ubercharged.net

Indulge me dear reader; just the other day I was playing a game of Team Fortress Two with my good companion Sir Tygrys when an observation was made. Checking the scoreboards, one notices that many of you are sporting digital avatars that are ill-fitting for such a Gentle Manne’s game.

Now perhaps you can get away with this shameful display on other counties of the Internet, but this is Ubercharged; my companion and I agreed we must do something about it.

And so Sir Tygrys, being a master of the arts, began work producing a collection of Team Fortress 2 inspired portraits tailored for Gentle Menne with an eye for the latest in style. Before presentation I must insist that neither of us will be held responsible if, upon glancing these works of art, your monocle falls into your tea.

But without further ado allow me to present to you our works, complete with the accompanying press release from the newly formed T&T Industries:

T&T Industries is happy to announce the release of our very own avatar pack, more precisely the ‘T&T Industries Classy Classes Avatar Pack’.

This pack was specially designed for all of you who understand the need to be classy in all your digital ventures. This splendid pack comes in two styles: BLU and RED, to suit individual customer preferences. You will find that they have been readily scaled down to 184×184 pixels, so they are immediately ready to use on Steam the very moment you download them to your drive.

All of these spiffing avatars were made by two masters of fine art – Sir Tygrys Murdock and Sir Tesla Sherbonk, with extra thanks to Sir Dont for improving the quality of the original images. Should you encounter either of them during your exploits in digital space, be sure to bid them thanks; they’ll be ecstatic to hear their work is appreciated.

Now go ahead and enjoy this fine art as we have prepared for you.

Remember our motto – quality is of the utmost importance and we strive to satisfy all of our customers.

Signed: T&T Industries Chairman of marketing

Willbur McTrackingster

You can download the newly improved v2 pack HERE, thanks to our friend Dont. You may also wish peruse the full sized imagery whilst you await the cheeseboard. Lastly, to those of you whom have no interest in showing some class, may I perchance interest you in a job sweeping out my chimney?

As you’ve all been told thousands of times, this game requires good teamwork if you want to ensure victory for yourself. Some of you might think of teamwork as just running to your teammate’s aid and helping him take out that pyro, or chasing off that pesky scout, or healing him when he’s been clogged up with bullets. There’s more to it than that. It’s the small things that you do that can save time and frustration and lead to better teamwork and victory. When we ignore our team and fail to help them, our victory becomes captured like our control points. Here’s a few tips on what small things you can do to help your teammates:

Self Spy-Checking
Most people out there like to spycheck everyone they meet, mostly Engineers and Snipers. It’s an important tactic that people use to keep themselves and others safe from spies. Make your teammate’s life easier and spy-check yourself for them. That Heavy-Medic pair won’t have to stop and waste time checking you. That Pyro won’t have to run after you to check you. Best of all, your team won’t have to waste their ammo on nothing. Show that you really are on their side. Shoot the floor. Swing your melee weapon over and over. Or if you’re feeling jolly, taunt. Last time I checked, spies can’t do that. By doing this, your team has one less person to check and more time to upgrade that sentry or push forward and capture that point! This is especially useful for lowering the stress for Engineers. Upon approaching their sentry nest, you should always expose yourself as a teammate so that they won’t have to run at you with their wrench and waste time spy-checking you when there might be a real spy around or when they could be upgrading their buildings. Same deal with Snipers, although it might not matter because half the time they’re too busy looking in their scopes to even notice you walk past. Silly Snipers…

Run Towards Your Medic
Well, you just got injured real bad. Who ya’ gonna’ call? The Medic of course. But don’t expect your wonderful doctor to instamatically, automagically pop up right in front of you and hook you up. No sir! When you call for a Medic, save him the extra walk and calmly run up to him. There’s no sense in having your Medic run out into the open and put himself in danger of death by some sniper or scout. Remember, one less Medic means more pain for your team. Oh, and if you get to the Medic, don’t be one of those stupid people who runs circles around him and dies because the doc couldn’t get a fix on you.

