Was considering making a thread similar to this because I was curious as well. Last time I was playing on TF2Pickup, there were some rumours going around that ETF2L was favouring to allow medigun pickups. Haven't heard anything confirming or denying this since.

I can agree to being able to pick up a different medigun, such as picking it up to switch from Uber to Kritz without dying or going back to resup, but retaining the percentage can be crippling to a game. It might seem like a dumb way to think about it, but this reminds me similar reasons why the Vita-Saw is banned.

Uber is an important component to competitive play. With the Vita-Saw, you were able to retain up to 20% Ubercharge when you died. So that was 20% you didn't have to build when you respawned. With the case of being able to retain percentage when I pick up a Medigun, it's a similar case, except I don't have to die to instantly gain any percentage. In many circumstances, I could use my Uber, drop the opposing med, pick up their gun, and I would have Uber long before they had any opposing chance. Yes, they would lose some advantage by dying, but if you can instantly gain 40%+, that's not a fighting chance. I appreciate if a team is able to kill me, but I don't appreciate not having at least a slight chance to work back what I lost.

If a medic is in a position to die post patch then they were also in a position to die pre patch... this patch isn't creating new threats to the medic, it is adding a level of depth to the existing threats.

I agree, the mechanic adds a higher risk to being out of position and unaware as medic, and for newer players it is going to make that class a lot more difficult. But I also think that the way the mechanic currently works (that you only drop your active weapon, and that you can kill bind to zero out the stored charge) means that it is very possible to play around the mechanic to reduce the chances of handing over large percentages to the other team by either switching weapons in risky situations, or kill binding when there is no chance of survival (the latter is already something medics should be considering to improve their spawn times)

In short, the 2 big issues I see with the mechanic are as follows:
1) The ability to snowball off of a successful push by using the other teams built percent
- this can be mitigated by playing with better positioning and by learning to switch weapons in situations where you are likely to die and your team is unlikely to hold. Both snipers and spies become more viable off classes because of their ability to instantly kill a medic (but as any highlander medic will tell you, it is very possible to play maps while being conscious of sight lines and spies)

2) Reducing the effectiveness of bombs as a tool for breaking stalemates. Specifically on last, but also on other points depending on situation and map layout. Basically, unless your team is able to follow up on the bomb before the other medic spawns and returns to the fight you are not gaining more than ~20% with a successful bomb. In a lot of ways this suggests that it is better for a medic, in a strong defensive position, to drop rather than to pop in response to a successful bomb.
- If valve included a decay in stored percent when a weapon is dropped (either decaying over time, or a fixed reduction the moment the weapon is dropped) this would solve the issue.
- Alternatively, if we reduce the timer on when a weapon disappears that can make the gamble much riskier. A medic would have to weigh not only the potential for the other team to push while they are dead (and potentially claim the uber they intentionally dropped) but also the potential that they catch a bad spawn wave, or some other factor delays them in retrieving their uber and the weapon disappears.

reduce drop timer from 30 => 12 seconds (just a little bit longer than an uber, so a sack/drop/pickup play would have to be fast)
when a medigun is dropped it's % is 1/3 (maybe 3/8 or somewhere in that ballpark) of it's previous charge
weapons can only be dropped twice

solves all problems

Honestly this is such a snowball mechanic I don't really see how it has a place in this game. I hope they just make it reset to 0% uber everytime you die, doesn't matter the circunstance, otherwise I wouldn't like to play a league where it would be acceptable.