, are in the tools section, under medigun and critzcrieg.
The major bit of advice to give here is always keep as many people healed, preferably overhealed, as possible. Sticking on one heavy makes it easy to keep him alive, as long as he knows when to retreat, but it also leaves the rest of your teammates weakened. You need to know when, how, and if you can/should retreat, and be able to prioritize healing based on need. You should know whether or not to whip out the bonesaw, needlegun, or medigun. You should know whether to retreat facing your opponent, or facing away. All of these make differences to your play.
The only major thing separating usefulness to team is here, in tactics. Occasionally if we have 2 points only on warpath, I go back to check our first point. I’m not helping my team win, necessarily, but I can hopefully make it much harder to spy-cap, which I think helps the team a bit more. I’ll go spy searching with an ubersaw, in hopes that the time used will be sufficiently rewarded by the chunk of ubercharge gained.
A fundamental fact of playing medic is that you are, often, less disposable than your teammates. You are the only class with a charging ability, and your aid provided by healing often outclasses other roles in a decent sized group. A strong focus should be put on your survival (by you, not necessarily your teammates), as it generally aids your team more to have you alive and healing damaged people at the front, than wasting 20 seconds respawning and running back. Your death wastes your team’s time. Even if it involves wasting an uber, keeping yourself alive is generally more important. You may have wasted the uber, but you didn’t waste time in respawn and ALSO wasted the uber. Retreating, similarly, is much more likely to save time than dying. However, whether or not this is a good thing is an important decision.
Tools of the medic:
The medic has 6 tools at his disposal, though some may be exchanged for roughly equivalent counterparts. Each of these has specific tactics needed for effective use.
These are: Syringe gun (AKA AIDS gun of death), medigun, bonesaw, ubercharge, critical uber charge (whatever you wish to call it), and communication.
Syringe gun:
This can be exchanged for the blutsaugher with 12 of the new achievements. I strongly recommend the trade. The syringe gun’s 5% chance to crit pales compared to the healing provided by the blutsaugher, which can be used for a variety of tasks. The syringe gun is 1 of 3 weapons in the game to fire with an arc, albeit a minor one. This makes it rather difficult to aim. It also has significant in-air travel time, meaning you need to lead targets to a great degree. These skills are peripheral to playing medic, but are nonetheless useful, as the syringes are your only ranged weapon. In the hands of an expert, they are deadly. In the hands of a novice, laughable. At point blank, syringes deal 11-15 damage per hit, and they fire at a rate of 10 syringes per second. This means you deal 125 average DPS at point blank, if you can hit, which is respectable compared to the pyro’s 200 DPS, which quickly trails off to 65ish. At medium range (defined as the respawn door to the opposite wall of the hayroom in 2fort) the syringes deal 5-10, and at long range (defined as across 2fort battlements) syringes deal 5-6. You have 40 syringes per clip, and 150 in reserve. Remember to reload after using them, when you get a second. Critical syringes deal 30 damage per hit, which crushes people hit by them. Also, critical syringes come in long streams lasting about 2 seconds. Note that the critzcrieg allows critical hits with the Blutsaugher. Use this only in self-defense, or if all allies in the area are overhealed, and none are taking damage. Even then, it might not be a good idea.
Medigun:
The medigun is replaceable by the critzcrieg with 24 of the new achievements. The differences are covered in the ubercharge and critical uber charge sections. Both heal allies that you use them on. I’m not sure about the heal rate, but it DOES heal faster if your target has not been damaged within about the last 10 seconds. This faster healing does not make your ubercharge charge faster, as the ubercharge is based off time spent healing.
Luckily for you, good healing prioritization is rewarded in TF2 by faster ubercharge.
The medigun is a fairly simple weapon. You point at an ally, click, and hold as long as you wish to heal them. (Unless you enabled the auto-heal advanced option, in which case you don’t need to hold the mouse button down). Healing another ally just requires clicking on them. The medigun has a limited range: Learn to estimate it. The medigun allows you to heal allies up to 150%(ish) of their maximum health. The amount for each class is covered later. This overhealing will drain away over time, and return to their normal hp after 20 seconds, assuming they aren’t damaged or healed again during that time.
Healing is your first priority. Have the medigun out, and heal anyone around you, unless there is no one around you, or you have to defend yourself.
Now, healing well requires prioritizing targets. This comes in a variety of forms, which I will place in separate prioritizations.
In combat, damaged > in combat, not overhealed > out of combat, damaged > in combat, overhealed > out of combat, not overhealed, > out of combat, overhealed.
This prioritization is based on whether or not the class is in combat, defined as being likely to take damage soon (this includes rocket/sticky jumping). Those directly being attacked should always be highest priority. Out of combat includes things like engineers, and medics standing around corners.
Medic>soldier/demo/pyro/heavy > scout > sniper > spy > engineer.
This prioritization is based on class, and is not always accurate. Medics come first, because they heal the team. Medics with more ubercharge prepared than you ALWAYS have more priority than your own life. If you can save them, do so. Medics should also be overhealed, as they are quite squishy, and you like that extra health from medics healing you as well. The next few classes are combat frontliners, and are very likely to take damage. Keep them in good shape, and they can keep fighting. Otherwise, they can’t protect you, and your team has a problem. They’re clumped together, but can be differentiated based on circumstance. Scouts are harassers, and while they can use the extra health, they are less likely to be hit than the other classes. Snipers can use the extra health, because they often cannot see attacks, and it also renders them immune to being killed in 1 hit by charged body shots. Spies can’t use they health as much, but if they are disguised, and you heal them, it removes the problem about their health seeming abnormally low. Finally, engineers are rarely actually under attack, and so rarely need extra health. However, an engineer who repairs a sentry being fired on is as deserving of health as any combat class, as his death is very bad for the sentry, and thereby, your team’s defenses.
Robotnik recommends that healing priorities be Heavy > Soldier > Demo > Pyro, if you are in, or nearly in combat. This is owing to heavy being able to take a lot of damage, soldier being able to rocket jump to avoid fire, and do great damage with rockets, demo stickies and nades being decent, if aimed well, albeit not as useful as rockets/minigun for direct fire, and the pyro's uselessness at anything but close range. I agree with heavy being a good heal target, but not at long range.
Flaming, low health > low health > flaming, moderate health > moderate health > flaming, high health > high health > flaming, overhealed > overhealed.
