Medic (6v6)

The Medic is most commonly thought of as the most important class in TF2. He leads the pushes in order to cap more control points and to kill the enemy team. The medic's job is to provide heals to his teammates as well as provide them with overheals, also known as buffs.

Mediguns

In 6v6 the medic will only switch between 3 mediguns, the Medigun, Quick-Fix and the Kritzkrieg. The relation between the effects of each's ubercharge and building rates creates a rock-paper-scissors effect that keeps each balanced. Kritzkrieg beats the Quick-Fix because it puts out burst damage. The Quick-Fix, arguably, beats the Medigun because of the speed it can build at and because it helps a team stay alive for the post uber exchange fight. Medigun meanwhile beats Kritzkrieg because you take no damage while ubered but does build the slowest.

Medigun

The medigun has the ability to overheal the healing target to 150% of their normal health. The charge builds at 2.5% uber per second on a healing target without a full overheal, once the healing target's health is at 142.5% of their base health the building speed is reduced to only half. The minimum time it takes to get the medigun charge is 40 seconds. Once the medigun charge has been activated the medic and the class(es) on the receiving end of the healbeam will flash in their respective team color and will be invincible for up to 8 seconds. The medic can switch his ubercharge to as many targets as he or she would see fit to make them invincible. However that will reduce the total time of the ubercharge as the original target will retain the uber in addition to the new target for a short period.

Benefits: The medic and their healing target are safe from any kind of damage.

Weaknesses: Once the uber charge has been activated classes that are being healed can not capture control points, including the Medic. Even though the ubered classes might not take damage, knock back will still apply and explosives, airblasts and sentry guns can prevent the ubered players from entering an area.

Kritzkrieg

The Kritzkrieg has the ability to overheal the healing target to 150% of their normal health just as the medigun. The charge builds at 3.1% per second on a healing target without a full overheal, once the healing target is above 142.5% of their base health the building speed is reduced by half. The minimum time it takes to get a kritzkrieg charge is 32.25 seconds. The Kritzkrieg charge grants critical hits to all attacks done by the player who is being healed. The medic's preferred Kritzkrieg target is the Demoman because of his ability to cover large distances by charging his sticky launcher, big splash damage radius, big clip size and his high damage potential. During the time that the Demoman has the Kritzkrieg charge, his or her most important target is to kill the enemy teams medic and after that to kill as many of the enemy team as possible. If needed then Soldiers can also be kritzed. Scouts are generally considered bad to kritz as they cannot put out the same high amounts of damage with it.

Benefits: The Kritzkrieg builds faster allowing the team with it to increase a potential advantage or even create one. Kritz allows for killing the enemy team quickly.

Weaknesses: Activating the charge will not make the medic or their target invincible thus they will still need protection against incoming damage and planned attacks from the enemy team. Sentry guns will not take critical hits which makes Kritz hard to push into lasts with as the enemy team will likely have enough time to build one. The inability to become invincible means that the enemy players can easily ambush and kill the medic at any point.

Quick-Fix

The Quick-Fix has the ability to overheal the healing target to 125% of their normal health. The charge builds at 3.1% per second even if the healing target is fully overhealed. The time it takes to get a Quick-Fix charge is 32.25 seconds, the same as the Kritzkrieg when building at the maximum rate. The Quick-Fix heals 40% faster then the medigun and the Kritzkrieg which makes the Quick-Fix very useful after the initial uber fight has ended. Once the Quick-Fix charge is activated the medic and the healing target heal 3x as fast as normal. The medic and healing target will also be invulnerable to knock back, stun, slow down and air blasts.

Benefits: The medic will take the movement done by explosions to their heal target. This allows them to stickyjump and rocketjump with their team as well. The medic will also move at the same movement speed as his healing target. The Medic can heal players at roughly 100 hp per second or up to 300 with critheals when ubered. The medic is also buffed during the uber to 188 and receives the same heal rate as his target.

Weaknesses: Activating the charge will not make you invincible, damage that is dealt at the same time or within a short period of time will kill the Medic quickly!

Beginner medic guide

-Introduction-

-The bare basics of medic

Here I will state the absolute basics just to clear up any confusion that absolute beginners may have. Your main role in a team is to keep the team alive, always keep that in mind. The medic class was deliberately nerfed when Tf2 was released in terms of combat so that the medic would not be overpowered. As a medic YOU ARE NOT A COMBAT CLASS. Don’t for one second think that you are. Killing people as a medic is fun and is humiliating for the killed enemy, but you shouldn’t really be going out of your way for kills unless it is to build uber with the ubersaw. Of course, everyone likes to have a laugh once in a while, so going huge at the most ridiculous moments can be acceptable in lobbies and maybe some mixes, but during scrims and officials this kind of thing will get you kicked out of a team.

