Medic weapons that would never work.

For as long as I’ve been a Medic, I’ve always been amused by the lack of weapons that we’ve received. Normally, this would be a reason to be angry, but it makes us creative. It makes us think up our own weapons. Unfortunately, this leads to a lot of crazy ideas, many of which would never work, some because they are just too complicated, others are just too stupid. But the majority just have a few flaws.

First things first, let’s talk about invisible Ubercharges. I’ve always fancied myself an invisible Ubercharge, but the issue with this is how do we get it to work? Spies can’t attack while invisible, but would this apply to this Invisi-Uber? How long would it last? Would the patient and the Medic both be invisible and unable to attack but capable of moving around otherwise? We saw in Scream Fortress 2013 that invisibility worked, but only in very short bursts, and the fact that everyone had access to mind-blowing spells means that the invisibility wasn’t on a steady, stable testing ground.

There’s also the issue of whether flames, Jarate and Mad Milk affect the Invisi-Uber. Spies often complain how it takes one stray flame particle to ruin their day, so imagine how a stray flame particle could ruin up to 40 seconds of preparation.

Next on the list is a hitscan weapon for Medics. This is suggested quite a lot, in the form of a stupidly weak shotgun to a weakened Force-a-Nature to an altered revolver to all sorts. While seeing a Medic with a revolver or a pistol would be cool, especially since Medics appear to hold revolvers and pistols ‘gangsta’ style, it just wouldn’t work. Medics are supposed to be basically incapable of looking after themselves, having unreliable self-defense weaponry. Hitscan, which is incredibly reliable, laughs in the face of this.

Another statistic idea often thrown onto Crossbow-like weapons is the ability to be able to do head shots. The Crusader’s Crossbow can’t do this. It probably never will, unless someone kills the potted plant or something. The problem with this depends on how it works. If it’s rewarding extra healing to friendly players on a head shot, that’s one thing, it’s another to reward extra damage. This links with the comment above, that Medics should, by default, be unable to defend themselves. In a lowly Valve server, this might not be an issue, but in competitive play, where everyone, particularly the Medics, can aim, a Medic becomes much harder to kill if they can simply shoot you in the head and escape.

On-hit effects have always been suggested for Medic primary weapons, and these are always hit and miss. The Mad Milk effect with the Beta Syringe Gun, seen in the now deceased TF2 Beta worked fairly well, as it didn’t make Medics a direct damage dealer, but it did distract from the true Medi Gun healing. Gaining Ubercharge on hit is an even worse idea, as it allows people to outright be Battle Medics, with no desire to ever heal, as they can just shoot people for Uber. There are few enough Medics as it is! Slowing would be a nice effect on a Medic weapon, but the issue here is that people hate being slowed. Ask any player what they think about the Sandman, Airblast or the Natascha and they’ll say “The slows! The loss of control! I hate it!” Putting such an ability on Medics would make people scream.

Probably the most regularly suggested Medi Gun idea is the idea of the Overhealer. The stats always vary, but most of the time, the idea is that this Medi Gun would give more overheal, in exchange for something like a slower or weaker Ubercharge. Unlike most of the Medi Gun ideas suggested, this has actually been tried out! Aaaand it was a fluke. According to Valve and beta-testers, the extra overheal provided was just too much, and against a Stock Medi Gun, it almost always won. Even if there was no Uber. With semi-competent players, it’s always the team with the most health that wins, and extra overheal just happens to break the overall balance of the game.

Of course, there are loads of other ideas I could mention. In the Medic Sub-Forum, there’s almost always an idea lurking around involving using Archimedes as a weapon. But the ideas mentioned here are the most common and unfortunately, the ones that probably just won’t work without being overpowered or underpowered.