Team Fortress 2/Medic

Health: 150
Type: Support
Special Ability: Ubercharge
Description: The Medic is an indispensable part of any Team Fortress 2 team. His ability to heal saves a lot of people from death and respawning, and is, due to his Ubercharge, one of the best classes to turn a battle around.

Weapons

The syringe gun is effective against classes with low health, like scouts. If you're good, you can deal 125 damage in under 2 seconds.

The Medic's weapons are not generally suited for combat, and one of them isn't a weapon at all. However, all of them serve a purpose to a good Medic, regardless of their power.

Primary Weapons

• Syringe Gun - Clip Size: 40 - Reserve Ammo: 150

Your primary weapon in name only. The syringe gun takes some practice to use, but it's well worth it. If you're healing a Demoman or a Team Fortress Soldier you may actually be better equiped to deal with Scouts than your buddy. Once you've mastered the syringe gun, it will be better in melee than your melee weapon.

• Blutsauger - Clip Size: 40 - Reserve Ammo: 150

The Blutsauger is the unlockable alternative to the Syringe Gun. Although it cannot crit, each hit gives the Medic 3 health, and it still does the same damage to the enemy. This makes it much more effective at just about everything. If you're being chased by a Pyro, for example, you can turn around and pepper him with needles to keep you alive through the burn.

Once this weapon is unlocked, few medics stay with the old one. Unless you depend on crits, you should probably switch over as soon as possible.

Secondary Weapons

Other people need healing too. Spread your healing around and you'll gain uber much faster.

• Medigun - Infinite ammo

Although it's listed as your secondary, you'll be using this "weapon" the more than your others. Point at a teammate and hold down your fire key and you'll start healing them. Let go at any time and you can switch targets. While you're locked on to a target, you can jump, look around, anything as long as you stay in range. The beam can go even go around corners. Just because a player isn't damaged doesn't mean you can't heal them. If you heal a player already at max health, you will start to "overheal" them, boosting them to up to 150% of their normal health. A full buff only lasts for 20 seconds, but you can buff as many times as you like.

The crowning glory of the medigun, however, is the ubercharge. When you heal people, your ubercharge meter slowly fills. Once it's full, you can right click and both you and your patient will turn invulnerable for 10 seconds. This can be used for anything from killing sentry nests to defending control points to just saving your own skin. Everyone can be ubercharged, but some are better than others. Your ubercharge builds much faster if you're healing people who aren't fully buffed. Healing a fully buffed person (sticking to one person for too long) will charge your uber by 1.2% per second, wheras healing damaged people or buffing people who aren't at maximum will charge your uber by 2.5% per second.

Remember, you can't ubercharge people who are carrying the intelligence, and if you're carrying it you can't uber at all. Drop it (default L) if you need to.

• Kritzkrieg - Infinite ammo

The unlockable alterative to the medigun. It still heals the same amount (though it charges uber 10% faster), but instead of ubercharge granting invulnerability, it gives your target 100% criticals for the duration of the uber. This makes it more useful in some situations (clearing large amounts of people off the cart) but practically useless in others (clearing out sentry nests). In most cases, the regular ubercharge is more versatile, but which you choose will depend on the map and which team you're on. Keep in mind that criticals do not affect buildings.

Most medics stick with the regular medigun and only switch to the kritz for special occasions.

Melee Weapons

Getting overzealous with the bonesaw will often get you killed.

• Bonesaw

Until you get good with the Syringe Gun (or the Blutsauger), this will be your primary combat weapon. All classes need to be careful when using melee weapons, but the Medic must be the most careful of all. If other classes die, they have to respawn. When a Medic dies, he loses all progress to his ubercharge, and obviously he can't keep people alive when he is dead. If you've been getting lots of assists, the bonesaw will crit very often, around 20% of the time.

• Ubersaw

The ubersaw is the unlockable bonesaw. It attacks 20% slower, but each hit gives you 25% ubercharge instantly. By the time you unlock this, you can probably deal more damage with the Blutsauger than the bonesaw.

Once the Ubersaw is unlocked, very few medics ever change back.

Using the Medic

Coordinate with other medics on your team. Enemy countering your uber every time? Send 1 uber in first, then follow with the another to kill the countering medic.

Too many sentries for a heavy and too many people for a demoman? Send both in at once. Stick the heavy on the point and get the demoman to blow up the enemy sentries.

There are 2 main ways of playing the medic. You can run around healing everyone on the map and occasionally stick to one person for an uber, or you can stay in the general area of 1 person (usually a heavy or soldier) and heal everyone around them, falling back for protection when needed. Both styles are effective, but often the best one is somewhere in between.

