Being a Phenomenal Phoenix

Playing as a medic in Dirty Bomb is tricky in general, and gets somewhat harder when you consider how different each medic is. I will be focusing on the most generous of them all: Phoenix.

Phoenix: the Man, the Myth, the Legend

You might come across some people who say that Phoenix is "worst medic". You'll hear reasons such as, "Sawbonez is the most versatile", or "Aura can heal so much more". I'm going to dispell this myth, and show you that Phoenix can be a real superhero, as long as you know his strengths and weaknesses and play accordingly.

Equipment

What makes Phoenix Phoenix? The clothes make the man, so it follows that heals make the medic. Guns also help.


KEK-10
Damage: 11
Rate of Fire: 700 rpm
Magazine Size: 45
Reload time: 2.0 seconds
Speed modifier: .9


Crotzni
Damage: 12
Rate of Fire: 650 rpm
Magazine Size: 40
Reload time: 1.7 seconds
Speed Modifier: .9


Hochfir
Damage: 9
Rate of Fire: 812 rpm
Magazine Size: 55
Reload Time: 1.7 seconds
Speed Modifier: .9

For Phoenix's cards, there aren't any that stand head and shoulders above the rest like there are with some mercs (see Phantom C94, Sparks 383, Thunder MA42). When picking a Phoenix card you should pick one with a gun you're comfortable with, but also has good medic augments. For each weapon there can arguably be a "best" card. I would say these would be the C41, Cr81, and Ke81 for the KEK-10, Crotzni, and Hochfir respectively.

Now for the important bit; Phoenix's actual medic abilities. These are what make him valuable afterall. You're going to want to know them inside out and a upside down.

Defibrilators
Revive Health (w/ Get Up) : 30-100 (39-130)
Charge time: 3 seconds

These are exactly the same paddles you get on Aura or Sawbonez. Nothing really special going on here.

Healing Pulse
Health Given (w/ Potent Packs): [24]-100 ([29]-120)
Minimum Cooldown (W/ Extra Supplies): 6 seconds (4 sec)
Maximum Heal Cooldown (w/ Extra Supplies): 12 seconds (9.6 sec)
Maximum Cooldown: (W/ Extra Supplies): 20 sec (16 sec)

Self Revive
Activation Time: 3 sec
Cooldown: 25 sec

Now we're getting into the meat of things. Every medic has a healing ability. This is what makes them medics. Healing Pulse is an area of effect instant heal ability, a hybrid between Aura's med station and Sparks' med kits. When released, any teammates within the healing radius (visible as a blue arc in your vision) will instantly recieve a certain amount of health. In a way, your body is a med station.
Unlike other medics, Phoenix also has a tertiary ability. When killed, but not finished, Phoenix has the ability to revive himself with full health. The advantages of this are obvious, but it's not anywhere near overpowered. For starters, it takes 3 seconds to actually initiate the revive, assuming you don't get finished before then. Secondly the revive itself can be interupted, leaving you both finished and with a 25 second cooldown on your next self-revive. Not as bad as the 60 seconds it used to take, but still a situtation you don't want to be in.

Medical Mindset: General Medic Strategies

Being a medic, you will carry a lot of the responsibility for whether your team succeeds or fails. This doesn't hinge directly on you. Rather, the burden lies in ensuring that your teammates are able to do the heavy lifting of killing and playing the objective for you.

Obviously, you do this through healing your teammates when their health is low, and reviving them when they are downed. While it is true that health regenerates and anyone can revive people, medics are so hyper efficient at it it's not worth anyone else's time but their's to actually do it.
With the right medic doing the right things, your team can be practically immortal. However, this support at a team comes at a cost for the medic themselves. As a whole, medics have weak weapons, better suited to defending themselves than dedicated slaying. They also have below average health pools, with the heartiest being Sawbonez at 110. Low Killing power coupled with low durability means that unless a medic fights another medic or someone with already low health, the firefights will tend to be slanted against the medic.

