The two classes I play the most of are soldier and medic. There are lots of easy resources for soldier to practice like DM, MGE, PUGs and so on but I am having trouble finding places where I can really practice medic outside of pugs which can be pretty hit or miss on TF2C.
Ultimately what I am looking for is some tips on practicing medic outside of pugs, or should I just be pugging 24/7?
The two classes I play the most of are soldier and medic. There are lots of easy resources for soldier to practice like DM, MGE, PUGs and so on but I am having trouble finding places where I can really practice medic outside of pugs which can be pretty hit or miss on TF2C.
Ultimately what I am looking for is some tips on practicing medic outside of pugs, or should I just be pugging 24/7?
Medic is one of those classes where you can just play the game (any class really) and become a better medic. Medic is more of a knowledge application class if I had to describe it best, where you need to be on top of your positioning and keeping track of ubers in your head, being map aware etc. Generally you could play PUGs or scrims and just gain experience and that will translate to your med play. Obviously this isn't true for everyone, some people just have a knack for it (like other classes) and there isn't really much you can do you practice besides just playing, demo reviewing yourself and being self critical, and also being comfortable with your team, anyone can be a good medic if they learn enough about their team to just mesh with the system.
Medic is one of those classes where you can just play the game (any class really) and become a better medic. Medic is more of a knowledge application class if I had to describe it best, where you need to be on top of your positioning and keeping track of ubers in your head, being map aware etc. Generally you could play PUGs or scrims and just gain experience and that will translate to your med play. Obviously this isn't true for [i]everyone[/i], some people just have a knack for it (like other classes) and there isn't really much you can do you practice besides just playing, demo reviewing yourself and being self critical, and also being comfortable with your team, anyone can be a good medic if they learn enough about their team to just mesh with the system.
I agree with lucrative.
Also, one thing that help a lot is learning to play other classes. If you get enough experience as soldier, scout and demoman, it will be easier for you to understand how they behave and use it in your favor to get away from difficult situations or to avoid those situations.
I agree with lucrative.
Also, one thing that help a lot is learning to play other classes. If you get enough experience as soldier, scout and demoman, it will be easier for you to understand how they behave and use it in your favor to get away from difficult situations or to avoid those situations.
If you play soldier, play more pocket (if you do not already) then you will have a much better understanding of how to play medic.
If you play soldier, play more pocket (if you do not already) then you will have a much better understanding of how to play medic.
Surfing and air control are important, and watching demos of high level medics should help with positioning. I think getting good at rocket jumping is helpful for any sort of movement in this game.
Surfing and air control are important, and watching demos of high level medics should help with positioning. I think getting good at rocket jumping is helpful for any sort of movement in this game.
namassinSurfing and air control are important
Yeah this is one of my main things I want to work on as medic, the other stuff like uber counting and positioning are just kinda learned over time. Is there a good place to learn this specifically for medic or should I continue doing jump maps for soldier and apply what translates?
[quote=namassin]Surfing and air control are important[/quote]
Yeah this is one of my main things I want to work on as medic, the other stuff like uber counting and positioning are just kinda learned over time. Is there a good place to learn this specifically for medic or should I continue doing jump maps for soldier and apply what translates?
I tend to either practice medic by just playing it in Pugs and scrims obviously, for surfing join a surf map and work on air strafing. I also recommend to play ultidou with your team mate so u can practice your arrows and surfing aswell
I tend to either practice medic by just playing it in Pugs and scrims obviously, for surfing join a surf map and work on air strafing. I also recommend to play ultidou with your team mate so u can practice your arrows and surfing aswell
DougIf you get enough experience as soldier, scout and demoman, it will be easier for you to understand how they behave and use it in your favor to get away from difficult situations or to avoid those situations.
This is true but a perhaps even more important consequence of playing all the other classes is learning what fights certain classes can win -- it will give you a better idea of context (e.g. health, positioning) in a fight and should strongly influence your heal target and general decision making.
The reason that this is such a nontrivial skill is that you can't heal all your teammates at once; you heal targets one at a time. In a team fight, how you distribute heals influences the outcome. If you have no idea who is in the best position to deal damage or get frags, then your healing could be useless.
