MvM: How to ACTUALLY play Medic in Mann vs Machine

On this guide, I will try to share my knowledge about MvM Medic to people that wants to learn more about him!

Before Starting

First things first, I know that the majority of people likes to play Mann vs Machine as Medic either for fun or because the team needed one and they just went "why not?", but if you want to learn more about Medic in MvM, this guide could help you into learning some advanced stuff this guy has to offer.

I will assume you have some basic knowledge about Mann vs Machine and Medic in general, but if you have any questions, you're free to ask me and I will try to answer them as soon as I can!

Originally posted by Mr. Ludwig:

With my breakthrough, I could do in seconds what would take other doctors months! I could take men to the peak of health, and beyond! I could make GODS!

Secondary Weapons (Medi Guns)

One of the things that can make a big difference in how the game will be played is the secondary weapon you will be using, and while you can heal with every secondary (duh), their ÜberCharges are what makes them VERY situational and either USEFUL or USELESS.
I will try to explain how every Medic's secondary works.

The Medi Gun

While a lot of people nicknames this weapon as "The Ol' Reliable" because of its versatility, this one is (probably) the WOST secondary out of the four out there because of its slow healing rate and its mediocre ÜberCharge on MvM because, unless you know what you're doing, the stock Medi Gun is NOT friendly with new players.

About its ÜberCharge: It makes you and your patient invulnerable for 8 seconds, making it a life-saver, but other than that, i've never seen any other situation with this secondary other than saving the healer and the patient from dying from, let's say, a crocket with none of them having crit resistance bought.
(Side-note: the Stock Medi Gun has the LOWEST ÜberCharge rate out of the four secondaries, meaning that you will probably have only one ÜberCharge per wave unless you use your Übersaw or upgrade the ÜberCharge rate).

TL;DR: Low healing rate in the early game, ÜberCharge is useful as a life-saver but slow rate.

The Kritzkrieg

This Medi Gun is one of (if not) the most used in MvM because of it's 100% critical hit chance, TRIPLING the damage output of your patient, be it a Heavy's DPS or a Demoman's AOE for taking down medics and hordes of small robots.
It shares the same problem with the stock Medi Gun: its healing rate is REALLY slow in the early game, but of course it can be upgraded. Its main disadvantage is that The Kritzkrieg can NOT be used as a life-saver, meaning that if your patient dies and you're about to die too, you won't be able to save yourself with the Übercharge.

About its popularity: While it's widely used in the MvM community, there are situations where the Kritzkrieg can't shine. For example, you can get overrun by a non-stopping spawn of small robots because lack of healing nor the starting money to buy enough resistances, basically meaning that the slow healing rate of the Medi Gun and the Kritzkrieg won't help with survivability.

TL;DR: Low healing rate in the early game, ÜberCharge is useful to give 100% critical hit chance to the patient to deal with hordes of small robots and killing giant robots faster.

The Quick-Fix

In my personal opinion after using this Medi Gun for the past two years or so, this little fella is HIGHLY underrated.
Because of its absurdly fast healing rate, it's really good to use in the early game, and a fully upgraded Quick-Fix is AMAZING at healing.
All of this has a downside though, while it's good at healing, its overheal is... meh. The Quick-Fix can only overheal up to +125% the patient's health, while the other secondaries can overheal up to +150%

If the overhealing topic is hard to understand, this table below shows the differences there are between every other Medi Gun and the Quick-Fix:

Class	Base Health	Normal Overheal	Quick-Fix's Overheal
Scout	125	185	158
Soldier	200	300	251
Pyro	175	260	220
Demoman	175	260	220
Heavy	300	450	376
Engineer	125	185	158
Medic	150	225	189
Sniper	125	185	158
Spy	125	185	158

As it can be seen on the table, the Quick-Fix's maximum overheal is lower compared to the rest of Medi Guns. Although it can be upgraded, it will NEVER reach the maximum overheal the other Medi Guns have.

About the ÜberCharge: Instead of giving invulnerability to the patient and the healer, it TRIPLES the healing rate, meaning that a fully-upgraded Quick-Fix can almost INSTANTLY heal the healer and the patient up to the maximum overheal, all of this while giving full immunity to ALL movement-impairing effects (knockback, stun and slowdown).
All of this is great, however its ÜberCharge will not be able to save you and your patient from death if the incoming damage is LETHAL, since it doesn't give a full invulnerability like the stock Medi Gun does, but a really fast healing rate instead, so you have to be careful when using it.

TL;DR: Absurdly high healing rate, lower maximum overheal, great to heal everyone in the early game, ÜberCharge is a life-saver if the incoming damage is not lethal.

