[Tips] Why does Vaccinator get such a bad Rep?

[Symbol]

Let me first of all say that I've 6000+ hours on TF2 and one of my most played classes is medic.

This isn't an ego-boosting excersize when I say this and more to do with the fact that most of the people that think or use the vaccinator say its stupid, that its not worth it, I'm hoping my expierence with TF2 will keep some of you reading long enough to not write this off as tosh.


The Vaccinator, is a great alternative to the others that encompasses so many different situations where other mediguns would of failed.

Random Crits

I'm sure that most medics have suffered at the hands of crockets and sorts, Vaccinator sorts this, you take no crit damage from the type you vaccinate while ubered. Good medics will be prepared, and if not learn the rhythm.

(Assuming you're on the default Bullet Setting)
('Clicks' are pressings of the R key or whatever you have it set too)

Basic Rhythm
1 click for blast
2 clicks for flame
1 click to reset back to bullet
2 clicks from flame back to blast

This may seem like really simple maths but learning how to change your resistance accurate and fast will save you many a time, especially when your heal target is less than skilled. Learn it without having too look at what you're resisting and you'll feel safer and change faster.

Headshots

Many will probably disagree with me, but most of the snipers I happen to come across on servers are ones that go for quickscopes over charge ups, until they crack wise with this medigun. When vaccinating any class for bullet resist this saves every class from those quickscopes and more importantly you.

You can also piss off other snipers vaccinating your own. (This is a treat for when enemy snipers build up on 2fort and you only have 1 lonely sniper that had no other chance otherwise, top it off with Darwins Danger Shield and you're laughing.)

Fast Ubers

With my testing it takes a medic on a slow burn too charge one Vaccinate uber in 8 seconds, thats with a target undamaged. Its unbeleivably easy too churn out ubers, top it out with your ubersaw and your getting a charge a swing. Vita Saw and if you die you still virtually have a charge left in your gun when you respawn.

This means its ideal for the initial push, keeping the heat on your enemy with continual ubers. It also helps out on the last pushes, meaning when theres not a lot of time left, theres no time to charge any other medigun other than the vaccinator at this point.

Sentry Guns

Another one, many will disagree with me. But I beg of you to vaccinate for bullet resist against a sentry. Its incredibly effective, especially on a good pyro.

Nullifying bullet damage means the only thing you need worry about is dodging the sentry rockets, which pyros who've learned can reflect. Needless to say, if the rockets do hit you, its no big loss to HP as the if you have started the damage already its not long before it goes down.

Heavy Priority

If you vaccinate your teams Heavy and you vaccinate him for bullet against an enemy heavy you have won. The type of minigun the enemy uses does not make a difference in this regard. The enemy heavy will simply loose hands down, unless they too, have been vaccinated. Ubered enemies can be outlasted as your segmented ubers mean you can manipulate the length of your 'ubers'. Bare in mind the vaccinator has the exact same uber time as her sisters on the full 4 charges

Theres more to what I've mentioned above, and I didn't intend this to become so much of a guide than it did.

All I beg of is that you sceptics out there try it for yourself and try learning to use it before writing it off as another weapon Valve didn't think about. Its the one medigun that requires a medics input too a much larger level, it takes prediction, timing and stratergy to use one.

Regards

Moogle



***Mod Note***
Notice that the Vaccinator got changes during some Updates.

[emby]

The Vaccinator is in no way a bad weapon, no medigun is too bad. It's all based off of personal preference.
Although, People favor the other three mediguns because of two factors.

Overheal. It buffs significantly slower than the other mediguns, buffs being a huge factor in terms of who might win a battle. This can cripple a Rollout compared to a medic who has say Kritz or Uber on the other team by them having much more health.
Quickfix has a quick but small one, the quickie of overheals. It heals faster though so it ballances it out.

It's ubers are very specialized and situational. It's ubers block a damage type, but normally your heal target takes multiple damage types on the battle field. This can make pushes towards an objective... A little less effective in comparison to running any other medigun, but single target battles will be a sure winner. Unless they have a melee out.
That being said, Battle Medics can probably benefit from this weapon. Since you normally should be battling one guy at time. Just pull it out and you can run away very effectively!

It's not really bad. It's just not quite like the other mediguns, which people prefer. Personally, I sometimes use it for MvM (godly speed revives), and for fun on anything else.

