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MeDKiT’s
guide to be a great Medic Part 1
Last update: December 21st, 2007 (the original version was accidentally truncated after a forum update, and FunkyBoss decided to put his Master of Science in Library and Information Science degree to good use as he ventured way back into the Internet afterlife to bring this awesome post from MeDKiT back from the dead.) Please post comments at the original post.
Introduction
I see a lot
of threads about what it takes to be a good medic, suggesting ideas on how to
play and what to do in certain circumstances. I thought it might be a good idea
to compile what I believe is important and crucial to be a great Medic. Note
that everything below is nothing more than my own personal opinion, whether or
not you agree is entirely up to you. Also, this guide does not cover the very
basics so you are expected to know a little bit how the Medic class works
before reading this. Enjoy the read!
Healing
What can
the Medic do that other classes can not do? That’s right, they can heal! (Let’s
forget dispensers for the sake of the argument as they are not direct healing)
In other words, you are expected to heal. If 4 of your fellow team mates are
fighting for their lives, please take out the Medigun and heal the wounded,
don’t stand there spamming syringes!
I see a lot
of people making the same mistake; they stick to one person and heal
only that
single person. While it is somewhat necessary to keep your beam on a
single
person if they are under heavy fire (like a heavy weapons guy taking
out a
sentry, for example), it is a great thing to heal everyone around you
that
needs it. The question is: who needs it? Everyone who is currently not
at 150% HP
needs it. If everyone is full on HP and you are making a 5 man attack,
you
should spam your beam on every single one of them so their HP pool is
higher
for when the actual fight happens. Spamming the beam on all of your
team mates
WILL make a good difference in a big firefight. Say you add 50% HP to 4
different people, that is the equivalent of 2 more players in the
fight, HP-wise.
I realize they lose that extra HP as soon as you stop healing them with
your
beam, but this process is fairly slow. Also, healing someone to make
them reach 150% HP increases your Uber bar faster than keeping your
beam on someone that is already at their 150% max HP.
As much as
you can, you should be running around trying to heal your entire team. At
certain key moments, like when attacking a base, you can focus on one person,
but this is a small minority of times. Healing
can not crit like other weapons. Sometimes you will notice that healing
certain players increases their HP very fast while some others get
healed slowly. Basically, if the person you are healing last took
damage a little while ago, they will get healed very fast. On the other
hand, if you are healing someone who j
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MeDKiT’s
guide to be a great Medic Part 2
Another mistake people do is not knowing the HP of friendly players around them. When you are healing someone, you can flex the beam and move the mouse around. When your crosshair goes over a team mate, you will see his HP. You should always scan the screen like that so you always know who needs healing. The “MEDIC!” voice macro is very nice, but it’s not enough.
I guess one of the biggest arguments within the TF2 community is about what classes are best to heal/Uber. This is a tough one. I say there are no better classes to Uber, just better players, but that is not exactly true. I guess what I am trying to say is that everything depends on the circumstances. If all you want is to get to a point fast and capture it, you can choose a scout. If you want to destroy a hive full of sentry guns, you can pick a Pyro or a Demoman. If you want to tear through masses of players that are not so far, pick a heavy. If you want to survive a critical rocket, use the Uber and while it’s up might as well use it on the first team mate you find…
One thing I love to do is healing engineers when the enemy is trying to push through. Imagine you have a sentry in the corner of the courtyard on 2fort and it is blocking the access to your spawn area. The enemy is downstairs and decide to attack the sentry with an Uber. A good tactic to keep the sentry alive is to have both engineers repair this very same sentry at max range while you are healing them. Ideally, as soon as you hear the enemy coming, you make sure they are at 150% hp and from then you switch the beam between them to keep them both alive. You could even use Uber to make both engies invincible if you have it and the enemy is making a strong 5-man attack on your base! Another possibility if Uber is up is to use it on the engineers and then running in front of the sentry to protect it from enemy fire with your body, as the engineers are repairing it. Please note that if the enemy chooses to Uber a demoman and he loads the sentry with sticky bombs, you will not be able to save it.
Bottom line is, try to heal the entire team as much as you possibly can, keep them as close as you can to 150% HP and heal whoever is more fit for the job depending on the situation. The only thing I ask is that you do not leave your Medigun on the same target all the time, because that simply does not help your team very much.