Flames can kill your patients. This is quite annoying, and you should put out flames as soon as possible. Even a small dose of healing can give a character the extra health needed to get to the dispenser. Lower health patients are obviously more important than higher health patients. The medigun also puts out fires more rapidly than naturally allowing them to continue. It seems to cut the time remaining by an amount of time equal to the time the target spends being healed, meaning 5 seconds of healing puts out a recently burning target.
Really, the only measure of heal priority is “useful > less useful”, but these are some criteria I use to differentiate the two. I’ll overheal players I know can use it, rather than players who cannot, and save lives as rapidly as I can, but some discrimination can be preformed.
Bonesaw:
The bonesaw can be replaced with the ubersaw with all of the new achievements. If you have the ubersaw, and are reading this guide, you either farmed it, or have a low opinion of yourself. The bonesaw attacks about once per second, the ubersaw about once every 1.25ish seconds. This shouldn’t matter, as you want to aim the hits, not necessarily get them as fast as possible, unless your opponent is unaware.
Both weapons deal 45-85 damage per hit, and critical hit for 195 damage. The bonesaw is simply for close range self-defense, or attacking unaware foes when there is no one to heal (i.e. escaping). The ubersaw is more likely to be used, and is a great weapon to try and hit unaware foes with. The ubercharge can help your team, and you can kill people as well.
However, you shouldn’t let this ability distract you from your main role of healing. I’ll use the ubersaw to go after spies, or stab people while running away, and maybe even following an uber, but actually trying to go out and kill people with it is clearly suicide. It’s best used as an added bonus in some situations. Learn to aim these as best you can, as they will help quite a bit. Since the medic runs faster than other classes, even better.
Ubercharge:
The ubercharge is a major power in TF2, if used correctly. It can be the major factor in deciding fights, like on warpath, or it can be a lifesaving tool. The ubercharge is built by healing people with the regular medigun. By healing damaged targets, the ubercharge builds faster, to a maximum of about 2.5%/second. Maximally overhealed targets charge slowest. In terms of building uber, you should heal damaged > full health > overhealed. Also, recently damaged targets take longer to heal, making them large sinks of potential uber, until they are healed. Uber building is directly related to good healing tactics, which makes it a good guide to how effectively you are healing (how long does it take?). The ubercharge lasts 10 seconds, unless you uber multiple people, in which case it drains quickly.
Use of uber is also important. I’ll only consider 4 classes, really, as uber targets. Demo>pyro > soldier > heavy. This is extremely, extremely situational, but that’s my preferred priority. Demomen are good at killing and damaging large numbers of enemies, at moderate range, and perfect for taking out sentry groups. Pyros cause mass confusion, and damage, but are more likely to get you killed than demomen. They also can’t take out more than 1 sentry, which means grouped sentries lead to difficulties. Soldiers are mobile, and good at massed damage, but can’t really kill sentries without another class providing extra firepower, or if the engineer left his sentry alone. They also run out of rockets far too quickly.
Heavies are good if you can surprise people, or force them into a situation that they can’t escape, or somehow get them near the heavy, or at least in an area where they are close by and can't take cover. This includes merely waiting for them to come to the heavy, then surprise ubering the heavy. Otherwise, he’s next to useless. He’s slow, does next to no damage at long range, and has difficulty taking out sentries. Engineers can beat out his damage except at point blank. Also, as soon as the uber is over, he’s been headshot by an opposing sniper. However, if you can get things to line up you’re your favor… well. Heavies are more likely to kill large numbers of foes at close range than any other class, can slay masses of people, and keep firing that minigun. But most of the time, the former happens, at least for me.
Each class is fairly situational in uber, actually. Demo is good for buildings, so-so at killing. Pyro is good for killing in moderately open areas, and better in enclosed areas. Pyro is also good for taking out 1 or 2 sentries at most. Heavy is the same as pyro, but more dangerous in the moderate/small environment, though with difficulties when enemies have cover. Heavy also is better after uber than pyro, but can't deal with buildings nearly as well. Soldier is generally good, but not against engineers near buildings.
Spies could be useful for sapping and random backstabbing, but such an occurrence is rare. Scouts generally should be dodging, and don’t need uber. Snipers shouldn’t be hit, and don’t have the offense to use an uber well. Uber engineer is only for humiliation factor (uber... lunchbox!) Uber medic, if both have ubersaws, can be useful, as you can get a long chain of ubers, if your opponents don’t blow you away, just stay out of saw range, and don’t have sentries.
When preparing for an uber, make sure your ally has enough ammo loaded and ready. Taking 10 seconds to let a demoman reload saves an uber from being a waste. Heavies running out of ammo is an annoying occurrence. Soldiers… there’s not much you can do there. Take a trip to a dispenser if necessary.
When using an uber, try to have an escape route if you can’t push the enemy back. Try to stay aware of enemies, and DON’T LOSE HOLD OF YOUR UBER TARGET. Preferably, have an objective to accomplish. Lead your target, if there are sentries, as the pushback will affect you, which means your ally has more time to kill the sentry at close range, where they do more damage.
If you can escape after the uber, try to do so, unless you think you can survive the time after the uber (i.e. pushed enemy back, they aren’t firing back, there isn’t anyone behind you. Make sure your escape route is clear (demomen with stickies annoy me), and try to make sure enemies in your route aren’t aware of you. Try to get your target to retreat as well, as I quite often end up having a pyro charging a group of 3 enemies with spun-up miniguns and rockets ready. I’m just not going to follow that, I’m sorry if I seem like a wimp, but it’s suicidal, and dumb. The pyro could run too, but he seems to think 260 health will keep him alive. It won’t. Pyros being overhealed can’t even kill a (competent) aware heavy with full health.
In some situations, you need to use an uber to save your life. Do so. Wasting an uber is better than dying with a full uber. I especially hate being juggled, falling into the canyon on warpath with 25 health, thinking I can survive the fall, and dying with full uber.
Uber should be used proactively, but if surprised, reatively. You should know when your target is in a fatal situation, and use the uber then. Timing can either be great, or death. If you hit uber against one enemy, then it’s a waste. If you wait for your target to get damaged first, so as to conserve time, and they get headshot, too bad. Wasted. You should hit uber right before the target gets killed, or you get killed, but in practice, try and anticipate where dangerous situations will be, or estimate dangerous situations. Don’t use ubers as soon as you charge them, keep them ready for an important situation.