Welcoming The New
Face it. It’s happened to us all at least once and will happen again sometime soon. A person new to TF2 joins your team and they’re doing a seriously crap job. They’re dying left and right, wasting ubers, the usual. Do you tell them to GTFO and uninstall the game? Do you tell them to ALT+f4 for free hats? Certainly not. The last thing you’d want to do is to discourage someone from becoming better at a game they seemingly enjoy. We all know the saying “practice makes perfect”, so it’s better to help a new person out then to ridicule them about how much they suck. Why, we all sucked when we first played TF2. And just how did we get so much better? We learned from our mistakes and other players. The next time you see a newbie on your team failing miserably, offer him a few helpful points such as:
• Don’t W+M1.
• Always check for spies.
• Don’t mindlessly charge out into the open.
• Shoot the ground near the enemy as a soldier.
• You can’t use the flamethrower underwater.
• A scout capping a point counts as two players.
You know, normal, everyday things that most players know. Although some may need to get used to the game, others are fast learners and can quickly become a good addition to your team.

Inform Your Team of Their Surroundings
It’s obvious isn’t it? It’s very helpful to inform your teammates of what’s going on around them, whether it be pointing out a spy, notifying your team of a well hidden sniper, or just advising there’s a pyro right around the corner. Telling your Medic with a ready ubercharge that there’s a spy behind him ready to stab will prevent a large amount of frustration. It means a great deal to engineers when you inform them what spies are disguised as and if they’re heading towards them or not. All it takes is simply yelling into your mic or quickly typing up a message in chat. Go with the sure thing. Watch your team’s back, and they’ll watch yours.

Just a couple of these small things can be very helpful to you and your team. Remember them, and a swell victory will be shared between you and your team.

Special Thanks to Tygrys for the gmod pics.

In a quantity that has not been seen since the appearance of Cuddle Pyro, we now bring to you the cutest personification of a Team Fortress 2 Character into real life. Those are the results when you combine Halloween and gaming parents.

Please be warned, watching this is not recommended if you are somewhere where people will look at you strangely due to a “DAWWWWW” reaction.

You can check out more photos by following the link, even of the 1 year old heavy:

[from Crafster via Kotaku]

Oh, and because it is pretty much obligatory here in Ubercharged.net:

“ENTIRE TEAM IS BABIES!”-Heavy Weapons Guy

Medics.

Murderous tendencies aside, there’s no doubt that medics have one of the most important jobs on a team. While the job isn’t glamorous, a good medic goes a long way toward winning a round. And to encourage people to play Medic, medics are rewarded with points. Lots of points.

Now, obviously a team needs a medic. If a team indeed has a medic, then it’s certainly good that some brave soul decided to step up to the bat (or is it bonesaw?), and play the rather unglamorous support class. Really, that’s great! But it’s not good that many medics take this as a license to whine.

Well, let me quickly run a quick disclaimer. I like playing medic, though I don’t play it very much. If ever I get bored of playing Demoman or Soldier (my favorite two classes), or if my team desperately needs a medic, then I play medic. Something is quite thrilling about staying alive when everyone is gunning for you.

Z-2 is “Thanks”, we know.

OK! Fine! You get the short end of the stick, we know. You don’t get the glamour of playing soldier or demoman or spy. You don’t get many kills. Sure. Fine. Your point?

HEALING IS YOUR JOB. It’s why you’re playing medic. Unless you’re an amazingly good battle medic (and actually, even if you are), you still should heal people who need it. You can’t hold a grudge against someone and refuse to heal them (Healers against Haloes, anyone?). It makes you the most useless player on the server. You’re even depriving yourself of points as a matter of principle. A really, really misguided principle. Congratulations, you.

Z-2 is a matter of courtesy. I always thank my medics, but I don’t need to. Hell, the game automatically thanks my medic for me!

While it’s good that many players take good care to protect their medics, that’s not their primary job. Their primary job is to kill the enemy. It’s the medic’s responsibility to watch their own back and the back of their patient, and to warn the patient of imminent danger – especially true in a competitive setting. The patient is doing the killing here. Let him concentrate on the killing. It’s considerably simpler to keep the medigun beam locked on the patient than to actually gun an enemy down. The medic, having only to hold the LMB down, should have plenty of time to check around and be completely aware of everything.

The Patient’s Responsibility

The patient has one responsibility regarding his medic: keep him alive. In other words, don’t go out of your medic’s healbeam range. Listen to your medic. Love him [sort of NSFW]. Remember, working with your medic will be beneficial to both of you.

Still no excuse to bitch. Medics, do your job, please.