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MeDKiT’s
guide to be a great Medic Part 3
Uber
I think we will all agree that Ubers are the ultimate siege breakers. How you use it and when you use it will make the difference between losing miserably and crushing your opponent. So, when are we supposed to use the Uber? Personally, I like to choose when I start the Uber. I usually tell them: “Just go and I will use it when you will need it.” However, there are certain circumstances where listening to the player is important, like when you do not know what lies ahead of you, you have to assume that he knows he could be insta-killed, therefore he needs the Uber immediately.
If you are attacking an area that has many different elements who can 1-shot your friends (sticky bombs, snipers, spies, critical rockets) you should use it a millisecond before your team mates are exposed to the said danger. If your friends are taking fire, I suggest waiting for them to be somewhere around 60% HP before using Uber. This will have 2 effects: your Uber will last longer into the fight -and- your enemies will already be engaged in the fight and possibly damaged so it will be MUCH easier to take them out than if they see you using Uber and just run away. That being said, if at any point you see a critical rocket or something of the kind being launched, use the Uber before it kills you or your team mate.
Saving Ubers is great thing to do. Ubers do not have to be used immediately; I like to save mine for a moment where I know it will make a difference, even if that means having the Uber up for 2 minutes before using it. You have to wait for the right time. A good way to take full advantage of your Uber is communicating to your team that you have an Uber ready. Then, find a competent player to Uber that will do a lot of damage. Tell your team to get into position and give them a 5 second warning before going. As soon as you go, instruct your team to attack with you just 1 second behind you so you take most of the fire but get the benefit of an entire team worth of damage. Coordinating your team to attack from different locations at the same time is an even better plan, as you can flank your enemies and we all know this is a game winner.
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MeDKiT’s
guide to be a great Medic Part 4
We used to be able to save Uber power when it had been activated by switching to another weapon. The Uber bar would not go down while another weapon was equipped. This has been changed by Valve and is no longer possible.
The Multi-Uber is a great tactic that very few people use, as it is somewhat hard to pull off. When you take your Uber beam off someone, you will notice they do not get out of Uber immediately. Spamming the beam all over your teammates can lead you to keep 3 people invincible at the same time. This is a very effective strategy when attacking strategic points that are filled with sticky grenades; you can keep several teammates protected from those sticky grenades and force the Demomans to detonate their charge early. When charging the enemy with Uber, it is a good idea to keep scanning the screen for team mates so that you can switch the Uber beam to a friendly target that is about to die, and put it back on your initial target shortly after. Good players will not be shooting the Uber’ed target, so switching the beam several times can confuse them into not knowing where to shoot anymore.
Another thing, a great strategy when using Uber to destroy sentry guns is to run ahead of your team mate when using it, that way the sentry shoots you and your team mate is free of the knock back. Your team mate can then run up to the sentry easily and kill it. Just remember to run back to a safe location before the Uber ends and exposes you to enemy threat. Too many medics like to suicide at the end of the Uber, please don't! You are much more useful to your team alive than dead. Do what you have to do to survive!
Most often, when assaulting the enemy base, you will use the Uber to take out the sentry nests. Sometimes, you will not be able to clear the static defenses as much as you wished and will retreat back to your initial position, letting the enemy rebuild. A good strategy when you are incapable of destroying all the sentries is to actually run FURTHER into their base instead of retreating when you notice you will not succeed in clearing out the defenses. Let's take 2fort for example:
You attack the courtyard and get pushed back too much by sentries/stickies and Uber is about to run out. Instead of running to the bottom of the stairs and get back to square 1, you can try to make your way to the far corner to the top of the long stairs leading down to their base and head for their basement. This will have 2 effects on the opposing team: a) they will have to worry about going downstairs to kill you and b) you can easily distract their sentries while the rest of your team destroys them. To do so, simply have your team mate come around the corner over and over very fast so that he takes very minimal sentry fire but the sentry will be constantly looking at him. To know if you do it right, simply listen to the sentry and verify that it does the "starting fire" sound over and over very fast. As your partner is doing this, instruct the rest of your team to come out of cover and simply kill the sentry guns.
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MeDKiT’s
guide to be a great Medic Part 5
Now, when it comes to Intelligence and Ubers, note that a player carrying the Intelligence can NOT be Ubered...for obvious reasons. What does that mean? If your friend is carrying the Intelligence and gets into trouble, using the Uber and healing him will make YOU invincible, but not HIM, as he is currently carrying the briefcase. That being said, if you desire to protect him, you can use your own Ubered body as a shield to defend him as he is shooting bullets through you. Projectile-type ammunition(Syringes, Rockets...) will not go through your team mates, but actual bullets like the Minigun will.