[quote=Doug]If you get enough experience as soldier, scout and demoman, it will be easier for you to understand how they behave and use it in your favor to get away from difficult situations or to avoid those situations.[/quote]
This is true but a perhaps even more important consequence of playing all the other classes is learning what fights certain classes can win -- it will give you a better idea of context (e.g. health, positioning) in a fight and should strongly influence your heal target and general decision making.
The reason that this is such a nontrivial skill is that you can't heal all your teammates at once; you heal targets one at a time. In a team fight, how you distribute heals influences the outcome. If you have no idea who is in the best position to deal damage or get frags, then your healing could be useless.
DO tell people where you are so they can come protect you and be healed while fighting
DO indicate your intended path of travel, both for pushes and also ubers (i.e. solo uber to get the force, advantage so pop early to get
DON'T tilt or go silent (see #1)
also there are resources in this thread for main calling, i'm a firm believer in one player in the combo (medic or pocket) being the maincaller
DO tell people where you are so they can come protect you and be healed while fighting
DO indicate your intended path of travel, both for pushes and also ubers (i.e. solo uber to get the force, advantage so pop early to get
DON'T tilt or go silent (see #1)
also there are resources in [url=http://www.teamfortress.tv/8384/main-calling]this thread[/url] for main calling, i'm a firm believer in one player in the combo (medic or pocket) being the maincaller
play surf and jump maps, will help with movement, surfing rockets, etc.
play other classes (in pugs), especially roamer and scout (these classes you will face 1v1), so you can learn how do they think and what is hard/easy for them and how you can deny their attack
do demo reviews for yourself, you watch your demo and talk about what you've done wrong, what helped me a lot is saying (to myself) that 99% of deaths are my (medics) fault and how could i prevent it
do map talks just for yourself, describe for example badlands to "somebody" who never saw it and introduce him all the strats/positions for medic
tryhard pubs as "battle-medic" with crossbow and saw
watch povs of prem/invite medics, shade has ton of povs on his channel, or you can look on etf2l match pages for stv demos
play ultiduo
play surf and jump maps, will help with movement, surfing rockets, etc.
play other classes (in pugs), especially roamer and scout (these classes you will face 1v1), so you can learn how do they think and what is hard/easy for them and how you can deny their attack
do demo reviews for yourself, you watch your demo and talk about what you've done wrong, what helped me a lot is saying (to myself) that 99% of deaths are my (medics) fault and how could i prevent it
do map talks just for yourself, describe for example badlands to "somebody" who never saw it and introduce him all the strats/positions for medic
tryhard pubs as "battle-medic" with crossbow and saw
watch povs of prem/invite medics, shade has ton of povs on his channel, or you can look on etf2l match pages for stv demos
play ultiduo
As other people have suggested, playing other classes helps a lot. I also like watching demos of other medics so I can get idea of their spacing, positioning, and decision-making. If I can put myself in their shoes and figure out why they made certain decisions, that will definitely help me when I go to play the game myself.
As other people have suggested, playing other classes helps a lot. I also like watching demos of other medics so I can get idea of their spacing, positioning, and decision-making. If I can put myself in their shoes and figure out why they made certain decisions, that will definitely help me when I go to play the game myself.
LarryOsmen41namassinSurfing and air control are important
Yeah this is one of my main things I want to work on as medic, the other stuff like uber counting and positioning are just kinda learned over time. Is there a good place to learn this specifically for medic or should I continue doing jump maps for soldier and apply what translates?
You can download a map called tr_arena (there's a thread for it on tftv, just search for it) and let it spawn a single soldier bot that shoots rockets at you to practice your surfing. It won't be as good as actual humans, which are less predictable, but can still help with getting the timings right
[quote=LarryOsmen41][quote=namassin]Surfing and air control are important[/quote]
Yeah this is one of my main things I want to work on as medic, the other stuff like uber counting and positioning are just kinda learned over time. Is there a good place to learn this specifically for medic or should I continue doing jump maps for soldier and apply what translates?[/quote]
You can download a map called tr_arena (there's a thread for it on tftv, just search for it) and let it spawn a single soldier bot that shoots rockets at you to practice your surfing. It won't be as good as actual humans, which are less predictable, but can still help with getting the timings right
Join a team. Watch them do regrettable things. Sass them. Get sad. Rinse and repeat.