Uber instantly extinguishes flaming teammates. This may or may not be useful, situationally.
Ubers can be used on multiple targets. Anyone healed by a medic using uber will remain uber for about half a second. This means you can switch between targets. Recently, however, this has become less useful, as ubering multiple targets drains uber at a rate proportional to the number of targets overhealed. Nonetheless, saving allies from critical fire, or putting out flames, is a good use of uber. Uber only affects you as long as you have the medigun out, and it continues to drain if you have other weapons out. You can recharge an uber while using it by quickly ubersawing foes.
Critical uber:
The critical uber is the “ubercharge” of the critzcrieg, the replacement medigun. It charges slightly faster, but has a different, and much less versatile, effect. A critical uber (cruber) gives the target a 100% critical chance with all weapons for 10 seconds. This roughly triples their damage, and prevents damage falloff. Targets best used for critical ubers are demomen > soldier > heavy > pyro > scout > spy/sniper/engineer/medic. If you use it on the last group, it’s a waste. The demoman and soldier are good, as they have explosives, which crit for MASSIVE damage. The heavies minigun benefits from not having damage falloff, and once again, dealing MASSIVE damage. It also lets him use that massive amount of health. Pyros are vulnerable in the extreme, so critical ubering them is best when the opposition is unaware, and/or unable to quickly kill the pyro.
Scouts are Ok, but not very good, as their damage is so-so. If cruber makes snipers always headshot, then they’re above scout, but below pyro. If cruber makes spies always backstab, I really don’t care. That pistol could hurt, however.
Cruber should be used before facing enemies, and a recipient should shoot as many enemies as possible. Cruber should not be used if there are enemy sentries that can shoot the recipient. A medic and patient using cruber should be careful, and not rush in like with an uber, as that will result in their death. Smart use of cruber will result in the medic living longer than with a regular uber, as they expose themselves to the enemy less. Cruber funtions like a normal uber otherwise (and much of the same advice applies to before its use), but I strongly recommend against using it in self defense, and it doesn’t instantly put out fires. Also, use logic when considering which uber suggestions to transplant, please.
Communication
Communication, especially with a microphone, is the medic’s second most useful tool, after the medigun. Awareness of the situation makes you a decent observer, so WARN your teammates. If they’re on fire and running away, make them stop. If you need health, call for medic. If your allies need health, respond. Extremely key, coordinate those ubers. Make sure the ally has ammo, is reloaded, and maybe even organize large pushes. Coordination is key to winning a match. Anything that might be important, in game, make sure everyone is aware.
Finally, the medic and other classes.
Scout:
Scouts are somewhat useful on your team, but mostly, very annoying on the other team. Keep your scouts in decent shape, as it prevents them from instantly dying due to explosions, and helps them. They aren’t priority, and don’t uber them, please. If an enemy scout attacks you, scream for help, and try and fend them off with syringes. You can kill bad scouts, but good ones will dodge all around you. You can try and saw bad scouts, but good ones won’t let you. You can’t run away, either, which is annoying. If you can land around 12 hits with the syringe gun, the scout should be dead. That scattergun deals around 100 damage at point blank per shot (if it lands dead on), so try to avoid it. Critical scattergun just kills you. Scouts have 185 health when overhealed.
Soldier:
The workhorse of your team. Keep them overhealed, as they take damage often, and they can use the extra health to rocket jump. Enemy soliders are a pain. You generally can’t kill them unless they have low health, you surprise them, or you get critical hits. I have some awesome experiences with bonesawing soldiers while pouncing on them, but most of the time, stay at a distance, and avoid rockets. Soldiers have 300 health when overhealed. If you have an allied soldier, and no one else is around, ask them to damage themselves while in transit, it build uber faster. Remember, however, that they only have 20 rockets total. Rockets deal 100ish damage at point blank, and reduce damage when they splash, and go down to 60 damage at long range for direct hit. Crit rockets hurt a lot.
Pyro:
Ambush class, and a good uber target. They appreciate the extra health from overhealing, as they get into close combat. If an enemy pyro attacks you, and you see them, spring backwards spamming needles. If they are good, they will switch to shotgun and own you. If they are close, you burn and die. If they are at moderate-close range, you can survive, and cut them down in a few seconds. Afterburn damage is 5-6/second for 10 seconds, meaning if you have less than 45 or so health after a pyro attack, you need health, soon. Burning teammates are covered above, in the medigun section. Overhealed pyros have 260 health.
Demoman:
My favorite uber target, probably because I’ve been spoiled by good ones. Best thing for taking out sentries, as 3 stickies on the base of a level 3 sentry level it instantly, and the engineer can’t repair it. Watch out for stickies, as they can kill you if you stand on too many. Also, they can disrupt ubercharges by blowing you apart from your target. No demoman weapons suffer from damage falloff, but they do have problems with splash damage. Try to dodge pipes as best you can, as 2 hits will finish you off. A well placed sticky can also kill you, and critical stickies are the devil. On offense, however, a demo is great, because those things that hurt so much from your perspective are turned against your foes. Overhealed demos have 260 health.
Heavy:
The archetypical medic BFF, I find heavies to be situationally viable. Overhealing them is good policy, and continuing to heal them if they are in combat. Just don’t expect too much of them if they are ambushed. Jump-revving is a good tactic; hopefully your heavy knows it. Make sure he has enough ammo. Enemy heavies aren’t worrisome at all, as long as you don’t get ambushed, and have cover/stay at a distance. Sasha’s damage at range is pitiful. Unless the heavy crits, in which case HIDE until it’s over. Because heavy crits kill you very quickly, which is why I like them with crubers.
I confess a bias against heavy as a result of playing too much warpath, and so I am going to add some more positives about heavies. Heavies really appreciate medics, and are next to unkillable if they are careful about engagements, and have a medic. Ubering them is a good policy in small locations, or where there are few people, and if you are going to go out of your base, heavy is one of the better classes to simply overheal, and keep healing. A good heavy, with a competent medic, is a very, very scary team.
Engineers:
Don’t take teleporters from slower classes, love the dispenser for allies and your health, and love the sentry for your defense. Heal them if you have no one else to heal.
When attacking engineers, the only major worry is the sentry. At level 1, you can take out the sentry in pretty much any way that minimizes damage to you/allies. Overhealed soldiers, heavies, or whatever works. Level 2 or 3 sentries, best use an uber. Demoman if there is more than 1 sentry, or they are hard to reach, pyro if there is 1 and you need some confusion.
