Schrute's Guide to Vaccinator
Posted: Sat Aug 02, 2014 10:31 pm
I posted this in GCI's forums before Week 1 in an effort to convince the team to let me run the vaccinator, at least on a scrim for Week 1 (Foundry), to see if it was viable. (Spoiler: it was.) I may or may not have been several drinks deep while originally posting this.
WHAT is the Vaccinator?
WHY do I want to run it (at times)?
WHAT will it do to benefit the team?
WHO needs to at least glaze through this post to understand what will happen?
WHY would we want to run something other than Uber or Kritz?
ANSWERS TO ALL THOSE QUESTIONS AND MORE.... ahead.
The Vaccinator. A community created weapon that somehow made it self into one of the 4 medic secondary weapons.
Q. Well wtf does it do besides put a symbol over someones head?
A. The medic can cycle through 3 resistances, Bullets - Explosion - Fire, and give increased resistance to one of those three kinds of damage - 10% for passive damage, 75% when ubered. I personally rebound the key from middle mouse click, to something more easily accessible and reliable. [If you must know, I am a lefty and re-bound everything to the number-pad. Walk forward is 5, and switch vaccinator resistance type is 8. Don't ask... unless you are also a lefty.]
Q. Please explain what the uber is like on the vaccinator. It is weird and change is WEIRD!!
A. The medic can uber after every 25% of charging. Ubering will not drain the medic of all charge, just 25%. The medic can right click again and use another 25%. They can chain together 4 ubers at 100%, or uber once at 25%. The uber isn't fully committed, and will run out after 25%, so for example, the medic can be at 75% charge, uber twice using 50% of the charge, and then continue to build charge from 25%. The uber itself is no different whether at 25% or 100%, it just lasts longer (if the medic keeps right clicking).
Q. K... so what does the uber do?
The uber itself is NOT invulnerability. Rather, it greatly allows the target to soak up damage of the resistance type that the medic has selected (75% damage absorbed).
Regardless of resistance type, the target of the uber WILL DIE FROM (and we should test to confirm):
* A fully charged headshot. (Not for Heavy)
* A well placed sticky trap of 3+ bombs. (Maybe 4+? Lets test...)
* Charging a Level 3 sentry without taking some sort of cover. (Maybe not for heavy, we should test...)
We should actually test all of these... as I am unsure of the exact amount of damage it will take to kill each healing target. (Still not positive.)
I wanted to get that out of the way first. The persons who are receiving healing need to remember that what is posted above will kill them.
So... here is why the Vaccinator is so great.
1. The vaccinator heals 50% faster than an uber or kritz.
1a. When not ubering, the medic and heal target receive a 10% resistance to the current selected damage type. Additionally, the medic will be healed for 25% of correctly matching healing type of incoming damage. AKA if the medic has "Explosive Damage" selected, and the heal target takes a rocket to the face, the medic will be healed for 25% of the damage the heal target incurred.
2. When ubering, the medic and heal target receive a 75% damage resistance to the selected damage type AND ALL CRITS/MINI CRITS ARE NEGATED. The medic will still self-heal 25% of all correct damage type matching on the heal target. It can be the anti Kritzkrieg, and 99% of players have no idea that crits are negated.
2a. While ubering and taking damage, the uber will drain more quickly if the medic is taking damage. Bare with me for the numbers here, but for each 25% of uber, the medic will lose 75% of that uber per explosion absorbed, 3% per bullet absorbed and 1% per fire/flame absorbed. This isn't of the full 100% uber charge, but just of each 25%. AKA If a medic takes an explosive blast to the dome WHILE ubering their healing target, the medic will incur a 75% uber loss of 25% of an uber, aka 18.75 units of the 25 uber units. (Sorry, word problems were never my strong point in mathematics.) Not a total 75% loss of all uber, just a 75% loss of that quarter uber.
3. The vaccinator will heal someone at the same rate, regardless if another medic is healing them or if they are at full health. Basically, if a vaccinator is healing you, the heal speed is consistent regardless of any other factors.
4.The vaccinator will keep more people alive for longer. The main trade-off with the vaccinator is keeping more people alive for a longer period of time, vs giving temporally invulnerability with a true uber.