[Symbol]

@EmbEro: I'm glad you see some practical uses for the vaccinator yourself and mentioned some things I left out too. While I understand that the overheal can be a big downside, the resistance often outweighs the need of an overheal a lot of the time I feel.

While I know that many different resistance types are a problem for Vaccinator when trying to heal a singular target. I find that prioritizing your resistance often deals with this problem.

For example:

If you vaccainate a soldier, you see an enemy sniper to the back along with a soldier coming forward, you'd prioritize the bullet resistance as you'd be weary of headshots, wait for the sniper to back off or fire, switch to blast, and back for when the sniper might take his second attempt.

I feel stratergy like this can influence how useful the vaccinator is to yourself and your team.

[Ribs]

Yeah, i can't give my opinion on this because i bind my R key as the action key and i had auto-reload on, so i've never used that thing before. But from what i've gathered, this medigun is game breaking in comp due to its lightning fast charge and potentially game breaking ubercharge attributes. One thing that it lacks though, is the ability to negate melee damage. So demoknights are your biggest enemies, and now with the incredibily OP tide turner, they are a real threat. I can also see that it can not switch resistance type mid-charge, which leaves you vunerable to focus fire and different resistance types. If the medigun were the mother, the kritzkrieg was the father. Then the quick-fix is their son, and the vaccinator is its long lost cousin. I'm just saying the obvious because i have yet to use this medigun myself, since it is banned in most competitve leagues and since the kritz ubercharge can make short work of this medigun, it just seems like a bad choice of medigun to me...

[Yugi]

Yes, Vaccinator is not the kind of Medigun where you can spread the overheals around. As far as I've learned until now the Vacci is more of a Pocket Medigun (maybe even for 2or3 pockets) and has a good use on offense. Beside a second Medic to really shine for the team.

Once I pocketed a Pyro friend on Dustbowl RED with the Vacci since I wanted more practise (and farming the Strange one ;) and we were pretty succesful. A Pyro just needs bullet/blast resistance and the enemy team was nearly full of Soldier/Demoman and even the from-Pyros-feared-Heavy wasn't a big thread anymore.

Also here a nice video about the Vaccinator and thoughts about how and where to use it:
https://youtu.be/XaICm1V5H6A

Originally posted by ScrapTF | Natz:

and since the kritz ubercharge can make short work of this medigun, it just seems like a bad choice of medigun to me...

I've heard that the Vaccinator Mini-Ubers can actually negate the Kritzkrieg-Crits...?
But hey, fast charging Mini-Ubers are sweet when used on your own Kritzkrieg couple for protection :D

[zaabluc]

Excellent comment about Vaccinator by Hatrix (sadly not a member of our group)

Source: http://forums.backpack.tf/index.php?/topic/41890-is-the-vacc-really-that-bad/?p=445902

Originally posted by Hatrix:

Here's a few KEY components of this medi-gun that you guys are failing to mention that gives this medi-gun an edge over the others:

• You can actually uber more than two allies at once. With the stock uber and kritz, you can only effectively juggle two people. You can uber up to five players with the Vacc, granted that you build the last one during popping ubers on the other four players you select.
  
• You can use multiple resistance ubers and stack them not only on yourself, but on allies as well. Popping one uber, switching to the next resist and popping that as well on repeat can give you resists for ALL damage types at once, albeit for a short time.
  
• Each bar lasts a whopping 2.5 seconds, making a full bar a grand total 10 seconds worth of uber. You can use this to power through a measly 8 second kritz or to outlast a shorter 8 second stock uber. With the 75% resist and full crit immunity, in the hands of a skilled medic, it can render both the kritz and the stock useless, provided you save the four bars for when you REALLY need it.
  
• Your medi-gun doesn't need to be on the player constantly for the uber duration. It's like using a powerup canteen in MvM, you can use it on one player, then hop back to your original target. Useful for a teammate low on health running away, I've saved NUMEROUS teammates with this tactic. Hell, I've also given blast resistance to demoknights who charged a soldier and it actually saved them long enough for them to fuck the soldier in the ass, same when facing heavies when popping bullet resist on teammates.
  
• Just like the Quick-Fix, you CAN in fact cap points and push the cart while using this uber.
  