The rest of their stuff, destroy if you get the chance. Engineers have 185 health overhealed. You should be able to defeat an engineer 1 on 1, if you can dodge, and they don’t get too lucky. Don’t jump at sentries that are firing on you, they push you back far too easily if you jump.
Medic:
Heal allied medics. Kill enemy medics. Not much to say, they’re like you. Medics have 225 hp when overhealed.
Snipers:
Very annoying. Your snipers can use overheals, as it makes them secure from being body shot. Enemy snipers can kill you, your uber target, and heal target, etc, from positions of safety. Not much you can do about it. You should be able to defeat a sniper 1 on 1, unless they have massive noscope, or quickscope skills (looks at Thatguy). Snipers have 185 hp overhealed, and do 150 damage with a full charged body shot. 50 damage for no charge, or noscope. *3 if headshot. Sidestrafing and ducking is good here, please don’t jump.
Spies:
If you remain aware, you can avoid enemy spies. Please be careful not to heal them too often, and CHECK YOUR UBER TARGET. Because I’ve seen 3 uber spies in the last month. Bad. Bad. Allied spies shouldn’t require too much attention, heal if they’re low on health and it won’t blow their cover.
Spy detection 101: Spies generally have ½ health when you see them. Not always the case. You can’t run through spies. Spies give you the little +3 from blutsaugher if you shoot them (AWESOME). Spies shimmer if cloaked and you run into them, or if you shoot them. Spies give you uber if you ubersaw them (also awesome, makes them like gifts from my enemies). Your allies screaming and dying, and backstabs appearing on the kill tracking thing on the top right means you should turn around. Also, spies always carry primary weapons, and spies disguised as medics don't have an uber meter. Spies disguised as scouts and medics move slowly. Spies cannot shoot their weapons, nor can they scope, or spin up the minigun.
You can kill spies with the blutsaugher, maybe the syringe gun, if they’re smart. If they’re dumb, or trying to avoid confrontation, you can bonesaw them. That pistol actually hurts quite a bit (50-60 at close range, 35-45 at medium, about 20 at long, 120 for crits). If you spot a spy, yell it to your teammates. Spies have 185 hp overhealed.
A practical use for allied spies is to coordinate using a microphone or text, so the spy saps while you uber a target. This makes it incredibly easier to take out sentries, and in the confusion, the spy may even escape. With sapper spam, any class can easily take out a sentry, as the engineer cannot repair a sapped sentry until the sapper is off.
Random stuff:
The medic runs 7% faster than engineers, spies, snipers, etc.
Running backwards means you move slower, so if, say, a pyro is chasing you, and you run backwards, he’ll catch up. Running forwards, you’ll get away.
Regeneration occurs at 1 hp per second if damaged in the last 5 seconds. After that, it occurs at 2 hp/second, and 5 seconds after that, 3 hp/second.
Health packs are percentage based, healing 25% for the little bottles, 50% for the square packs, and 100% for the large kits.
Charging uber is faster during set-up time.
Medigun beam doesn’t require facing the target, and also bends a bit around corners. It sticks, so you don’t need to aim it at all, except to grab the target to begin with.
Ubered targets cannot capture points, grab the intel, or otherwise accomplish objectives. They can, of course, block such occurrences. Ubering a character with the intelligence will result in their being healed, but not ubered. You, however, will be ubered.
About 1 medic/4-6 people is a healthy ratio. More may be useful, depending on the number of fronts being fought on. Less generally results in being pushed back.
Enemies cannot pass through you. This can be useful if you are ubered. Enemy weapons, obviously, cannot pass through you. Allied bullets and flames pass through you, but rockets explode, and grenades bounce off.
Critical hits start at a 5% chance, and go up to 20% based on damage dealt in the last 20 seconds. 20% requires 800 damage dealt in the last 20 seconds. Medics also gain critical chance from damage dealt by their patients while the patients are being healed. Melee weapons have twice the normal crit chance.
Multiple medics healing the same target severely hamper each others uber charging, and also have proportionately less healing power per medic. I.e. 2 medics healing 1 person at a time heal less health/time than 2 medics healing 2 persons at once.
This board has issues with this post.. its hard to edit, probably due to it being about 8 pages in MSWord
This “guide”, or whatever you wish to call it, covers 3 main areas: Skills needed to play medic well, tools of the medic, and the medic’s relationship with other classes. There will also be a miscellaneous information section at the end. Information taken from TF2Wiki and advice from http://www.teamfortress2fort.com/forums/t/MeDKiT’sguidetobeagreatMediclong-5703.aspx
As a medic, you are the only class in the game to have an effective, rapid healing capability. Your job is not to kill, but to heal. If you go “battle medic” and try to syringe everyone, understand that you are not helping your team. Your point income is from healing and assists. Your KPD will fall. However, you have the opportunity to assist your team in a unique, and important way. Without medics, teams generally fail.
Skills:
To begin, the medic only needs three major skills, each of which are easily transposed into other classes. Most other skills are trivial to the medic. Firstly, and of modest importance: Dodging. Because blowing up when you venture from cover doesn’t help your team. Secondly, is situational awareness. You need to know where you are, where your allies are, how much health they have, where your enemies are, how much health you have, where projectiles are falling, where that spy who just decloaked behind you… Ow. Finally, and likely most key, is the ability to make decisions rapidly.
Dodging:
Dodging is useful for any class. As a medic, however, you are a priority target. While the best way to avoid getting hit is not to leave cover at all, this often doesn’t help your team. Therefore, you need to be able to dodge the various projectiles coming your way. So, some advice on dodging.
Firstly, patterns. Do not stand still. Do not run in a straight line. These are easy to predict and hit. Jumping is only viable if there is no sniper in the area, as a sniper can take out a medic in one hit with a body shot (which are easy enough when you jump). Jumping is, useful for avoiding being juggled by soldiers and demomen, as hits to the ground below you don’t blow you very high up. Rapid, side to side, and most importantly, unpredictable, strafing, should keep you fairly safe from sniper fire. Random ducking can help as well. Using teammates as cover may also help avoid some fire. However, no matter how randomly you weave, if there is an objective you need to get to, you become a much easier target, as you’ll likely take an efficient route.
