The Actual True and Correct Medic How-To

One day, you will have to be actually useful for your team and pick up the daunting 8th class you've refused to play all these years: Medic. This is how to not suck at it.

RULES

When playing Medic, it is important to know the rules, and to discard any and all rules you have known beforehand, except when I tell you not to discard specific rules. This is because in order to be a powerful Medic, you have to have the right mindset.

1. Your life matters more than anybody else's.
   Here's a quick little question: How many people on your team can supply flexible on-demand heals and overheal? Most likely, it's only you! Some dead soldier on your team is ultimately better than a dead you.
   
2. If somebody overextends, let them die.
   It's perfectly fine to punish people for being dumbasses. If you're pretty sure that following somebody to pocket them would result in your death, don't go with that somebody.
   
3. Your teammates are meat shields for you, and they mean nothing to you.
   If you are attached to your teammates, you are playing Medic wrong. If you are not fuming with so much rage that it transforms your inner chaos into a calculated calm, you will lose.
   
4. Never complain about people spamming "MEDIC!". Instead, spam "MEDIC!" back every time you hear somebody say it.
   
5. When in doubt, pop it. When faced with an easy opportunity to escape, run away and don't waste an Uber.
   
6. Don't pocket people, and probably don't trust 99% of people with Ubers.

There. Now you know the basic rules of playing Medic.

THE MEDIC HIMSELF

Take a long, good look at this man. When you are playing Medic, you strive to be this man. Take a minute to appreciate his glory, and then carry on reading.









Are you finished? Okay, let's continue forwards.

BASIC STATS

It's important to know the stats of your class, because they can affect what plays you can or couldn't pull off.
Health: You start out with 150 health, up to a maximum of 225 Overheal, or 189 Quick-Fix Overheal.
You also have -10 maximum health with the Vita-Saw equipped. This is irrelevant however, as you should never under any circumstances use the Vita-Saw, and if you do you're what we call "♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ stupid".

Speed: You are the second/third fastest class in the game, tied with Spy. You run at 107% speed, which places you behind the scout but ahead of every other class in the game except Spy.
This extra speed compares to other classes means an easier time getting to the frontlines, retreating, or doing whatever it is you should probably be doing as a Medic.

HIS WEAPONS

Medic has many weapons. Many of them are incredibly useless. Because of this, we will only be focusing on the weapons I could somewhat respect or understand you using.

Weapon	Description
Blutsauger	Contrary to popular belief, it isn't heresy to choose not to equip the Crusader's Crossbow. There are times when your teammates are so idiotic that you will simply have to defend yourself with means better than a single-shot crossbow which works worse depending on how far away you are.
Crusader's Crossbow	In every other case where your teammates aren't so stupid that they're constantly leaving you defenseless, use the Crusader's Crossbow. Burst healing can work like a charm, and in the right conditions can save your teammates from death at a little cost of having to aim. I know, that sounds scary.
Medi Gun	I don't need to explain the Medi Gun to you, and if I do need to, then you're not worthy of playing Medic.
Kritzkrieg	I don't need to say anything on the Kritzkrieg other than one thing: Don't act like it makes you invincible. When people see two people with glowing bright red or bright blue weapons, they see a mission to immediately kill you so as to not get their team stomped by a Kritz Uber. Because of this, play smart and don't ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Kritz without team support. Don't Kritz idiots either.
Quick-Fix	There's no shame in admitting: "My teammates are so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ stupid and keep dying constantly". The Quick-Fix is perfect for situations when you know healing is going to be better than overhealing. Or if you just don't trust your teammates. Either is perfectly fine.
Vaccinator	R. The key to change resistances is "R". You're welcome. Vaccinator's Uber(s) can debatably considered among the most powerful in the game, for reasons I'll get into later.

YOU AND YOUR MEDIGUNS

One of the most important parts of being a Medic is learning what type of stick to shove up your teammates' asses in the many circumstances you will unfortunately find yourself in. An Uber will always be good (good can be wasted), but sometimes some Ubers are better than others in certain circumstances.

STOCK

Everybody knows what the stock Medigun does, and if you don't, you're a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ moron. "It's the Medi Gu-" Shut up.

Firstly, let us examine the actual mechanics of the Medigun. Not the obvious ♥♥♥♥, but the technical aspect.

