Playing as a medic

Pretty much this.

Or its just not some peoples playing style. Like mine.

Fair enough then

For the people who do enjoy playing support and not being a dedicated healbot, there are plenty enough ways to earn money in addition to the $1/~2sec. or whatever overhealing gives.

i get much more satisfaction from achieving an objective or saving a team mate than i do being rewarded in $ or stats for healing efforts.

Nowhere was it stated that the two must be mutually exclusive, and I believe that to be the OP's point.

I say give some money to the support for healing, if only to encourage more supports to heal, when doing nothing else.

you DO get money for healing.

You could award $100 pet tick for support healing and 90% of the people you currently see running round shotgun spamming would still be running round shotgun spamming.

I think a support should not be healing 24/7. If you play like this, you are not as useful to your team as you could be.

When I play as a support, I am very versatile depending on the situation. I'll often go back to my base to check/hack/overheal my 3.3 turrets, I'll keep my firebase in a good spot where it can stop a lane or be annoying to other pros, I'll try to flank Gunners and Tanks in order to 2-shoot them from behind. And of course, juice shotgun rush from time to time And I'll try to keep my heavy classes overhealed.

By doing so I'll be almost sure to stay on top of the scoreboard.

You have to accept that if you really want to be rewarded, you have to use the full potential of support, not only his HH gun.

Playing purely medic isn't rewarding in terms of score and SWEET KD STATS, but playing with a medic mind set is incredibly important to play the support properly.

In a pub its fine to just shotgun pros down and put your firebase on bot lanes for sweet cash, but against strong opponents in any level of competitive play your main objective should be to keep your team overhealed(ESPECIALLY your assassins) and having your firebase in locations that helps your team breach their base. These FB spots may not get many kills(against good players), but a good FB forces a team to focus to bring it down and thus weakens their overall control over the map.

90% of the people responding with tf2 medic hate posts have never touched medic in a 6v6 situation and have no actual understanding of how similar the role of the medic and the support actually is.

In tf2 medics always had a hilarious amount of points to the point of not ever mattering.

I kept track of comp tf2 and had plenty of people on my friends list who played the 6v6 model. The fact remains that tf2 strategies have less place in MNC than most tf2 players seem to think. The support isn't the medic. He lacks the end reward for healing, the ubercharge(or kritz). He's also capable of much more, offensively, using his firebase, airstrike, and shotgun. Playing him as solely a medic is gimping yourself.

I just do it all when i play support. I find it much more rewarding. Top up my pro's then top up the turrets, hack any turrets if my firebase isn't hacked already then push forward with my pro's.

Ideally i drop my firebase more forward near a lane so it basically kills everything in the lane and push with my pros. Shotgun blast any unaware pro's and melee down assassins and finish with a blast to face.

imo i find support the least boring out of the classes so far. You can do so much and there is proper orders to do them in to get the best benefits.

My favorite is a forward firebase that racks up kills and assists while i am back at base upgrading turrets and hacking my brains out. pop a couple gapshots and heal them up and watch the assists pour in.

I rarely latch onto a gunner/tank when moving forward. Just overheal them to full and let them do their thing. Keep them in check and latch on again. Toss in some air strikes to soften up everything.

An active support is far superior to a support latched onto one guy.

The bolded part details a CORE strategy to TF2, but not the individual medic's class strategy. The ability to heal your team mates to negate damage and deny kills was a core part to the medic and why overheals are so important.

The same is true for MNC where your opponents get stronger by killing you. By healing your teammates (and keeping them buffed) you deny kills and thus prevent their team from making money fast and getting a quick edge.

You should not play solely as a medic, but developing good medic habits will help you understand the other mechanics better. Lets face it, hacking turrets, buying gapshots, and setting up a firebase aren't difficult. Knowing the when and where to do them is where the skill is involved, and being a good medic helps you learn that.

You wouldn't think so, still doesn't stop every support I see doing none of the above. :roll:

Of course overhealing your teammates is a good idea. Latching on to one dude and playing pocket medic just isn't going to do as much for your team as overhealing and continuing on your way. You speak as if hacking turrets and camping a firebase is all the support can do; his shotgun is a beast, and the airstrikes are very good tools both offensively and defensively, while his firebase can be a safe spot on the front lines you can retreat to. You have plenty of offensive capabilities on your own. Why not use them instead of being nothing more than a buff bot?

I don't want to reply too many times to this thread, but I would like to clarify my point on being a medic. First off, using the combo example for tf2, the medic isn't the pocket but his main target is the pocket. Having an assault/gunner/tank run around to PROTECT your support is key in keeping your team alive. In tf2 soldiers pocketed and protected the medics, not the other way around.

The shotgun does do INSANE damage, but a smart opponent wont engage within your kill range. Every class has a weapon that out ranges the shotgun's kill range and a SMART opponent will abuse that. The shotgun in general is more of a defensive/ambush weapon that should not be relied upon. Just because "newbie" players don't understand when and when not to engage doesn't mean the shotgun makes the support equal to other classes for offensive power. In terms of ambushing an opponent, however, the shotgun is almost unrivaled. But its impossible to ambush people when you are dead.

Being a good support is all about being mobile and keeping your team on the front lines at all times(with healing and the firebase). Having a strong combo is just as powerful in MNC as it is in ANY game (that concept doesn't just relate to tf2).

Would you prefer having a support that does nothing but heal or one that buys nothing but longshots/laser blaster and buys gapshots when the enemy team owns the annihilator? The latter may actually cause your team to lose where the former can only help you win.

What kind of a choice is this? The deficiencies provided have nothing to do with support as a class and everything to do with ignorance/inexperience: something that isn't by any means exclusive to support players. Giving a support a dunce cap and telling them to focus on keeping everyone's health topped off doesn't mean that other people on their team won't make the same mistakes.

Maybe after the game has been out for 6 months armchair-quarterbacking the balancing might be a good idea. Until then, the newbie factor and all the inexperience is too big of a variable to get anything solved.

Honestly, couldn't follow the conversation, mostly due to lack of interest in several poorly crafted arguments for one way or the other.

Agree with previous poster however, with one caveat: that support, like all classes, should be used to their fullest potential depending on situation. There's a time to "sentry hump" just like there's a time to run around chasing teammates to heal them, or going offensive, etc. Frankly, doesn't matter in pubs because it's all about learning and having fun.

On Steel Peel, Support probably would be spending his time better being agressive. He's the only Pro who can easily clear the arches outside a spawn - those are epic choke points to penn people in.

This game is just TF2 anyways.