This is a little submission I've done up to test my readiness to contribute to BF2WIKI. I hope you all enjoy and find it useful.
Painkiller- a guide to battlefield first aid dispensal
So, you want to be a medic do you? Medics have one of the toughest jobs in battlefield 2. Not only do you have to watch your unarmored and bright red and white back (I wish they’d just go and replace it with a bull’s-eye, that’s pretty much what it is) but you have to watch out for your team as well. The key to playing a valuable medic is to understand you are not purely there to dish out headache tablets and Band-Aids but, as the rules of war go out the window in a modern battlefield, you’re likely going to have to perform open-heart surgery with your knife and stitch up the opposition with your guns as well. While this is all good and natural (who wants to live off teamwork points anyhow), it is a mistake so many medics make that they are healers first and warriors never. So I present to you the art of ensuring your team-mates survival, not to mention your own, in a dangerous world.
The first thing a medic must learn is his arsenal. And you really do have one. Before SF, medics had the largest amount of kit around, and still have an equal share. Let’s have a look at them in detail:
Knife: The good old combat knife will help you out in many a situation, always keep it to hand. It attacks fast, has instant deathing capability and can generally dish out the hurt far better than the pistol at close range if you run out of ammo. So if you hear that ominous click, go 1, not 2, and introduce the enemy to the art of a battlefield vasectomy sans-anesthetic style
Pistol: your little black friend, your pistol has several uses. While the knife is better as backup in point blank situations, in mid range firefights a good pistol user can carve through the opposition as effectively as an assault trooper. Remember to only scope if you are sure you’re not visible to the foe. Fire over open sights and do so while moving, preferably in the air and on the ground as well as side to side and forwards/backwards. Without armor, you must rely on your extra stamina to keep you out of harms way. A still medic is a dead medic, even more so when ranges tighten.
Grenades: These are a medic’s deadliest weapon. What better for an unarmored, juicy target than a gun that can fire around corners and kill even the mightiest with a single burst of red-hot cornchips? Unlike the combat classes, you don’t have backup explosives when your ‘nades run out so use them wisely. Leave preliminary bombardment to more suited classes and use your own packets of death to dispense with groups of enemies you have spotted. Learn to master the jump-throw and the bounce-throw to dispense with enemies near and far and soon you’ll be able to place a ‘nade in a jet cockpit from halfway across the map
-jump throw: time a forwards jump to provide extra momentum to your grenade, tossing it with a longer and straighter trajectory than a normal lob. Use this throw in confined areas to skim it off the roof or put it through a narrow gap, or in the open to take out or suppress distant targets
-bounce throw: jump up and back, simultaneously throwing the nade at the ground a metre or two in front of you. Use this while backing around corners to scythe down pursuit or if you find yourself surrounded by opposition to take a few of the bastards with you
Rifle: of all the things in your kit, this baby should be warming your hands for 90% of your career. Deadly at close ranges and deadly at long ranges, the assault rifle is the king of the battlefield when wielded with skill. It is also given to you for a reason. Your commander did not expect you to go into battle wielding only shock paddles and a bad attitude. You have a gun. Use it.
The key to using your assault rifle well is to understand 2 things:
1) you’re not going to hit shit standing up and
2) Even if you’re prone you’re gonna miss unless you know what you’re doing.
Assault rifle combat at mid range should be performed prone with the semi-automatic function selected and sights fixed. Used this way, even the humble M16 can out-snipe snipers. Time your shots carefully, with about a .5 second gap between bangs, taking careful aim at the head of a stationary opponent and the torso of a moving one. This way you ensure that almost all your shots will hit, probably doing lethal damage in half the regular time. Avoid getting stuck in long firefights, take a few shots and skedaddle, find a new position and open up again. While you have a weapon, this isn’t your primary purpose for existence, especially in a squad format. Let the assault and support troopers do the carnage and stick to cleaning up after them or flanking vulnerable foes. Lets have a look at the weapons available to the medics in the game. Remember that an unlocked weapon is not always the best choice.
M16: less lethal but faster firing than her competitors, the M16 is my least favourite of the medic weapons, but is still deadly in medium range situations and is probably the best of the medic weapons at carving up large groups of opposition. Remember to use single shot at anything other than point blank range with this weapon as the burst fire is very innacurate
AK47/101: Damn fine guns with nice sights and a good damage potential. Once again single shot mode is your best of friends with these babies, but automatic fire is somewhat forgiving if employed in short 2-5 round bursts. Up close, you can actually spam with these guys with some degree of effectiveness, but be careful, coz your magazine won’t last long, so keep your finger on the reload button and be aware of corners you can hide behind.