A helpful aid for dodging is also to never find yourself at close range with your foes (unless bonesawing or uber, which are rather obvious exceptions). At close range, weapons deal far more damage, and weapons are much more difficult to avoid. The problem with this is that the same applies to your teammates.
An interesting fact: If a rocket or explosion occurs underneath or near you, and you crouch-jump, you will be blown away as if you sticky/rocket jumped. This makes you easy juggle fodder, but also may blow you far enough away to be able to dodge.
Also, you should know where any medkit on any map is, as you need them much more than your teammates. Remember, you can’t heal yourself, except for that pitiful regeneration that only works out of combat. Practice is good for dodging.
Situational Awareness:
Situational awareness is useful in dodging, and is likely to save your life more. Knowing where things and people are is very important in saving your life, and making decisions. If there are 2 enemies around that corner, or 5, for example. While you can’t know everything, keeping track of everything you can is a good policy. If there isn’t anything demanding your attention (like being shot at) you should be continually looking all around you for ambush and spies, and so forth. I spot spies a good deal of the time, but when I don’t, I often regret it. Same with pyros and scouts. Also, knowing how much health you have, and what is coming to kill you, is quite useful. Otherwise, you are likely to die. Asking teammates who actually look out into the combat what sort of enemies they face (sentries, or no sentries?) helps with decisions like the ubercharge. Looking for red or blue dots on the walls lets you warn teammates, though it might lead to excessive conservatism. There’s not much to help with on this one except consciously and conscientiously practice. As well, keep track of all your teammates health, as it helps you prioritize your healing. Just turn, look at them, and their health bar appears. Wow.
Prioritization:
Finally, likely the most important part of playing medic is prioritization, tactics, and strategy. Your role, as medic, is the same as any other classes’ roles: To help your team win to the best of their ability. As a medic, the best way to help your team is to keep them in good shape, so that they have better chances of surviving fights. Survival is only good if you are helping your team by surviving. Standing in spawn and overhealing everyone, when the battlefront is so far off that the overheal will run out before they get there, is not helpful at all, no matter how many points you get. Healing priorities, and how to use uber, are in the tools section, under medigun and critzcrieg.
The major bit of advice to give here is always keep as many people healed, preferably overhealed, as possible. Sticking on one heavy makes it easy to keep him alive, as long as he knows when to retreat, but it also leaves the rest of your teammates weakened. You need to know when, how, and if you can/should retreat, and be able to prioritize healing based on need. You should know whether or not to whip out the bonesaw, needlegun, or medigun. You should know whether to retreat facing your opponent, or facing away. All of these make differences to your play.
The only major thing separating usefulness to team is here, in tactics. Occasionally if we have 2 points only on warpath, I go back to check our first point. I’m not helping my team win, necessarily, but I can hopefully make it much harder to spy-cap, which I think helps the team a bit more. I’ll go spy searching with an ubersaw, in hopes that the time used will be sufficiently rewarded by the chunk of ubercharge gained.
A fundamental fact of playing medic is that you are, often, less disposable than your teammates. You are the only class with a charging ability, and your aid provided by healing often outclasses other roles in a decent sized group. A strong focus should be put on your survival (by you, not necessarily your teammates), as it generally aids your team more to have you alive and healing damaged people at the front, than wasting 20 seconds respawning and running back. Your death wastes your team’s time. Even if it involves wasting an uber, keeping yourself alive is generally more important. You may have wasted the uber, but you didn’t waste time in respawn and ALSO wasted the uber. Retreating, similarly, is much more likely to save time than dying. However, whether or not this is a good thing is an important decision.
Tools of the medic:
The medic has 6 tools at his disposal, though some may be exchanged for roughly equivalent counterparts. Each of these has specific tactics needed for effective use.
These are: Syringe gun (AKA AIDS gun of death), medigun, bonesaw, ubercharge, critical uber charge (whatever you wish to call it), and communication.
Syringe gun:
This can be exchanged for the blutsaugher with 12 of the new achievements. I strongly recommend the trade. The syringe gun’s 5% chance to crit pales compared to the healing provided by the blutsaugher, which can be used for a variety of tasks. The syringe gun is 1 of 3 weapons in the game to fire with an arc, albeit a minor one. This makes it rather difficult to aim. It also has significant in-air travel time, meaning you need to lead targets to a great degree. These skills are peripheral to playing medic, but are nonetheless useful, as the syringes are your only ranged weapon. In the hands of an expert, they are deadly. In the hands of a novice, laughable. At point blank, syringes deal 11-15 damage per hit, and they fire at a rate of 10 syringes per second. This means you deal 125 average DPS at point blank, if you can hit, which is respectable compared to the pyro’s 200 DPS, which quickly trails off to 65ish. At medium range (defined as the respawn door to the opposite wall of the hayroom in 2fort) the syringes deal 5-10, and at long range (defined as across 2fort battlements) syringes deal 5-6. You have 40 syringes per clip, and 150 in reserve. Remember to reload after using them, when you get a second. Critical syringes deal 30 damage per hit, which crushes people hit by them. Also, critical syringes come in long streams lasting about 2 seconds. Note that the critzcrieg allows critical hits with the Blutsaugher. Use this only in self-defense, or if all allies in the area are overhealed, and none are taking damage. Even then, it might not be a good idea.
Medigun:
The medigun is replaceable by the critzcrieg with 24 of the new achievements. The differences are covered in the ubercharge and critical uber charge sections. Both heal allies that you use them on. I’m not sure about the heal rate, but it DOES heal faster if your target has not been damaged within about the last 10 seconds. This faster healing does not make your ubercharge charge faster, as the ubercharge is based off time spent healing.
Luckily for you, good healing prioritization is rewarded in TF2 by faster ubercharge.
The medigun is a fairly simple weapon. You point at an ally, click, and hold as long as you wish to heal them. (Unless you enabled the auto-heal advanced option, in which case you don’t need to hold the mouse button down). Healing another ally just requires clicking on them. The medigun has a limited range: Learn to estimate it. The medigun allows you to heal allies up to 150%(ish) of their maximum health. The amount for each class is covered later. This overhealing will drain away over time, and return to their normal hp after 20 seconds, assuming they aren’t damaged or healed again during that time.
Healing is your first priority. Have the medigun out, and heal anyone around you, unless there is no one around you, or you have to defend yourself.
Now, healing well requires prioritizing targets. This comes in a variety of forms, which I will place in separate prioritizations.