5. The vaccinator is like receiving a huge armor buff (think WoW or another MMORPG... or StarCraft!). The recipient can soak up SO MUCH DAMAGE. One of the non-Ville servers I enjoy playing on is an orangex3 server. Occasionally hackers get in and go heavy with speedhack/autoaim. I switch my class to medic vaccinator, and that heavy is doing 1 or 2 dmg per round on my target. Snipers get easy headshots on the hacker with the "armor buff". Hacker then ragequits for failing to kill snipers. Pretend hacker = [redacted]... at least for week 1.
6. The mini-ubers can be bounced among teammates like a normal uber. (Kritz and Quick-Fix cannot be bounced.) This means I can keep two people at 75% damage resistance at once. After only 25% charge. See what I'm getting at?
7. Much like.......... the Spanish Inquisition.......... they will never see it coming! Seriously, the Vaccinator? Who the hell uses that? What does it do? Oh wait... the medic just double pocketed 2 demos and took out 1/2 their team at 50% uber. This can completely throw off timings of the other teams. Roll through some medics early on in the 5CP maps, and its an easy round win.
8. Read this http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Vaccinator
9. Work with the medic. If you are at full health with a vaccinator medic healing AND sticking with you, poke out a little more. You will absorb much more damage, and if poop hits the fan, the medic can pop a short uber to keep you alive. Don't over extend past some cover, but take some small risks if you see some potential kills.
10. THE MEDIC CANNOT CHANGE RESISTANCE TYPES WHEN UBERING. The medic sometimes must guess whether to go bullet or explosion resistance (picking fire resistance is generally pretty obvious). If the medic picks explosive and UBERS, and a heavy is around the corner, you will probably die. The medic cannot change resistances while ubering, outside of changing weapons, changing back to vaccinator, and then switching resistance types (which takes some time and is not a natural/smooth movement on the keyboard).
11.When being healed with a vaccinator, look at your HUD and figure out what resistance you are being healed for. Much as a medic has a hard time spy-checking for their heal target, a medic can only choose the resistance based on what they see and hear. Help your medic, announce what you see!
12. The vaccinator is TERRIBLE if you are the only medic. ONLY GO VACCINATOR if you have at least one other medic on your team. It doesn't matter if they are uber, kritz or QF. Never play vaccinator as a solo medic, you will get rolled. (Not all the time, as I am learning.)
13. The Vaccinator works great in choke points. Holding an area of a map is sometimes the difference between victory and defeat. Keeping multiple people alive in an narrow area can be the difference in a map, and he vaccinator is (can be) THE BEST MEDIC GUN to do this because it can uber after every 25% of charge. (Ok, this is more circumstantial.)
14. A vaccinator at 100% of charge can vaccinate/stay 'ubered' for as long as a normal uber. This means that traditional ubered demos cannot kill you without landing consecutive pipes or you getting stuck in a sticky trap. Keep moving and be a hard target to hit if the opposition is using a traditional uber. You can probably outlast them, and then help push as soon as their uber wears off.
I reserve the right to update or change this post in the future. I think the vaccinator is too good to not take advantage of early on in the Cup. I'm not sure how often it will be used, but lets test it in the scrim and see if it works.
TL;DR:
A) read the post.
B) read this http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Vaccinator
C) ok fine, here are the cliff notes:
Vaccinator = can pop an uber after every 25% and/or can chain together up to 4 ubers at 100%. Can also pop a single uber at 100% and recharge from 75%
Vaccinator = 50% faster heal time than Uber/Kritz.
Vaccinator = 10% damage reduction passively when damage resistance is correct
Vaccinator = 75% damage reduction when ubered
Vaccinator uber negates all kritz/crits/mini crits.
Vaccinator uber can be bounced like normal medigun.
Vaccinator does not make you invulnerable, be aware of your surroundings.
Vaccinator gives you a huge armor buff
Vaccinator has no resistances to melee
Vaccinator... the other team will not see it coming and will not know how to prepare, at least early on in the VilleCup. (✔)
ANY QUESTIONS PLEASE ASK ME. I AM MORE THAN HAPPY TO POCKET YOU IN PUBS SO YOU CAN GET A FEEL FOR THE HEALING AND MY REACTION TIMING. WE CAN GET ON TEAMSPEAK/MUMBLE AS WELL. IF IT DOESNT WORK I WILL RUN A FREAKING UBER OR KRITZ. I WILL PROBABLY COPY THIS POST TO THE PUBLIC FORUMS AFTER TVC ENDS (done).