1. The healing rate of the Medigun depends on whether the healing target has taken damage within the last 15 seconds.
   If your target has taken damage in the last 15 (technically 10, but whatever) seconds, you will be healing at a rate of 24 health per second. In other words, that means the annoying ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Scout who FINALLY is actually at 1 HP and truly needs a medic can be healed back to full health within 5 seconds. Technically speaking the period between 10 and 15 seconds ramps up from 24 to 72, but I don't care.
   
2. If your target has not taken damage within the last 15 seconds, they will heal at a considerably faster 72 HPs. This is enough to heal a Heavy back to full health in 3 seconds.
   
3. You must be within 450 hammer units for your beam to actually connect to somebody. In other words, six Medics between you and your patient in order for your beam to connect.
   Meanwhile, the beam disconnects at roughly 7 Medics. In translation, it is very ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ easy to lose your beam on somebody if they overextend. I have already told you what to do when your teammates overextend.
   
4. Your Ubercharge fills at a rate of 2.5% per second when healing.
   Healing injured teammates does not charge it faster. Only in special circumstances (aka setup) does Ubercharge actually charge faster. This means that, assuming you don't Ubersaw people or die, it takes roughly 40 seconds to fully charge. However, healing teammates that are already above 142.5% of their total health will turn a 2.5% rate to a 1.25% rate: aka, it'll take a minute and 20 seconds rather than 40 seconds.
   
5. You know how Ubercharges work, and they're 8 seconds long.

STOCK UBER

To put it simply: Your Ubercharge is only as good as your patient. Invulnerability is extremely powerful and you can do some crazy things, but if your patient can't accomplish the task at hand, your invulnerability means ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ nothing.

If your Ubercharge fails to really accomplish anything, don't immediately fret. There are usually two things at play, and you can always reassure yourself by saying it's the latter.

Firstly: You are at fault, you did a stupid ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Uber push, you got killed, and you deserved to drop dead after your charge ran out.
Or, alternatively: Your pocket is at fault because they need to get good, and you will not be Ubercharging them again until they earn it.

If your push does horribly fail, make sure to ask yourself every time you die: "What in this circumstance made this not work?". Was invulnerability pointless because you were too far away from your objective/focus to make a difference? Was it pointless because of airblast/knockback? Keep a habit of thinking about these things, and then throw all of that ♥♥♥♥ away because you are never at fault.

QUICK-FIX

Yes indeed, whenever you equip the Quick-Fix you are, whether knowingly or not, telling your team that they ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ suck and that they need to be babysat. The purpose of the quick fix is explicitly to heal your teammates. It sacrifices Overheal and the power of invulnerability in favor of faster heal rates: 33.6/s when in combat, and 100.8/s when out. Speaking of healing rates, the Quick-Fix's Uber is all about substantially increased healing per second. This comes out to 100.8/s when in combat, and 302.4/s when outside of it. That seems like a lot of health per second!

But you must take into consideration how much damage you and your patient are going to be taking. When an entire team is firing at you, plus probably the sentry nest you Ubered to destroy, that 100.8/s heal rate means nothing. This is why Quick-Fix Ubers that are not supported by a team push are meaningless. Come to think of it, this can be applied to literally every Ubercharge: but especially Quick-Fix Ubers. If you don't have teammates around you to serve as "sponges" to relieve some of the focus fire, you are going to die very very quickly. Since your team will literally never be making a coordinated push, this is why you should never use the Quick-Fix Uber to actually push, and instead just use it for the sole purpose of healing your teammates after they nearly ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ die trying to make an uncoordinated ♥♥♥♥♥♥ half-assed push.

KRITZKRIEG

The first thing you should be repeating to yourself whenever equipping the Kritzkrieg is that YOU DON'T ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ HAVE INVULNERABILITY. You are still healing your teammates at 24 HP/s when in combat, and this includes during your Ubercharge. You WILL die during a Kritz Uber if your teammate doesn't do his job properly and so will the idiot. The purpose of Kritzkrieg is to immediately kill the bastard shooting at you so he can't retaliate, because he's dead. If the idiot shooting at you isn't dead, that's bad for the both of you and you are going to ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ die.

