Balancing the Medic's Unlocks

I think we can all agree that the Übersaw and Blutsauger are upgrades, plain and simple.  Once they are unlocked, there is really no reason to use the old version.  With a 2% chance, crits are too rare to make the Syringe Gun worthwhile (not the mention the fact that no-crit servers and comp play completely negate this limited advantage).  LIkewise, unless you're playing melee only, the swing speed of the Bonesaw doesn't really do much good.  (The Kritzkrieg, in my honest opinion, is a completely viable sidegrade and doesn't need to be changed.  In fact, I feel that the constant alternating between Medigun and Kritzkrieg should be held as an example on what to aim for in balancing unlocks.)

With this in mind, I would like to put forward some of my ideas for rebalancing the Medic's weapons.  Now, I don't feel that the Medic needs to be nerfed at all, so instead of nerfing the unlocks, I am focusing on slightly buffing the original weapons.  The idea isn't the give the Medic a buff overall; rather, I want to create a situation in which a "vanilla-Medic" is not disadvantaging his team versus a "unlock-Medic".  However, in upgrading the weapons, we must be careful to stay true to the Medic's real purpose, and avoid creating a weapon that could encourage battle-Medicing.

Blutsauger and Syringe Gun:

My plan for the needle guns in slightly complicated, so I hope I am able to express it adequately.  My idea is that the Syringe Gun should mini-crit against any enemy that has been damaged in the last 5 seconds by a player that is currently overhealed by the Medic.  Here's an example: You're part of Soldier/Medic combo and an enemy Scout attacks you.  Your Soldier is completely overhealed and manages to damage the Scout with splash damage.  In this case, you would have mini-crits against that Scout.  This would end when 1) the Scout dies, 2) five seconds is up, 3) your Solider takes damage taking him below 100% of base health or 4) the overheal on your Solider wears off. 

In my opinion, this would give the Syringe Gun more offensive capability than the more defensive Blutsauger.  Additionally, it would reward the Medic for "good" behavior.  Someone would only be able to get mini-crits by healing and watching their teammate's health carefully.  If, and only if, their primary duties were fulfilled (keeping teammates overhealed) would they be rewarded with greater offensive capability.

Übersaw and Bonesaw:

This is a much simpler buff for the Bonesaw.  My idea would be to create a radial healing effect while taunting with the Bonesaw.  This would allow the Medic to heal several teammates simultaneously with the cost of being immobile for a short period of time.  Addmitedly, this is rather situational, but so is the 25% über with the Übersaw.  An example: you're part of a 5-person push that gets ambushed by a Pyro.  Assuming that your teammates succeed in taking out the Pyro, you can back around a corner and taunt.  The beautiful sounds of your musical saw will heal all of your teammates.  However, if an enemy hears this sound, they know that somewhere nearby there is an immobile Medic with a tightly clustered team surrounding him.  (Demoman heaven!)

I don't foresee this being terribly useful in comp play, but for larger (12v12) servers and arena it would be.  The exact radius and amount of healing done would have to be tested, of course.  Additionally, I'm not sure on whether or not the healing taunt should heal the Medic himself; probably not.

Hope to hear your comments, suggestions, long-winded explanations of why I'm completely wrong and don't understand anything about this game, etc..

-MadContrabassoonist

I think they should just make is so while using the Blutsauger, you don't auto-heal. This would allow both needle guns to offer the Medic survivability, but in different ways


For your Syringe Gun idea, I don't think it's a good idea. Medics shouldn't constantly be switching to the Syringe Gun while their teammates still need healing

I think a better idea would be to make the old weapons passive weapons.

Buff the medic healing rate by +1, so it goes 2HP, 3HP, 4HP, depending on how long you're out of battle. Nerf the blutslauger so it uses the 'old' healing rate. The syringe guns are about health.

Increase the ubercharge production rate by a few percent. Again, nerf the ubersaw so it uses the 'old' charge rate. The melee weapons are about uber.

Then we have a situation where the old weapons don't have to be given special traits, and the new ones get to be 'nerfed', compared to the old ones.
'

I don't hold with over complicating the original weapons, they are nice and simple as was the original vanilla TF2, keep them that way.

Quote:

This is the problem, you can't keep things the way they are.

If the new weapons (blut/ ubersaw) are nerfed to be sidegrades to the originals, then medic is likely to be more boring/ difficult, and less people will turn to play medic. Heck, it's difficult finding a medic nowadays in anything other than organised games.
If you buff the passive abilities of the medic, and nerf the new weapons to remove this buff, we have a solution. Nothing complicated about it.

Old weapons- passive medic, low risk, low reward.
New weapons- active medic, high risk, high reward.

Quote:

There are so many options with the two original weapons.
My idea:
Syringe gun: Honestly taking away the ammo clips and making it a huge single clip would be good. Maybe even +15 hp to the medic, making him able to survive uncharged headshots/charged bodyshots. Another option is to make it so every 2 needles that hit an enemy raise your uber % by 1, obviously it could be changed for balancing.

Bonesaw: Could raise the passive self heal by 1 like numenor suggested, or maybe a small health bonus like the syringe. If one of them gave the medic a health bonus the other one shouldn't, as the medic would end up with 175hp or more, making him too hard to kill. It could also be something like +25 hp each hit.

Your ideas aren't bad, you mentioned that the weapons shouldn't encourage battle medicing but the syringe gun would do just that. You'd see a medic overheal a demo, wait for him to hurt some enemies with a sticky, then go full out battle medic on them. Not a good thing. The bonesaw idea seems pretty good, although I think a health bonus (whether it's passive or from a hit) would be better.

Quote:


People played medic before the medic unlock pack, and any nerf to the blut and the ubersaw will not really cripple anyone but battle medics (and the nerf probably won't be so bad as to affect them much). The medi gun is not being changed, the kritz is not being changed.

The biggest change I see happening is less medics loling at m1 pyros while backpedalling, but medics were dealing with pyros before the blutsauger and with a good partner it never matters anyway.

Quote:

The changes shouldn't be made to help with battle medicing, that what the bluts and ubersaw is for. They need to design these weapons so they help the medic with his job, which is healing and staying alive. If people start complaining that they can't kill pyros well anymore then they need to find a new class.

I actually really loved your Syringe Gun idea, that was great. Good job!
But to be honest, I wasn't very into the bonesaw "group healing taunt". Taunt kills/heals (kritz) should not be considered part of a weapon, they're just fun little jokes that valve put in.