The Vaccinator

Skipping the healing rate, since it's the same for all the Medi Guns (except for the Quick-Fix), its ÜberCharge is what it makes the Vaccinator a really POWERFUL Medi Gun.
Before starting to talk about its ÜberCharge, this Medi Gun is the WORST at overhealing patients, because once the patient is fully healed, it will start to overheal really slowly (and has a lower ÜberCharge rate if you're healing overhealed patients).

About the ÜberCharge: Per se, a good Vaccinator Medic on Casual can be terrifying and tedious to deal with, this same concept applies for MvM too, since the ÜberCharge grants a +75% resistance against either bullet, blast or fire damage, and a +100% resistance against critical damage of its type for 2.5 seconds, which isn't really a lot of time, but since the Vaccinator gives you four ÜberCharges instead of only one, it's reasonable and can be used one after another. Also, since you can upgrade the Über duration time, the Vaccinator's Übercharge duration (if fully upgraded) can last for 8.5 seconds PER ÜBERCHARGE, meaning that the total duration of all four ÜberCharges you're given will be of 34 SECONDS
(Side-note: If you use an ÜberCharge on a dead patient, you will instantly revive them and give them the ÜberCharge resistance you have chosen).

TL;DR: Bad at overhealing patients, has an amazing ÜberCharge effect since it gives resistance to bullet, blast or fire damage and invalidates critical damage from the resistance selected.

To wrap things up on this section

Every Medi Gun has it pros and cons, they're very SITUATIONAL, maybe your team needs more damage, maybe your team needs more healing, maybe your team needs more resistance, et cetera... But if you're unsure on what to do, prioritize healing!
One of the main concepts you will have to learn as a Medic in order to be more useful is to be able to read the room, you have to SEE what your team REALLY needs, and adjust your gameplay to their needs.

And finally, do NOT follow the meta for MvM Medic. It's efficent in most scenarios, yeah, but you should experiment with every Medi Gun there is to figure out which one you are comfortable with the most and not use just the Kriztkrieg because some funny people told you to do so. Medic has a lot of potential seathed to people that only knows to play with the Kritzkrieg!

Upgrades (Secondary Weapon)

As aforementioned, you will have to learn to be able to read the room so you can improve at taking better decisions without dooming the whole team, but there are certain upgrades that are ESSENTIAL to have and that will make a BIG difference in the game if you buy them.

Energy Shield

This upgrade is a MUST-HAVE if possible. The Energy Shield can deny almost every type of damage (except fire and energy bolts), and can deal an absurd amount of damage with mini-crits. I've seen countless people forgetting they HAVE a shield, so please, USE IT, you have a shield for a reason, and it's for protecting your teammates from incoming damage and to deal damage!

There's a whole community strategy around dealing damage with the Shield called Shield Bashing, but I can't explain it on this guide because otherwise it would be really long, so i'll just share a Steam Guide with y'all which I think will help you understand it better:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=561054554

Healing Mastery

If only there were an upgrade that boosted your healing rate... Well, fear not! Healing Mastery will upgrade your healing rate by +25% per tick bought. It's an upgrade that you shouldn't be missing on the later waves since it will become VERY useful for healing and reviving teammates way faster because these waves are usually packed with really big hordes of small robots and giants that can make healing a really tedious job.

You should be starting to get this upgrade at Wave 2 since it's usually where the hordes of robots will start to increase exponentially!

Overheal Expert

This upgrade will let you overheal your patients +25% more per tick bought, and it can be really useful at times (A Heavy can reach up to 750 health with a fully upgraded Overheal Expert!), but this upgrade highly depends on Healing Mastery, because as i told before, the Medi Guns have a really slow healing rate (Except the Quick-Fix).

I wouldn't say this upgrade isn't important to get, but it can be handy to have if you want your teammates to live for longer without depending on you. You should try to buy this upgrade along side Healing Mastery. Try to alternate between them if there's enough money, but if there isn't, it's safe to skip it.

Canteen Specialist

While I don't usually buy this upgrade because i'm using the credits somewhere else, this upgrade is REALLY GOOD if used correctly, since it allows you to share canteens with your patient, and by every tick bought, it will increase its duration time and will decrease the price for ALL the canteens.

I really don't know when you should be starting to be getting this upgrade, but maybe making a mental decision that goes like: "Does my team need canteens?" can help you decide. If they don't need your help with canteens, it's better to get something else, but if you have plenty of money laying on your pockets, you should invest it on this upgrade!

Some funny stuff: There are some people that will call you an Idle Medic if you don't buy this upgrade as soon as possible and spam crit canteens with your patient, but you shouldn't be worrying about that, since they're usually some high-tours that REALLY like to stick to the meta and are overall, horrible teammates to co-operate with.

Über Duration

This upgrade is a must-have if you are going to play with the Vaccinator, since it will upgrade your INDIVIDUAL ÜberCharges! It can be useful for the other Medi Guns too, but not as mandatory as with the Vaccinator.

