Medics 104: The Fight Or Flight Reflex

[Stormcaller3801]

It happens to every Medic sooner or later. You either realize all your teammates are dead, or they're all guarding point B while you (and most the opposing team) are at point A. At these times it is inevitable that you will find yourself with a decision about what to do. If you attempt to read this guide once you're already there, you can just skip to Option III. For everyone else, let's consider the three possibilities that exist.

Option 1. Flight
Let's face facts: the Medic is poorly equipped for a slugfest. While a labcoat and latex gloves may be useful attire for deflecting bodily fluids, they don't do very much to hinder bullets. Furthermore, your health is low, and your weaponry is not ideal. One of the few advantages that you have over most of the enemy is speed. This means you're generally going to be better off running away. Let's look at some considerations about how to run away well.

1a. Speed
There are only two things which can outpace a Medic in the game. The first is the Scout. If the enemy happens to include scouts, you may want to consider backpedaling while using your Syringe Gun or Blutsauger in order to discourage pursuit. Scouts are not particularly resilient and you may be able to delay them enough to let you reach a safe location. However, backpedaling also lowers your speed to slightly below that of the Pyro, Demoman, and Spy. Thus, it is not a perfect solution. The second thing that you cannot outrun is incoming fire. Unfortunately there is very little that you can do in order to discourage bullets, arrows, or various explosives.

1b. Cover
Fortunately, there is another option, and that is to exploit cover. Because the majority of projectiles are effectively linear weapons, simply ensuring there are one or more solid objects between you and the firer will protect you. The most notable exception is the Demoman. If you are fleeing from a Demoman, you will likely have to consider what is above you in addition to what is behind you. Attempt to make use of tunnels and roofs where possible- but also do not forget that the higher the angle of fire, the shorter the arc (above 45º at least), so putting particularly tall structures between yourself and a Demoman will also prove useful.

1c. Destination
Ultimately the goal of running away is to reach an area that is safe. This is an important consideration; far too many people decide that when faced with a lethal situation they will go for broke and attempt to cap a point, reach the cart, or grab the intelligence. Again, you are a Medic, and these are not safe actions for a Medic to perform. Your first destination of choice should be teammates- particularly teammates who happen to have lots of guns handy and have expressed a vested interest in keeping you alive. If you are not sure how to reach them, your second choice should be secured areas, such as the bunker. If you can retreat to an area that the enemy either cannot or will not enter, you will very likely be safe from harm. At least temporarily. If neither of these options are available for some reason, your third choice is to find somewhere to hide. This is typically very difficult, especially with a Scout chasing you, and it is exceedingly uncommon to find a place you can disappear into that either blends in well with a bright white labcoat or doesn't have an enemy Spy already in it.

Option 2. Fight
Fighting is a second option and one that is typically fatal. It is a rare situation where you are able to fight the enemy directly and come out ahead. However, should you feel it is necessary to enter battle, either to rebuff the enemy or to safeguard your allies, there are some things to keep in mind as you draw chemically-sterilized steel.

2a. The Syringe Gun
Unsurprisingly the Syringe Gun and its cousin the Blutsauger are your weapons of choice for ranged combat. They are your only choice for ranged combat. These weapons have three specific benefits: a large clip, a high rate of fire, and a ballistic arc. They also have three specific drawbacks: low accuracy, low damage, and a ballistic arc. The ballistic trajectory can prove both useful and frustrating dependent upon your surroundings. On Payloads's first map, with proper positioning and angle you can rain hypodermics down on the opposing cart's starting position while standing near your own. On TFort_2, the tight angles and ever-present ceilings mean you will have to deal with the constant frustration of shots falling short or imbedding in the ceiling.

These weapons are more useful for psychological effect than true damage potential. For whatever reason, a hail of shots that each do only six points will often cause an enemy Soldier or Demoman to dodge back behind cover and wait for the rain to end where they would constantly dart out to fire at a Heavy or sentry gun. The gun is quite useful when fighting Scouts or Spies, because the low damage output is offset by their low health, and most often these encounters are at such short range that the damage potential is at its highest. Just remember the Scattergun is more deadly than your needlegun.

2b. The Bonesaw
The Bonesaw is capable of dealing out very good damage- but it is also inaccurate, and requires you to enter melee. Most opponents will have an advantage at range and have no reason to close with you where you could use this weapon. For that reason it is rarely useful save in the rare confrontation where neither of you are aware of the other until the last moment (or a Spy is uncloaked nearby). If you can manage to earn or find the Ubersaw, use it; with any luck a hit or two will fill your Uber meter, and you can then proceed to make your escape by switching weapons and rendering yourself invulnerable. There are a number of Accomplishments that require you to use the Bonesaw, but these should never be factored into your decision with regards to how to defend yourself- particularly as they encourage you to remain in a fight longer than necessary.

2c. Killing Versus Winning
It's important to realize that your objective in a fight is not to kill all of your opponents. Your objective should be to either be to give yourself enough room to escape, or to buy time for your teammates to show up. Fight defensively, and do not forget that you can achieve your goals without ever killing an enemy. If you can keep a Sniper suppressed, stop an Engineer from setting up, or just get the Scout to retreat away from the point, you have succeeded. Do not make the mistake of assuming you are some sort of Matrix-esque super soldier and try to play like you're a one man army. The odds of success are horribly remote, and without FRAPS running nobody would likely believe you anyways.

Option 3. Die
If you have come to the forums and are reading this guide after having found yourself in this situation, congratulations. You have chosen to simply stand and die rather than try a hopeless bid to drive off the enemy or undertake the potentially long and arduous trek back to safety. You have died, but at least in fifteen seconds you'll be somewhere safe and well-stocked. In the meantime, feel free to scan the previous options or, more usefully, inform your teammates what you saw both while and after dying. Some of the most useful intel I've provided to my teammates has come from the snapshot of the person who killed me.

[Ayeaka]

The thing to keep in mind with medic is while his equipment isn't 'ideal', a medic that masters said equipment can fight as well as any other player. This makes certain situations worth combat, then. Due to all of the medic's assist kills, (which still count as damage, I believe, unless they have changed that,) the medic, and in particular, his melee, has a very high crit chance. (Although Syringe gun is no longer worth using for this reason, since they've changed how crit is calculated.)

A lone spy, for instance, cannot outdamage you with revolver unless he crits, provided you are using blutsauger. You can also outpace him, making it easy to get in a good swipe with the ubersaw and steal a bit of uber from'm.

Scouts are also notoriously easy to wait around a corner and whack as they come through, when trying to escape.

Ideally, however, yes. If you don't think you can live through a fight, run like hell while firing wildly and asking for team support.


It's nice to see more said about the good ol' Doc. A lot of people assume he's one of the easiest classes--oh believe me. He is NOT. Half the time your medic buddy won't have a clue how to protect you, so that means you have to protect yourself, WHILE worrying about your entire team's health, WHILE looking out for spies, WHILE dodging snipers, WHILE trying to decide how best to get that uber, when to use it, and who to use it on. And should you choose to battle as medic, needless to say, he certainly has his own strategy. It's very easy, for instance, to hit enemies over walls, with blut or syringe, due to the arc.

Good to see.