Not sure about future changes, but at it's current state I don't think it has a place in 6's.

i'm waiting for the community-wide realization that when matchmaking is released, the competitive scene can't impose arbitrary weapon bans on the system or expect those who play in a whitelist-free environment to then be subsequently interested in a competitive game mode with arbitrary bans

eventually the game will have to move toward allowing any and all items and let their usefulness and consequential buffing/nerfing be the reason to use or not use them

I want to see all Mediguns being allowed, mediguns significantly change how the game is played.

In my opinion allowing Quick-Fix would make 6s less stale, will unlock more strategies into the game and more diverse plays, for example teams might start practicing Demo + Medic rollout for Process/Snakewater/Via and etc. or for example forcing enemy Medic by launching your Soldier + Medic on them, using quick fix uber, forcing and going back. And then you can make more strategies for your Medic, if there is a Soldier trying to go for Medic force/drop, then your Medic can just heal your Solly and jump away from enemy bomber.

Not only it allows more strategies for teams, but also makes Medic a much enjoyable class to actually play. I don't know what's the problem with Quick-fix that it got banned in all leagues, would love to see at least few games with it being used , and not just used for healing, but for different strategies, as mentioned above for example. And if it's banned because you can get a quick fix uber faster and can pop it quicker during the mid fight, then you just have to be way more aggressive during the mid fight.

I want to see all Mediguns being allowed in all leagues, of course it will be harder to say which Medigun are they running, but you have a freeze time where you can go Spy and check their medigun, that's what I want to see more, more of these round and pre-round strategies being executed, it makes game much more interesting to play and watch.

As of Vaccinator, so far I havent seen it being used much in ETF2L games, either because teams don't want to try out something new or just simply don't know how it works like. But so far the only common use for it, is for last holds where you lost your medic during the mid fight and theirs survived.

Did you completely forget what happened with it before -.-

I know it has a big reputation as a "troll" or "terrible" weapon but I think the vaccinator could be very good once it's utilized correctly.

Buff Speed V. Almost Constant Ubers
A lot of people consider the buff speed to be a negative but it actually lends to the pocket-sponge-centric gameplay the vacc requires. If you're using the weapon (in my opinion) correctly your pocket should be walking through chokes and eating damage almost constantly. Something a lot of people dont realize is that the vaccinator is building even while you're "ubered," therefore having your pocket below max hp is actually beneficially during the exchanges as each bar you use actually contributes .5 of a bar over the course of the pop. I find that you can usually keep your pocket at around 175 or so as long as you manage your switches well.

Weaknesses
However the vaccinator also has some huge weaknesses. For example, if you're sitting around stalemating with the vaccinator you're screwed because of the awful buff speed of your flank vs theirs. I think this is why many people view the vacc as bad because they are trying to play the same way waiting for a full 4 bars or not managing building efficiently. Furthermore the vaccinator is godawful at mid so timing the switch becomes a concern.

Pushing with Vacc
Where I feel the vaccinator really shines is during off uber pushes where you can abuse the extremely short build times. While many people wait for 4 bars to push I find that this is not necessary as simply building 2 or 3 bars (10-15 seconds) gives you the ability to walk your pocket through choke and eat all of the 75% resisted explosive spam/stickies. This not only wastes an absurd amount of the enemy team's ammoclip, it also opens up the choke and creates a large amount of space for your team to abuse. Many people would say that cleanup post uber would be more difficult due to the buffs and I agree, however if you think of a push like a miniature 5 second full advantage solo where the other combo players have almost nothing loaded and are destroyed hp-wise it doesn't really matter as much.

Countering Vacc
Countering vacc is pretty easy but only once the enemy team has gained a foothold and had time to adjust. The super fast pushing speed of the vac puts the other team off balance and keeps them that way as long as your pocket keeps the pressure on. Keeping their flank and medic separated is a must. Wrap plays also would be very effective putting their buffed flank against your less buffed flank. However in this point in its development I doubt many teams would be able to adjust without giving up a few points if not rounds.

Notes
Soldier heavy maps such as gullywash with large flank/choke separation tend to play into the strengths of the vaccinator. I've also used it to great success on process pugs abusing the chokes from mid-2nd.

Annoying and gimmicky medigun that would break the uber meta.

Hey OP! I've mained Medic Vaccinator for about three years. I always thought that the Vaccinator had potential, especially now! People who know me know that I could go on for days with stratagies based around the Vaccinator and that I could explain why its great, but for this post I'm going to talk about the some of the issues it has. I might post some reasons why its great later. One of the issues it has pertains to the stats, obviously. Another issue doesn't necessarily have to do with the weapon itself, but with the way people play.

The Vaccinator's overheal rate (-66% overheal rate) is extremely slow. Overhealing and buffs are extremely critical in rollouts and mid fights. With the way that 6s is currently played, poor buffs on rollout can be detrimental and can guarantee a lost midfight. This can be worked around. This leads me to the next issue!