Generally speaking, don't trust 99% of people with the Kritzkrieg. They will either miss all their shots or waste 80% of it going "huh, whuaoh??". You can, however, randomly Kritz some random Pyro if you feel like it would be funny and it would at least get a few kills. This is the metric I use to see whether I want to pop my Kritz Uber, personally.

Vaccinator

Press R.

Using the Vaccinator is good for the reasons why people decry it. Yes, it is unfair. Yes, it is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ evil. Your purpose as Medic is to be an agent of pure hatred and vitriol. Anything which fuels that is perfect. By the way, each 'Ubercharge' lasts around 2.5 seconds. To summarize,
If you are healing with bullet resist selected, and shot by boolet, you have a 10% resistance to boolet.
If you are Ubercharging with bullet resist selected and shot by boolet, you have an 75% resistance to boolet as well as full immunity to critical hits from boolet. Easy to understand, right?

It's so straightforward that I feel like I don't need to explain to you that all you need is basic game sense to use it properly. I just did, but ♥♥♥♥ you anyway.

USE THE CROSSBOW, BUT SOMETIMES USE THE BLUTSAUGER

Shortly:
Use the crossbow.

If your teammates suck and won't properly defend you, use the Blutsauger.

If you are in a situation where you do need to use the Blutsauger however, it's probably better to leave the match and let your team lose. That might sound harsh, but you also have to consider that they won't learn to appreciate the presence of a Medic on their team otherwise.

If you are using the crossbow and can't hit easy shots, you're chopped and it's over and you need to stop playing Medic immediately. However, don't beat yourself up on the cross-map "i need to heal my sniper 5000 meters away from me" shots. It's not your fault if the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ idiot dies because he doesn't want to stand still. Come to think of it, don't beat yourself up over anything unless it's unbelievably obvious that it was your fault, which is quite rare.

UBERSAW

Everybody tells you to use the Ubersaw. This is because they are correct. There is no reason to use any other melee, except the Amputator because medieval mode or some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

You WILL enslave yourself to the meta.

DON'T TRUST ANY OF YOUR TEAMMATES

Not in the sense of 'any one of them could be a spy' - every Medic knows that, which is why he's constantly having a seizure in the form of pressing wadsawdsawdsawdsawdsawdsa space space wadsadwa space wadsadwad space all the time. What I mean is that, more than likely, all of your teammates are ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ morons who are going to immediately die without your help. Because of that, your job most of the time isn't going to be helping your team make pushes: it's going to be- well, it actually is going to be that, but it isn't going to be awesome and cool and flashy and Uberchargey. You're just going to make sure people don't die.

But remember: like I said at the start of this guide, your life is sacred and everybody else is disposable. If you know that your teammate is horribly overextending and that if you follow them you'll die, don't follow them. Sure they might die and you'll get blamed, but saving your life is preferable to dying with some idiot ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ soldier.

Don't trust your teammates at all. Don't trust them to coordinate with you. Don't trust them to be competent. Focus on keeping yourself alive first, and then keeping your teammates alive second.

PLAYING MEDIC WILL INDUCE RAGE.

You will get angry. You will gamer rage. You will probably say a slur the first few times you play Medic. This is understandable and a natural part of the assimilation process.

Playing support is already humiliating. Playing support and getting killed because your team (or, in rare occasions you) are ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ stupid is rage-inducing. Always remember in these instances that you are an unc playing a 20 year old game getting mad over pixels killing other pixels and that you are NOTHING. Your self-deprecation, however, will probably only cause you to be even more angry.

The important thing is that the master Medic knows how to conquer his rage and utilize it to accomplish his task. With enough practice and enough rage and hatred towards both the enemy team, yourself and your team, you will master your hatred and be able to manifest it as sheer skill.

IN CONCLUSION

In conclusion, Medic is all about the right mindset and the right toolkit working in tandemn with one another. You can have the best tools, but without the right mindset they're useless. You can have the best mindset, but without the best tools, you're useless and you should die and I ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ HATE YOU.

Always remember that your team is stupid, that you shouldn't trust any of your teammates with an Uber, and that your sole purpose most of the time will be shoving heals up your retarded teammates' asses. Remember this, and you will be fine.

If you're feeling angry at the game while playing another class, switch to Medic! It's a good way to get practice in not only for the class, but for manifesting your anger into laser focus.