How to play medic

New to medic? Keep dying? Popping uber at the wrong times?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, you are in the right place.
If you are;
a battle medic or a competitive player, you are in the wrong place.
I plan to make your medic career easier by telling you information I WISH I could've known going into playing the class.

Introduction.

This guide details all major hallmarks of medic gameplay and intends to provide a fundamental understanding of how to best use your time as a medic. This guide is not at all intended to be for competitive play.

ABSOLUTE basics.

You have a medigun, and most mediguns in the game heal at about 24 health per second on average. If you are using the quickfix, it's more.

Now, if you have the items, you should equip the crusader's crossbow and the ubersaw in your primary and melee slots respectively.

If you heal enough players for a certain amount of time, a bar typically down by the bottom right of your screen will say "100%", this is called "Ubercharge".

Ubercharge is an incredibly powerful ability given to all mediguns which allows you to temporarily apply a powerful effect to both you, and your patient.

The ubercharges are:

Quick-fix: Heals players at 300% the normal rate of the medigun, complete immunity to knockback, 8 seconds duration. Stock: Complete invulnerability to all damage, 8 seconds duration.

Kritzkrieg: Every shot made by your patient will deal 3x damage and will have zero falloff, 8 seconds duration.

Vaccinator: 4 smaller ubercharges grant 75% resistance to a certain damage type aswell as 100%
crit resistance from that damage type, each uber lasts 2.5 seconds, 10 seconds total duration.

If you continue healing a teammate after they reach full health, they will get overheal. Overheal can set their health to up to 50% more than their maximum (25% with quick-fix). Overheal decays overtime, and a full 50% overheal will always take 15 seconds to fully decay regardless of class (assuming no damage is taken.) All references of "buff" in this guide refer to overheal.

If a teammate hasn't taken any damage for a while, they'll heal twice as fast. At 15 seconds without any damage, this maxes out at 3 TIMES regular healing speed. This mechanic is called "crit heals" and will be elaborated on later.

This concludes the absolute basics.

Healing priority.

Healing priority is what makes or breaks a medic player. Your job as a medic is to distribute heals as efficiently and as equitably as possible, and this section goes over methods to determine who you should be focusing on.

General priorities for healing should be:
1. People who will die without your intervention, regardless of cause. Crossbow tank if necessary.
2. Anyone with active crit heals. Buff them to full overheal.
3. Anyone low on health but not about to die. Get them back in the fight.

Of course, keep yourself flexible. Remember the importance of crit heals and keeping your teammates alive, but prioritize what you think the situation needs most.

If multiple people share the same priority, try to distribute evenly. If even distribution is not possible without death, prioritize the most important of your team.

The crossbow.

The Crusader's Crossbow is a very powerful part of your kit. You forego a self defensive option for incredible long range healing aswell as upclose burst heals. I'll go over how you should use the bow.

Longrange, you can tell if a teammate is injured by hovering over them. Fire a bolt in their general direction and, depending on distance, it will give them a massive amount of burst healing. At max, a singular bolt can heal a whopping 150 health, more than enough to put any class back in the fight. If your teammates happen to be conveniently dodging every bolt you fire at them, ask them in teamchat to stand still (politeness optional.)

As teammates will not have any crit heals while actively in a firefight, your base healing rate won't always be enough to keep them alive and healthy. Crossbow tanking can mitigate this, and give your teammate useful damage thresholds.

The Crusader's Crossbow heals teammates in large bursts rather than the sustain of the medigun. It also reloads another round when it's not actively in your hands. This allows you to maintain the medigun beam for most of the time while also allowing occasional burst heals, giving your target far greater sustain in fights they wouldn't be able to survive otherwise.

The basic strategy for closerange crossbowing is to heal, crossbow, heal, repeat. Swap off your medigun and fire a bolt at around the time you think your crossbow will have reloaded. Keep in mind that the crossbow cannot overheal, so if your teammate is at or above full health don't attempt to use the bow on them.

Overheal distribution.

Distribution of overheal is another defining quality of a good medic player. This section details how to spread the buffs around evenly, keeping your team healthy and in the fight longer.

Prioritize, before anything else, people with active crit heals. You will heal them 2-3 times as fast, and that also applies to overheal. This essentially means you can fully buff light classes from 1 health to full overheal in ~2.5 seconds (with stock).

Beyond that, every class gets better with overheal but certain classes can do more with the overheal than others. I'll cover what you should be thinking about for when choosing which class to overheal.

Scout - A class designed entirely around avoiding damage given the ability to tank more damage. Decidedly powerful.

Soldier - A buffed soldier can rocket jump more.

Pyro - More health gives him more time to close the gap to burn.

Demoman - A good demoman can decide matches, but is weak against being rushed down. Overheal mitigates that.

Heavy - 150 extra health is as powerful as it sounds.

Engineer - Not really supposed to be taking fights, but it does let him survive a headshot.

Medic - The most important class in the game that gets focused relentlessly by snipers gets the ability to survive a headshot. A buffed medic could mean more ubers for your team. Always buff the medic.

Sniper - All sniper duels usually revolve around who hits a headshot first immediately winning. This lets your sniper survive a headshot giving him a second chance to win the encounter. Always buff the sniper.

Spy - Buff if you've got nobody else to buff. Overhealing a spy gets him over no useful damage thresholds for the damage a spy will be taking.

Survivability.

Death is an inevitability as the most important class in the game. Expect to be focused down by everyone who has the window of opportunity, because dying to kill you is a worthy trade for every class.

This section covers the strategies that can be used to deny the enemy those windows or preserve your life if they already had the opportunity.