If you're playing with the Vaccinator, you should be starting to get this upgrade as soon as possible, since it will drastically boost its efficiency, but if the money is way too tight, then you can skip it at your own risk.
If you're playing with anything else, you should NOT get this upgrade in the earlier waves, because it will be a WASTE of money that you could've spent on anything else.

With the Vaccinator, you can also risk yourself by not getting any resistances and spend your credits on Über Duration, it works well but you will have to rely on your reaction speed and your positioning A LOT.

Upgrades (Medic)

Lo and behold! We are now at (probably) the MOST important part of playing Medic, since your survivability is the MOST important thing among everything else!
Medic works like in Casual: if you die, your whole team becomes VULNERABLE! Your life matters a lot to the team,

Movement Speed

Before starting with the actual resistances, i want to mention Movement Speed.

I know that most people ditches this upgrade because it seems useless. However, it will help to circle-strafe around giants, since it will become easier with this upgrade bought. With its help you can, per example, while reanimating someone and having a Giant Demoman near you, circle-strafe him and dodge ALL his pipes!

Now, you should ONLY buy this upgrade when you have plenty of money laying around, do NOT prioritize it!

Blast, Bullet and Fire Resistance

There is no point in separating these resistances into their own categories since they're all about the same thing, giving you a resistance against X type of damage, so I just packed them in one category.

Depending on how the wave goes, you should be switching resistances using the "Refund Upgrades" button, but PLEASE, ALWAYS prioritize your resistances over ANY OTHER UPGRADE (except for Energy Shield), your survivability is IMPORTANT for you and the team, since you're the one keeping the team together!

In my opinion, prioritizing Fire Resistance over Blast and Bullet is really good, since Fire is not dodge-able and Pyro deals an absurd amount of damage at close range, specially if the bot is using a Dragon's Fury, so if you have troubles dealing with Pyros, maybe prioritizing this upgrade can help you to survive longer and also giving you more survivability while shield-bashing near them.

Also, with Fire Resistance maxxed out, you can kind of invalidate the afterburn with your passive healing. Use this wisely!

Crit Resistance

This one should be obvious, Crit Resistance is a MUST HAVE. It has a really cheap price for what it offers, a 30% resistance against critical damage, isn't that cool?

You should buy it when the wavebar shows way too much robots with crits, if there are some robots with crits but they're dodgeable, you should be fine without Crit Resistance, otherwise, you can buy it just to make sure you won't die.

However, you should NOT buy Crit Resistance when the robots with crits are melee-based, since one tick or two won't save you from dying in two hits, so it's really not worth it to buy it ONLY for these guys.

A cool Energy Shield trick

In case you didn't know, if you look either up or down wile using the Energy Shield, it will move closer to you, closing the existent gap that might have gotten you killed once or twice while using it way too close to the robots and trying to shield-bash with it.
If you don't understand what I am saying, maybe this screenshot can help you!



As it can be seen on the screenshot, i'm standing in front of a Giant Heavy Bot with my Energy Shield activated, BUT looking down, meaning that the bot will NOT be able to hurt me (unless i look forward once again).

This trick can help you with blocking a giant robot from continuing its path, meaning that, per example, if you position correctly, you can block Super Scouts from reaching the hatch!

One last thing, your blocking is NOT permament! Your Energy Shield WILL run out of energy eventually and you will become vulnerable once again, so if you want to block a giant bot, you will have to look at your energy meter once in a while to make sure it won't run out while blocking! (Apart from of course, paying close attention to your surroundings).

Reanimating Teammates

Since the Two Cities Update dropped, Medic has been given an ability to revive fallen teammates (if they don't die out of boundaries, in which case the Reanimator won't appear).
Now, I've seen some fatal mistakes that players usually do while reviving teammates: not just failing to resurrect them, but even DYING, so I will try to explain every situation I've encountered so far and give them a proper solution!

(Extra, extra! If you constantly press your primary attack button while looking at the Reanimator, you will revive considerably faster than in the usual way. Use this trick if you know FOR SURE that there is no danger around!)

1) Trying to revive everyone at once

As painful as this sounds, you have to understand that reviving everyone at once without using an ÜberCharge is just way too risky for you because of how slow it really is. And if you end up dying, the WHOLE team will become VULNERABLE to getting pushed back, and even losing the wave. Your life matters a LOT.

How can you avoid this?

It's quite easy actually, you just have to decide if it's worth the risk to revive your teammate or not: if it's NOT worth it, it's better to not revive him, and if it IS worth it, just go ahead with precaution and revive him. Isn't that quite simple?
(Side-Note: Unless you already know, while using an ÜberCharge, your reanimating rate will be boosted significantly for the duration of the ÜberCharge, use it wisely!)

