Well, it’s been a few weeks since the new medic gear landed, and I’ve played with them enough, I think, to decide if they’re full of win or saddled with lose.
Der Blutsauger:
The new needlegun gives up all critical hits in exchange for needles that, when doing regular damage against an enemy, heal the medic 3 points per hit. Very useful for fleeing and spraying if your patient gets exploded or is a jerk soldier who rocketjumps to a ledge you can’t reach, leaving you to fend for yourself. Those jerk soldiers.
This weapon is especially useful against charging pyros, as you can heal up the burn damage you’re taking while drilling them down to zero. Unless, of course, they switch to their shotgun, which they should always do. Come on, pyros. Switch to your shotgun. You can’t catch me. I’m too fast for your bent little legs.
It’s also not bad for spychecking — spray a crowd of supposed teammates and if you see a little +3 appear, well then, you’ve got a spy in your midst, mister.
In general, it’s nice to be notified when you hit someone. I was farting around on Lazytown with a couple other guys, and as I ran out of my spawn I emptied a clip of needles skyward. I’d reached the second cap point and I heard a Scout, in the distance, go “Aggh!” and saw a little +3 appear over my health. I’d managed to hit him with a single downward-falling needle as he stood on the middle cap point, just by luck.
Sure, I miss the occasional crit hit, but the healing I get from the blutsauger outweighs crits tenfold. Farewell, commonplace needlegun. I shall never dirty my gloves with you again. Blutsauger = win.
Der Kritzkrieg:
This medigun heals your patients and, when fully charged, will allow them ten seconds of critical hits with their weapon of choice.
On the outset, it seems extremely dangerous. Ten seconds of nothing but crits? Imagine the soldier damage. The heavy damage. The pyro damage.
The tradeoff, of course, is that you don’t get the invulnerability that comes with the standard ubercharge, and that you will miss. In fact, I’m finding it a real problem, breaking the habit of popping the uber and charging in like I’m still bulletproof. This leads to my instant death and the waste of an uber.
Sure, I waste plenty of standard ubers too, and I know there must be some real great uses for a well-timed Kritz, but I personally haven’t found them. I think I just don’t know how to use the new medigun properly. I’ve had a couple successes, and it is pretty thrilling to kritz someone and watch them clear out a bunch of enemies, but more often then not, I’m finding the Kritz, in my hands, fairly uneffective. The uber is a tide-turner, destroyer of sentry farms, and the Kritz just doesn’t match up.
One thing I’ve noticed while scrolling through public servers, though, is some no-crit servers that allow the Kritzkrieg. I imagine that in a game with no regular critical hits, the Kritzkrieg might be a real game-winning weapon. I also love the look of the Kritz in action, crackling with electricity. Very badass.
However, I’m sticking with my regular medigun. The Kritzkrieg, for me, is lose.
Der Ubersaw:
Here we have the ghastly looking alternative to the bonesaw. It’s slower to swing, but each successful hit adds to your current supply of ubercharge by 25%.
Frankly, I don’t care how much slower it is to swing. When I’m in melee as a doctor, I’m so panicked I rarely connect no matter how many times I swing, so who cares if it’s a bit slower? All I know is, if I get lucky and smack someone I’m a bit closer to being able to uber myself and flee like a Frenchman.
I don’t care for the sound it makes when you hit someone — sort of sounds like a wet piece of foam slapping a chain link fence. For such a grisly weapon, you’d think it would be more of a schunk! than a schizz. But, I’m no expert. I’ve only stabbed a few people with a saw in real life.
On the other hand, when you taunt with it, it gives you a nice dreary electric violin sound. How much win is that? Very much amount of win, that’s how much. Win!
16 responses so far ↓
1 Ev // May 27, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Does the Kritzkrieg taunt actually change? I’ve never seen it.
2 JeCa // May 27, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Have to say that I agree on every single weapon, except that I actually try to plan my swings a little with the ubersaw, since the chances of randomly hitting people is decreased. This has actually helped me a lot, so yes, definitely a win. Also, the worst moment I’ve had with the new medic gear was when I ubersawed four guys and switched to the medigun, hoping to escape with the uber when I realised I had a critzkrieg. There was no one else around to help me, so I pretty much just stay away from that weapon since then. Crubers can still be fun if you manage to pull them off, but it’s not worth it really.
Jerk soldiers…
3 Punjabi Fury // May 27, 2008 at 1:50 pm
I think the Kritzkrieg has a much steeper learning curve than the Blutsauger or the Ubersaw.
In a while all the proper medics will learn how to use it effectively and in tandem with regular ubers, and then it’s significance will be realised.
4 n00bie51 // May 27, 2008 at 3:08 pm
I think you need to take game balance into consideration instead of personal preference for a report card.
The Über Saw and the Blutsauger are over powered and unbalanced compared to the standard weapons. The draw backs are too insignificant, as you know.
I think you’re being unfair with the Kritzkrieg because as Punjabi Fury said, it’s got a much steeper learning curve. Good, balanced unlockables should be alternatives, not replacements. The Kritzkrieg is win, not lose, if you know how to use it, but it’ll never replace the vanilla ÜberCharge and it shouldn’t because you’ll still need the latter to take out Sentry Guns and break dead locks that you couldn’t do with the Kritzkrieg. It’s specialized and a different way to win the game, not necessarily inferior.