[EDITS: Formatting and the like.]
WHAT is the Vaccinator?
WHY do I want to run it (at times)?
WHAT will it do to benefit the team?
WHO needs to at least glaze through this post to understand what will happen?
WHY would we want to run something other than Uber or Kritz?
ANSWERS TO ALL THOSE QUESTIONS AND MORE.... ahead.
The Vaccinator. A community created weapon that somehow made it self into one of the 4 medic secondary weapons.
Q. Well wtf does it do besides put a symbol over someones head?
A. The medic can cycle through 3 resistances, Bullets - Explosion - Fire, and give increased resistance to one of those three kinds of damage - 10% for passive damage, 75% when ubered. I personally rebound the key from middle mouse click, to something more easily accessible and reliable. [If you must know, I am a lefty and re-bound everything to the number-pad. Walk forward is 5, and switch vaccinator resistance type is 8. Don't ask... unless you are also a lefty.]
Q. Please explain what the uber is like on the vaccinator. It is weird and change is WEIRD!!
A. The medic can uber after every 25% of charging. Ubering will not drain the medic of all charge, just 25%. The medic can right click again and use another 25%. They can chain together 4 ubers at 100%, or uber once at 25%. The uber isn't fully committed, and will run out after 25%, so for example, the medic can be at 75% charge, uber twice using 50% of the charge, and then continue to build charge from 25%. The uber itself is no different whether at 25% or 100%, it just lasts longer (if the medic keeps right clicking).
Q. K... so what does the uber do?
The uber itself is NOT invulnerability. Rather, it greatly allows the target to soak up damage of the resistance type that the medic has selected (75% damage absorbed).
Regardless of resistance type, the target of the uber WILL DIE FROM (and we should test to confirm):
* A fully charged headshot. (Not for Heavy)
* A well placed sticky trap of 3+ bombs. (Maybe 4+? Lets test...)
* Charging a Level 3 sentry without taking some sort of cover. (Maybe not for heavy, we should test...)
We should actually test all of these... as I am unsure of the exact amount of damage it will take to kill each healing target. (Still not positive.)
I wanted to get that out of the way first. The persons who are receiving healing need to remember that what is posted above will kill them.
So... here is why the Vaccinator is so great.
1. The vaccinator heals 50% faster than an uber or kritz.
1a. When not ubering, the medic and heal target receive a 10% resistance to the current selected damage type. Additionally, the medic will be healed for 25% of correctly matching healing type of incoming damage. AKA if the medic has "Explosive Damage" selected, and the heal target takes a rocket to the face, the medic will be healed for 25% of the damage the heal target incurred.
2. When ubering, the medic and heal target receive a 75% damage resistance to the selected damage type AND ALL CRITS/MINI CRITS ARE NEGATED. The medic will still self-heal 25% of all correct damage type matching on the heal target. It can be the anti Kritzkrieg, and 99% of players have no idea that crits are negated.
2a. While ubering and taking damage, the uber will drain more quickly if the medic is taking damage. Bare with me for the numbers here, but for each 25% of uber, the medic will lose 75% of that uber per explosion absorbed, 3% per bullet absorbed and 1% per fire/flame absorbed. This isn't of the full 100% uber charge, but just of each 25%. AKA If a medic takes an explosive blast to the dome WHILE ubering their healing target, the medic will incur a 75% uber loss of 25% of an uber, aka 18.75 units of the 25 uber units. (Sorry, word problems were never my strong point in mathematics.) Not a total 75% loss of all uber, just a 75% loss of that quarter uber.
3. The vaccinator will heal someone at the same rate, regardless if another medic is healing them or if they are at full health. Basically, if a vaccinator is healing you, the heal speed is consistent regardless of any other factors.
4.The vaccinator will keep more people alive for longer. The main trade-off with the vaccinator is keeping more people alive for a longer period of time, vs giving temporally invulnerability with a true uber.
5. The vaccinator is like receiving a huge armor buff (think WoW or another MMORPG... or StarCraft!). The recipient can soak up SO MUCH DAMAGE. One of the non-Ville servers I enjoy playing on is an orangex3 server. Occasionally hackers get in and go heavy with speedhack/autoaim. I switch my class to medic vaccinator, and that heavy is doing 1 or 2 dmg per round on my target. Snipers get easy headshots on the hacker with the "armor buff". Hacker then ragequits for failing to kill snipers. Pretend hacker = [redacted]... at least for week 1.
