ozfortress - team fortress 2 in australia

To expand the thread from just bonesaw vs ubersaw:

Any mentor opinions on (in terms of suitability for use in a comp medic's loadout):

blutsauger vs needlegun vs crossbow (http://www.tf2wiki.net/wiki/Medic) ?
Currently needlegun is the most popular in aus tf2 (since the -2hp/sec passive regen nerf to blutsauger a while back). But crossbow has been starting to gain popularity as well (and not just for the "epic middy" potential).

crossbow and amputator always

Is there any credence behind using certain loadouts for certain maps?

Like the blutsauger on maps with medium sized, easy to reach health packs like Badlands or Freight (regen less necessary) and the needle gun on maps with small or difficult/time consuming to reach health packs like Gravel Pit or Granary (regen more helpful)?

Or is that just getting pointlessly technical?

Blutsauger is so horrible, don't even consider it.

Personally I prefer to use needles and ubersaw.. why?

My problem with the crossbow is that if I'm trying to fight off a scout, then I only have ONE chance to hit him, and then it takes like 4 seconds (?) to reload, and by that time, the scout has probably already killed you (assuming you're playing against a good scout like rep).
When I'm using the needles, I can spam the corners behind me, and if the scout chooses to follow, they will automatically take at least 40-50 damage, which in a lot of cases may be enough to deter them away.

The needle gun holds 40x needles, which means you have a total of ~* 40 CHANCES TO HIT THE ENEMY *~, as opposed to the one shot with the crossbow. Each needle does 10-15 (?) damage, so if you do the math, (10 -> 15) x 40 = 400 - 600 damage potential damage, which is enough to kill anything buffed.

Because I don't use the crossbow, then it doesn't really matter what I use the melee weapon. If I equip the amputator, then I'm not going to benefit from the '+1 regen set bonus', and I'm never ever going to risk taunting to heal all of my teammates in a scrim / match. So I just use the ubersaw for the reasons mentioned above - if I'm close to uber, and I manage to hit something, I'll use uber and have a much higher % of survival

Blight.TheFragile actually posted an MGE tutorial on this particular topic. If i can remember correctly, the main point was that using the crossbow on maps such as badlands (large open areas) can be very beneficial, because it is quite viable to whip out our crossbow and fire an arrow into the clustered enemy team on rollout, for example, dealing as much as ~70 damage to a single player.

Hope this helps!

i really dont think it matters, i've always thought the highest regen was best and from there its preference, ie. meersy likes using the needles and bonobo likes the crossbow

edit: or do you only get the extra regen from crossbow? (i have no idea)

You get an extra +1 regen per second using the crossbow and amputator at the same time.

if ur team sucks use needles and ubersaw i.e the opposite of bonobo

Imo having +4 instead of +3 regen in combat is actually not that big of a deal. Both give you ample health regain outside of combat when increased, and neither will save you from point blank nuking.

I remember when medics actually required good movement to avoid spam because +1 was the combat regen rate flat.

While we're into the nitty gritty, while it's a comparitively minor thing (because 95%+ of the game a medic will be using a healgun anyway), the crossbow is not effected by the ramp applied to the healing beam guns. i.e. If a target has taken any damage in the last 10s they only heal at @24hp/sec with the medi/kritz guns, which then ramps up (link). The amount the crossbow heals is based only on the distance the arrow travels (min 75hp, max 150hp according to tf2wiki).

While this info is hardly game-breaking, it's another small benefit of the crossbow which (as I said before) seems to be gaining popularity. In that context, a couple of planned (i.e. not trying to clutch middy heal someone) situations I've seen it used are: when just getting out of a combat situation (i.e. example was iM just won granary mid and were capping the point) bonobo might use it on a lit player before switching back to healbeam.

The other was if a player had taken a lot of damage near a contested choke (soldier near badlands corner was the example I recall seeing) when they've backed out of corner, bonobo might get a medium ranged arrow onto the soldier (who stands still expecting it) before the going back to healbeam.

Again, not match changing stuff in itself, but small 'extra' things that you see the All Australian medic doing

Pretty much what Meersy said, though I've been using the crossbow a bit more lately. It really depends - if you're being chased by a scout you're far better off with needles, and it's personal preference/experience whether sacrificing this is worth it for the odd crossbow heal/spam.

As NoMercy said, the +1 bonus for crossbow + amputator isn't really a dealbreaker, although if you're using the crossbow anyway you might as well go for it unless clutch ubersaw hits are something which regularly happens in your team (lol).

simple terms.

want your team to stay alive longer? use amp and xbow.

want to get some inconsequential kill on a scout who has just fucked up your team and attempting to finish the job with you? use needles + bonesaw

play pub? use bluts + ubersaw

wait, why would you take bonesaw over ubersaw?

apart from the swing speed there's no drawback right?

ok..pre c4c2 you'd go ubersaw

crunch qft without actually quoting his post

dno why there's a discussion on this - you can't even choose your weapons in c4c for a start anywho.

then again if it's for owl, it still doesn't matter. amp + xbow beats all

New medic weapons: is using the Overdose on rollout a good move (getting to mid faster, etc)? Does any of them beat using medieval medic?

Way too early to speculate on this but I'm pretty excited at the prospects of the medic move speed and potential quick-fix tactics (move at the speed of any faster heal target? does he have to be damaged?). I'm not the biggest fan of being able to see enemies health, when the vita-saw was supposed to have it I was a bit confused at the medic being able to see enemy health like he's going to do something about it? Maybe I'm missing something.

Anyway interested to see others thoughts on this as well, for now amp and crossbow are still the best.

you have to actually mouse-over opponents to see their health so its probably easier just to call damage depending on how busy the med is with heal rotations

Yeah I just gave the solemn oath a go in a pub and unless you have pro sniper aim (I don't) you can only really get a decent look at enemy health from close/medium range. And that's when you're mostly checking your own team for heal targets. At long range almost everyone will have full health anyway. (When you're trying to escape with needles you have aim ahead of your target too so you can't even check how much health is left on people chasing you. Crossbow might be different.)

Could be useful with a bit of practice but for now, like madjack said, it'd probably be easier to call damage output and save the melee slot for the healing set or the clutch ubersaw hits.

Might make it more useful if you can call out weak targets if you have a Sniper. But then you make yourself visible to enemy Snipers and spam.

solemn oath = useless
quick fix = as i said in another thread, MAYBE useful in 1/100 situations (constantly attacking a last point/gpit c or something like that, i dont see it working in defense ever)
new needlegun = potential.

Just a quick note,

I think we give most scouts too much credit here.
Alot of the time when i find my self in 1v1 with a scout, or even 2v1 the scout(s) is not going to kill me right away. As in, with proper movement skills you can essentially dodge long enough to get 2 arrows into him.

eg:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lohCaOdvyFk
(not the best example, but you get the idea)

So what i'm getting at is it really depends on how well your movement is as a medic, if you find you cant move as well then sure, use the syringe gun. But i find i win situations (like above) more then enough to say that the xbow and amp is for me.

you play against shit scouts

I'm sure the crossbow is pretty good in division 4. But against good scouts, you will have significantly less chance of surviving. Bonobo runs crossbow because he can rely on his team to deal with scouts or because he is always in a position where scouts cannot attack him.

No other team has been able to do this with success.

Oh, dont get me wrong. I understand that. It was just my two cents

This.

If you manage to get two crossbow bolts in decent scout before they kill you, you were incredibly lucky.

All righty then.