Medic/Technician little guide
by Gladiators
this guide is born from both a feeling of frustration and a will to inform how to succeed with this class.
We could remark that this is the only class where the gap between the GDF and the Strogg is really huge, this is mainly due to the fact that the Ammunition/Health system of the Strogg is very peculiar.
The Humans need life and ammo, the Strogg need stroyent.
For this very reason, this guide will be divided in two different parts, the first for the GDF's medic, the second for the Strogg's and a third one dedicated to ingame behaviour.
[color=cyan]The GDF Medic:[/color]
The equipment of the GDF Medic is:
-A Knife
-A Pistol
-An Assault Rifle/Shotgun
-2/3 Grenades
-Two Defibrilators
-Medpacks
-Supply crates' grenade
Normally you should have to use your weapon that much, you are a medic, you heal and resurect people.
The number of GDF Medics on a team has will increase the rest of the team's maximum health. 1 medic +5 hp, 4 medic +20 hp.
Concerning the use of medpacks, well, you can throw them randomly at doorways, so that whoever pass through get a little heal. You are the key class for holding places. Keep your teammates full health, droping medpacks on the floor.
In public games with noobs, you want to drop 1/2 medpacks on the body before resurecting the dead guy, else he would not even wait for health and go back in the battle half-lifed.
The third upgrade of the medics are Self-Defib. This give yourself 20hp.
If you were full lifed, this will put your health to 120hp and slowly go back to 100hp.
If you were 70 for example, this will put your health to 90 without going back to 70.
This is very useful not to waste the preciou medpacks, or to boost your life in order to resurect an exposed body.
One very important thing is to destroy spawn hosts. You can do so using your defibrilators on them. It is very important if you want to see your little skirmishes succeed. Indeed do not expect an assault to an objective to work if there are tones of spawn hosts next to it. This is for this very reason that you must from time to time sacrifice yourself in order to kill a maximum of spawn hosts at the cost of your life.
Use the crates. You always want to have at least one crate on the field. Do not expose it too much, but everybody should know where is it so that everybody can come back to get some ammo/health. Keep in mind that the crates give you grenades too, you may want to spam grenades so that you block a pathway with your firepower.
Remember:
-Do not forget to drop medpacks on the floor, allies will thank you
-Crates are so good... do not forget them please, there should always be one crate on the floor.
-Do not forget your priorities
XP Rewards
1. Level 1 (15) - Large Med Pack. Medics can drop additional Med Packs.
2. Level 2 (30) - Extra Supply Drop. Medic can drop 2 supply crates instead of 1.
3. Level 3 (60) - Shock Self (Health Boost). Alt Fire with Defibrillators restores 20 health, which can take you over the max, but gradually bleeds back down.
4. Level 4 (120) - Full Health Revive. Revived players come back with 100% health instead of 50%
[color=cyan]The Strogg Technician :
[/color]
The equipment of the Strogg Technician is:
-Spikes
-Blaster
-Lacerator or NailGun
-Shrap Grenades (3)
-Stroyent Extraction/Create Spawn Host Tool
-Stroyent Cells
Ok the gear of the technician is quite the same as the medic aside from the fact he has one more grenade but no supply crates grenade or medpacks or defibrilators. The technician got his stroyent tool and his stroyent cells instead.
As I said, the stroggs use stroyent as ammo and health, keep that in mind, some people may needs stroyents even when their life seems to be full.
Aside from that fact, use stroyent cells just like medpacks, but keep in mind that it is even more precious than the medpacks, so no waste. It is for that very reason that you and your teammates must learn how to StroyDown. This is the process that transfer your ammo into health. One stroyent cell give much more ammo than it gives life, so stroydown as much as possible before using the stroyent cells.
Using Stroydown (-) once transforms 16 ammo into 8 health. Using Stroyup (=) once transforms 10 health into 12 ammo. As you can see, it's not a perfect transfer. So he checked how much stroyent a normal (non-improved) cell contain and behold, it always adds +18 health/+40 ammo. That means, there is no check if you are already full on ammo, and if you are, then half the cell is wasted! The ammo doesn't fill over maximum when picking up stroyent cells, because you have to manually transfer ammo to health first. His conclusion, if you are wounded, Strogg, and your ammo is still full it would be best to tap the Stroydown key twice before picking up any Stroyent Cells. Then you will reap the maximum benefit out of it, and you will see that one Stroyent Cell can add +34 to your health instead of only +18, which is almost the double.
