hr's Pubs Medic Guide

Most pubs medics are bad, this guide will teach you not to be bad... maybe.

Introduction

Hello I'm hr and welcome to my medic guide for pubs. I've played a lot of pubs and I feel like most people don't understand how to play medic properly so I made this guide.
What I want people to take away from this is understanding mechanics better particularly the importance of buffs and healing priority.
I don't care too much about play style and if you're reading this is probably going to sound really tryhardy but I thought if I'm making this guide I may as well explain what I think is most effective.

Finding a 'Pocket'

A pocket is the player given the task of protecting you and will be the player who you are healing for ~50% of the time. In choosing a pocket you need to look at the following criteria;
- Ability of the player
- Class
- Willingness to protect you

The ideal class to pocket is the soldier, other good targets are the heavy, demoman and the pyro. I rate the soldier as a pocket over the heavy as he has the ability to react instantly to situations and is the most versatile class in the game.
Heavy is next because of his large close range damage and how much the heavy benefits from being buffed but suffers from a weakness to react if he is not already spun up
The Demoman is the best class to uber and is the best class in the game in general by a considerable margin however with a lack of hitscan weapons he can struggle to protect you in the same way as the Soldier or Heavy.
Pyro is the last class to get a mention, he is very strong at protecting you because of his ability to control enemy movement at close range and his ability to check for spies however he doesn't do a great deal of damage and is weak to multiple enemies at once and as a class in general is somewhat weak. Any other class is less than ideal to pocket so I'd rate pockets like this;

Soldier > Heavy > Demoman > Pyro

However ability level should be the main determining factor for choosing your pocket; a strong pyro will beat an average soldier or heavy every single time. You should be able to spot strong players in the server with experience. Willingness to protect you is also important; if you find a soldier friend that keeps jumping away from you leaving you all alone and vunerable then it's time to find a new pocket.

Healing priority and buffs

This is the most important section of this guide and it's where 95% of the pubs medics I see fall down. Having a proper healing priority is essential, this is only a general guide as I can't point out every situation in the game but it should be clear enough most of the time.

Priority 1 - Players in danger of dying
This can be players returning from the fight with low health who are in IMMEDIATE danger for example a 10 hp demoman who is on fire.

Priority 2 - Players actively fighting and taking damage
These are the players on the front lines fighting the enemy and taking damage, by healing them you give them the advantage over the enemies.

Priority 3 - Players not fighting with CRIT HEALS who are low on health but safe
Crit heals are the increased heal rate heals that one gets when one doesn't take damage for 5, 10 and 15 seconds with each interval increasing the heal rate.
*for a more in depth explanation of crit heals check the FAQ

Priority 4 - Players not fighting with CRIT HEALS who are full health but not buffed
These will likely be players who have just teleported in, as they haven't fought anyone yet they will have max crit heals.

Priority 5 - Players not fighting without CRIT HEALS who are low health but safe
These will be players that have just left the battle but are in no immediate danger

Priority 6 - Players not fighting without CRIT HEALS who are full health or buffed
These will be players that have taken damage and then taken a health pack or only taken enough damage to take their buff away

So Priority 1 targets should be healed above Priority 2 targets and 2 over 3 etc. There are some intricacies to this order though so for example if there are two Priority 1 targets you should heal one of them until you think they are no longer in danger, they then become Priority 3, 4 or 5 and the other Priority 1 should be healed before the original heal target can be fully healed and buffed.
This can seem difficult to keep track of but with experience you will be able to easily manage it in your head.

When there is no-one else that is in need of your heals the remainder will be on your pocket, if you have an uber or other charge ready then the priority can switch to taking the uber in with your heal target above giving buffs if time is of the essence but this is a judgement call and it can be best to make sure as many people are buffed as possible before the uber, we'll talk more about ubers in another section.

You should try to fully buff players wherever possible (that is overheal them so a scout goes to 185hp, a soldier goes to 300hp) prioritising players with crit heals and those about to enter a fight and take damage.
So spies and engies for example are not as high priority as a soldier or heavy who will be at the front line.

I cannot stress enough that buffs are essential and most medics I come across refuse to buff me with crit heals but will heal me after I've taken damage to full health which is incorrect.

Medigun selection and ubers

For the majority of pubs I'd recommend running the default medigun, the reason being that on pretty much any game type when attacking you'll find a million sentries that need an uber to take them down and without coordination you can't rely on others to clear the path for you.

When defending I see a lot of people running kritz and this can seem to work really well but against attackers who run normal uber you will just get crushed as long as they're organised enough. There are situations where kritz can be really good though especially if you need one player to carry in terms of damage/frags and sentries aren't a huge issue.

Quick fix tends to be bad because in pubs you can take so much spam that you just die even with the uber and it's also weak to sentries, it is a strong medigun if you don't take into account the ubers but given how essential ubers are in pubs I don't rate it highly.

Vaccinator sucks because of the overheal rate, I think it's just a really gimmicky medigun and I don't think anyone rates it.

So if in doubt use medigun, if the situation calls for it then kritz could be stronger but this idea that on attack/defend maps kritz is good on defence just isn't true.