In combat, damaged > in combat, not overhealed > out of combat, damaged > in combat, overhealed > out of combat, not overhealed, > out of combat, overhealed.
This prioritization is based on whether or not the class is in combat, defined as being likely to take damage soon (this includes rocket/sticky jumping). Those directly being attacked should always be highest priority. Out of combat includes things like engineers, and medics standing around corners.
Medic>soldier/demo/pyro/heavy > scout > sniper > spy > engineer.
This prioritization is based on class, and is not always accurate. Medics come first, because they heal the team. Medics with more ubercharge prepared than you ALWAYS have more priority than your own life. If you can save them, do so. Medics should also be overhealed, as they are quite squishy, and you like that extra health from medics healing you as well. The next few classes are combat frontliners, and are very likely to take damage. Keep them in good shape, and they can keep fighting. Otherwise, they can’t protect you, and your team has a problem. They’re clumped together, but can be differentiated based on circumstance. Scouts are harassers, and while they can use the extra health, they are less likely to be hit than the other classes. Snipers can use the extra health, because they often cannot see attacks, and it also renders them immune to being killed in 1 hit by charged body shots. Spies can’t use they health as much, but if they are disguised, and you heal them, it removes the problem about their health seeming abnormally low. Finally, engineers are rarely actually under attack, and so rarely need extra health. However, an engineer who repairs a sentry being fired on is as deserving of health as any combat class, as his death is very bad for the sentry, and thereby, your team’s defenses.
Robotnik recommends that healing priorities be Heavy > Soldier > Demo > Pyro, if you are in, or nearly in combat. This is owing to heavy being able to take a lot of damage, soldier being able to rocket jump to avoid fire, and do great damage with rockets, demo stickies and nades being decent, if aimed well, albeit not as useful as rockets/minigun for direct fire, and the pyro's uselessness at anything but close range. I agree with heavy being a good heal target, but not at long range.
Flaming, low health > low health > flaming, moderate health > moderate health > flaming, high health > high health > flaming, overhealed > overhealed.
Flames can kill your patients. This is quite annoying, and you should put out flames as soon as possible. Even a small dose of healing can give a character the extra health needed to get to the dispenser. Lower health patients are obviously more important than higher health patients. The medigun also puts out fires more rapidly than naturally allowing them to continue. It seems to cut the time remaining by an amount of time equal to the time the target spends being healed, meaning 5 seconds of healing puts out a recently burning target.
Really, the only measure of heal priority is “useful > less useful”, but these are some criteria I use to differentiate the two. I’ll overheal players I know can use it, rather than players who cannot, and save lives as rapidly as I can, but some discrimination can be preformed.
Bonesaw:
The bonesaw can be replaced with the ubersaw with all of the new achievements. If you have the ubersaw, and are reading this guide, you either farmed it, or have a low opinion of yourself. The bonesaw attacks about once per second, the ubersaw about once every 1.25ish seconds. This shouldn’t matter, as you want to aim the hits, not necessarily get them as fast as possible, unless your opponent is unaware.
Both weapons deal 45-85 damage per hit, and critical hit for 195 damage. The bonesaw is simply for close range self-defense, or attacking unaware foes when there is no one to heal (i.e. escaping). The ubersaw is more likely to be used, and is a great weapon to try and hit unaware foes with. The ubercharge can help your team, and you can kill people as well.
However, you shouldn’t let this ability distract you from your main role of healing. I’ll use the ubersaw to go after spies, or stab people while running away, and maybe even following an uber, but actually trying to go out and kill people with it is clearly suicide. It’s best used as an added bonus in some situations. Learn to aim these as best you can, as they will help quite a bit. Since the medic runs faster than other classes, even better.
Ubercharge:
The ubercharge is a major power in TF2, if used correctly. It can be the major factor in deciding fights, like on warpath, or it can be a lifesaving tool. The ubercharge is built by healing people with the regular medigun. By healing damaged targets, the ubercharge builds faster, to a maximum of about 2.5%/second. Maximally overhealed targets charge slowest. In terms of building uber, you should heal damaged > full health > overhealed. Also, recently damaged targets take longer to heal, making them large sinks of potential uber, until they are healed. Uber building is directly related to good healing tactics, which makes it a good guide to how effectively you are healing (how long does it take?). The ubercharge lasts 10 seconds, unless you uber multiple people, in which case it drains quickly.
Use of uber is also important. I’ll only consider 4 classes, really, as uber targets. Demo>pyro > soldier > heavy. This is extremely, extremely situational, but that’s my preferred priority. Demomen are good at killing and damaging large numbers of enemies, at moderate range, and perfect for taking out sentry groups. Pyros cause mass confusion, and damage, but are more likely to get you killed than demomen. They also can’t take out more than 1 sentry, which means grouped sentries lead to difficulties. Soldiers are mobile, and good at massed damage, but can’t really kill sentries without another class providing extra firepower, or if the engineer left his sentry alone. They also run out of rockets far too quickly.
Heavies are good if you can surprise people, or force them into a situation that they can’t escape, or somehow get them near the heavy, or at least in an area where they are close by and can't take cover. This includes merely waiting for them to come to the heavy, then surprise ubering the heavy. Otherwise, he’s next to useless. He’s slow, does next to no damage at long range, and has difficulty taking out sentries. Engineers can beat out his damage except at point blank. Also, as soon as the uber is over, he’s been headshot by an opposing sniper. However, if you can get things to line up you’re your favor… well. Heavies are more likely to kill large numbers of foes at close range than any other class, can slay masses of people, and keep firing that minigun. But most of the time, the former happens, at least for me.
Each class is fairly situational in uber, actually. Demo is good for buildings, so-so at killing. Pyro is good for killing in moderately open areas, and better in enclosed areas. Pyro is also good for taking out 1 or 2 sentries at most. Heavy is the same as pyro, but more dangerous in the moderate/small environment, though with difficulties when enemies have cover. Heavy also is better after uber than pyro, but can't deal with buildings nearly as well. Soldier is generally good, but not against engineers near buildings.
Spies could be useful for sapping and random backstabbing, but such an occurrence is rare. Scouts generally should be dodging, and don’t need uber. Snipers shouldn’t be hit, and don’t have the offense to use an uber well. Uber engineer is only for humiliation factor (uber... lunchbox!) Uber medic, if both have ubersaws, can be useful, as you can get a long chain of ubers, if your opponents don’t blow you away, just stay out of saw range, and don’t have sentries.