First up, pop it don't drop it. If you have uber and are about to die, USE IT. If you die, you'll have lost the uber anyway and would've spent that entire respawn time not healing. Always, always, pop before you drop.

Secondly, understand your importance to your team. No other class will ever take priority over the medic. Should you ever feel like sticking with a teammate or a certain group of teammates will result in your untimely demise, ditch them. Their deaths are worth saving your uber build and healing momentum. Avoid going down with the ship wherever possible.

Thirdly, keep with your team. Not only does it let you have the most impact, a buffed team will also protect you (if they're smart, with their life) from harm.

Obvious things like avoiding sniper sightlines and being wary of spies should also be employed. Don't take risks you don't have to.

Uber.

The single most powerful game mechanic in all of Team Fortress Two, at your fingertips. As you look at that 100% bar, it's natural to wonder just how you should use it. This section covers uber, how to use it, aswell as how each type of uber is most useful.

Ubers are most efficiently used with a clear goal in mind. A few of these goals could be;

Push: Uber is used to cause as much damage, chaos and death as possible. Forces the enemy team into falling back. Creates a window and an advantage for your team to use to move up. Breaks defensive holds and chokepoints. Use on whoever you think could get the most done with it.

Recover: Uber is used to stabilize the game, lessening the disadvantage your team has and giving your team a foothold. Most useful if your team is getting rolled, as it gives your team time to respawn and get ready to take fights. Use on whoever can best stop the enemy from moving forward.

Panic: Used exclusively to save your own life. Seldom works with the kritzkrieg, but can if that extra DPS from your team could stop you from dying. If the choices are between using uber and dying, always use uber.

Your goals might not line up exactly with one of these purposes. Use where you see fit, but always make sure to have a genuine objective and intent with each uber.

While all mediguns can follow those general purposes, their ubers are to be used with care to their function.

Stock: Complete invincibility will never be a bad thing. Removes death as an option. The effects remain for a little while after you stop healing someone, allowing you to have the effect running on several people at once in a mechanic called 'flashing.' Do note flashing costs extra uber, but should be used to encourage more teammates to push up and to preserve life.

Quick fix: Do not treat it as you would treat stock. The healing, while nice, will not save you from any amount of focusfire. Use it to distribute a large amount of healing across your entire team, giving everyone somewhat of a buff and topping off their health. Can save you in a pinch.

Vaccinator: Very effective at keeping you safe, as you'll almost always have a charge in your back pocket to use to save yourself. Charges should be distributed between teammates with the most relevant damage types. Bubbles remain on target even if you swap and pop another charge. Do not treat it as you would treat stock.

Kritzkrieg: The only medigun that doesn't immediately preserve your life. Push and recover ubers become very effective at killing, but panic ubers become almost impossible and the risk factor is always there. Use with caution. Do not treat it as you would treat stock.

Uber should never follow a set defined path. View it as a tool to move your team forward, how you use it matters not if you're effective with it.

Working with a fellow medic.

Your healing and uber build rates are cut in half whenever healing the same target as another medic. Avoid whenever possible.

Make sure to overheal medics where convenient. That bit of health can be the difference between surviving a headshot and losing uber.

Conclusion.

I might add more to this, but for the meantime, this concludes my guide of the absolute basics to playing a decent medic.
I really, truly hope that this guide helps.

[BlackElement]

this fucking peaks ngl.

[SequencedLife]

No pictures. So sad.

[Jaern1053]

that thumbnail is just....

[Lamission]

Pyrobyte, Medic is not the easiest class in the game, thank you.
- A Medic Main

[M@XINE]

for avoiding snipers, I highly suggest removing jumping, as because you have less control in the air, you're more predictable, and are actually *more* likely to get shot
and maybe a note -- sorry if it's already there and I missed it -- that because of how netcode/hitreg works, if you crouch a half-second before the shot goes off, you're probably still gonna get your head blown off, so while it's still useful, sometimes it just doesn't work


also @[@MF] D1p|0m@t!c ][mmun1ty, the part about medic getting more random crits has been sadly disproven. Theory-Y on youtube has a video that touches on that, among other mechanics

it's kinda unfortunate that trying to concisely/simply explain how medic works and how2play him is just impossible lol

[@₾₮-₮0Ʀ©3-₼∆Ĵ3uƦ3]

part I

add to this: strategy -- medics get to play general rank and strategize planned and realtime maneuvers "ingame" oh the fun, the ebbs and flows on both sides, victim concentrations, patient concentrations and the utterly hideous billing cycle (respawn timers...)

like any class if u don't do dick ur respawn times are hideous, stay alive longer and generate healing or damage to reduce respawn times;

as i've learned, medics absorb damage totals from heal targets, so when they go to attack they get those "random" crits more than any other class (most others combined...) not just the ubersaw, any melee, and any primary

[@₾₮-₮0Ʀ©3-₼∆Ĵ3uƦ3]

part II

play the mediguns to the map or situation; each one has its forte's and otherwise

movement/placement; the most scurrillious medics of all have the knack to stay behind heal target(s) and out of reach; infuriating they can be, so as medic, stay behind the lethal areas and if ur heal target(s) are worth a shit they'll respect it and not run off into the fray;

so much about medic is your heal targets knowing how to play it, 2/3 will charge off with no regard to your "sensibilities"

sh!t, comment over, this not a standalone guide!

[Civerion]

Very useful

[Demoman Gaming]

You absolute legend, I cant thank you enough for this guide.

[27 dollars, 27 dimes]

healing priority is a bit wack, ALWAYS heal low health players first. Also heavy is the lowest on the priority because he can A. heal himself and B. has the largest health pool in the game