A Medic Appreciation Post
It’s been ages since I last played Team Fortress 2. Lately, I haven’t had the appetite to play a PvP shooter game. Between the randomness, the crits and the bots, Team Fortress 2 is kinda unfriendly these days. But there’s still always something that just amazes me about Team Fortress 2, even if I no longer play it.
Today, we are going to appreciate the Medic from Team Fortress 2. A character that I literally named myself after.
One of the best healers, ever.
Years back, a League of Legends developer complained that making health numbers go up was boring. In his rambles, he mentioned Medic from TF2, in a “why would I play this?” sort of way, while also claiming that healing in general is too powerful. However, these days, League of Legends has more healing abilities than ever. But not a single one of them can outshine the TF2 Medic.
Why is this though? The way I see it, the LoL developer didn’t seem to understand how Medic works. Medics are not powerful because they can heal, they are powerful because Ubercharges break stalemates. Without pushes with Ubercharges, Team Fortress 2 would be dominated by Engineers, who bring the fight to a standstill with sentry nests.
So good that his design was basically stolen.
Okay, yeah, sure, Mercy from Overwatch isn’t completely stolen, she does have other traits. But the Medi Gun beam compared to Mercy’s magical stick is pretty obvious. In fact, I’m surprised that they didn’t give Mercy some sort of Ubercharge.
However, all the comparisons are there and they are genuinely hard to avoid. That being said though, Mercy doesn’t really have as much pushing power as Medic has. Sure, she can revive people, but at the same time, there are tons of other ultimate abilities being thrown around. To put it in another way, Mercy is ALWAYS reacting to the situation and when to revive. Medic on the other hand makes the ultimate decision whether to Uber or not. A well-used Uber can change the tides of battle and break stalemates. But even when Medic DOESN’T have control over what’s going on, he can still try and force change anyway. After all, the number one Medic rule is “Pop it, don’t drop it“.
What I’m trying to say is that it’s very rare for a support class to have so much power. The most valuable target isn’t the person shooting you, but the person behind them.
Heck, it’s also worth noting that, when you deploy an Ubercharge, one of the best strategies is to actually be in front of your Uber target, so you can soak up knock-back from enemy guns and distract enemy players.
Medic holds up, even today.
Even when Medic wasn’t at the pinnacle of gameplay, he was changed to be better. In the original version of Mann VS Machine, Medic wasn’t often used and an Engineer would take up the healing role. But Medic was not only buffed, but he got a hint of lore in the Two Cities update. That update turned Medic from a meh pick to being the MVP in yet another game mode. The Medic-patient dynamic is so insanely powerful that we have Ultiduo, a game mode literally based on just Soldier and Medic fighting other Soldiers and Medics. And in (community) competitive play, Medics have to be reduced to one per team, because they are simply too powerful.
In fact, Medic is such a great class that, after all these years, the stock Medi Gun is STILL Medic’s most-used primary weapon. It’s just so damn good.
I appreciate the Medic.
Even after all these years, Medic is still the ultimate support character. It’s genuinely amazing how one healer has so much influence over a battle. I don’t think there’s a single other healer who is as game-changingly powerful as Medic is.
