So I'm arguing with someone over the internet...

[Rologton]

Yeah, I know it's frivolous, but I love doing it.

Here's where the argument is taking place.

For those who don't care to look, or just don't want to brave the dank, murkey waters that is SPUF, basically a topic was posted on the Medic subforum asking what it takes to be a good Medic. Now, I in no way am saying that I'm comp level, but I think I'm good enough to at least post what I always keep in mind when I'm playing. I start off with my little Medic Mantra, "Heal everyone, no exceptions", which is usually met with positive responses. One poster responded to my Mantra by saying it was stupid, and citing a situation.

So, situation: You are healing a Heavy that is engaged with a Pyro, Soldier and Medic, and a Scout with 90 health comes running towards you calling for heals.

He said that he'd keep healing the Heavy and the Scout can run to a Medkit. I said I would heal the Scout to keep him on the front lines to continue to do damage to the enemy team.

He said that healing the Heavy was more important because he was engaged with three people, and if the Heavy dies than the team's push is ruined and it's all my fault. I said that the Heavy obviously over extended and would probably die regaurdless of whether I locked my Medigun on him the whole time and that staying with him in that situation means that both of us die, I lose my Uber and thus the push is ruined.

His response to what I had thought was a rational argument was to question whether or not I've ever played the game, to which I asked the same question and claimed that the smarter course of action would be to leave the stupidly over extended Heavy to dry, heal the Scout as you return to the rest of your team, keep the Uber you've been building up and push forward, instead of sticking with said Heavy, dying, wasting the Uber and failing hard. He has yet to respond.


Getting all that out there was probably unnecessary, but I'm a wordy dude, so now on to the order of business:

Scenario: You are healing a single Heavy engaged with a Soldier, Pyro and Medic. Your team is behind you, you have 70% Uber and a Scout comes up to you asking for some heals. What do you do? Do you ignore the Scout and foccus solely on the Heavy? Do you heal the Scout and go back to the Heavy? Do you retreat with the Scout, even if the Heavy does not come with you, and fall back to your team?

What say you Crit Sandvich?!

[Wakka]

pocket the scout, heavy can go get medpack

[Bagger Vance]

Depends where on what map I am, I'd retreat with the scout in most cases though.

[Saber]

You're obviously at a disadvantage, so I feel like I would personally find an escape route and try to get the fuck outta dodge with the scout.
Also, you're arguing with a kid. Stop it.

[medkitz]

Depends on the skill of the enemy and the heavy. But i would go with the scout.

[stanley]

heavy without a doubt. the scout isnt even in danger, and if youre playing scout and feel like you need heals at 90 health, you need to play a different class. its important to keep everyone alive, and to do that generally you need to heal the player in combat. im not saying ignore the scout completely, but you need to prioritize who you heal, and that should be the person engaging the other team because thats how you get kills

[Techercizer]

I'd heal both, but that's more of my personal playstyle.

Medigun-switch to flash the scout, followed by a booster shot into the heavy for 75 burst hp. For more than two people, I'd step back and use the Amputator.

[Patrid]

Building up on Stanley's thought:
Without a doubt, I'd heal the heavy.
What I see in pubs are scouts who can't push, can't flank, can't be useful (with a 20 health or 35 health deficit, why bother healing them anyways?).

Disregarding the skill set of the scout:
In a heavy's standpoint (easier class to be useful with), I would not again reenter a situation with a medic who would not stand by his teammates. One key facet of team fortress two that makes it so unique and playable is that all 9 classes are unique and require the assistance of other classes on their team to insure their own success. I'd rather have all heavy medics on a team rather then all medic scouts (heavy+medic work better in tandem).

Also noted, unless you are using the quick fix as medic (in which case, pushing up is even harder of a task) any good player on the other team should be able to finish off the heavy within a matter of time. If the scout's retreating as well, who's going to save the medic from a sticky jumping demo/rocket jumping soldier, quick-zoom sniper, ambassador spy, etc ......?

Edit: Also note that as a heavy, the next time I engage multiple target, while being healed by said medic, I wouldn't engage them fully knowing full well I'd be abandoned. That being said, who would the enemy target first, the retreating medic or retreating heavy (if they had their choice)?

[Argent]

Yeah, in that specific situation, I would not stop healing the heavy when he's engaged with three enemy assault classes.

[Rologton]

I don't see the Heavy surviving regardless of whether or not I stick my Medigun to him. I understand that we want to stay on the front lines and get kills and all, but my life as a Medic with Uber is more important. If it's 3 against 2, I'm going to back out and keep my Uber alive.

And a Scout at 90 health is significantly less dangerous than one at 185 health. This, of course, is all under the assumption that the players involved are good.

[stanley]

this argument is dumb. i thought there were only 2 choices, but now we can run? i take what i said back. i would never heal a heavy.

[mrpikmin2]

I would heal scout to ~125, then go back to healing heavy, if he gets to 450 overheal scout, if not switch back and forth to make it difficult to kill 1 before the other. Depends if the scout can hold his own or not.

[duck]

heres what i'd do.

if they heavy is somewhat confident (ph33r lets say is the heavy), he can live without me healing him, then i could heal the scout, then i could go back to famring assists from the heavy.

but if the heavy is not any good (me) then i wouldn't heal him at all

[LegendarySurgeon]

In general I try to heal the nearest player with the lowest HP so if I have to choose between healing a heavy at 150 who just ran out of combat or overhealing a scout from 125 running into combat I always heal the scout first, since the heavy will heal faster after he cools down a bit anyway.

That being said, in this specific instance I'd probably back away from the heavy while healing him until either
A. he dies
B. I die
C. The medi-beam no longer travels that far or
D. we've escaped the front lines and he's no longer actively taking damage

at which point I'll heal the scout.

EDIT://

The much cooler thing to do in this specific instance is to heal the Heavy until you're at 75% uber, switch to ubersaw, stab someone, turn on that uber and uber the nearest surviving player (probably not the heavy because you ditched him to go melee and probably not the scout because you told to go find a healthpack by virtue of not healing him). If you're lucky you'll swing a crit with the ubersaw, probably at the pyro since he likes to live in melee range, and 195 damage will kill him.