6. The mini-ubers can be bounced among teammates like a normal uber. (Kritz and Quick-Fix cannot be bounced.) This means I can keep two people at 75% damage resistance at once. After only 25% charge. See what I'm getting at?
7. Much like.......... the Spanish Inquisition.......... they will never see it coming! Seriously, the Vaccinator? Who the hell uses that? What does it do? Oh wait... the medic just double pocketed 2 demos and took out 1/2 their team at 50% uber. This can completely throw off timings of the other teams. Roll through some medics early on in the 5CP maps, and its an easy round win.
8. Read this http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Vaccinator
9. Work with the medic. If you are at full health with a vaccinator medic healing AND sticking with you, poke out a little more. You will absorb much more damage, and if poop hits the fan, the medic can pop a short uber to keep you alive. Don't over extend past some cover, but take some small risks if you see some potential kills.
10. THE MEDIC CANNOT CHANGE RESISTANCE TYPES WHEN UBERING. The medic sometimes must guess whether to go bullet or explosion resistance (picking fire resistance is generally pretty obvious). If the medic picks explosive and UBERS, and a heavy is around the corner, you will probably die. The medic cannot change resistances while ubering, outside of changing weapons, changing back to vaccinator, and then switching resistance types (which takes some time and is not a natural/smooth movement on the keyboard).
11.When being healed with a vaccinator, look at your HUD and figure out what resistance you are being healed for. Much as a medic has a hard time spy-checking for their heal target, a medic can only choose the resistance based on what they see and hear. Help your medic, announce what you see!
12. The vaccinator is TERRIBLE if you are the only medic. ONLY GO VACCINATOR if you have at least one other medic on your team. It doesn't matter if they are uber, kritz or QF. Never play vaccinator as a solo medic, you will get rolled. (Not all the time, as I am learning.)
13. The Vaccinator works great in choke points. Holding an area of a map is sometimes the difference between victory and defeat. Keeping multiple people alive in an narrow area can be the difference in a map, and he vaccinator is (can be) THE BEST MEDIC GUN to do this because it can uber after every 25% of charge. (Ok, this is more circumstantial.)
14. A vaccinator at 100% of charge can vaccinate/stay 'ubered' for as long as a normal uber. This means that traditional ubered demos cannot kill you without landing consecutive pipes or you getting stuck in a sticky trap. Keep moving and be a hard target to hit if the opposition is using a traditional uber. You can probably outlast them, and then help push as soon as their uber wears off.
I reserve the right to update or change this post in the future. I think the vaccinator is too good to not take advantage of early on in the Cup. I'm not sure how often it will be used, but lets test it in the scrim and see if it works.
TL;DR:
A) read the post.
B) read this http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Vaccinator
C) ok fine, here are the cliff notes:
Vaccinator = can pop an uber after every 25% and/or can chain together up to 4 ubers at 100%. Can also pop a single uber at 100% and recharge from 75%
Vaccinator = 50% faster heal time than Uber/Kritz.
Vaccinator = 10% damage reduction passively when damage resistance is correct
Vaccinator = 75% damage reduction when ubered
Vaccinator uber negates all kritz/crits/mini crits.
Vaccinator uber can be bounced like normal medigun.
Vaccinator does not make you invulnerable, be aware of your surroundings.
Vaccinator gives you a huge armor buff
Vaccinator has no resistances to melee
Vaccinator... the other team will not see it coming and will not know how to prepare, at least early on in the VilleCup. (✔)
ANY QUESTIONS PLEASE ASK ME. I AM MORE THAN HAPPY TO POCKET YOU IN PUBS SO YOU CAN GET A FEEL FOR THE HEALING AND MY REACTION TIMING. WE CAN GET ON TEAMSPEAK/MUMBLE AS WELL. IF IT DOESNT WORK I WILL RUN A FREAKING UBER OR KRITZ. I WILL PROBABLY COPY THIS POST TO THE PUBLIC FORUMS AFTER TVC ENDS (done).
[EDITS: Formatting and the like.]
I think I have used it like 10 times total.
!