When preparing for an uber, make sure your ally has enough ammo loaded and ready. Taking 10 seconds to let a demoman reload saves an uber from being a waste. Heavies running out of ammo is an annoying occurrence. Soldiers… there’s not much you can do there. Take a trip to a dispenser if necessary.
When using an uber, try to have an escape route if you can’t push the enemy back. Try to stay aware of enemies, and DON’T LOSE HOLD OF YOUR UBER TARGET. Preferably, have an objective to accomplish. Lead your target, if there are sentries, as the pushback will affect you, which means your ally has more time to kill the sentry at close range, where they do more damage.
If you can escape after the uber, try to do so, unless you think you can survive the time after the uber (i.e. pushed enemy back, they aren’t firing back, there isn’t anyone behind you. Make sure your escape route is clear (demomen with stickies annoy me), and try to make sure enemies in your route aren’t aware of you. Try to get your target to retreat as well, as I quite often end up having a pyro charging a group of 3 enemies with spun-up miniguns and rockets ready. I’m just not going to follow that, I’m sorry if I seem like a wimp, but it’s suicidal, and dumb. The pyro could run too, but he seems to think 260 health will keep him alive. It won’t. Pyros being overhealed can’t even kill a (competent) aware heavy with full health.
In some situations, you need to use an uber to save your life. Do so. Wasting an uber is better than dying with a full uber. I especially hate being juggled, falling into the canyon on warpath with 25 health, thinking I can survive the fall, and dying with full uber.
Uber should be used proactively, but if surprised, reatively. You should know when your target is in a fatal situation, and use the uber then. Timing can either be great, or death. If you hit uber against one enemy, then it’s a waste. If you wait for your target to get damaged first, so as to conserve time, and they get headshot, too bad. Wasted. You should hit uber right before the target gets killed, or you get killed, but in practice, try and anticipate where dangerous situations will be, or estimate dangerous situations. Don’t use ubers as soon as you charge them, keep them ready for an important situation.
Uber instantly extinguishes flaming teammates. This may or may not be useful, situationally.
Ubers can be used on multiple targets. Anyone healed by a medic using uber will remain uber for about half a second. This means you can switch between targets. Recently, however, this has become less useful, as ubering multiple targets drains uber at a rate proportional to the number of targets overhealed. Nonetheless, saving allies from critical fire, or putting out flames, is a good use of uber. Uber only affects you as long as you have the medigun out, and it continues to drain if you have other weapons out. You can recharge an uber while using it by quickly ubersawing foes.
Critical uber:
The critical uber is the “ubercharge” of the critzcrieg, the replacement medigun. It charges slightly faster, but has a different, and much less versatile, effect. A critical uber (cruber) gives the target a 100% critical chance with all weapons for 10 seconds. This roughly triples their damage, and prevents damage falloff. Targets best used for critical ubers are demomen > soldier > heavy > pyro > scout > spy/sniper/engineer/medic. If you use it on the last group, it’s a waste. The demoman and soldier are good, as they have explosives, which crit for MASSIVE damage. The heavies minigun benefits from not having damage falloff, and once again, dealing MASSIVE damage. It also lets him use that massive amount of health. Pyros are vulnerable in the extreme, so critical ubering them is best when the opposition is unaware, and/or unable to quickly kill the pyro.
Scouts are Ok, but not very good, as their damage is so-so. If cruber makes snipers always headshot, then they’re above scout, but below pyro. If cruber makes spies always backstab, I really don’t care. That pistol could hurt, however.
Cruber should be used before facing enemies, and a recipient should shoot as many enemies as possible. Cruber should not be used if there are enemy sentries that can shoot the recipient. A medic and patient using cruber should be careful, and not rush in like with an uber, as that will result in their death. Smart use of cruber will result in the medic living longer than with a regular uber, as they expose themselves to the enemy less. Cruber funtions like a normal uber otherwise (and much of the same advice applies to before its use), but I strongly recommend against using it in self defense, and it doesn’t instantly put out fires. Also, use logic when considering which uber suggestions to transplant, please.
Communication
Communication, especially with a microphone, is the medic’s second most useful tool, after the medigun. Awareness of the situation makes you a decent observer, so WARN your teammates. If they’re on fire and running away, make them stop. If you need health, call for medic. If your allies need health, respond. Extremely key, coordinate those ubers. Make sure the ally has ammo, is reloaded, and maybe even organize large pushes. Coordination is key to winning a match. Anything that might be important, in game, make sure everyone is aware.
Finally, the medic and other classes.
Scout:
Scouts are somewhat useful on your team, but mostly, very annoying on the other team. Keep your scouts in decent shape, as it prevents them from instantly dying due to explosions, and helps them. They aren’t priority, and don’t uber them, please. If an enemy scout attacks you, scream for help, and try and fend them off with syringes. You can kill bad scouts, but good ones will dodge all around you. You can try and saw bad scouts, but good ones won’t let you. You can’t run away, either, which is annoying. If you can land around 12 hits with the syringe gun, the scout should be dead. That scattergun deals around 100 damage at point blank per shot (if it lands dead on), so try to avoid it. Critical scattergun just kills you. Scouts have 185 health when overhealed.
Soldier:
The workhorse of your team. Keep them overhealed, as they take damage often, and they can use the extra health to rocket jump. Enemy soliders are a pain. You generally can’t kill them unless they have low health, you surprise them, or you get critical hits. I have some awesome experiences with bonesawing soldiers while pouncing on them, but most of the time, stay at a distance, and avoid rockets. Soldiers have 300 health when overhealed. If you have an allied soldier, and no one else is around, ask them to damage themselves while in transit, it build uber faster. Remember, however, that they only have 20 rockets total. Rockets deal 100ish damage at point blank, and reduce damage when they splash, and go down to 60 damage at long range for direct hit. Crit rockets hurt a lot.
Pyro:
Ambush class, and a good uber target. They appreciate the extra health from overhealing, as they get into close combat. If an enemy pyro attacks you, and you see them, spring backwards spamming needles. If they are good, they will switch to shotgun and own you. If they are close, you burn and die. If they are at moderate-close range, you can survive, and cut them down in a few seconds. Afterburn damage is 5-6/second for 10 seconds, meaning if you have less than 45 or so health after a pyro attack, you need health, soon. Burning teammates are covered above, in the medigun section. Overhealed pyros have 260 health.