Thank you.

What’s this? An article in the competitive TF2 series not done by himmelstoss or clubtheseals? Yep, since I was credited way back in the first installment I figured it was time to get off my lazy bottom (or rather, sit on it some more), and give you the low-down on a class near and dear to our hearts, the Medic!

Let’s face it, no one in their right mind wants to play Medic on the average public game. Your teammates are generally uncommunicative, dull, unskilled or simply don’t care about you. Buff up that Soldier? Guarantee he’ll jump away and leave you to die via buckshot as he gets shot by a Sniper. Stick with your pal the Heavy? The lumbering oaf will get stabbed before you can even mash X+2 (not like he’d pay attention anyway). All this assuming on the off-chance that your team isn’t entirely composed of scouts, snipers, pyros and spies.

Well, wipe your fears away and step into the boots of the competitive medic! As a medic, you’re still underappreciated to an extent, but you become the center-piece of the team-its quarterback, so to speak. You alone control the flow of the game, and getting sacked may just cost your team the game. American Football analogies aside, you become the player that drives the team, which I’ll get into later.

The Medic Mentality

Anyone can play medic, right? Just mash M1 and dodge incoming fire, right? Yes and no. As a friend put it to me once, “Playing medic is easy, but playing medic well, now that’s hard.” Just like any other class, you can pick it up and play, just not well. Unlike the other classes, however, who focus on super 1337 aim and movement skills, the medic instead focuses on thinking, planning, and having ironclad faith in your men. I don’t know about you, but the average player is usually severely lacking in the former two.

The proper mentality to take is that of a sissy puny baby. Your team cannot push without you, you have a measly 150 HP, an unreliably slow health regeneration, and, as an added bonus, you have a big 10-metre “Shoot Me, Please!” sign hanging over your head. Everyone’s gunning for you and you’ve gotta know when to move and to where.

Your Meatshield and You

The easy answer to the question of “Where” would be with your pocket. As covered in the Soldier article, there are (generally) two Soldiers on your team. One (the pocket) focuses on protecting you, and the other (roaming) focuses more on flanking but is still your number 2 man. You want to stick with the guy who offers you the best protection at any given moment, and the Soldier generally takes the cake being the most balanced in terms of mobility, firepower, and direct combat capabilities.

In the event that your Soldiers bite the dust, it goes to the Demoman and then the Scouts if the threat isn’t too large. On the occasion that you have a Heavy you’ll generally stick with him but it’ll vary depending on the team.

Learning to work with your team is something that will come with simply playing with them. A big mistake that a newbie team will make is not playing with each other outside of practice and matches. As the Medic you rely heavily on your team to keep you alive, and as such you must be able to predict their every move and vice versa. Get to know your team, their tendencies, and their relative skill so you know if they’re in way over their head or if it’s safe to press onward.

Properly abusing your meatshields is all about distance management. If he’s getting shelled from afar and you want to avoid the rockets and grenades, you abuse the heck out of the medibeam’s distance and bending ability. If a Scout or other class just made his way to your flank (usually due to your Scouts going down) you have about a split second to dash behind your pocket and alert him. Getting in close is refered to “hugging” and really the only semi-reliable counter to a Scout flank. Your teammate takes the heat while you dash in and out of him and heal so that (in theory) you never take damage. Knowing when to do either eventually comes with practice but in most cases (because rockets explode) distancing yourself is the name of the game. Especially if you’re in the open, keep moving to keep alive. Moving erratically can help if there are enemy snipers, but don’t count on it.

That means NO BATTLE MEDICING. If you need to whip out your blutsauger because you’re alone and being hunted, that’s fine – you won’t survive either way. But if there’s any other friendly nearby, heal him first. He may be able to save you.

