Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Another Successful Procedure? [TF2]

Before-

Prior to the Goldrush update, I had complained that there's a huge lacking in the house of healing, all I hear is death after shouting out for the one man who is vital in the process of both keeping up the survival spirits of their comrades and winning the battle. Medics.

Now-

I fired up my Steam and I saw, a huge lag appeared in the steam interface, I knew exactly what's going on, GOLDRUSH! OH YES! GOLDRUSH IS HERE! The mother of all TF2 updates! They boasted new lines for heavy and engineers, new melee animations, 36 zany achievements, 3 NEW weapons for medic and of course, Goldrush map itself. A patch worthy to b00e called the savior of TF2. Or is it?

Then-

What. The. Fuck.

Medics ubering medics and charge against a Level 3 sentry guns? Medics ubering engineers and rushed into the first cap in stage one of Dustbowl? MEDICS UBERING SNIPERS? I know the thrills of unlocking achievements but don't, I mean NEVER let your selfishness in achieving your achievements blinds you in helping your team to win the battle.

So how good is the update?
>Sorta.

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Let me get down to the medic's new toys and tips on using it as well as to choose which weapon for which situation.

[Kritzkrieg /Critz ]
This weapons is next to useless in the hands of amateurs and loners. Don't use this weapon in open fields. And don't use this weapon in maps like Dustbowls, Badlands, and Granary, because you are easily exposed to everyone and you'll be the first target for snipers and spies. Make sure to select splash damage targets first, Soldiers and Demomans work quite exceptional, Critz a heavy only when you can't find a soldier or you want to kill assigned targeted units. Also, don't use this against sentries, unless you have uber with you or you have demomans lobbing critical stickies at it. Another note, you are very vulnerable to spies even with the critz, so take care.

Personal Tip: If you are a fast one, critz a scout and rush; His bat can deal a whopping 105 hits, add in that a scout can bat twice in a second, he'll finished off even soldiers at a great speed. Works very well in tight spaces like 2Fort and tunnels.

[Medic gun]
An all rounder, best weapon ever. Even if you are leaning towards Critz, do bear in mind, uber > Critz. Better to have invulnerability than critical for 10 seconds. Uber is still the best thing for any medics, be it experts or amateurs medics.

Personal Tip: Prioritize your targets, uber only people who can deal lots of damage in a short time, soldiers and pyros will be my best target to uber, unless you're a Turtler who ubers the heavy.

[Ubersaw]
Whacking people AND charges your uber at the same time, killing two birds in one stone is this weapon's name. Or is it? To be frank, not exactly. But it is still generally a good weapon if you're the kind of guy who watches out for spies. Don't use this and charge head on and hoping that you'll score 4 hits and quickly gets an uber. That doesn't work unless you've got a medic supporting you or the battle is in chaotic mode AS WELL as your luck holds up for ya.

Personal Tip: Target only those who wants to engage in melee combat with you. I.E, Scouts, Engineers and Spies. However, thing about this weapon is you'll cause quite a whopper of a damage in 2-3 hits, not really giving you enough to have an uber, unless you can find dumb heavies.

[Bonesaw]
Fast, critical and deadly against spies. I still prefer this weapon over ubersaw, especially in a very confused battle, you can exploit the high critical chance of this weapon against unsuspecting enemies. Scoring kills with this is not really much of humiliation since this weapons was really a high crit weapon to begin with.

Personal Tips: Not much tip here since it's really general,though just use this weapon only and only when the enemy decides to kill you using his melee weapon, and avoid melee another medic unless you're in full healthy condition.

[Blutsauger]
German word for "Blood sucker" or Vampire, this weapon trades the high crit chance of a syringe gun for the ability of healing you. ( +3 per hit) I personally think this weapon is the best of all the unlocks here, because there is not really alot of flaws in this weapon, it's decent, average and just plain good when your buddy is dead and you're like a wounded gazelle retreating back to the Resupply room.

Personal Tip: Valve decides to just replace it with health leaching abilities (corny idea eh?) , but don't blame them, thank them, because this weapon is quite critical against enemies whore are under cover or behind hilly areas, use the gravity as your factor in killing your enemy.

[Syringe Gun]
Like the SMG wielded by the snipers, this weapon is more or so, effective only when you know how to exploit its crit chance and the way it fires the needles. Not exactly the Lever-Action shotgun nor Minigun, its high rate of fire is still deadly, 5-10 hit per needle, and given that it takes roughly 4-6 seconds to finish the whole magazine and add in the 30 hit whenever you got a crit chance, it's still a decent weapon against spies, engineers, scouts, snipers and other medics, demoman too if you know how to kill him before he detonates both you and himself.

Personal Tip: Like the Blutsauger, just use the range and the high crit chance to eliminate enemies in cover. Usually I use it to lure out other medics and let my buddy kill him then his buddy.

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Well, Valve has made it clear for us that newbie medics can easily change their weapons while in mid-game (But are restricted that you must die and respawn in order for the change to take effect) So, after ubering out the rathole you're in, you can switch to the Critz and dish out pains of unimaginable proportion and you're the man who would lead your team to total victory. And you heal too!

However I am expecting that after maybe a few more weapon unlocks for the other classes, Valve will tuned that change like Call Of Duty 4, where a player must exit the game to change their weapons. It's fine and dandy for that to happen to ease out the balancing issues but from my experience, your seat in the game might be taken as well as the long loading times, so let's cross our fingers and hope Valve for the best.


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