L85A1: this weapon is awesome at medium range but pales compared to the basic weapons in close combat. While its potential is awesome, you’re either a master or you’re not. If not, pick your basic weapon or the G36E unless you know you’ll be doing mostly mid ranged support, in which case, L85 all the way baby.
G36E: one of the best weapons in the game, the G36E combines the accuracy of the G36C with the clout of an assault rifle. A winner if you ever saw one. Burst fire while prone with this weapon is surprisingly effective, but single shot is still the way to go unless the pressure is really on. Still, keep your cool and pick your shots and this gun will see you ranking with the assault troops on kills.
Medkit: Penicillin pie with a healthy dose of aspirin added in, this casket of wonders can turn even the most grievous of wounds into mere ketchup stains upon the fatigues of your comrades. The medkit can be used in one of two ways:
1) It can be dropped for instant health. Simply chuck it on the ground and wait for a second, then anyone who walks over it (including foes) will get a pleasant soothing feeling and a full health bar. This can be used on yourself if you’re getting mauled, making medics one of the best classes for infiltration along side SF. Those little prods and pains you get while sneaking through a fire zone disappear at the drop of a medpack, leaving you to continue in fine form. Dropping packs is also the best way of getting your healer’s badges. Drop them at choke points and defensive zones of your team and you can guarantee a healing point or two shortly. Remember you can have a max of 5 packs out at once, so don’t spam wherever you go. DO NOT throw them around in the middle of streets and in enemy bases, as it’s more than likely they will help your enemies more than you. A final trick you can perform is to throw a pack at your feet and lie on it while supporting. This way any sniper rounds that come your way will be instantly healed, allowing you to bugger off without risking taking a smoke grenade to the head and carking it.
2) It can be held, slowly healing team mates nearby and manually returning them to their prime. I tend to find I only do this if I’m down to my last pack. The other reason to do this is if you’re not sure if people nearby need healing (the health metre only appears after they’ve gone down past half health.). If you hear that bandage being unrolled, keep it out until you’ve patched up any nearby friends. That is, after all, why you’re there.
Shock paddles: Ever wanted to feel like a god? To know what it’s like to have the power over life and death? Wanted to put that ‘spark’ back into someone’s life? Well, now you can with these handy portable defribulators. Did I mention I love that word? Shock paddles will often mean the difference between victory and defeat, as every successful revive means one more ticket for your team and (if whoever you revived is any good at all) a few less for your opponents. While I won’t go into the utter unrealism of these little zappers, one thing is certain- they are why you are playing medic. You are essentially an invulnerability metre for your nearby soldiers. No matter what hits them (with a few exceptions), give you a few moments and they’ll be back and better than ever. Still, the shockies are one of the most badly used pieces of kit in your inventory and this will probably take a while to explain, so hunker down and pull a mars bar outta your kit or something. I shall now say the golden rule. Repeat after me:
“If someone is dead, there is a big fucking REASON they are dead.”
People don’t just fall over and twitch for no reason. It is generally because someone nearby has caused a bullet-skull convergence or at the very least they have been flattened by roughly a hundred tonnes of exceedingly hostile steel plating. Whatever did that to them would very likely want to do exactly the same thing to you, with interest. Therefore it is prudent to remember that walking out with that big ‘shoot me’ sign on your helmet waving nothing but a pair of unwieldy capacitators is not the most sensible of ideas. In fact it’s rather bloody stupid. Getting yourself killed will help no one, and resurrecting your friend only to have you both shot in the back of the head by a laughing twelve yr old on the other side of the world is not the most glamorous of ends and is really, really annoying for your team mate. I have spent a whole minute and a half lying on the ground getting resurrected and then instantly killed by an enemy in a tank. The guy killed me roughly fifteen times. I am NOT kidding. I got kicked from that particular server for abusive language, but I think I was justified.
If someone nearby dies, pull out your gun. If someone not nearby dies, you should have your gun out anyway. This is the procedure you follow
1)Glance at the kill tally. This will show you how they died and who killed them. For example if you see something like
BlaZiN.uk[bigmuthaloadofbullets]tehnoobistan
Then it’s probably not a good idea to immediately pull out the shockers and run into the open. In fact, it’s probably a good idea to run the hell away as fast as you can and, if possible, leave that particular server. Forever. Its sometimes harder to pick who killed who and where than others, but in some cases its rather blatantly obvious that trying to resurrect would be hazardous to your health. For example, if there is a pile of friendly corpses just ahead and the kill tally reads
Thereisnosaurus[M1A2]goodone
Thereisnosaurus[M1A2]Owwww
Thereisnosaurus[M1A2]that’sjustnasty
Thereisnosaurus[M1A2]pwnage
Thereisnosaurus[M1A2]bloodyhaxor
Then it’s a safe bet trying to resurrect any of the above will lead to your own good self being added to that same list and a few more points to my score. If, however, the tally reads something like this
Thereisnosaurus[M1A2]Owwww
Thereisnosaurus[M1A2]that’sjustnasty
Thereisnosaurus[M1A2]pwnage
Thereisnosaurus[M1A2]bloodyhaxor
Cheatingbastard[MR-444]Thereisnosaurus
You now know that I have managed to be dubiously killed and the road is more or less safe for you to undo all my wondrous work. On to….