Honestly just playing on a team and learning their tendencies and how to work together will do more for your medic gameplay than anything else. How you position yourself, what you need to say and when, where you need to be looking in certain situations, etc. Surfing and "mechanics" are nice, but they're all secondary to the bread and butter of medic gameplay which is don't get surprised by things, count ubers, how to recognize bad situations, etc all come from simply playing normally. Pugging isn't *so* bad - especially if you can play with players who are better than you are regularly - but in general there's no substitute for being on a team.
Join a team. Watch them do regrettable things. Sass them. Get sad. Rinse and repeat.
Honestly just playing on a team and learning their tendencies and how to work together will do more for your medic gameplay than anything else. How you position yourself, what you need to say and when, where you need to be looking in certain situations, etc. Surfing and "mechanics" are nice, but they're all secondary to the bread and butter of medic gameplay which is don't get surprised by things, count ubers, how to recognize bad situations, etc all come from simply playing normally. Pugging isn't *so* bad - especially if you can play with players who are better than you are regularly - but in general there's no substitute for being on a team.
aside from all the very good advice you've been getting from these medics who are much better than me, one activity that I found pretty fun and actually had some impact on my gameplay was to have a friend practice bombing me.
we just loaded into a map with soapdm spawns and he jumped around trying to pop me up and airshot me and I practiced avoiding his rockets and surfing them properly when they were unavoidable. for me that was great practice because the mechanical part of my game has always been the weakest. learning how to move to avoid a bomb, even without all the other moving parts you have in game, is a pretty underrated skill. for him it was better than tlr_rocket_shooting or whatever because there was actually a human brain trying to avoid his rockets
aside from all the very good advice you've been getting from these medics who are much better than me, one activity that I found pretty fun and actually had some impact on my gameplay was to have a friend practice bombing me.
we just loaded into a map with soapdm spawns and he jumped around trying to pop me up and airshot me and I practiced avoiding his rockets and surfing them properly when they were unavoidable. for me that was great practice because the mechanical part of my game has always been the weakest. learning how to move to avoid a bomb, even without all the other moving parts you have in game, is a pretty underrated skill. for him it was better than tlr_rocket_shooting or whatever because there was actually a human brain trying to avoid his rockets
imo, one of the best mechanical skills you can have as medic is surfing off damage, it allows you an opportunity to escape from an enemy or live long enough for a teammate to come save you. owl's idea is pretty good and could help with timing of surfs. like everyone else has said, surf maps are good, i just used them to warmup before scrims. you can really only get better at medic by playing medic
imo, one of the best mechanical skills you can have as medic is surfing off damage, it allows you an opportunity to escape from an enemy or live long enough for a teammate to come save you. owl's idea is pretty good and could help with timing of surfs. like everyone else has said, surf maps are good, i just used them to warmup before scrims. you can really only get better at medic by playing medic
The mechanics that you need to be a good medic aren't often used when you play medic. But when they are required it can have a big impact, e.g. dodging/surfing + hitting arrows. For this you need aim and movement, I'd say 70% of the time playing medic you can go without these just fine as long as you have solid positioning. So it makes more sense to practise medic by playing classes that require these mechanics much more often.
MGE really helps me warm up quickly if I just focus on triggering my opponent by trying to surf all of their rockets and generally helps you get a feel for how rockets work and counting an enemy soldiers ammo. Also try and convince your team's roamer to MGE you before you play (med vs solly) and again just focus on surfing and shooting arrows.
The mechanics that you need to be a good medic aren't often used when you play medic. But when they are required it can have a big impact, e.g. dodging/surfing + hitting arrows. For this you need aim and movement, I'd say 70% of the time playing medic you can go without these just fine as long as you have solid positioning. So it makes more sense to practise medic by playing classes that require these mechanics much more often.
MGE really helps me warm up quickly if I just focus on triggering my opponent by trying to surf all of their rockets and generally helps you get a feel for how rockets work and counting an enemy soldiers ammo. Also try and convince your team's roamer to MGE you before you play (med vs solly) and again just focus on surfing and shooting arrows.