A common strategy to build up your Uber is to have a team mate hurt himself (Demomans and Soldiers) so that your charge goes up faster. For those who did not know, you can charge faster when you are healing enemies that are hurt. It is important that you never have 2 medics heal the same target when trying to build Uber! Even if the player you are healing is always missing HP, your Uber bar will go up very slowly. Make sure medics are healing separate targets.
When it comes to Uber charging speed:
Healing people that are hurt > Healing people that are full but not at 150% HP > Healing people that are at 150% HP
People used to charge Uber during setup time by healing players that were inflicting damage upon themselves, but that should no longer necessary as Valve gave Medics a rapid Uber charging during setup time.
Once the game is started, do not stay at the spawn area healing a team mate that is inflicting damage upon himself, there are plenty of team mates being damaged by opponents on the battlefield for you to heal. So, when should you charge an Uber that way DURING a game? There are these times where the enemy is just so well coordinated and skilled that you can not penetrate their defense, or at least not before the timer runs out. This is when it is a good idea to build an Uber up. If you do that, please keep in mind a few things:
1- Try to have other medics do the same so you can penetrate the strong defense with multiple Ubers at the same time.
2- Make sure you are in a safe corner and do not let your team mate hurt himself too low so he can still defend the both of you in case of an emergency.
3- Watch out for spies.
4- Do not waste the Uber, wait for the right time.
5- Coordinate the attack with your entire team, just make sure the Ubers are in front to take most of the fire.
Now, what should you do when Uber is over? If your team is desperately trying to cap a point, you should be around there healing the people on the point or be standing on it. If the situation is not desperate, you should get away from enemy fire before the Uber ends so that you do not die and start charging another Uber right away. Lots of people like to stay in the fire after Uber is over to kill an extra person, but then the medic AND his team mate die because they are overrun. Needless to say, it's always best if both just pull back and keep on doing what they were doing.
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MeDKiT’s
guide to be a great Medic Part 6
Communication
Communication is the key to victory in TF2, especially when you are a medic. The people you are healing have a lot to worry about and have to be looking in a certain direction to shoot the opponents, you don’t. When you are healing a target, you can look the opposite way and the healing will keep going. What does this mean? This means that you should be your team mate’s eyes, for everything he does not see. You are responsible for watching out for spies and to warn him if enemies come from behind or to warn him if anything out of the ordinary happens.
Medics are a great class to communicate what the enemy is doing because of the quality that does not require them to be looking in a certain direction. Say you are capturing the middle point in granary and an enemy scout runs on the far side to try and get to your next point, thus canceling the middle capture, what do you do? You call it on voice chat! Just go: “Enemy scout going to our 2nd point!”…That’s it. Believe it or not, this kind of information will save you SO much trouble, do not neglect it!
Alright, so how exactly do you notice spies? This is a very complicated question, but I will try my best to answer.
First and foremost, enemies can not run through you, but allies can. The best technique and the one you should use the most to verify whether or not an incoming friendly is a spy or not is to simply run up to him and face him, that way if he tries to knife you he will not 1 shot you and your team mates can take him down. Spies love to come from behind; this is where your Heavy friend is vulnerable. Blocking the spy’s way is a very good idea to give your friend an extra second to turn around and kill him. So, once again, just run up to the spy and block his way so he can not reach your team mate’s back…at this point it might be a fantastic idea to scream for your life over voice chat so you get some help. The spy might try to run around you to reach your friend, in which case you should adjust and make sure you keep blocking him so he does not get the backstab on your ally. You can try using the Bone saw or the Syringe Launcher to defend yourself if your team mate is not dying and you don’t need the Medigun out.You should always take advantage of the fact that you do not need to be looking at your target to heal him, nor do you have to be standing right next to him. Every time you see an ally coming towards you guys, just run up and walk through him to check if he is a spy. This really is by far the best way of spy checking for a Medic.
Second, you can simply ask: “Hey Bob, is that really you?” and Bob answers: “Yep!”. This approach is flawless, but it requires the said spy to be somewhat far from you because let’s face it, it takes a certain amount of time for you to ask the question and for Bob to answer. A good way to improve this method of spy checking is asking your team mates to confirm that it is really them when they come from behind the attacking party; this way, when Bob comes from behind he says "It's me" or you could simply have a secret "code" like clicking voice chat 3 times very fast. You save time that way.