So what does this mean for you the player? How do you work around being weak, but at the same time the brick holding up the house that is your team? There are a couple things to keep in mind. The first is to keep yourself alive. Look out for number one. Yes, it is your job to revive people and keep them healthy, but if you die, best case you have to run all the way from the spawn to be useful again. Worst case you have to wait 30 seconds and run all the way back from your spawn. Mean while, your teammates are probably getting killed anyway because you weren't there to give them health. This is not to say you shouldn't revive people. Take it to mean you shouldn't trade your life for your teammates, especially if they have no hope of surviving anyway.

Another thing to remember is this; a lonely medic is not only a dead medic, but a useless medic. With the exception of Aura, medics need to be near teammates in order to deliver their methods of healing, and all medics with the exception of Sparks need to be near teammates to revive them. Even then, Sparks still requires line of sight. It's extremely important to stick to your teammates, and to rotate between groups of them if people are split up. You should never hold back healing. All healing powers regenerate indefinitely, so if anyone needs healing you should give it to them. Sticking to your teammates also maximizes the chance you'll get to revive someone who is downed, as you'll have teammates to fight off anyone who might interfere.

To emphasize your role again, you should heal and revive rather than fight. If you're doing everything properly, your slayers or fire supports will be able to take care of the fighting for you.

WWPD? What Would Phoenix Do?

Now that you know generally what medics should be doing, how should you handle these responsibilities as Phoenix? Well, Phoenix is a close up medic. His healing aura radiates from him, so you'll need to be next to your teammates in order to heal them, ideally in groups. This coupled with paddles means Phoenix needs to be relatively close to the fight in order to be effective. Luckily, Phoenix is better at combat than either Sparks or Aura, by virtue of having more health. His weapons compare favorably to Sawbonez, and while he may not be as good at restoring tanks Phoenix is able to heal many more people at once.

The best use of the healing pulse is not to bring people up from near death. Since you can use the pulse much more frequently than med packs, the best way to think of it is as maintenance. Keep a close eye on your teammates' health bars, and use the healing pulse to top them off when they get down to around half or two thirds health. For mercs 120 health or below, this will effectively top them off if you charge for a second or two before firing the pulse. For tanks, ie Fragger health or higher, healing pulse will jump start their health regeneration, but rarely will you be able to restore them fully. Still, they will be able to resume fighting rapidly assuming they give their own health time to recover after recieving healing.

Your team will often times be split up, so rotating between groups of teammates is very important to keeping everyone healthy and fighting. Sometimes the trek between groups may be hazardous, but since Phoenix can heal himself on the fly, and very frequently, this should not be as dangerous as it would be for other medics. Remember also that you should only fully charge the healing pulse when it is absolutely necessary. If you are on single digit health, or multiple teammates are around you and critically low, then you will have to heal as much as Phoenix possibly can. Otherwise, keep healing to bursts, charging for no longer than one to two seconds to keep the cooldown reasonable.

Phoenix in Action

Apparently I played a ton of Phoenix, but never uploaded a gameplay of him, so these demonstrations will be the first ones I actualy share of him. One for attacking Phoenix, one for defending Phoenix.

[Skorpion]

real Phoenix never Jump spams

[0STE0P0R0SIS]

-rep used "make" instead of "maketh"

[\\n - I M حرام]

Add my ranked GamePlayVideo

[Sonata Dusk]

Updated with new recommended Loadouts and updated info on self revive.

[DrDacreamer]

The best loadout is the C83 Classic Operative

[Sonata Dusk]

There are several things that have changed since this was made, which I need to remedy.

[Cat of Evil]

hey, as somone who just picked him up, this guide looks like it will help. However, I did notice somthing that they changed, if you get interupted mid self revive it wont cause the cool down anymore, except when you finish the res, and get killed in the standing up animation (I thought you would be invincible durring that but no, you can still die).

[一匹狼]

I remember you from earlier in a game I had today, I must say, you're a pro at the merc, this will surely help me when I unlock the merc. Thanks for the info mate! Cheers!

[Archangel]

i have a gold cr43 ultra operative i think from a equipment case

[Sonata Dusk]

Did a trade up, back when that was a thing.