Prioritize who you heal. Normally, those about to die come first, then people on fire or otherwise taking mild damage, then unbuffed people, then buffed people. Sometimes dying people will die even if you heal them. Sometimes you should heal these people anyway to buy time, other times you should just ignore them and heal people who will actually live. If an undamaged soldier or demoman is calling for a medic, they usually want you to buff them as they are about to rocket/sticky jump. Obviously, damaged people still take preference, but try and take time out to heal them if you can.

Using your ubercharge correctly is a core element of being a medic. Ubercharges win games. Do not just fire it at the first given opportunity, but wait until the situation is just right. For instance, if you are healing a sniper your uber will be no good unless you are the only two left to defend a contensted point, neither is it a good idea to uber someone if you are only facing one enemy. Normally, the two classes which are most suitable for an ubercharge are heavies and pyros, depending on the situation and availability soldiers and demomen will also work. When you are facing a big amount of sentries in a relatively compact space the best thing to do is ubering a demoman, who can put stickies on the area and destroy most of the sentries. If, on the other hand you are in a tight defensive situation the best way to use it is usually a heavy. It can be very hard to time your ubercharge correctly, but normally it is a good rule of thumb to fire it when you hear a sentry, spot a lot of enemies within a short proximity or if you or your target is just about to die. When you are ubering a pyro or a heavy and they need to take out sentries, run in front of them to absorb the knockback. A pyro stuck 2 meters away from a sentry doesn't do much good.

1. Scouts should be ubered only as a last resort. On defence they are better than other last resort classes.
2. Soldiers are decent general purpose uber targets. Unfortunately, due to the low clip size of their rocket launcher they can only make good use of the first half of the ubercharge. Soldiers are also fairly bad against sentries.
3. Pyros are usually the best targets for ubercharge, hands down. They can chase down most enemies, they don't have to reload, they can make short work of sentry nests and they can defend themselves once the uber wears off.
4. Demomen are, unsurprisingly, demolitions experts. They can lay down multiple stickies next to sentries and detonate them all at once, taking down entire nests in one fell swoop. The main disadvantage is that once the uber wears off they will likely be out of stickies and nearly out of grenades.
5. Heavies are also good canditates for ubercharge. They aren't the best sentry killers, and any smart player will just run away from an ubered heavy. Their main advantage is that even when the uber wears off they are still very difficult to kill, making them very effective for taking those tricky final points.
6. Engineers are normally a last resort uber. When fighting a soldier uber, however, you can uber an engineer and the soldier will be unable to kill the sentry.
7. Medics are normally a last resort uber, unless both you and the target have the Ubersaw. If that's the case, you can uber him, then he can hit enemies to fill up his uber, then he ubers you, then you hit enemies and so on. While this tactic is easily countered, inexperienced teams will often not know how to deal with this tactic, allowing for an easy win.
8. Snipers are also last resort ubers.
9. Spies are usually last resort ubers, but for a laugh you can try "ubersapping". Run in ubered and sap all their stuff. When they knock off the sappers, just resap. They can't kill you, they can't kill the sappers and normally their sentires will go down, especially if your team helps out by throwing some explosives into the mix.

When using ubercharges there are a couple of tricks you can make use of. One of these is bodyblocking. Enemies can't pass through you, so when you uber you can often stand in a narrow doorway to prevent people getting out. Another is defending with ubercharges. Even if you have no team member standing around, you can just uber yourself and stand on the point, hopefully buying your team enough time to get back. On some maps (namely 2fort) you will often be prowling around on your own. If you encounter an enemy sticky carpet you can uber, run through and bonesaw the demoman.

The most effective tool for countering an uber is another uber. If you see an enemy uber and you don't think your team can handle it, use your own uber. Yours will outlast theirs and you can kill them when it wears off. For this reason, it is important to save ubercharges when you're on defense.

Even if you don't have an uber of your own, there are other counters. A Pyro can use compressed air to keep them away or seperate them, a Demoman can do the same with stickies, a sentry nest can keep them back until the uber wears off and a Soldier can help the sentries by knocking the players into the air.

Having a mic is a very good idea when you are a medic. It makes it easy for you to tell other players where you are in case they need healing and you cannot move, and you can easily find the desired class for your ubercharge, without having to take a break from the game to write for one.