Third, you can tell it is a spy if he has the name of a player you know should not be there, like if he has your name, the name of the team mate you are healing, the name of a dead teammate, the name of a teammate who’s not playing the class he currently is impersonating, etc.
Finally, you can tell someone is a spy if he is acting suspicious like calling for Medic when he should not (spies often look like they are damaged, beware!), retreating when he should be attacking, running up to you when he is a sniper, etc. Note that this technique is not flawless, it is also rather hard and it is something only experience will give you.
Please note that sp
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MeDKiT’s
guide to be a great Medic Part 7
Dodging
(Staying Alive)
I don’t
think people stress enough the fact that as a Medic you MUST stay alive.
Running away to get healed from a medkit, a dispenser or another Medic takes
far less time than dying, respawning and running back, not to mention you lose
the Uber power you were just building. Being able to survive is the single most
important thing.
When you
are fighting the enemy, you should not be looking at the team mate in front of you;
you should be looking at the enemies and avoiding their fire so that YOU live.
Don’t worry about your friend, whether you stare at him or not will in NO WAY
affect the amount of healing the Medigun does. Obviously, nothing is black or
white, you must follow him and keep the beam on him, but that is the basics.
Also, don’t stand RIGHT next to your friend, as everything that does area of
effect damage will whoop both of you. There are few circumstances where hiding
very close behind your friend and using him as a shield is a good idea, like
when you are pinned in a corner, but generally speaking, you should stay away
from your team mates.
Also, be
CONSTANTLY moving and rotating your camera to see what is around you. This will
prevent more than 80% of the spies backstabbing you because you will either see
them coming or when they try to stab you in the back, your back won’t be facing
them any longer. At all times, when fighting, you should know where your
enemies are and act accordingly. You MUST live. If things get too nasty and Uber
is not ready, retreat and call it over voice chat. Your friend needs to know he
has to get out of there, and if he does not well that’s only 1 casualty instead
of 2. Suicide runs are fun on paper, but they don’t work so well, you are much
better off retreating and coming back with an Uber 20 seconds later. Hell, 20
seconds later you would not even be back from the respawn time+run back.
The Medic
is the 2nd fastest class in the game, everything else except the
scout is SLOWER. What does this mean? Where most classes could not get out of
danger in time like a rocket coming at you full speed, you can! Use this speed
to your advantage, you are fast, you should keep moving. Let me tell you that
sniping a medic that strafes randomly is much harder than sniping a medic that
is standing still.
Oh yeah,
one of my personal favorites. You know Demomans and Soldiers jump+crouch to do
their rocket/sticky jumps? If you did not, well now you do. Say you are
fighting with a team mate and an enemy soldier starts firing rockets at you
left and right and you are too close to be able to really avoid them, what do
you do? You just wish you were far enough to avoid them, don’t you? When you
see a rocket coming towards you, move away as much as you can from it and
jump+crouch at the moment it hits close to your feet, you will be propelled
away from the threat just like you had rocket jumped. The Medigun has a pretty
good range, you should still be able to heal your friend, and you will be at a
good enough distance to avoid the rockets. This is not an easy trick, but I
swear you will smile when you pull it off.
Also, as a
medic, it is important to know the location of every single medkit in every
single map. When you are about to die or very low on HP, you must get health
because you are already frail as it is. It is not worth dying for a lost
desperate b
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MeDKiT’s
guide to be a great Medic Part 8 Syringe Launcher
The Syringe
Launcher is quite possibly the most underestimated weapon in the game. If used
right, it is extremely deadly.
The
syringes thrown by the syringe launcher are affected by gravity, so they “fall”
much like sticky grenades. This is very handy to take out sentry guns, because
you can lob the syringes so they hit the sentry while you are out of line of
sight of the sentry gun itself.
Critical
syringes are ridiculously powerful, not only because they do a lot of damage,
but because when one is a critical, you know there are several more critical
syringes coming right after that. Why is that an advantage? The soldier throws
rockets, thinking they will be regular rockets but once in a while they will
critical and it will be a nice bonus. However, in your situation, you are throwing
syringes, a critical syringe comes out and you KNOW the next ones will be
criticals, so you can redirect your gun to a target you would never have
expected to be able to take out, like a heavy for example. Critical syringes
are a great way to defend a control point, because “scanning” the control point
with the syringe gun will allow you to hit every single person on that point.