Out of personal preference, I’ll use the Blutsauger ove the Syringe Gun and the Über Saw over the Bone Saw, but they’re not balanced alternatives like they should be.
5 LactoseTheIntolerant // May 27, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Ya, I agree with Noobie. These unlockables need to be alternatives, not upgrades to the usual weapons. I’m glad the Kritzkrieg isn’t too much of an uber (haha) weapon - It’s just different, and in certain circumstances more useful than a regular Uber.
I don’t have the Ubersaw myself, and nor have I had much experience with other people using it, so I can’t really comment. All I’ll say is that I don’t think it’s *too* overpowered, as you still need to be able to get out of the melee combat alive to reap any benefits (which is even harder thanks to the slower hitspeed).
I agree with Noobie about the Blutsauger is a tad overpowered, though. It’s a nice idea but it really is a heck of a lot better than the regular syringe gun. +1 or +2 might have been better, as it still fires quick enough to heal the medic a decent amount.
So, yeah. I think people need to remember that these aren’t upgrades, they’re alternatives. It’s good that the Kritz isn’t a full-time replacement for the invulnerability Uber, and that should have been the case with the Blutsauger.
6 Shane // May 27, 2008 at 6:26 pm
ineffective*
7 Wossname // May 27, 2008 at 7:13 pm
The “+3″ hit feedback of the Blutsauger alone makes it worthwhile to me. Situational awareness is what keeps the Medic alive and having that extra bit of input is a lifesaver in itself.
8 WILDCORE // May 28, 2008 at 1:00 am
>>Der Ubersaw<<
Saw is female, so “Die Übersaw” would be correct, aslong you did not do a hidden joke and I broke it now…
9 macho // May 28, 2008 at 1:26 am
Blutsauger is made of win. Yesterday I was just going killing the opposite team with it rather than healing noobs in my team. The only thing is that it’s harder to kill a heavy because with the regular needlegun it usually critted when shooting a HWG.
And that kritzkrieg is only good for getting that medic-soldier achievement. Maybe pyro too.
10 Chaari-san // May 28, 2008 at 2:02 am
Yesterday while playing a match on dm_store3 I noticed I got crits for a while shooting a fleeing scout from behind. We hadn’t won the match or anything since it was a deathmatch server so….
A glitch maybe? It felt good though!
11 Derek // May 28, 2008 at 3:13 pm
I was on Gold Rush a few days ago, and I saw this great combo. Two medics both had the standard Medigun and the Ubersaw. During setup, they’d both get uber. Then, one would uber the other and the other would Ubersaw enemies to fill up his charge. As soon as the uber ended on him, he would pull out his medigun and uber the other medic while he Ubersawed a bunch of guys. It basically made an unstoppable tank which won us the game. Has anybody else seen this technique?
12 Punjabi Fury // May 29, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Derek: http://www.ubercharged.net/2008/05/03/more-medic-silliness/
13 Dogma // May 29, 2008 at 8:30 pm
Can you and another medic stack both a regular Uber and a Kritz onto another player? I think I’ve seen it done it before, but I haven’t been able to play in about half a month so I can’t really remember if that works or not.
14 go // May 30, 2008 at 10:19 am
I agree.
The spychecking abilities of the Blutsauger are kind of unfair as more people start using it and it works over really long distances. I’m definately getting killed more by medics while playing spy as before.
Also, being disguised as a medic became worthless. I know it had its downsides before, but nowadays almost every medic ist using the Blutsauger, and any medic holding the needlegun is obviously a spy. I wonder how it will be if all the classes get alternate weapons. Spies will become an endangered species.
15 Luke // Jun 1, 2008 at 7:06 am
Finally got to have a great Kritzkrieg day yesterday - the key is getting into position so you can trigger your ten seconds and be firing before you become Ground Zero for every enemy weapon on the map. Defending Gravelpit C, rounding the corner into the A-C tunnel and landing with the minigun spun up.
Mowed down the entire enemy team like I was Schwarzzeneger, great fun.
16 Grigoriy // Jun 2, 2008 at 11:25 pm
The Kritzkrieg I actually prefer to be charged when I play Soldier. As long as you outlast the first rush ubers, a competent soldier with a kritzkrieg will very very rarely die.
The damage he takes fuels the Kritz, and he will take a lot, while at the same time the Kritzkrieg charges noticably quickly. You can kill most of the team before they have a chance at an uber. And you can do it consistently. It does require more dodge ability for the medic, but it IS an achievement weapon. You should know how to dodge rockets.
And when the other team thinks they have the soldier on the ropes? Kritzkrieg’d. The team rushes the retreating soldier and medic only to discover the electrifying power of the Kritz. One rocket jump, and you become a God of Death. Those crit rockets propel you far above the mere mortals who dare contest you, and your rockets reduce them to little giblets. Noone can touch you, save for perhaps a sniper but even he will be attempting, in vain, to find cover. For in your airy domain, they have no where to run.
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