• You DON'T NEED a full uber to be useful. I've saved my own ass with just one bullet ubercharge while running away from scouts chasing me, myself with 25 health. Shit saved me long enough to get back to my teammates who killed the scout. 2.5 seconds doesn't seem long, but trust me, that's an eternity when in-game. That's the difference between life and death. I would have died if I had any other medi-gun in that situation. A dead medic is a useless medic, remember that.

This medi-gun is actually VERY good in the hands of someone skilled enough to use it. I find it to be fucking fantastic.

Really the only downside is when you get swarmed with multiple types of enemies longer than you can juggle your ubers, that's literally the only times I ever died while using the Vacc.

Also as always, if your pocket over-extends, nothing's gonna save you.

[emby]

Originally posted by zaabluc:

Excellent comment about Vaccinator by Hatrix (sadly not a member of our group)

Source: http://forums.backpack.tf/index.php?/topic/41890-is-the-vacc-really-that-bad/?p=445902

Originally posted by Hatrix:

Here's a few KEY components of this medi-gun that you guys are failing to mention that gives this medi-gun an edge over the others:

• You can actually uber more than two allies at once. With the stock uber and kritz, you can only effectively juggle two people. You can uber up to five players with the Vacc, granted that you build the last one during popping ubers on the other four players you select.
  
• You can use multiple resistance ubers and stack them not only on yourself, but on allies as well. Popping one uber, switching to the next resist and popping that as well on repeat can give you resists for ALL damage types at once, albeit for a short time.
  
• Each bar lasts a whopping 2.5 seconds, making a full bar a grand total 10 seconds worth of uber. You can use this to power through a measly 8 second kritz or to outlast a shorter 8 second stock uber. With the 75% resist and full crit immunity, in the hands of a skilled medic, it can render both the kritz and the stock useless, provided you save the four bars for when you REALLY need it.
  
• Your medi-gun doesn't need to be on the player constantly for the uber duration. It's like using a powerup canteen in MvM, you can use it on one player, then hop back to your original target. Useful for a teammate low on health running away, I've saved NUMEROUS teammates with this tactic. Hell, I've also given blast resistance to demoknights who charged a soldier and it actually saved them long enough for them to fuck the soldier in the ass, same when facing heavies when popping bullet resist on teammates.
  
• Just like the Quick-Fix, you CAN in fact cap points and push the cart while using this uber.
  
• You DON'T NEED a full uber to be useful. I've saved my own ass with just one bullet ubercharge while running away from scouts chasing me, myself with 25 health. Shit saved me long enough to get back to my teammates who killed the scout. 2.5 seconds doesn't seem long, but trust me, that's an eternity when in-game. That's the difference between life and death. I would have died if I had any other medi-gun in that situation. A dead medic is a useless medic, remember that.

This medi-gun is actually VERY good in the hands of someone skilled enough to use it. I find it to be fucking fantastic.

Really the only downside is when you get swarmed with multiple types of enemies longer than you can juggle your ubers, that's literally the only times I ever died while using the Vacc.

Also as always, if your pocket over-extends, nothing's gonna save you.

Thought this one was dead.

To be fair tho, this is the new Vac so points have changed.

[Yugi]

The Vac's changes from the Gun Mettle Update:

Changed attributes:
- Vaccinator base resist does not grant any crit resistance.
- Vaccinator Uber deploys now always take exactly 1 bar of Uber charge.
- Vaccinator Uber deploys give the patient a 2.5 second bubble of 75% damage resistance of the current resist type and full crit resistance to that type. These bubbles do not disappear if the Medic stops targeting the current patient. Multiple bubbles of different types can be applied to the same patient or multiple patients given the same resist uber each consuming 1 charge.
- Vaccinator uber build now suffers the same penalties as other mediguns when it comes to multiple medics on the same target and max overhealed patients.
- Decreased the bonus healing a Medic received for properly selecting the right damage resistance type from 25% of incoming damage to 10% of incoming damage.
- Added Penalty of 66% decreased uber build rate while healing a overhealed patient.


Reminds me to play with this Medigun again. A strange one should not get wasted.