Out Of The Gate

So you’ve made it into your first match. Whether you’re the designated Medic for your team or you just went it so that the PUG can start, there are a few basic things to know before you trudge off into combat. The first is that your team is much faster than you (as they’ll all be jumping) and that you need them to get to mid with as much of overheal as possible. The instant you spawn, you start healing. In this order you want to hit the Demoman, the roaming Soldier and then your pocket. The Demo needs the intial buff because not only does he have less health but his jumps are much faster and take him farther. The less health packs he has to pick up along the way to mid, the more you have to fall back on. Generally, after the first jump he’s way ahead of you with the Scouts, so you then switch your attention to the Soldiers. The Soldier’s jumps are generally slower and consume less health so you can almost keep pace with them. By the time you get to mid the Scouts and Demo will have undoubtedly taken some damage from the other team’s Scouts and Demo so don’t be afraid to pass on the love. At this point it’s about finding a safe spot and passing out the heals to whomever needs it. A general heal order for this point and the rest of the match is:

• Players lit (in red health) and taking damage
• Players lit
• Everyone else

During the brief lull in action while holding an area, it’s important to take stock of how much health each class has and how long it’s been since they’ve been injured. Scouts generally get hurt a large amount but get back to you a while after being injured. And so, thanks to heal rate ramp-ups based on how long they’ve been hurt, Scouts will only take a split second to heal and buff. And believe me when I say they really appreciate the buff to their extremely limited health. Soldiers, however, are on the opposite end of the spectrum. They have much more health and are taking damage almost constantly, so it takes forever to heal them up entirely. At this point I usually follow this:

• Get the Demo and Soldiers up to full health
• Buff/heal the Scouts
• Buff the Demo
• Buff your pocket

At this point I feel it’s a good time to mention situational awareness. Being the only person on your team without a gun to aim, it affords you a much clearer picture of things going on outside of the main focus. The Medic effectively becomes an extra pair of eyes to survey and analyze the situation. For example, while your pal the pocket Soldier may see that big ole’ Russian fellow raining down hell directly in front of him, he more than likely won’t catch that Scout dashing in from a side path right toward your soft squishy side. You must quickly become accustomed to swinging around and checking for enemies out of your team’s main field of vision. Communication is key for a Medic player and, as such, one needs to learn how to communicate effectively. While it is possible to play Medic without a microphone/headset it is incredibly difficult. I know from personal experience after breaking a mic that, while keybinds do work to an extent, a microphone is still faster and more precise. There is a lot of information to sort through and relay to your team, and keeping it short and sweet is the name of the game. I wont bore you with the details since you’ll more than likely learn it in your first match but here’s a short list of things you need to relay if someone else hasn’t.

• When you die
• When you are about to respawn/have respawned
• When you get close to a full charge (70%-ish)
• When you use your Ubercharge
• When the enemy uses their Ubercharge
• When you are alone
• Who you are with and where if your team is separated
• Enemy positions outside of the normal focus area (enemies flanking, snipers, demos up high, sticky trap locations)

Other things like when an enemy goes down or when an area is clear are also important but you have to take into account that your teammates will likely see that before you. Your focus should be on things that your allies cannot see easily and fight at the same time. In time you’ll learn better what to say and when but sticking to that list will get you by for quite some time.

Sock It To ‘Em

So you’ve worked up that hard earned Ubercharge/Kritz and you’re ready to lay the smackdown on the other team. Well hold yer horses and listen up, this may just save your neck. Remember way back at the start of the article how I said that you alone control the flow of the battle? Well, I was talking about this, Uber Timing. It’s a slippery subject on its own and it’s incredibly difficult to teach. All I can do is give you a general idea and you’ll have to learn it on your own.

Competitive gaming is all about strategy and advantages. If your team has Uber, you have an advantage. However, if the other team has Uber too, you’re dead even. In lower level games it doesn’t matter as much but when you get into really tough games, forcing you to pop your Uber early is what Scouts are notoriously good at. It’s a game of cat and mouse really, you want the other guy to use his Uber before you so that you have more of an opening to dish out damage with your own. Such a use of Uber is known as a counter-Uber since it blocks the use of their Uber to cause lasting damage and it causes lots of damage to them. While being forced to pop early so that you don’t die is annoying and may cost you the point, it’s better that you stay alive and continue healing rather than waiting to respawn. Time spent alive is time spent charging and you at the very least want to reach full charge at the same time as or just after the enemy Medic. Double and even triple Ubers (where you Uber multiple players at once) are the center-piece of an effective push against a team that doesn’t have Uber, and so waiting for the right moment to strike is of great importance. Just don’t hold on to it to your death.