Although healing other people and providing ubercharges are important parts of being a medic the most important goal of any medic should be staying alive. Every time a medic dies, there will be about 2-4 other people who will die because you were busy waiting to spawn instead of healing them. The qualities of a great medic are knowing how to avoid getting hit and knowing when to run away. Learning how to size up a battle and determine if your team has a chance of winning is extremely important. There's no point charging into the line of fire to heal a soldier who is battling it out against three pyros no matter how many times he calls for a medic. Be wary of people who charge out into a fray then try to call in a medic. Maybe your target wants you to follow, but it would be a great loss to the team if you lose a 50% progress on an ubercharge. A lot of the time it can be strategically better for your team if you let one or two of them die and just run away. By surviving you can find other skirmishes where a medic can turn the tide of battle and apply your skills there. Remember: If a team member dies, they lose 20 seconds at most. If you die, you can lose up to 100 seconds worth of respawn and ubercharge.

After playing as a medic for a while you might start to think that everybody is after you, and most of the time this is true. It helps to think of yourself as having a giant bullseye on your back. Most experienced players know that you always shoot the medic first and this is exactly what they will do. Soldiers and demoman will direct their considerable splash damage towards you, heavies will attempt to jump down in between you and your patient and kill you both, snipers will go for your head, spies will go for your back and pyros will often go on suicidal charges just to inconvenience you. As a general rule of thumb, if you are a medic you should be looking behind you at least once every 5-10 seconds, probably more. Paranoia pays off here. Never, ever, ever stop moving. By moving around you can avoid backstabs by spies and cause snipers to miss you. If you see a spy, alert your team and go in with the bonesaw. Often your team will have their minds on aiming and such, you are not restricted in that manner.

Your worst enemies as a medic are scouts. You can run away from every class except scouts. A veteran scout player is just as sneaky as any spy, can take a medic out as fast as a sniper can and will chase you down if you run away. Although against many scouts you can use your needler and kill them with ease, expert ones will drop back to where they can dodge after one scattergun blast and pistol you down. Your only hope as a medic against a good scout is that one of your teammates will shoot them for you, or you manage to pull off a very lucky bonesaw attack.

On this note, the offensive abilities of a medic are pretty limited. Although you can usually beat classes not designed for direct fighting (engineers, spies, snipers, other medics), against better combat classes your best option is often to run away. When you need to run away, always backpedal while flinging needles at their face. Trickery and deceit are your best tools when defending yourself as a medic. Most players view medics as being easy kills when they are unprotected and you can use this to your advantage. When a player starts chasing, run away while firing needles as this heightens the impression that you are an easy kill. Once you have rounded a corner, stop, wait for them and hit them with more needles as they come around. If you time it right you can start firing before they come around the corner and the needles will arrive when they do. A well aimed cluster of needles will do more damage than a bonesaw hit, and in some places you can hit them with needles while you've already gone round the next corner.

Remember that medics are the backbone of the team, everybody else is busy shooting at things, but medics have a unique third person perspective on most battles which makes them very effective at calling the shots and organizing the team. Always stay as close to the battle as possible, but try to keep away from the line of fire, and heal the people you can see. Let your team mates know via mic where they can find you, and let your target know when you are not willing to go any farther.

Defeating Medic

The best way you could defeat a medic is as a sniper, spy or scout. Good medics usually stay outside the line of fire, to avoid losing the progress they have made with their ubercharge, which is also why most other classes have a problem getting to them, unless their patient is killed unexcpectedly.

1. Scouts are excellent for killing medics. Their speed combined with double jump means they can quickly get behind the medic, and their primary weapon downs them in 2 hits. Against a good medic the scout can usually only get one hit in before the needles start flying, but then he can just pistol away the medic's remaining health.
2. Soldiers are not the best for killing medics, but they are still good. In areas with no ceiling the soldier can often rocketjump over to the enemy medic then kill him point blank. Even if this is not possible he can aim behind the enemy team and do decent splash damage, forcing the medic to retreat and recover.
3. Pyros are normally just best at harassing the medic. It is rare to have 2 medics on a team in most maps, so hitting a medic with the flare gun repeatedly will force them to go find health or die.
4. Demomen are about as good against the medic as a soldier. Though their jumping is much more risky, his weapons are very well suited to indirect fire so you might not have to jump.
5. Heavies are only good against the medic in specific situations. If the terrain allows it, a heavy can jump down in front of a medic and kill him before he knows what's going on.
6. Engineers are bad against medics. Leave it to the rest of your team.
7. Medics are normally a last resort; if all the other classes can't kill the enemy medic you will be forced to counter uber.
8. Snipers are very effective against medics if the terrain allows it. Other than jump around, the medic can't do much about you, so he is at the mercy of your aim. If you're good enough, he won't be able to leave cover without an uber.
9. Spies are fairly good against medics, but mostly just inexperienced ones. Good medics will never stand still and are more likely to kill you than the other way around. If the terrain allows it, you can sometimes hide somewhere and take potshots at the medic, this will force him to come after you or retreat.

In general though, the best way to kill a medic is to avoid his patients.