surviving.

On goldrush pubs surviving as medic is fairly straight foreward, but how about on more open and offensive maps like well and badlands where it's really very open and nearly always a direction the medic can be flanked from? It's mostly the middle points of the well map where I keep dying as there are a good 4 different directions threats can come from and this is before I even go into the point room on the bridge. Public servers are not usually easy to survive as medic on (although I do find the occasional pair of teams that are really quite well coordinated and skilled) especially since most of my server choices include random crits so I usually feel it's too risky to hang on to a full charge in close quarters with a soldier or anything for that matter. Also, I often end up having to break contact on the open areas with the people I'm healing as the other team tries to focus on me, and the patient generally doesn't pull back with me or just keeps running foreward.

Only the usual things, look around frequently, communicate with your patients and tell them about threats, move around a lot, know when to pull out. Keeping as many people on your team alive as possible instead of focusing on one partner also helps.

HOW TO PLAY MEDIC:

Heal someone good.
And tell them when someones buttfucking you.
Simple.

(In random pubs, this is all you need to do.)

Quote:

^that

Don't rely on pubbers to protect you.  Feel free to drop the beam and let the player be on their own if they keep dragging you into the thick of battle.  Also, if you're getting flanked, and he has a history of not assisting you, cut the beam and take care of the threat on your own.

You need to keep your eye out on the horizons from all vectors and not have tunnel vision, otherwise you'll get flanked often before you can deal with it in time, or backstabbed.  There's no need to have to call for help on comms each time you get attacked.  The patient has your health on their screen, and if they are not paying attention once, chances are they're gonna do likewise over and over.

Bottom line is, since pubs don't look out for you - you have to look out for yourself.  In competitive clans or rare organized pubs, you'll have good players who do a better job in protecting you, because they realize that a good Medic allows them to do more than they'd ever without one.  Especially true in Arena games, since health is very scarce.  I can't tell you how many times in a pub Arena game, I would get killed and then the team would fall apart begging for a Medic who wasn't there.

In pubs, I try to see if I can find a player who will actually stick with me and protect me. If I can't get a player to respond to me in chat, I know it's probably a lost cause.

Here's what I do in pubs to help myself out:

1) Stay back and play conservative. You can't be as aggressive on the front lines as you might in competitive play, because your team isn't going to help protect you. This means staying around the corner from the final CP on Dustbowl for example, and not following that Heavy out into the open. I won't run out to help a dying teammate if it means exposing myself.

2) Check your six and know the lay of the land. Turn around frequently to check behind you for scouts, spies, etc. Know the map, know where the opponent may be sneaking up from. Be ready to drop your healing beam and switch to ubersaw or blutsauger, but just long enough so you can escape (remember, knowing the map means knowing where you can hide, where you can get health, etc)

3) Use it or lose it. Don't be afraid to pop that uber on yourself, in order to help avoiding dying. It'll give you critical moments to escape. If you die, your uber is wasted anyway. Better to benefit from it a little bit, than risk losing it trying to hold it till the last possible second (i.e. for sentry kills). I'm much more likely to pop uber early in pubs, due to the overall chaos going on.

4) Do the Chicken Dance. Hop, duck, dodge back and forth - anything to make it harder for the enemy to get a bead on you. If you can position yourself behind a cart or a big fat Heavy, even better.

i like the big open maps like Well and Granary.  I actually dislike getting into tight spaces where I can't dodge as easily, and I like the wide field of vision that these maps give me.  I tend to be a bit reckless when I play medic though, and die a lot because of it.  On maps like this the best thing that you can do is use the terrain to try to take away as many firing angles on you as possible.  Even on the wide open maps, you can use the walls and other obsticles to cut down on your exposure.

I tell you one thing - Arena has done wonders for my Syringe Gun accuracy.  I'd say I'm up from 5-7% to about 15-25% now.  Makes a world of difference in its effectiveness.  Also, in those fights that come down to 1vU, you can pot shot a lot of guys (keeping an eye out for any health pack locations) and avoid/recover unless the enemy is a Scout (at which point you should use terrain to avoid line of sight, especially when reloading)

As a medic, survival is your most important goal - for your patients, and especially YOU.

The following is based on my personal experience, so obviously the following 10 tips are clearly my own opinion. Feel free to disagree!

1) All medics should be REQUIRED to equip the Blutslager. Since you need to stay alive, the +3 health on hit is far more important to you than your chance to crit - especially since combat isn't your focus to begin with. (+3 health x 40 rounds per clip = potential 120 health earned back, that's almost your entire health bar. That depends on your aim, of course!)

2) If you're being hit and your patient doesn't notice (or doesn't care) - fuck him. Go save yourself. The time you spend dead can be much better spent healing other (better) players.

3) If your patient runs out into the front lines and you know it's a suicide run - same as #2 above.

4) If the enemy team is making a push, and you think it's going to break your team's line - retreat. Get to the back and heal the other team members who need the health. Dying at the front lines means there's less medics to tend the rear (where other damaged teammates would have needed you).

5) Don't be afraid to use the uber to save yourself. Time spent dead is time spent wasted. Your definite ability to heal is better than your potential ability to grant invulnerability, and when you die, your uber is gone too. Better used for something than wasted for nothing.

6) Heal other medics. They can't heal themselves. 2 medics are better than one, so keep each other alive!

7) Use a mic. If you don't have one, buy one. If you don't want to buy one, don't play as a medic. Period.

8) Don't latch on to the same person for 5 minutes. You can give everyone an extra 50% health, and there is not one class that could NOT use that. Take the time to give everyone a buff, and when everyone is good to go, THEN find your man. Your uber will also build faster this way, too (because ubers are 1/2 as fast when no health is being applied). 2 soldiers with extra 50% health is the same as having 3 soldiers, health-wise.

9) You are defensive first, offensive second. If you have no uber, don't go to the front lines too fast. Stick to the rear, where your damaged teammates will be retreating to find health. A full team with full health can do a lot more than one heavy or pyro with an uber. You are a walking health pack. Act like it!

10) You heal your teammates faster than engi dispensers, which heal at only one, slow rate. Just because someone's camping the dispenser for health doesn't mean they can't use you - especially since you can heal faster if their wounds are older. Also, dispensers can't give the +50% health like you can.

Personal preference: Avoid the ubersaw. If you have your saw out, then it's probably a life or death situation, and the 20% slower attack speed will be the death of you...litterally.

-xN

If you want to learn how to survive in PUB servers from people flanking you come play on our servers while teamchuckles is playing scout on the other team.   After that hellish experience Pubs will feel like a walk in the park.