Public server rules about selecting a Medigun apply in competitive play, too. If you want to Uber frequently, select the Kritzkrieg. However, if the enemy is running a regular Medigun, be aware that in Uber vs Uber battles (which happen surprisingly often), you will almost always lose, especially if the enemy Medic is good enough to Uber multiple players. For this reason, Kritzkrieg your pocket if the enemy Medic is vulnerable to a nice crocket. Removing their Uber eliminates a huge advantage they have over you. Exploit it.

To wrap up: Medic is a deceptively difficult but incredibly rewarding class. As a medic, you are the single most important player on your team. You call the shots. You turn the tide of a game. You…

You are the Ubermensch.

If you’re looking for the other installments of the guide, we have set up a Table of Contents page for you. If you need to link the guide to anyone, send ‘em over there as well. Enjoy, and keep your eyes peeled for the next article -himmelstoss

It’s not exactly a trade secret that we are rather fond of the Medic’s ace in the hole. We’re not writing for www.backstabbed.net, after all. But it’s not often said why it’s so good- everyone has had at least one ubercharge where they killed no one (often due to the ubercharge starting at a bad time) or killed one person and then ran around invincible for eight seconds waving their fists at mid-air in hopes of hitting a Spy.

It’s Original

Team Fortress 2 is often referred to when mechanics in the game show up elsewhere, especially invisibility, one hit kills from behind, and afterburn. But while Team Fortress 2 is often the most famous example or the best done example, in this cases it’s rarely the first. As far back as Thief: The Dark Project a stealthy attack from behind could instantly dispatch a foe in a “backstab” style manoeuvre, and stepping into the shadows in most stealth games grants what is basically invisibility, with a few others giving close examples with a limited invisibility timer (like things based on Dungeons and Dragons, using the spell). Afterburn is functionally identical to a poisoned weapon, except that water extinguishes it. But what you won’t find in another game is the idea that healing enough will give you a charge towards making someone invulnerable. That’s someting Valve can claim to have made up themselves, rather than just using correctly.

It Shakes Things Up

It’s said right there in the author commentary: Ubercharges help to stop stalemates. Engineers turtleing? Ubercharged Demoman or Pyro. Demoman team stickying up an entrance? An Uber will push right through. The ability to just ignore damage for a short time allows most defences to be simply smashed through with brute force, stopping the boring defence versus defence situation that can sometimes occur on control point maps too easy to defend on and too hard to attack on.

It Rewards Teamwork

Shooting people with guns only rewards teamwork so much. Sure, you’re much more likely to win a fight when you’ve got three friends with you, but that’s about the extent of it. But due to how the ubercharge works, it rewards a Medic who actually heals people. Sticking to one Heavy won’t charge it as fast (as he’ll usually be at full health), and due to your sticking to a Heavy and making him a walking tank, you’ll probably end up dead due to the massive target you and the makers of Penny Arcade have drawn on your forehead

Possibly the most often quoted Team Fortress 2 comic ever.

But if you run around a little behind the front lines, keeping your team alive by healing the wounded, you’ll get that charge up fast, and should stay out of the way just enough to survive. Then you can charge forward with your uber and cause chaos.

It’s Fun

Go on, tell me that you didn’t love gibbing someone in one hit with a crit rocket four times in the space of a few seconds after being Kritz’d.

Tell me that it wasn’t awesome the first time you were ubercharged and mowed down an overconfident Pyro, or was ubered as an Engineer and wrenched the enemy team off the final point. The feeling of being invincible, especially if you have the Heavy screaming about his new-found immunity to bullets, is a wonderful one.

Wait… Original? Shakes things up? Rewards teamwork? Fun? What else does that remind you of?

I don’t get a lot of people talking to me, but these days, people almost always go, “Hey Sheep, what happened to being a career Medic?”

My most common answer is “The Spy Update.”

He backstabbed my heart

.

Truthfully, my friends, I have fallen in love with the dashing French(maybe)man we call “The Spy.” He appeals to my tactical nature, espescially with the Cloak and Dagger. While Medic is not an option due to us having six snipers and three spys on our team, I join the madness, put on my balaclava and suit, and go hunting. While other Spies will jump right into the action, I lurk, invisible on the battlefield, advancing and stopping with my cloak meter, inching ever closer to that dominating Heavy, or that Engie whose name I’ve taken, I watch, I wait, then I strike. Gentlemen, I am a Spy.

