Oh no. Not the Quick-Fix again.
Yeah, I know, I can see you all scowling and wanting to hurt me. But let’s face it, the Quick-Fix is in a funny place right now. It’s not underpowered, it’s (dare I say it) overpowered. But instead of just screaming NERF NOW! or IT’S BROKEN KILL IT or all that nonsense, I’m going to take a calm, quiet look at what the issues are, and how we might fix them.
First off, the Quick-Fix, after months of only being used by the lowest of Medics, got buffed, used briefly and was promptly banned from a large part of competitive play. In the few 6v6 games it was used in, several things were complained about. Firstly, Megaheal meant that killing the Medic was incredibly hard, secondly, it was hard to push with the Quick-Fix, thirdly, it was brilliant for defending and fourthly, it offered Medics a stupidly easy way out of bad situations.
Problem 1: Megaheal heals too fast
Megaheal is powerful. The Quick-Fix charges as fast as the Kritzkrieg, unless your target has over 142.5% health, giving the Quick-Fix a slight Uber advantage. When deploying your Megaheal, three things happen: Firstly, you can’t be pushed around by knockback, the core weakness of the Stock Medi Gun. Secondly, you heal INSANELY fast, 100 health per second if you’re in combat, 300 health per second out of combat. Thirdly, you get overheal. Yes, overheal. This all combines into a defensive Uber from which you can’t be budged, unless everyone REALLY focuses on you. In public servers and Highlander, this isn’t too bad, there’s generally enough firepower around to do that, but in 6v6, there’s simply not enough people to take you down unless critical hits are involved.
How this could be fixed: The obvious solution is changing the increase in healing. Perhaps maybe the Quick Fix would still work should we reduce the healing to 200%, allowing the Medic and his patient to still heal quickly, but also allowing the enemy to focus fire on the Medic and kill him. 66 health per second sounds more reasonable than 100 health per second.
Problem 2: Medics with Overheal
This is a smaller issue of the Quick-Fix, but it’s an issue nonetheless. It’s hard enough to kill a Medic who’s healing himself rapidly, it’s even harder if he has extra health throughout his Uber. The reason why the Kritzkrieg works is because it’s equal risk and reward, but this isn’t really true with the Quick-Fix, as a Medic deploying Megaheal has a nice extra 35 health to cushion any nasty blows. This also gets in the way of Snipers quick-scoping and Scouts meatshotting Medics, the main threat to a Medic in general.
How this could be fixed: Don’t give Medics overheal. Medics don’t get critical hits or overheal when they use the Kritzkrieg, nor do they get the resistance of the Vaccinator, so why should they get overheal from the Quick-Fix?
Problem 3: Easy Escapes
This was probably the biggest issue with the Quick-Fix in competitive play. With coordination and communication, a Medic can escape almost any situation by latching on to a rocket/sticky-jumping buddy and airstrafe to safety. Or they can just latch on to a Scout to run away, but a Scout isn’t as good at protecting a Medic as Soldiers or Demomen are. One of the main aspects of playing Medic is watching your positioning and retreating when required. Failing to do this gets you killed, as it does with most classes. But the Quick-Fix gives you a get-out-of-jail free card. This makes it far harder for the enemy to kill said Medic, even if he screws up.
How this could be fixed: Remove the tethering feature of the Quick-Fix, which is powerful enough as it is. Removing the speed boost when healing faster classes could help too, but you’re still restricted to movement in 2 directions rather than 3.
Problem 4: Permanent Uber Build Rate
This issue is related to the Quick-Fix’s downside of having less Overheal. Because a patient can never reach 142.5% health with a Quick-Fix pocket Medic, the Quick-Fix builds Uber at the fastest rate, all the time. This puts it ahead of the Kritzkrieg, making it harder to counter a Quick-Fix Medic with a Kritzkrieg Medic. This is a minor issue, but I feel it’s unfair to those using the Kritzkrieg having to manage heals to maintain maximum build speed, while a Quick-Fix Medic can pocket whoever and still get Uber faster.
How this could be fixed: Tweak the Quick-Fix so that it stops building Uber at the full rate at about 120% instead of the normal 142.5%, a value that can’t be reached. This means that a Quick-Fix Medic still has to consider heal priorities.
We wouldn’t need all these changes, maybe just one of them for the Quick-Fix to not be overpowered. Of course, this is Team Fortress 2 we’re talking about, so chances are, none of this would happen, no matter how much we rant about it.