Demoman:
My favorite uber target, probably because I’ve been spoiled by good ones. Best thing for taking out sentries, as 3 stickies on the base of a level 3 sentry level it instantly, and the engineer can’t repair it. Watch out for stickies, as they can kill you if you stand on too many. Also, they can disrupt ubercharges by blowing you apart from your target. No demoman weapons suffer from damage falloff, but they do have problems with splash damage. Try to dodge pipes as best you can, as 2 hits will finish you off. A well placed sticky can also kill you, and critical stickies are the devil. On offense, however, a demo is great, because those things that hurt so much from your perspective are turned against your foes. Overhealed demos have 260 health.
Heavy:
The archetypical medic BFF, I find heavies to be situationally viable. Overhealing them is good policy, and continuing to heal them if they are in combat. Just don’t expect too much of them if they are ambushed. Jump-revving is a good tactic; hopefully your heavy knows it. Make sure he has enough ammo. Enemy heavies aren’t worrisome at all, as long as you don’t get ambushed, and have cover/stay at a distance. Sasha’s damage at range is pitiful. Unless the heavy crits, in which case HIDE until it’s over. Because heavy crits kill you very quickly, which is why I like them with crubers.
I confess a bias against heavy as a result of playing too much warpath, and so I am going to add some more positives about heavies. Heavies really appreciate medics, and are next to unkillable if they are careful about engagements, and have a medic. Ubering them is a good policy in small locations, or where there are few people, and if you are going to go out of your base, heavy is one of the better classes to simply overheal, and keep healing. A good heavy, with a competent medic, is a very, very scary team.
Engineers:
Don’t take teleporters from slower classes, love the dispenser for allies and your health, and love the sentry for your defense. Heal them if you have no one else to heal.
When attacking engineers, the only major worry is the sentry. At level 1, you can take out the sentry in pretty much any way that minimizes damage to you/allies. Overhealed soldiers, heavies, or whatever works. Level 2 or 3 sentries, best use an uber. Demoman if there is more than 1 sentry, or they are hard to reach, pyro if there is 1 and you need some confusion.
The rest of their stuff, destroy if you get the chance. Engineers have 185 health overhealed. You should be able to defeat an engineer 1 on 1, if you can dodge, and they don’t get too lucky. Don’t jump at sentries that are firing on you, they push you back far too easily if you jump.
Medic:
Heal allied medics. Kill enemy medics. Not much to say, they’re like you. Medics have 225 hp when overhealed.
Snipers:
Very annoying. Your snipers can use overheals, as it makes them secure from being body shot. Enemy snipers can kill you, your uber target, and heal target, etc, from positions of safety. Not much you can do about it. You should be able to defeat a sniper 1 on 1, unless they have massive noscope, or quickscope skills (looks at Thatguy). Snipers have 185 hp overhealed, and do 150 damage with a full charged body shot. 50 damage for no charge, or noscope. *3 if headshot. Sidestrafing and ducking is good here, please don’t jump.
Spies:
If you remain aware, you can avoid enemy spies. Please be careful not to heal them too often, and CHECK YOUR UBER TARGET. Because I’ve seen 3 uber spies in the last month. Bad. Bad. Allied spies shouldn’t require too much attention, heal if they’re low on health and it won’t blow their cover.
Spy detection 101: Spies generally have ½ health when you see them. Not always the case. You can’t run through spies. Spies give you the little +3 from blutsaugher if you shoot them (AWESOME). Spies shimmer if cloaked and you run into them, or if you shoot them. Spies give you uber if you ubersaw them (also awesome, makes them like gifts from my enemies). Your allies screaming and dying, and backstabs appearing on the kill tracking thing on the top right means you should turn around. Also, spies always carry primary weapons, and spies disguised as medics don't have an uber meter. Spies disguised as scouts and medics move slowly. Spies cannot shoot their weapons, nor can they scope, or spin up the minigun.
You can kill spies with the blutsaugher, maybe the syringe gun, if they’re smart. If they’re dumb, or trying to avoid confrontation, you can bonesaw them. That pistol actually hurts quite a bit (50-60 at close range, 35-45 at medium, about 20 at long, 120 for crits). If you spot a spy, yell it to your teammates. Spies have 185 hp overhealed.
A practical use for allied spies is to coordinate using a microphone or text, so the spy saps while you uber a target. This makes it incredibly easier to take out sentries, and in the confusion, the spy may even escape. With sapper spam, any class can easily take out a sentry, as the engineer cannot repair a sapped sentry until the sapper is off.
Random stuff:
The medic runs 7% faster than engineers, spies, snipers, etc.
Running backwards means you move slower, so if, say, a pyro is chasing you, and you run backwards, he’ll catch up. Running forwards, you’ll get away.
Regeneration occurs at 1 hp per second if damaged in the last 5 seconds. After that, it occurs at 2 hp/second, and 5 seconds after that, 3 hp/second.
Health packs are percentage based, healing 25% for the little bottles, 50% for the square packs, and 100% for the large kits.
Charging uber is faster during set-up time.
Medigun beam doesn’t require facing the target, and also bends a bit around corners. It sticks, so you don’t need to aim it at all, except to grab the target to begin with.
Ubered targets cannot capture points, grab the intel, or otherwise accomplish objectives. They can, of course, block such occurrences. Ubering a character with the intelligence will result in their being healed, but not ubered. You, however, will be ubered.
About 1 medic/4-6 people is a healthy ratio. More may be useful, depending on the number of fronts being fought on. Less generally results in being pushed back.
Enemies cannot pass through you. This can be useful if you are ubered. Enemy weapons, obviously, cannot pass through you. Allied bullets and flames pass through you, but rockets explode, and grenades bounce off.
Critical hits start at a 5% chance, and go up to 20% based on damage dealt in the last 20 seconds. 20% requires 800 damage dealt in the last 20 seconds. Medics also gain critical chance from damage dealt by their patients while the patients are being healed. Melee weapons have twice the normal crit chance.
Multiple medics healing the same target severely hamper each others uber charging, and also have proportionately less healing power per medic. I.e. 2 medics healing 1 person at a time heal less health/time than 2 medics healing 2 persons at once.
This board has issues with this post.. its hard to edit, probably due to it being about 8 pages in MSWord
. It's very good arb. Props man.
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