A good portion of the community does not want to take the time to learn something new and outside of the current "meta". The Vaccinator does not work well with the way that people currently play tf2. Everyone is so concerned about getting to mid first and will usually leave the medic behind. When you leave a Vaccinator medic behind, not only are you without heals, but you're also leaving behind the potential charges you could be getting from your medic. The charges themselves aren't bad. They're actually pretty great (at least agains the current class lineup in the meta). The main issue with the charges is that people don't utilize the them to their fullest. Countless times have I popped on a scout, told them to go pick someone, and then the scout does nothing and just looks at me funny. People underestimate how much 75% resistance is. Very few people have gone out of their way to actually give the Vaccinator a chance, in addition to many other weapons and ways of playing. People like Thief come to mind here. The Vaccinator has great potential, but only if people stray away from the way the game is normally played.

Unfortunally, there isn't much room for messing around and finding new ways to play when we have whitelists that ban so many weapons. Maybe going to mid with the Vaccinator, a Heavy with the Dalokohs Bar, and a Crit-a-Cola scout would be amazing! Maybe it would be awful! I don't know. Not only are very few people willing to test stuff like this, we aren't able to test it outside of very small test groups.

The main question isn't if the Vaccinator is viable, the main question is when will the community start to be open to new ideas and new ways of playing. Once matchmaking hits, 6s will be a much different format. It will be unrecognizable.

I'll go into detail as to why the Vaccinator is great in a later post. For now, members of the community need to ask themselves, are they ready for the change that tf2 will inevitably undergo?

i love vaccinator but running it to mid is a huge troll

I haven't seen it used in 6's or HL, but I think that regardless of its power, any of the weapons that block a specific damage type (Danger Shield reducing bullet damage, Demo Shields reducing explosive damage) or target specific classes/damage source (Short Circuit destroying projectiles, Spycicle making you invulnerable to flames) is really lame and not fun to play against. It offers little counterplay from the class affected as there's basically nothing they can do to get around it. I don't think that has anything to do with it's use or it's effectiveness, just an opinion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OalWDhYfdeg

This isn't necessarily true. There are many games that have a different format in their high level competitive form than in their public matchmaking version. This can range all the way from the minor difference in bomb and round timers in CS to playing almost a completely different game with promod mods like in CoD 4.

We don't have to accept Valve's decisions if they are bad. The majority of players in the community don't want to play with dumb unlocks and we can keep playing our game if we want to. If Valve makes enough adjustments then we could probably switch over and most players would be fine with it, but it's not like we have to stop playing the game that we have loved in its current form for years just because Valve releases a new in-game matchmaking system.

As far as vaccinator, needing 4 rockets to kill a medic seems pretty stupid and is kind of annoying but the gun seems pretty bad overall in my experience. Hard to know really without having played with it with teams actually planning around it instead of just retards using it in lobbies or pugs with a messed up whitelist.

I'm curious. Is this a bad thing? If so, how come?

.

We've been playing with the vaccinator for three seasons now and it was allowed at i55. A lot of strategies have been sttempted in top teams but it's just not good enough right now even in specific situations. The pretty much only time you'll see it used currently is defending against kritz with big disadvantage, or more rarely vs big uber disadvantage. The justification being at least you have something when they push. It ends up being very quickly countered by combining damage types, and is less effective than you might imagine.

I know that my team with our pocket and demo carrying were crushing the other team in a pug, and the other team swapped to the Vaccinator and just kept pushing us again and again and eventually won. It's actually a pretty decent medi-gun, not that our team was seriously trying to counter it. It's certainly a fun gun to use and is a lot more useful than people think. But to use it in competitive play? I don't know about that.

even once you merge fire and projectile resistances together (so that you can just toggle between the two remaining resistances with one key and have it not be incredibly non-intuitive), you're still putting the enemy team in a scenario where they either focus their scouts or their soldiers on you. although, idk how you'd buff it without getting another quick-fix scenario wherein you just pocket a heavy on last forever until the opposing team is just choked out

I reckon the Vaccinator is currently viable in every situation bar the midfight, but I imagine it could be made to work there. The biggest problem right now as I see it is that people (non-medics) don't understand the mechanics. They just panic because they don't have a buff even though they have a 10 or 75% resistance. They also don't build at max rate either (you need to be lower than your base health).

An oversimplification would be that 1v1 a standard full buff is essentially a 50% resistance. Vaccinator is giving you 2-4-6-8 seconds of 75% resistance (if you pick the right target/fight).

Equally a big part of the Vaccinators usefulness right now is that people don't know how to play against it either. It's very easy to tank through an unsuspecting demos sticky trap or bum rush a complacent soldier holding a choke point.

Best way to beat it is to blob up with multiple damage types. Good pyro in the mix actually pretty annoying to play against with Vaccinator.