Needless to say, if the syringes are critical, you will pretty much kill
everything that is standing there if you do it right.
When
fighting certain players using a shotgun to try and take you down, you must
remember that they will do more damage then you will if both are sitting there
shooting at each other and not missing. The shotgun is a very powerful weapon,
but if the medic is running around you in a pretty random pattern, it is very
easy to miss the shots. This is where you have an advantage; you can keep the
trigger down and shoot syringes nonstop while spinning around your opponent.
You will hit him for sure at a decent rate because there will be a beam of
syringes coming out of you. The more you practice, the more you will hit them
as you do this, and the better you will get at avoiding the shotgun fire. Soon
enough, you will notice that Medics are actually very good at taking out scouts
on their own, just remember never to run away in a straight line from a scout,
letting him have easy shots on you with the shotgun.
Pyros who
run at you with the flamethrower out are probably the easiest to kill, yet I
see a lot of Medics dying to those because they run to them. Pyros are pretty
much the biggest reason why you do not want to be standing right next to the
person you are healing, because god knows they can do a whole lot of damage in
very little time if you are close. However, if you see them running at you and
you are not too close, just take out and syringe gun and run backwards while
spamming syringes on them. The fastest way for them to get to you is in a
straight line, so they will not be strafing too much and you will be able to
land every single syringe right in their face. It won’t take 2 seconds for them
to die, leaving you practically unharmed because the Medic is a much faster
character than the Pyro.
Bone saw
I’ve been
gaming for a long freaking time, and I honestly never thought I would have the privilege
of killing people with a freaking Bone saw…I mean, how cool is that?
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The FunkyBoss Addendum to MeDKiT’s
guide to be a great Medic: Killing Stuff with the Blutsauger and the Saws
I have played over seventy hours of medic and have read quite a bit about strategy. So I'll throw some additional tips in for good measure.
Blutsauger
The blutsauger is an awesome weapon and allows you to survive more battles. Although you will receive no critical hits (crits), you will add 3 health points for each needle that sticks into an unfortunate opponenent. Here is a class by class guide to using the "blood sucker" effectively when the person you were healing is dead and you must defend your life. You may also want to use the weapon when your teammate is unable to kill a class like a scout by himself but is fully buffed. Just kill and heal when this happens. You should always, always, always heal injured teammates before trying to attack anyone yourself. If you do break away briefly to attack someone, do not lose your combat group while in an enemy area. Run out of your base with the blutsauger equipped only when no one is available to heal. Be sure to check behind you after spawning to see if you have failed to spot someone who you could be using to charge up your ubercharge meter. One ubercharge is often far more useful than a few kills, so use your killer instinct in the best interest of the team.
The blutsauger comes loaded with 40 needles and carries an additional
150
needles. This weapon should never run out of ammo unless you are playing as a combat-only medic. More than 99% of TF2 players dislike combat-only medics, especially when the players are hurt and burning. Heal first and fight only when necessary. As you become a more experienced medic, you will soon learn when to pull out this beast of a weapon and when to stick with your usual weapon, the venerable medigun.
Pyro: Circle strafing often works well with the blutsauger, but backpedalling diagonally or sometimes straight back is a better solution against a pyro chasing you. The healing properties of the needles allow you to reduce burn damage or top off your health when necessary. Spot pyros from far away and keep your distance. Be familiar with places that pyros like to hang out in, like darks hallways where they can ambush from behind a corner.
Scout:
Try to shoot ahead of the scout to compensate for his speed. Lead him into cramped places where his mobility may be reduced. If a scout insists on staying very close to you, whip out your bonesaw to finish him off quickly.
Demoman:
Demomen present an easy kill for a medic who is careful to avoid his explosives. Close the distance and circle strafe around the demoman but try not to stand directly in front of him. Be aware of the weapon that he has selected and move erratically. If you are low on needles while the demoman takes cover, reload while chasing him down.
Soldiers:
Wait until they have spent all four rockets and must reload to rapidly rush in, and then circle strafe them while filling their bodies full of needles. If you do not manage to inflict substantial damage before they can reload, retreat quickly to give yourself a greater chance to avoid incoming rockets. Do not rush out into an open, unscouted area to kill a reloading soldier unless you are by yourself, are on a quick respawn server, and are not likely to be able to find someone to heal within 20-30 seconds or so. Only fight with soldiers when you know that you wi
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