In any case, if you are being shot while reviving, just run to cover while stroying down, then use cells. Do not fear using stroydown as a technician, you do not really need ammo since you are supposed to heal your mates.
Do not rush on the vehicules on the beggining, just like the medics, simply because you do not need to be the first on the battle field.
There is something that make the technician very powerful, the spawn host.
You need a human body to create one, once created, you need to press "activate" on the spawn host (you or a teammate) in order to respawn on human's body at the next wave.
You earn 2 xp if you respawn at a spawnhost and 2 too if it is a teammate. If you're alone with several spawn hosts around, do not fear killing yourself and respawning again and again, depending on how many spawnhost do you have. (wait for the spawn wave countdown to be 1 before suiciding). This technique give you free technician XP so that you'll be more effective for your team.
If you do not have enough time, you can use your stroyent tool on human bodies in order to "kill" them, so that they won't be revived by any medics around, this takes 0.2 second.
The reviving order is the same than the medic's. But you are also responsible of the ammos. Keep aware of the needs of your team, especially to hyperblaster's aggressors, they really need you.
When you are a strogg, please, tell the medics to create a spawn host via the context menu. An icon will appear on the map indicating to the technician the corpse. AND, when the technician will make a spawn host out of this corpse, he will gain a bonus 2Xp for having a mission completed.
Remember:
-Use stroydown, this is the key of being a great technician.
-Create spawnhosts, but your priority is to revive your mate.
-Keep in mind your priorities.
-As a strogg player, use your context menu to indicate where the GDF bodies are.
XP Rewards
1. Level 1 (15) - Large Stroyent Cell. Stroyent Cell provides 25 points of Stroyent instead of 20
2. Level 2 (30) - Spike Boost. Alt Fire with the Stroyent Tool restores 20 health, which can take you over the max, but gradually bleeds back down
3. Level 3 (60) - Fast Revive. Increases speed at which players are revived
4. Level 4 (120) - Full Health Revive. Revived players come back with 100% health instead of 50%
[color=cyan]In-game behaviour:[/color]
At the beggining of the game, you do not really need the vehicules, because you are not that needed on the battlefield yet. So let other classes take the vehicule, you'll go at the objective on foot. There's no rush.
There is something very important, this is the resurects priority depending on the situations :
1. The guy next to the objective that was about to finish planting/hacking/constructing/whatever. You defenitely want to rez up this guy first. This is so important that you can sacrifice for the mission sake.
2. Other medics/technicians. This is your next priority. Others medics or technicians can help you in your task and they should be resurected as soon as possible
3. The "guy of the situation". This is the aggressor in the sewer, for example. Always resurect in priority those who are defenitely needed. You don't want to sacrifice yourself resurecting an oppressor in the sewer for example.
Those priorities are even more important when you are playing as a technician, because you need several seconds to resurect someone.
Try to keep an eye on your radar, you do not want to sacrifice yourself for a random noob who just died in the middle of the battlefield.
If you are very good at aiming, you can hold places for long. You can heal yourself, do not forget it.
If an ally is badly wounded (less than 10 hp) you can "TK revive" him. It consists in killing him and reviving him. This is very, very useful if you have full health revives but also useful if you are short in medpacks. Remember that you need to be under cover, else it would be a great mistake if you are being killed just after having killed your mate. This technique is more delicate when you are a Technician, because of the reviving time. Try to make it clear to your mate so that they do not file thousands of complaints... Anyway, it will happen.
The direction and velocity of a thrown medpack/ammopack/stroyent cell depends not only at what u aim at but also the thrower's motion. Sprint jumping backwards will make the item come back at u due to its summed up velocity. U can use this feature to throw items at places normally unachievable like gaps, higher grounds, bigger distances.
Remember:
Comunication is really important when you play this class, keep your team aware of where you put your supply crates, if you drop medpacks, etc.