[Fumo Bnnuy n Frends]

Originally posted by Idea:

The Vac's changes from the Gun Mettle Update:

Changed attributes:
- Vaccinator base resist does not grant any crit resistance.
- Vaccinator Uber deploys now always take exactly 1 bar of Uber charge.
- Vaccinator Uber deploys give the patient a 2.5 second bubble of 75% damage resistance of the current resist type and full crit resistance to that type. These bubbles do not disappear if the Medic stops targeting the current patient. Multiple bubbles of different types can be applied to the same patient or multiple patients given the same resist uber each consuming 1 charge.
- Vaccinator uber build now suffers the same penalties as other mediguns when it comes to multiple medics on the same target and max overhealed patients.
- Decreased the bonus healing a Medic received for properly selecting the right damage resistance type from 25% of incoming damage to 10% of incoming damage.
- Added Penalty of 66% decreased uber build rate while healing a overhealed patient.


Reminds me to play with this Medigun again. A strange one should not get wasted.

i have been fiddling with the vaccinator since gun mettle
they actually made it better from my perspective
the only downside is the no passive crit resistance
which was pretty op
you could take on a phlog pyro or sniper with the right resistance without hardly trying
you'd die eventually from normal damage but still

[Yugi]

Question about the 'new' Tough Break Vaccinator: How well does it work against Crits/Kritzkrieg, does someone have experiences? For example Vs a Phlog Pyro in close and Vs a Kritzed Heavy in Mid/Long range.

[2-Hook Tiger]

The Tough Break Vaccinator is actually really great. So great that I got a Strangifier for it,
just to be told that the Strange is broken.

But whatever the case: In the hands of a great Medic (or against an incompetent team that stacks like buck on Soldiers/Demos or has no Soldiers/Demos) it can help you and your heal target survive through thick and thin.
On that note, Story time:

I was pubbing on Borneo with a random guy as Medic while he was playing Natasha Heavy. The enemy team had like 4 something Soldiers so I ran Vac.
I see the four Soldiers running in and our Heavy is down a ramp (Last point) winding up his gun. I quickly run behind him with my Medi-gun set to Explosives and Uber the shit out of him.

Bastard lived for like a minuite through 4 Soldiers! 2 of which had the Direct Hit!
He even killed 3 of them!

The chat was filled with the Soldiers going "WTF" "Holy shit that Heavy" and "Well that was something", while me and the Heavy were just saying "The Vaccinator, ladies and gentlemen!" in the voice chat.


He added me after that.

And that's basically the issue with the Vaccinator. The "in the hands of a great Medic" prefix.
Let's be honest here: Not everyone is a good Medic. For ever Crusader's Sniping, Ubersaw Slinging, Top-Scoring purely through heals Medic out there, there's another few who serve as nothing more than Strange leveling for Scouts, Snipers and Spies.
The Vaccinator makes what's already a fairly difficult job even more confusing, by having to swap through all the resistances to find the right one, and doing it at a proper pace.

These two videos sum up the issues with the Vaccinator quite nicely.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Da84HNU0-E
https://youtu.be/yigALT7zeRc
I do thing that the biggest issue is the three resistances you have to look through.
And honestly, it should be two.


Let's think seriously for a second here: There are 9 classes in Team Fortress 2. 8 of them (All but Demoman, 88% of classes) have some form of Bullet Damage. There are also a total of 2 well technically 3 (Soldier, Demoman, and technically Engineer, making up 33% of the classes) that can deal explosive damage. This is also largely compensated by the fact that Soldier is one of the most played classes in the game, therefor usually meaning that you'll be facing a lot of them.
And then Fire. How many classes use Fire? One. Two, if we're desperate enough to count the Cow Mangler. That's 11% (or 22% if we include Mangler) of the classes! Do you see the issue here?

Fire Resistance should not be something you need to swap to. You should primarily have your resistance set to bullet (as most people do) and swap to Explosive if a large influx of Soldiers/Demomen come to rekt you.


So with what Array (and I guess the other guy) requested in mind, I would like to see the following:

• Vaccinator now applies a 10% resistance to all damage types (Bullet, Explosive, Fire, Melee) to the heal target.
  
• Selected Resistance is granted to the Medic at 10% if he's not healing an ally.
  
• Selected Resistance is granted to both the Medic and his heal target at 25%. Medic is also affected by the 10% resistance to all damage while healing an ally.
  
• Vaccinator Uber now provides 50% resistance to all forms of damage, as well as 90% resistance to selected damage type.
  
• Vaccinator Uber now reduces all critical damage taken by 75%.
  
• Fire Resistance option removed. Can now only select Bullet or Explosive resistance.
  
• Increased Uber-charge rate decreased to 50%.
  