-survivability-

-Pop it don’t drop it

So here we are at the survivability section of this guide and right at the start I’d like to talk about a common saying that is used among the Tf2 community. Dropping in terms of competitive Tf2 is having an ubercharge and dying with it, meaning that those 8 seconds of invulnerability are lost. Dropping an uber is one of the worst things that you can do as a medic. Another bad thing to do is to pop your uber when you are not in danger or when the threat has been removed. This happens to even the best medics but it is better than dropping the uber because you can still continue to heal your team. The best medics will pop when attacked only if they are on the verge of dying (literally a few mille-seconds away from it). In order to survive an attack you have to be able to identify what is attacking you, how far away it is, and whether or not your team will protect you. These skills can only be acquired through experience, but there are a few tricks which you can learn before going out into the field which will help you. Usually identifying what is attacking you has to take place the moment you lose health; you shouldn’t have to find the attacker with your eyes to know. It all comes down to how far you move when attacked and what you hear, for example, if you don’t move much but you lose a lot of health, and you hear a scattergun shot the then attacker is a scout. Similarly, if you get launched into the air and you hear the bleep of a sticky bomb detonation then a demoman is trying to kill you. Now to whether or not your team will protect you. Usually, if the attacker has reduced your health beyond the “safe zone” (the amount of health where nothing except for spies and snipers can kill you in one hit (110-120hp)) you want to pop. Of course, if you are confident that the attacker won’t be able to kill you because of distance, height disadvantage etc. and your team are ready to kill him then you don’t have to pop. Similarly, if you are below the “safe zone” however you believe that you have a big advantage over your attacker (you have better dodging, you have the height advantage etc.) then don’t pop. Also, in certain situations such as if you are about to push last and time is running out then it is better just to dodge and keep dodging no matter how low you are, because if you drop then your team will probably lose however if you get forced then your team won’t be able to push with uber and so your chances of winning are also slim. Of course, there are many situations apart from this where risking a drop is better than getting forced, however I won’t go over all of them as in the end what you do in these situations depends on your play style and that of your team.

-Dodging-

-Dodging in close quarters

Dodging in close quarters is a skill that takes a very long time to master, (I myself probably won’t master it for a while) and usually you can master it faster if you consult high division standard players on how they like to aim and what kind of movement confuses them (or just practice a lot). Most players will try to predict where you will go so that they don’t have to react to it. The solution to this is to be unpredictable in your movements. If you want to, take a look at how bots on aim maps move and move in a similar fashion. What I usually do is put myself in the enemy player’s shoes and think about where I would predict my own movements and how I would aim according to this. Once I have devised a plan that I think the enemy player will take (for example, only shoot when he changes direction so it is hard for him to react to it) I usually adapt my movement to counter this plan. A key thing to remember when doing this is to keep calm and stay focused. Don’t try to make tactical calls when doing this if you are not experienced in surviving close quarter encounters otherwise you will move very predictably (taking the shortest routes to safe zones etc.) and you will be killed quickly. In terms of dodging soldiers, I’d like to steal a tip that Mirelin gave during a mentoring session with huhy’s stream viewers (which I think sums up dodging soldiers very well). What he said basically goes on the lines of: There are two kinds of soldiers, the high sens soldiers and low sens. High sens (sensitivity) soldiers like to “flick” shot you (basically use fast mouse movements to move their crosshair before their shot) and rely solely on prediction. He then told the stream viewers how when he was playing against Darn (a prem soldier who is known as a high sens soldier) he simply stood still when jumped by him and made small movements by strafing left and right quickly, and because Darn was always trying to predict where he would run, Darn ended up shooting rockets and shotgun shells either side of Mirelin instead of aiming direcly at him. Mirelin then describes the other kind of soldier the low sens soldier. He didn’t really say much about this kind of soldier apart from that they aimed on reaction more than prediction (they don’t rely on flick shots). ALSO, remember to make it hard for jumping soldiers to hit you by running towards them when they jump (think about it, the cannot strafe to the point where they change direction completely and still have enough momentum to keep moving).

-dodging spam (explosive)

Not taking damage to spam is easy when you stay focused and calm. The key to dodging explosive spam is to predict when it will explode. Rockets will explode on impact so just get out of the way of them, however grenades will roll and bounce if they hit a surface before a player, so sometimes when you see a few grenades rolling towards you it is better to run towards them and across them so that they explode behind you rather than run away and let them catch up to you before they explode. Once you are able to stay calm when you need to dodge, you will find that you will be able to dodge all spam that comes to you.