But then, something odd happened on the server last night. I was on a team in Redfort with the usual post-update Spy and Sniper count, but the Spy count was low enough so that if I went Spy, I would tip the fragile balance of our team. What few assault classes we had were being deftly cared for by a Medic better than me, so I did something I haven’t done in ages.

I went Soldier, and I LOVED IT.

.

I just crit. IN MY PANTS.

That Hectic night was my best Soldier playtime in a while. A positive Kill/Death ratio, one domination for most of the game. (I had two for a while, but a very determined dominee wrested it from me.) Top of the scoreboard a few times. I was bouncing Scouts up into the air and getting direct hits on the way down. I rocket jumped behind a siper and killed him with my shovel, and hit a Heavy in the face with a direct crit rocket.

Then we switched the Convoy and things got… strange. It was still fun, though.

So, don’t expect me to be playing Medic all the time any more. I have two new classes now. I need to become a better spy, and I need to see if that night of Soldier competence was a fluke.

However, I’m not in a position to play any Team Fortress 2 right now, (I’m sure anyone on my friends list has heard me whine about it.) Here’s hoping I get a decent laptop for graduating this year and can get back in the fray soon. Who knows, maybe by the time I get back into Team Fortress 2 we’ll have resonably balanced teams.

Until then, I’ll have to survive on Ubercharged DnD sessions and Frank Sinatra.

This is an article that’s been brewing for a long time. There’s a billion articles telling you to thank people on this site, and recently complaining about the unlocks has gotten a little absurd. Just look at all that fuss over the Sandman. There is one thing you need to know, and you need to know it now.

(credit to loafaries for the image)

What’s that? You’re helping your team? Well thank you for doing what you’re supposed to be doing.  There is nothing wrong with giving some thanks, but you know what? Valve did that FOR you. Everytime you take a teleporter, your character thanks the Engie. Every time you get healed, your character thanks the Medic. Bind “thanks” to a key all you want, but when you actually threaten to stop doing your job until a Soldier stands still, fumbles with his keyboard, and gets sniped every time you point your mouse in his direction, you need to stop being such a brat.

"Oh, hold on, let me just find my "thank you" key while this uber runs out."

Every member of your team is helping. Mr-Hyper-Sandman-Scout is helping by stopping people shooting at you and distracting the enemy. Mr-Kill-Streak-Soldier is helping your team by stopping you from getting overrun by enemies. Mr-Very-Paranoid-Pyro is helping keeping Spies away and causing fear and confusion in the enemies. Mr.Downright-Deranged-Demoman is stopping them from easily getting to key areas. Are you getting the point yet? Every class is helping out, not just the Medic and the Engineer. If you see yourself as some kind of martyr, playing a class just to help out and whining at your teammates for not being more vocally grateful, then you need to go play a class you DO enjoy. Some people actually genuinely enjoy Medic and Engineer.
The second this is a little more obvious- valve didn’t sell you this game as being updated and having cool new weapons fit in. None of the new weapons are so overpowered as to make it impossible to play without them. And if they’re “so awful” then go back to playing with the old ones! They haven’t “ruined” the Sniper, because you can still use all the old weapons. No one is forcing you to use Jarate, you whiners.

So yes, thanking people is nice. It’s  polite thing to do, and reflects that if you only cared about yourself you’d be doing something that’s better for your points. But it is NOT mandatory, and you should NEVER punish people for not doing it, because they’re helping too. And while it’s okay to point out whether you like or dislike something Valve has done, remember that they’re doing this all out of the kindness of their hearts, and they DO listen to the fans.

And honestly, who doesn't love Jarate. You're never too old for a good urine joke.

Most of the veteran Team Fortress 2 players miss the “Good old days.” The days without unlocks, the days without the Demoman nerfs, and soon, the days before hats. I’m by no means a veteran TF2 player, but I’m already missing those days. Specifically, one part of those days in particular.

I miss the lack of Medics

That’s right. I miss the days where I sometimes toyed with the idea of changing my name to “The Lone Medic.” In those days, I had to heal the entire team. It was crazy and hectic, but I loved it. I loved popping that Uber and watching my team swarm after me and my glowing pet Heavy. It was stressful, but it was the kind of stress that makes you a better person. Back in those days, I was topping scoreboards all over the server, but the real reward was the little “Thanks” voice command my grateful patients would always flash when I healed them.

All right, that was a complete lie. I liked the points more because they made me feel competent.