2) Going all the way across the map to revive someone

There're usually some people that when your team is CLEARLY pushed back, they're still somehow fighting at the front, making it difficult not only for you to do your job at healing and reviving, but for the rest of the team as well (for example, the money dropped elsewhere won't be easy for your Scout to collect). If these guys die, don't go blindly to revive them!

How can you avoid this?

You have to think about how long it will take for you to arrive to their Reanimator and if the place will be filled with robots or not. If these two conditions don't meet, then it's NOT worth it! You can use an ÜberCharge if there are too many robots to handle, but the teammate can just respawn nomally if you don't arrive at time, and you will be left in a very harsh situation, probably causing you to die.

3) Prioritizing Heavy

It sounds contradictory, I know, but trust me, this has caused the death of THOUSANDS of Medics out there.
Unless you have Healing Mastery upgraded to its fullest, Heavy is the SLOWEST guy to revive. By the time you revive him he could've already respawned on his own AND been teleported back to the battlefield.

How can you avoid this?

As aforementioned, unless you have Healing Mastery bought and fully upgraded, Heavy is NOT worth to reanimate under fire, since it will probably get you killed, so unless there are no robots around and you're safe, you can proceed to revive him but with caution: if there's a big horde of robots coming, FALL BACK!

4) Not reanimating Engineer when a Sentry Buster is coming

Please, revive Engineer when the Sentry Buster is coming and he's down, you will save his Sentry from getting exploded and get thanked!

Now, if the Engineer's Reanimator is way too far away from you and there are too many robots to pass through, there's really nothing you can do about it. Unless you use an ÜberCharge, the Sentry has to be sacrificed.

Dealing with Sniper bots

I know the frustration it causes to die to a Sniper bot that was right in FRONT of you, but you couldn't do anything about him. There's a really simple solution to actually stop dying to them!

Side-Strafing

Yup, that's all, this really isn't something only Medic can take advantatge of, but ANY class can! You just have to move Left and Right constantly until the Sniper bot gets killed or you go out of his sight and he will NOT be able to aim and shoot you. How cool is that!?
Also, of course, don't forget to pay attention to your surroundings, because maybe, while side-strafing, you can end up getting killed by something else.

Life-Improvement Mod

Although it's old, I feel like I need to share this mod[gamebanana.com] so more people can know about it!
While getting revived, this mod will enable a "HIde" button next to the "Decline" button that will hide the "A Medic is attempting to bring you back..." window, allowing you to type! It's really simple to install, and works on Valve's servers too!


Screenshot taken from Sigsegv's Gamebanana mod page.

Closing Notes

Medic is a class that has a LOT of potential to be squeezed out and has a bunch of cool tricks under his sleeve, but it requires some time and experimentation to pull them off correctly without causing a lot of hustle upon the team.

You have to remember that you NEVER want to put yourself in risk of dying, since, once again, your life matters a lot. If you play brainlessly, you will cause more trouble than assistance to you and your team.

I wouldn't mind if you used this guide as a Holy Bible, but there might be some aspects about MvM Medic that I haven't fully covered or are vaguely explained, if there are any, feel free to type a comment about it and I'll edit the guide as soon as I can, I promise!

[!✔Mikasinka | Type: Vasya Vee]

ctrl+f => "sweaty demo" => 0 results => close

[LA BESTIA D'OTTONE]

You've gotten something seriously wrong in this guide to give any, let alone that much consideration to medic as a healer, when conch, milk and health on kill exist and will completely outclass him in anything related to healing

[✪ Mo_ #killtf2]

lol

[mimikkyuu]

Finally, what I was trying to say in the guide is that the stock Medi Gun (and others except qf) are BAD at healing in the early game, and while you might think that healing isn't important in a gamemode like MvM because of the abundance of medkits laying around and the constant healing the dispenser gives, healing is a VITAL factor, and can make a BIG difference in the early game, specially if you're getting pushed back.

[mimikkyuu]

I should have worded that better. You must be aware already that the Medi Guns are situational , meaning that they are either good or bad. This applies to the stock Medi Gun too, and while I am not a super fan of it, I dare to say that its ÜberCharge is one of the weakest out there. Sure invulnerabity can be useful, but against bots with explosive weapons (specially blast soldiers), the stock Medi Gun's ÜberCharge is really just "über, get pushed back, run to the front again, ÜberCharge ends".

Moreover, most of the people I have seen that uses the stock Medi Gun wastes its ÜberCharge with the first bot that spawns, so what I am refering to is that people oughtn't to use the stock Medi Gun because of its extremely low Über rate and poor reward, unless they do know how to use it correctly.

[LA BESTIA D'OTTONE]

You are out of your mind to think the stock medi gun is the worst one, didn't bother to read past that