Ubers

In general with an uber what you are looking to do is take down a sentry or two and secure an area for your team to advance, in general it is best to take a demoman in for this as his sticky damage and area denial is unparalleled for both these tasks.
If you can however you should look to flash other players with your uber to assist him if necessary. It all does depend on the situation as to exactly which and how many players you want to take in.

For example if you are trying to take down an engie with a short circuit then your demo uber will be completely negated so if the sentry can be approached from close range then a heavy or pyro uber could work the best or if it's at long range like the very last point on dustbowl then it could be best to wait for a sniper to kill the engie or you could try something like a heavy kritz.

The most important thing I can tell you about when you uber is to look around and make sure you understand the situation, whether you need to flash people with the uber or whether the fight is going badly and you need to run and regroup.
Don't be afraid to leave your uber friend if he doesn't understand that he needs to leave too.

Sometimes your uber will be 'forced' i.e you'll have to use it before you are ready, this can be to save your own life or if you believe one of your players lives is important enough then to save his life. Don't be afraid to use your uber in these situations as it's better than dying and losing it that way, as you get more experience you will recognise when these situations are about to occur more.

When not to uber

I find a lot of people that get mad at me when I'm playing an attack/defend map say and I'm on defence and I won't follow them out to uber with them.
The reason being is that every time people do that they go out and get a few frags and then they go back and they've lost their uber. Those players will just respawn in 10 secs and be back while we're sitting naked without an uber.
Their argument is that if you don't use uber every time then you 'lose it' because you could have used it 3 times before I would actually use it.
This however is incorrect as the uber is there as your way to defend and while it might be true that you could have used it a couple of times before you really need it you cannot be caught without it, even if you're using it to push their team back you could see yourself out of position and facing one of their ubers without one of your own and if you all die to that uber then that's the round lost.

If you're gonna push with uber on defence on an attack/defend map you better make sure it is worth it (i.e killing one of their medics close to uber and clearing out their teleporters) and it very rarely is in my experience.

Positioning, Movement and other things

Positioning and decision making

In pubs there isn't too much of this stuff to learn but there are a couple of things I'd like to mention;

Positioning should be fairly intuitive, stand where you won't take spam from enemy soldiers and demomen and where you can't be seen by snipers but where you have good angles to heal players going in and out of the battlefield.
Now this next one is important; while you may have found a nice pocket who just wants to love and hold you but wait! He doesn't always know best; if your pocket wants to take you too far from the rest of your team and somewhere where you or your uber might be vunerable then just don't go with him - it's his job to stay with you not for you to follow him. With experience you will learn what you can and can't get away with and still be safe on certain maps.

Movement

Movement is very important to every kind of medic be it pubs or competitive; you'll find yourself dying to a lot less if you have the right moves.
You should learn to;
- Surf rockets/pipes/hitscan shots and airstrafing
- Spam crouch when you jump to not get headshot
- Learn to strafe (a/d) on the ground unpredictably
- Aim needles or arrows to put off attackers

Surfing is a special skill that can be learnt and is very similar to rocket jumping just you do it on someone else's rocket/sticky etc and will help you escape danger.

Other things

One other way to get an advantage on medic is to get yourself a special config which includes binds to let your team know when you've ubered etc so they can help. They are normally used by competitive players but can also help in pubs. You can find medic cfgs by searching on google and finding one that you like, my personal one can be found in my steam group.

FAQ

What are crit heals?
Crit heals is a system whereby players that haven't taken damage for a while will heal more quickly. It is important for you to prioritise healing players that have these crit heals over others so that you can heal more players in the
same time for a video explanation go here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XL7Tzq168Bs

Why are you making such a tryhard guide for pubs?
I feel like even if you're playing medic casually you should still understand crit heals and how important buffs are for the other players on your team, it's really frustrating when I play scout and never recieve a buff on pubs because medics don't understand their roles.

What do most medics in pubs get wrong?
Most don't understand that full health isn't full health; fully buffed is full health in reality and buffs are way more important than given credit for. Crit heals are also not understood which makes their heals very inefficient.

Have you ever played competitive TF2?
Yes I've played a couple of seasons in ETF2l in d6, d4 and then winning d3 for 6's, I'm currently taking a little break. I've played some highlander casually too.

I think this medigun is good...
I don't really care too much what medigun people use as it's just pubs and you should use whatever is fun but I think misunderstanding the mechanics ruins the game for your teammates that's why I made this guide.
I personally think the medigun is by far the best the majority of the time but if you have another opinion that's fine.

[juan]

fruitlessly

[healez moi]

Thanks for the comment, yeah I agree with that. I find myself rarely going medic because the team needs someone strong on a carry class.

[CupCake]

Good guide. Hope more people who interests to learn to be a good Medic in pub read this guide.

I mainly play as Medic and I mostly do as your guide suggest. But sometimes I want to stop playing as Medic in pub because, from my experienced, Medic is a support class that can be strong or weak depending on their team. And most of the Medic's teammates on pub are....unskilled, to say the least.

So I think good Medics are hard to find in pub server, because it's quite frustrating to fruitlessly try to keep these players (who don't care for objectives, teamwork, and the Medic's safety) alive just for them to go Leroy Jenkins on the enemies, and why should they heal these unskilled players when they can just be a Soldier/Demo/ect and pubstomp the other team? (I'm not good enough to be able to pubstomp, though.)