• Vaccinator Screen now shows what your ally sees.

[Yugi]

That's right, the Vacci is an advanced Medigun and you need to be very attentive and active as Medic. Playing with the Vacci like playing with the Medigun will lead to frustration.

>> Not recommended for Beginner-Medics! You lil cuties better stay with Medigun and Quick-Fix

What also helped me with switching resistances: rebind the f-button and r-button both to reload. So I don't accidentally call for medic when I just want to swich.

Another video tipp
https://youtu.be/KDiGYAQR-QQ


My question has been answered: The vaccines convert critical damage into normal damage. So a kritzed Heavy does the same damage as a non-kritzed Heavy (as long as you have your mini-übers activated). Even a headshot can be converted to bodyshot-damage.


On a Payload Defense game, I kept my frontline teammates alive against a kritzed Heavy.

In a later game I had the same situation but my Heavy-Patient was a pussy and refused to attack
:<

[Fumo Bnnuy n Frends]

they actually reworked it again in the tough break update
+ faster uber charge on correct healing resistance
basically benefits vaccinator medics who tank with 1 class
at the same time healing say teammates on fire
also
+you can now regenerate more health as a medic if youre healing someone injured

the only downside was
-removed healing medic with a % of damage to target
then again it wasnt much to begin with
so nothing really changes
plus you still got the heal more when healing injured teammates

so now a heavy is your best friend
they tank alot of damage
take a while to heal
and
always there with the possibility of giving you a sandvich

[Mercy]

shit, the vaccinattor is fucking op in my opinion, why?

see that asshole sniping you from half the map killing you when you have full uber, switch to vaccinattor, his quickscopes won't do shit as you will have enough time to go to cover

uber not fully charged and cant afford those 3 minutes to take down a good sentry nest because your pocket will die without uber? 75% of damage resistance will absolutely fuck that nest up and those fucker engineers no problem.

got fucking jumped by a scout, pop a uber, pocket kills him.

see a incoming soldier bomb, pop a uber and he is fucking dead as hell (assuming you have a patient that can kill)

tomislav heavy trying to be sneaky taking you from behind? quick uber that shit up and he cant do shit.

A FUCKING PHLOG? pop a fucking flame uber on his ass and he is going to be the one running

a spy?? no such thing as melee resistance you are ded lel


you can do this shit with any medigun but you will have to waste that hard earner uber, while with this piece of gold you only use one!

can't remember how many times my pocket asked for a vacc uber to take that sentry out instead simply waiting to charge a quickfix or uber.

don't use it in pubs unless another medicine dude has a good medigun already

holy shit i swear a fucking lot
sry

[Yugi]

Originally posted by Fullburn <3:

see that asshole sniping you from half the map killing you when you have full uber, switch to vaccinattor, his quickscopes won't do shit as you will have enough time to go to cover

see a incoming soldier bomb, pop a uber and he is fucking dead as hell (assuming you have a patient that can kill)

Oh gosh, reminds me of a koth round with a Heavy friend. There was a Sniper and I poped some bullet resistance. Shortly after the Sniper wrote in chat: Damit Heavy, why can't I headshot you.

And Soldier bombs yes, works best when they're using the parachute :D

Originally posted by Fullburn <3:

you can do this shit with any medigun but you will have to waste that hard earner uber, while with this piece of gold you only use one!

That's right, Vacci provides, no, claims that you keep poping all the mini übers and not being passive.
You will also drop more often with über, but hey, you'll get that one back in no time.

Pop it, drop it will happen.

[Mercy]

Originally posted by Lady Echoklang:

Originally posted by Fullburn <3:

see that asshole sniping you from half the map killing you when you have full uber, switch to vaccinattor, his quickscopes won't do shit as you will have enough time to go to cover

see a incoming soldier bomb, pop a uber and he is fucking dead as hell (assuming you have a patient that can kill)

Oh gosh, reminds me of a koth round with a Heavy friend. There was a Sniper and I poped some bullet resistance. Shortly after the Sniper wrote in chat: Damit Heavy, why can't I headshot you.

And Soldier bombs yes, works best when they're using the parachute :D

yeah one of my friends is really competitive against other players wearing nice hats and unusuals so he often asks for a vaccinator to counter the damage types
ex: soldier wearing unusual, asks for vacc with explosion resis,works everytime even against another medic combo