At least I dropped sideshow on the 4th headshot ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Has anyone made a serious attempt at using the vaccinator before? It seems to me that it would be pretty sick on last holds if you wipe on mids (as long as you're good at scattering & don't mind that you'll lose the overheals), just throw bullet resistance on a pyro, or actually any class that can soak some damage, and bodyblock people in the door.

explosive resistance engy
uber engy on lvl 3 gun

RIP

My opinion is that it's a bug, because I can't imagine Valve making it so that activating the "uber" is worse than just leaving passive resistance on. Overall it seems like a weapon that could be good at negating kritz, particularly on last defences where you won't get an uber up to defend with.

I'm guessing this is because the Vax was recently whitelisted in ETF2L? In the end I think all the deep theorycrafting will be for nought...the Vax has be legal in ESEA for some time, and even with crit immunity its a joke. There isn't a single high level medic in ESEA using it seriously because its honestly just bad for 6s. You give the example of a fully charged headshot being dropped to such a low number, but in real matches, the person is taking a lot more damage then that single headshot. A scout and soldier both attacking someone is going to waste them because the Vax only resist one type of damage, no crits or not. If its used to fight a Kritz thats one thing, but even then that will only save the medic and the heal target from the rain of krit stickies....and even WITH crit immunity, a rain of aggressive stickies is not a nice thing to be in, and you won't be coming out on top.

For the record, I have seriously attempted to use the Vax in both serious matches and pubs(because I'm a fuccboi for unlocks). In pubs its ok and usable if you know how to work it, but against an organized team? You may as well not even have a medic it feels like. Unless some kind of super-medic comes along that unlocks the magic of the Vax, its not a big deal, because even with 4G trying the Vax it was pretty much a joke.

Looks like a bug indeed.

But the current way the vaccinator works as stated in the wiki is a bit odd to me too.

For example this is very strange. That means whatever the amount of damage the crit/minicrit explosion was about to do you'd lose 75% of your charge still.

At least the bug you highlighted somewhat compensates for the poor crit tanking mechanic during uber.

I think it'd be better to fix the bug and make it so the uber can be used more effectively, either by depleting uber based on damage that would have been done, or simply by cleaning a 25% mini charge for each crit tanked.

I'm pretty sure there was one match a couple months after release where it was (successfully) used on a last hold with extreme disadvantage. Pretty sure the map was either snake or gully. Maybe both.

Other than that it has seen next to no use afaik (outside of 4s before it got banned but that's not the topic of discussion).

Related to the main topic, it doesn't seem like valve to intentionally have the uber be worse than passively using it. I'd count it as a bug.

definitely a bug, I always thought it was weird that the passive resistance completely nullified crits to begin with.

Valve hear my prayer ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ

Yes, but let me preface this with saying that the main reason this weapon gives me a massive boner is because it lets me micro-manage moreso than ever. The games I played for years straight before TF2 were nothing but RTSes and being able to switch resistances on the fly and be REWARDED for it triggered the same part of brain micro-managing my units did. If you want me to be blunt, people don't want to actively try and manage it well and have always viewed it as a joke weapon. Microing it correctly and winning fights as a direct correlation to your on the fly antics is one of the most rewarding things I've ever experienced as medic.

I've been a massive proponent of it since it's been legal, I have used it in scrims and in ESEA matches. It's impossible to convince teams as a whole to actually seriously get on board though because honestly, no matter how awesome the benefits are and how good you are at micro-ing it the negatives to buffing hurts too much.

The situations I have used it to massive effect in:

Wipe middle of granary (old granary) and have no time to set up a defense of last, put it on a heavy and kite like a motherfucker. It is truly, truly amazing on a heavy. The problem that most, if not all people have with this weapon is they try to be cute (myself included) and refuse to go back and switch off medibeams after you successfully hold. Re-read that because it's the most important thing about this weapon. You as a medic will think you are hot stuff using this weapon to pull off a 'miraculous last hold' (this quite often happens) and you'll refuse to go switch medibeams and try to push out to 2 and mid with it and you will lose. You need to acknowledge the weakness and not try to force it.

One last thing to note is that in order to switch between the two main useful resistances you have to go through the moderately useless fire-resistance. In the heat of battle is is very easy to fuck with up because you cannot switch resistances mid mini-uber so you'll start spamming keys and overshoot the one you wanted. There are some scripts out there but none that truly are functional. I have been working with people for a while to make a functional script but the nature of the switching is buggy sometimes.

In conclusion it is a very dope weapon, but after like 300-400 hours of just vaccinator usage (sadly not joking) I will glumly admit the negative is just too much for 6s to consider running full-time. If there is a team out there that would be 100% cool with running a full-time heavy and completely changing the way 6v6 is played (think different class setup than the norm almost 100% of the time) it could possibly be used.