-surfing

Surfing is the most annoying thing that a medic can do. A few times when I play soldier I was on the verge of picking the medic before he surfed on my last rocket to safety with his soldiers or a health kit. Surfing with demomen (when they are using pipes not stickies) in my opinion is hard because they aim for your body not your feet. Soldiers aim for your feet so they can juggle you (as a medic you can do next to nothing when you are caught in a juggle by a soldier). Use this to your advantage, predict when the soldier will shoot his next rocket and jump and crouch as it hits the ground in front/behind you. Sometimes the crouch is not necessary to get to safety. Once in the air, it is important to be able to strafe so the soldier does not predict your path and land an airshot in you. When strafing, it is advisable not to hold W but only use the A and D keys. Press A to strafe left and D to strafe right, then slowly turn your mouse so that your path is bent in the direction that you wish it to be. Of course, if you want to strafe right left in a wider curving motion then hold down W as well as A or D. My best advice for learning to surf is to play jump maps as a soldier and learn how to rocket jump very well. Surfing is essentially rocket jumping when you don’t have control of when you fire your rockets, so there are many aspects of both disciplines which are the same.

-Deathmatching

Every legendary medic is good at deathmatching. There are 2 main parts of doing damage as a medic. Firstly, your primary weapon. Obviously the syringe guns and the crossbow are going to have to be aimed differently, and I find that the crossbow is more beneficial to use in your average 6v6 team, however definitely do use the syringes if you feel that your pocket is not protecting you very well and you need that extra damage. The crossbow should only really be used if you are very good at aiming with it. Of course, the main reason that most medics use the crossbow is that it gives that 40-150 hp to any teammate that you hit with it, but it can also be used for long range pot shots or airshots on jumping soldiers/ demomen (not really advisable but sometimes it’s the only thing you can do to survive). I could spend the whole guide discussing the advantages of using either weapon, however I think that Byte sums my thoughts on medic primary weapons up very well in this response to a question about them:

“Stock Syringe = better than nothing out of the 3 options given, means you can hit a scout no matter how shit you are at aiming as a medic. Overdose = An apparent upgrade for the Stock Syringe, again same shit you can hit a scout or enemy that is right up and close to you no matter how shit you are at aiming, plus side is if you have uber you can move 10% faster than normal when it’s out…OH JOY. Crusaders Crossbow = Quite obviously the winner in that it can do heals from 40-150hp, and can do damage from 39-79hp, can clutch moments when you kill or save your man from dying, blah blah blah. Bottom line is, if you can aim with the crusaders crossbow, then use that it’s by far the superior weapon, if you can’t aim then overdose, if you want to be the odd person and brand yourself ‘special’ then use the stock Syringe. Simple as, move along discussion over.

Cheers

Byte”

Obviously we have to take into account the blutsauger and the overdose. In my opinion don’t even try these weapons until you have a firm understanding of the pros and cons of using the crossbow and stock syringe. I personally hate the blutsauger because it removes all of my hp regen and this is crucial when playing medic. Sometimes it is useful if you have an aggressive pocket soldier because getting health from hitting enemies will sometimes save your life. As for the overdose, it does help to have that extra 10% speed when you’re running away from a suicidal player and you don’t want to pop, however I don’t think this is such a great advantage in competitive.

-positioning

This is something which really can be summed up quite easily. KEEP YOUR TEAMMATES BETWEEN YOU AND YOUR ENEMY. Of course there are certain situations (during pushes, holding in a certain way, baiting etc.) where this does not apply but generally you want to use this mind-set all the time. This is especially important when you are walking through a choke or door. Stickytraps, ninja sollies and camping scouts could always be just round the corner and you want to send your teammates in first so when you get dropped by a 6 bomb trap you can blame them (no seriously tell them to check stickies if the demo is still alive and check popular scout/solly hiding places). Also, if the teammate you are healing is between you and the enemy but that teammate is being insanely aggressive then don’t be afraid just to back out (unless you think you can survive and there is a specific reason to be seemingly over aggressive). If people are complaining that your positioning is bad then just remember that and you should be fine unless there is a serious problem with how aggressive or defensive you are as a medic etc.

-healing

-uber build

In tf2, your uber percentage is determined by the amount of HP (health points) that you heal up. For example, if you are constantly healing a player which is being damaged then your uber will build faster than if you are healing a fully buffed player (more HP is healed). You want to be building uber (healing a player which is damaging himself/herself) whenever your team is not fighting, for example holding a point, after having cleaned up a push/counter push etc. Ideally you want to build uber with a scout who has a boston basher, this is the fastest way however in some areas/situations you want to build with demomen and soldiers (for example if you want scouts to watch the flanks more or if the enemy know you have uber advantage and are trying to kill you so you need more powerful classes to protect you). Because the most powerful weapon in Tf2 is the ubercharge you need to be able to know as a medic when to be building. The best way to do this is with experience or by talking to highly experienced players (no I’m not a highly experienced player I just decided to do a medic guide). N.B. uber advantage is the concept of having a higher uber percentage than the enemy team, having uber advantage is very useful simply because you will have uber before them unless they build faster.

