It's Hard Out There for a Pirate/Medic

Posted 04/16/2008 at 2:59pm | by David Murphy

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I got a chance to check out all the fancy new updates for Team Fortress 2 last night, and as a casual player (and awesome Medic), I'm quite impressed with what Valve's been up to! For starters, Medics get 36 new achievements to pine for, listed below:

1. First Do No Harm: Play a full round without killing any enemies and score the highest on a team of 6 or more players.
2. Quadruple Bypass: Heal a teammate who's taking fire from 4 enemies at once.
3. Group Health: Work with 2 other medics to deploy 3 simultaneous uber-charges.
4. Surgical Prep: Have an uber-charge ready before the setup phase ends.
5. Trauma Queen: Deploy 3 uber-charges in less than 5 minutes, and assist in 5 kills during that time.
6. Double Blind Trial: Deploy an uber-charge within 8 seconds of a nearby enemy medic deploying his.
7. Play Doctor: In a team with no medics, be first to switch to medic after a teammate calls "Medic!" and then heal 500 health.
8. Triage: Deploy an uber-charge on a teammate less than a second before they're hit by a critical explosive.
9. Preventive Medicine: Block the enemy from capturing a control point with an uber-charged teammate.
10. Consultation: Assist a fellow medic in killing 5 enemies in a single life.
11. Does It Hurt When I Do This?: Kill 50 scouts with your syringe gun.
12. Peer Review: Kill 50 medics with your bone saw.
13. Big Pharma: Assist a heavy in killing 30 enemies where neither of you die.
14. You'll Feel A Little Prick: Assist in killing 4 enemies with single uber-charge on a scout.
15. Autoclave: Assist in burning 8 enemies with a single uber-charge on a pyro.
16. Blast Assist: Assist in exploding 5 enemies with a single uber-charge on a soldier.
17. Blunt Trauma: Assist in punching out 4 enemies with a single uber-charge on a heavy.
18. Medical Breakthrough: Assist in destroying 8 enemy engineer buildings with a single uber-charge on a Demoman.
19. Midwife Crisis: Heal an engineer as he repairs his sentry while it's under enemy fire.
20. Ubi Concordia, IBI Victoria: Assist in killing 5 enemies on an enemy control point, in a single life.
21. Grand Rounds: Heal 200 teammates after they've called for "Medic!"
22. Infernal Medicine: Extinguish 100 burning teammates.
23. Doctor Assisted Homicide: Assist in killing 20 nemesis.
24. Placebo Effect: Kill 5 enemies in a single life while having your uber-charge ready, but undeployed.
25. Sawbones: Hit enemies with your bonesaw 10 times in a row without dying or missing.
26. Intern: Accumulate 7000 heal points in a single life.
27. Specialist: Accumulate 10000 heal points health in a single life.
28. Chief of Staff: Accumulate 10 million total heal points.
29. Hypocritical Oath: Kill an enemy spy that you have been healing.
30. Medical Prevention: Save a falling teammate from dying on impact.
31. Second Opinion: Uber-Charge 2 teammates at once.
32. Autopsy Report: Provide an enemy with a freezecam shot of you taunting above their ragdoll.
33. FYI I Am A Medic: Use your bonesaw to kill 5 enemy spies who have been calling for "Medic!"
34. Family Practice: Uber-charge ten of your steam community friends.
35. House Call: Join a game that one of your friends is in and then deploy and uber-charge on him.
36. Bedside Manner: Be healing a teammate as he achieves an achievement of his own

The Weapons

When you complete chunks of achievements, you unlock new equipable weapons for the Medic class. The three new weapons replace the Medic's default syringe gun, healing gun, and bonesaw, and can be swapped out in the middle of gameplay by hitting up a new equip screen off of the game's main menu. While each gun is fundamentally more powerful than their original counterparts, the weapons come with a bit of balancing: you aren't just trading in your green for a purple.

The Blutsaugher: You lose the ability to nail someone with a critical hit, but the Medic now gains health every time a syringe hits an enemy. Pew pew pew.

The Critzcrieg: Replacing the healing gun, you still... heal. However, your Ubercharge now gives the targeted player a 100% change to nail criticals for the duration. You're both vulnerable, but your recipient (especially if its a heavy), is a Terminator.

The Ubersaw: It swings 20% slower, but you gain 1/4 of your Ubercharge bar whenever you whack an enemy. Kill four people with it and you're good to go!

Feel free to mix and match your preferred weapons if you just really, really like the oldschool bonesaw.

Goldrush

Valve also showed off a new map and play mode last night. The former's called Goldrush, and the latter's called Payload. Each team takes turns attacking and defending (or pushing and pulling) a giant, moveable cart. Basically, it's a mobile capture-point game. Stand near the cart and it moves forward along a track. The more people from a team stand near it, the faster it goes. Your enemies can stop the cart (and roll it back!) by doing the same.

Click on the image for a super high-quality shot of the new map!

Super Engineer Bonus

We noticed in last night's game that Valve is also tinkering with upgrades for the Engineering class. While it's not concrete that these additions will go into the game's next Medic-friendly update, Valve is nevertheless looking at adding upgrade options for the Engineer's teleporter and dispenser. The former, when upgraded to Level 3, would reduce teleport recharge times from ten seconds to three. And a fully upgraded dispenser would heal all around it just slightly slower than a Medic--akin to Shadowrun's Tree of Life.