Of course, I couldn’t heal everyone. There was always the annoying flaming Scout who ran around me faster then I could get a lock on him. There was always the wounded Heavy who fell to a crit rocket. I wasn’t the Ubermensch, but I was alright.

But then something happened to a good friend of mine a few weeks ago. She got sick, very sick. The doctors said she might not make it. It was up to me to save her, even if it meant I had to give up ze Healing, ze Hurting, and hang up the Medigun for a Wrench or a Sandvich.

Team Balance got sick

It’s pretty common these days for me to hop on a server and find myself on a team of eight (including me) with two Spies, a Sniper, a Medic, two Scouts, and a Soldier. This is a problem for a career Medic like me. The only suitable healing target is being monopolized by the other Medic. This is the least of my team’s problems, however. And did I mention that the Spies are terrible and we’re supposed to defend Steel with this team makeup?

So I go Engineer, because a defending team needs at least one. I won’t be as effective as I would with a Medic, but hey, Engineer is credit is to team, right?

Oh wait, there’s a Spy on the other team, and he’s actually really good. Ten minutes into this steamroll, I quit.

It’s how most of my games are turning out these days, so I have a request—no, a plea. It’s to all the Team Fortress 2 players out there. When you join a team, please look at the other classes on your team and choose the class that your team doesn’t have. Even if you don’t like the class you’ll have to play. Being a Sniper can be fun, but sometimes you have to pick up that Rocket Launcher and take your Uber like a man, and who knows, you just might discover a new love for the class you play. Save the all-Sniper teams for shenanigan night, and everyone will thank you.

Most of the comments on my first article were positive, and I wholeheartedly thank the community for that, it was a great way to start off my time as a contributor. The comments that were not positive tended to ask the same question. “Why choose Medic?” Thus, I have taken a few hours of my free time to analyze why I chose to become a career Medic. (Which was admittedly not very well explained in my first article.)

There aren’t enough Medics these days

The good old days.

My thoughts that day went something like this. I am not going to get good at Team Fortress 2 by hopping from class to class trying to find something I like. I have to pick a class, and stick with it. (While being flexible of course, I will switch if there are enough other Medics on the server.) No matter how hard I practice with the Soldier, there will always be ten more Soldiers who can shoot that Rocket Launcher better than I can. No matter how many two hundred dollar, custom-tooled cartridges I fire, there will always be twenty Heavies who can turn around faster. No matter how much Bonk I drink, there will always be another guy from where I was from who can use those seconds of invincibilty better.

This is true for the Medic as well, like it is for any other class, but the reason I chose Medic is because there won’t be very many Medics better than me, because Medics are rare these days. TF2 does not need a Soldier like myself, but every time, one can use a Medic, even if he does kind of suck.

The Medic isn’t normally firing

Part of my problem with the other classes, (Not so much Engineer and Spy) was that I couldn’t aim very well. I wasn’t helpless, but I was a pretty bad marksman. One reason I gravitated to the Soldier was his splash damage capability. With the rockets, I could miss by a hair and still do a lot of damage.

As a Medic, this isn’t an issue. A good Medic is always healing and dodging fire at every opportunity. Horrible aiming isn’t an issue, most of the time. I’ve only ever died as a Medic in a Pyro ambush, and that’s okay because we all know Pyro is totally OP rite.

Ubercharges are freaking awesome

The whole process is highly rewarding, dodging death until that sluggish meter builds up to 100%, finding a good target, the running in and wreaking havoc. It’s awesome. Even with the Kritzkrieg, sending in a Kritz’d Heavy is awesome. I have the power. The other team chooses where they die. I choose when. Alright, I’ve never actually pulled off a great Uber like that, but ideally this is what it will be like.

It’s hard to be useless as a Medic.

Unless you’re actively trying to be useless, a Medic is always helpful in some way. Even if you just heal the same Heavy endlessly, ignoring everyone else on your team, your Heavy + Medic duo is still attracting enemy fire, drawing it away from other members of your team who can then do their work much easier. I don’t intend to heal the same Heavy the entire time, but it’s comforting to know that fact.

And, in conclusion:

The Medic is freaking sexy

Because he looks like Stephen Colbert, and you know Stephen Colbert is sexy.

In actual conclusion:

/article and /colbert medic