-kritheal

Kritheal is a feature in the tf2 engine where if a player has not taken damage for a long period of time then they will heal faster than somebody who has taken much damage. This is especially useful during rollouts.

-overheal

Buff who you need to. Whoever is taking the most heat gets the most heals. A scout sitting watching the flanks doesn’t get as much as a solly who is about to jump or is already in and taking a lot of heat.

-game sense-

-uber counting

Generally, base the amount of uber that the enemy medic has (to calculate who has advantage and by how much) on how much you or your team see the enemy medic healing and when he gets picked. Also, remember not only to count uber percentage of the other team but also to frequently call out your own percentage at intervals (every 15% for example). Counting enemy uber percentage accurately will come over time, but here in the guide I have to point out that European medics generally tend to be quite slack about calculating uber percentage. American medics seem to be better at this. Just saying that we may not have gotten sat down at i46 if F2 could count a little better.

-rollouts

At the start of the round, heal your teammates likewise. Some teams may prefer you to do it differently, but this is my “default” heal order at the moment. Demo first to 260 hp, then fast flash over the roaming solly (so you get kritheals by mid) and then buff both scouts to 185 (or just 1 if you don’t have time). Heal the demo as he goes out of the door. Whether or not your pocket is equalising or not, don’t heal him to mid unless he fails his rollout. Only heal him once you have almost reached mid (on badlands when you get up onto the bridge at resub, on granary when you are in yard etc.) Heal your roamer or keep giving buffs to your scouts on the way instead of healing your pocket.

-midfights

Stay alive. Steal health packs; heal those who are getting the most heat etc. but the most important thing is to stay alive so you don’t give uber advantage to the other team. The mid fight is often the part of the round where your skills as a medic are challenged the most, so just stay calm and collected.

-KRITZ!

Kritkrieg is a weapon that you may or may not want to use on your demo or sollies depending on how they like to play, some teams always kritz soldiers because their demo doesn’t like shiny sparkles on their weapons (not really but you understand that different demos have different playstyles). Usually I will go kritz when I know my team will probably not get pushed to last (defending last with kritz will rarely pay off). Even if the enemy team has uber advantage (if they have kritz advantage then I would just hold back and try to make them pop e.g. send a scout or solly to act as bait) it is still a good idea to use kritz as you can force the medic with or without kritz and you will end up with a kritz advantage (if you don’t understand this look up the stats to a kritzkrieg). There are other moments when I will use kritz, but I don’t think I am in the best position to explain all of them, and you should find that this knowledge of when to use kritz will come over time and also if you ask high level players what their krit strategy is. Whatever your strategy is, kritz can be a devastating weapon that can win you a round if used correctly.

-UBER! (and multi-ubering)

Multi-ubering is basically keeping two or more people alive by ubering the first one then the second one when he is in danger (you can do it with more than two but this is a bit useless as I will explain). Multi-ubering uses up the invincibility time of an uber faster, so you want to do it only when you have to and only when a un-ubered player is getting a lot of heat. Because you will have less uber time than a medic who single ubers, more damage will be dealt to you and your team by the time both ubers run out, which is generally not a good thing at all. Only do it if somebody is taking a lot of heat.

-loadouts

I usually keep my loadouts like this: A = syringe and uber, B = syringe and kritz, C = crossbow and uber, D = crossbow and kritz. To switch quickly between these loadouts (do equip different weapons for different loadouts, sometimes switching quickly is very important), you can hold F and select the letter of the loadout you want to switch to (this is a default command, if you downloaded some cfg and that doesn’t work now then that’s just bad luck). Well, that concludes all I have to say about medic at the moment. I’d like to repeat here that this guide is for absolute beginners so most of the sections here are underdeveloped. This is just what I think I owe a community which has helped me out and taught me lessons for a while now. Finally, Id like to conclude with a little piece that dodgydogman wrote on the forum about a medics attitude:

“Stay positive ALWAYS. If you find yourself losing hard, you have two options as a team in order to keep a positive attitude in my opinion. The first option is to keep trying to win, you are the underdogs, let your team know this. Break the game up into smaller goals, even if they are meaningless. For example instead of complaining that you cant get 5 rounds in 12 minutes. Set goals like, if we win mid, we can bm them a little. If we win one round, we pretend we won the game. If you get the medic you get a gold star. It doesnt matter, just keep the team focused on a reachable goal. The second is to write it off and start trolling. Call them skillfakers, go highlander classes, anything to keep the mood up. Roll heavy to mid, tbh that actually works more than you would think, you can come back in games by breaking your tilt in creative ways. Even if you lose that game, as long as you are having fun and have a positive attitude you will get better.”

Thanks for reading

Switch

See Also

• Medic

• Medic (Highlander)