It is also the best weapon hands down for medic survivability. Roamer bombs you? Bubble. Scout rushes you? Bubble. Sniper in the distance? Bubble. Don't have a bubble? 1 Ubersaw = 1 Bubble. This weapon is super clutch. With half a brain and decent positioning you can kite and survive any enemy charge.

Anyone tested how much vacc charge you get from a max heal crossbow?

I tried using it in a highlander scrim once, but wasn't well received. The world isn't ready yet for my vacc plays :D

I maintain that if a team is smart and play aggressively, isolating enemy players by picking fights with the right resistances the Vaccinator is viable in comp play.

good weapon to hold last with uber disadvantage

Yeah I played a random lobby a week or so ago and the med was constant vaccinator, I was getting to mids with like 15 hp before the pack on gully, and I'm pretty sure that was with taking 0 fall damage. The overheal speed is really shitty for getting to mid, it's still decent to run on last holds with massive disadvantage though.

I played that game ads, we had like 5 mercs, never give up, never surrender.

if valve makes it so you can cycle both forward and backward through resistances that would be a good starting point

Its good on koth if you're not going to get an uber charge before the round ends

I really like it when holding last, if you kite correctly you should be able to just throw your pocket on the point with vacc and hold easy pz

Honey is actually pretty good with the gun, when we scrimmed them and they used it they did push us back to last a few times by suprise because our sniper did 15 damage per shot and our rockets did 20 damage per shot. You just need the right classes to counter it.

It does give the medic more skill which is good.

What, that one gullywash game where neither team wanted to take a risk for ages because they were playing for an actual prize so neither would switch mediguns up (which happened all season to counter each medigun but when it's a game that really mattered it was too big a risk) and after much stalemating on last on Gullywash, which out of all the 6s maps, its last point isn't known for being the fastest one to break, they eventually tried something new with concheror and it helped immensley.

I'm still disappointed we threw it out the window because people didn't want to change up the uber-game and then there was one boring game that just happened to be streamed to a larger audience than usual because LAN.

As far as I know, the crossbow give you the same amount of charge, regardless of the medigun that you're using. I'm positive that it's the same for the amputator as well.

By the way, the charges last for 2.5 seconds, not just 2 seconds. It may not sound like much, but that's an extra two seconds two seconds of total charge in comparison to other mediguns if you add up all four of the charges.

If ubers reset when you picked up medi guns it would be cool to see switches mid round from like uber to vacc

This isn't intended to be rude but I don't understand how this addresses the actual issues of squandering the opportunity matchmaking presents. I don't know much about CoD 4, but the counter-strike example is a very poor choice for a comparison. If the sg were legal in matchmaking, but not in leagues, it would not only be an inconsistency that bothers new players, but people who use the sg in matchmaking would be annoyed that they can't play their first season of ESEA with the sg. I tried picking a weapon that is "on the fence" on its usefulness, like the vaccinator. There are so many people who would want to use a weapon like the aug (maybe this is a better choice since it's worse than the sg) in their first season of competitive, who couldn't because the community doesn't like the weapon. And the aug is pretty stupid. It's a bad weapon, but the style with which you use it makes it seem like it's straight out of CoD. A simple bomb timer difference (especially at the level at which most people who are matchmaking-only players play) is more akin to all cap points taking an extra second or two to cap. It's not as significant as banning weapons.

We as a competitive community "can" do whatever we want to do. That's never been an issue. But deciding to not try to facilitate the matchmaking flux and provide an easy transition for newer players from matchmaking to ESEA (for instance) would be a great way to throw everything for which the community has waited directly into the garbage can. There's no reason to at least try to allow everything for some time, expose some issues, and wait for rebalancing. Competitive TF2 does not have the popularity to afford this kind of stubborn thinking. Players interested in matchmaking aren't look up to ESEA-invite players, dreaming of a time when they're in invite. They're not going to be interested in playing TF2 for the sake of what current invite players deem is acceptable. They want to play their own game. They want to play the game they like to play, the one they're familiar with from pubs and whatever else. And maintaining a consistency between what new competitive players and veteran competitive players play is key.

Your argument is literally "What, the one game of the season that actually mattered? Why would that matter?"

If a weapon ruins the highest level of the game why would we allow it for the lower levels

Like it or not the quick fix needs to be looked at before it would work in 6s. For instance, giving it the same build mechanics as the vacc could work. Where it only builds quickly when targets are below the max base health, and buffs build it slowly

I know enough about CoD4 to understand that the reason the promod exists was out of necessity, as there was no polished competitive mode otherwise, and that gap between casual and competitive was always going to be there.

TF2, on the flipside, has a chance to close the gap for good, in a way that will obviously be a bit shit to start off, but considering how this ended up for games like CSGO, will be a massive benefit in the long run. plus, you should note that this doesn't mean that you're 100% locked to what MM is running, since I highly doubt any league's gonna run ctf_doublecross full-time any time soon, but the core concepts between the two levels should still be as similar as possible

ooh, i like the sound of that. that could possibly lessen that stalematey aspect of it