EDIT: Also things out there like a drunk shade using it to troll Cafe Monster and 'having no idea what it does' doesn't really help the image ahahahaha

EDIT2: I wrote far too much about this weapon because it's one of my favorite things ever in this game, but if anyone wants to run some testing and strategizing please get ahold of me.

God bless.

I used it in season 16 a lot if my team wiped on mid. Defending last the resistances were pretty useful, but pushing out with the gun was difficult and could go wrong if we didn't play it the right way. We kind of sent our team through chokes in a single file line where I would tank in the demo through crazy amounts of spam and everyone else would come in off of the space he made. With the slow heal rate spreading heals around kind of sucked, so I'd try to crit-heal people and then focus on tanking one player or popping ubers on people when they needed help since I could use them willy nilly.

If the overheal penalty wasn't stupid terrible, I would see it as a viable medibeam. I personally use it as a direct counter to kritz. But aye, thats just me.

I've always thought you should be able to keep the resistance buff as long as the medic is alive and you're overhealed.

EDIT: Alive in this instance means they haven't changed mediguns since that counts as a new life.

Let me spin you a yarn about the Vaccinator.

After not playing TF2 for ages I decided to do my favorite thing in the world which as everyone knows is mindless pub sniping—the only thing I was ever any good at. After doing well, I came across a medic/sniper combo with a weird bullet icon on their heads. I headshot the sniper. He killed me. Enraged, I mustered my resolve and vowed that dirty goon would not kill me again.

I found the combo (because the med thought it was fun to troll by creating a permanant invincible sniper) and put the moves to work. I head shot him not once, not twice, but six times without missing a shot. He stood there, mockingly. The medic showed her head and with the 7th consecutive shot I put a fat 150 damage bullet into her eye socket. She also stood there. They all stood there. Panting and in disbelief I typed out, "WHY?" and was quickly answered with a headshot that sent me back to the respawn room.

This went on, and when the round at last ended, I lashed out again saying, "I wonder how so and so would play without a pocket vaccinator med." He replied "LOL MGE me." This was the first time anyone had ever said that to me unironically, thus I replied, "LOL okay. Pick a server."

A server was picked and to my surprise the player said, "not sniper though." "Ha!" I thought. "Time to put those ex invite skills to work for justice." We joined badlands mid as scouts and the battle commensed.

Quickly I was down 11-6. My months of fighting monsters on the planet Shear in Evolve had left me ill equipped for scout movement and out of shape using my TF2 sensitivity (also there was no telling what interp to use). But I would not go so quietly. I tied up the game. I would go on streaks, he would go on streaks. Down 19-15, I dug down deep, giving it my all and bringing the score back to 19-19. Stakes were high, but there is only one god, the god of death; and what do we say to him? "Not today, damnit. NOT TODAY."

We charged. He killed me. I lost.

We went soldier twice after, and I lost again with increasing margins of embarassment. After the 3rd round he stopped and said, "oh, are you bloodsire?." I admitted I was, and he told me I used to be one of his favorites. Turns out he was a nice guy, now he's on my friends list.

But fuck the Vaccinator.

https://youtu.be/TWHb0I9jH-g?t=3m32s I feel the need to post this.

Pleasant read bloodsire thanks for posting that

I thought I fucking told you fucks I didn't want to hear your fucking life stories in the first fucking line. Yet I find myself here reading fucking diary entries from Keith Smerbeck and Justin M. motherfucking Danford...

IS IT A FUCKING BUG THOUGH?! D:<

It may be a bug - but is it because they're using the same damage reduction mechanic as the batallion's backup - which reduces damage and negates the extra damage from crits?
I can't tell if they were took a shortcut rather than write a new effect or it's an unintended bug.

One thing, with matchmaking coming and no weapon bans - if random crits stay on with MM - then getting details like this fixed or cleared up as an explicit part of the weapon would be nice.

you speak like this is an option

this is not an option

>this is not an option

it is according to the reptile frag vid 8)

If it's no class limits and no weapon bans, I wouldn't be surprised if crits are on as well.

vaccinator is sort of a joke/last ditch effort for 6v6 with any sort of teamwork involved but it is quite possibly the bane of my existence in a pub, especially when paired with a darwin's danger shield

i've seen it tried out a lot in 6v6 games, but if you play together with your team and you do two types of damage at once, the vaccinator combo really can't do anything and will just completely melt

it could work as a surprise play/last ditch effort, but once people know that it's out on the field, it's not hard to deathball through any vaccinator plays

in regards to the OP it shouldn't matter because if they are using the vaccinator just to avoid sniper headshots, then they are going to get completely wrecked in regards to an actual push with ubercharge

thats why you hold close with your pocket and as soon as they kritz in you +fwd the fuck out of them

vaccinator is like medic-->pyro offclassing, it's a desperation thing when you have full disadvantage. shitty, but better than nothing. and it still has 24 hp/sec critheals.

EDIT: it could also MAYBE work like kritz where you can "dry push" with it if both meds spawn at same time