3)Find your friend, run to him, scanning for enemies and checking on any friends in the vicinity. Knowing where to seek cover after your successful resurrection is essential as your friend will often follow you, so if you run right into the middle of a killing zone, you’ll probably get him gipped as well. When you are maybe a metre or two away from him, pull out your paddles. Now for a warning courtesy of my good self. Please take good note. IF YOU SEE AN ENEMY, DO NOT PROCEED TO RESURECTION. PULL OUT YOUR GUN. AIM YOUR GUN. SHOOT THE BASTARD/S DEAD. REPEATEDLY. There have been COUNTLESS occasions on which I have killed some chap and immediately a medic appears, shock paddles ready, runs STRAIGHT PAST me standing there reloading and prones on the guy I killed, padding him. All while I stand literally on top of them and take a nice clean aim at their head. 3 kills to me, two corpses for them. In extreme cases, this happens multiple times. In one case I got roughly 15 kills in 15 seconds, five of those were one guy, simply because about ten medics turned up and started resurrecting as I gunned them down where they lay. The only reason the slaughter stopped was because I ran out of MACHINE GUN ammo…. I checked my score just after that and I had 50 points. The next best person on the server had 6. I IMPLORE YOU. DON’T DO IT!!!!!
4) go prone and aim your paddles at the chest area of your fellow soldier. Remember that you don’t have to be right on top of them, the paddles have a range of a few centimeters so you can undershoot by a little and still get the res, but if you overshoot and miss, you won’t get it. So a little too little is a bit better than a little too much. If your first attempt doesn’t work, DON’T LIE THERE. MOVE SOLDIER MOVE! This is why you did pushups in boot camp! Find cover, wait until the paddles are set and ready and then try again. When it finally works…
5) Bugger out of there and get under cover. Unless under immediate threat of termination from enemy fire, KEEP YOUR PADDLES OUT until they have charged again, THEN switch to gun. This means next time you pull em out they’ll be all ready for you and you won’t have lie next to your target like the squishy target you are waiting for them to power up. This is probably the second most important rule of em all, so don’t forget.
6) If everything worked (and god knows it doesn’t always do so) you now have 2 more points and a live team member to your name. Good work, but no rest for the wicked. Scan the minimap again and have a look for those resurrect symbols. Remember that dead team mates don’t always show up on your HUD, so the map is essential to your success. Having located a wounded fellow, gun up, head up, and ship out to save the day again.
And there you have it, the six steps to using your paddles. A few final notes on them- remember they can be used as weapons in a fix, if someone appears around a corner and you’re caught with your paddles up and charged, don’t switch to knife, take a good aim with those fribbers and spang him one good. Make sure it hits though, cause the paddles take FOREVER to recharge and almost guaranteed you won’t get a second shot at it. Also, shock paddles cannot hurt tanks. Consider yourself warned.
Of course, this is all just about you, and the medic of all kits is a team member first and foremost. Without your khaki covered friends you are about as useful as a blunt rubber knife in a smelter. The first step after spawning as a medic is to get a squad if you don’t already have one. In fact, do it BEFORE you spawn. Do what your squad leader tells you and help your team out. That is why you’re here, and with heal and res points, you’ll be rewarded for it. Don’t be tempted to jump into the nearest chopper or plane and hightail it off into the heavens, as you’ll probably get less points and be less use anyway. Nor can you resurrect yourself when I blow you the heck outta the sky. In an advancing squad, stick to the middle, spot enemies and heal any people in front or behind you that get killed. If pinned down, get outta there, take a few hits, duck and cover, heal yourself and flank the bastards then go back and patch up your friends. When defending, chuck medkits around so your friends can repair themselves for your benefit, and stay well back with gun up and finger poised on the shockpaddle key. Even better hide around a corner and cover the flank, using your HUD to find out when someone has bitten the bucket. The one big exception to the golden rule of medication is if your squad leader dies. Then it is your job, no matter what, to kill anything standing on him and then hit him with those paddles. If he’s dead, you’ve not done your job. Doofus.
In some situations it is wiser to go lone wolf with medic, particularly when on defence in maps like kharkand and Sharki peninsula. This way you can spread your services over a wider front, helping out where needed and generally being a nice/nasty guy. Just remember to keep yourself nice and healthy, well armed and ready to dish out the pain, just in case enemy units come hunting you down.
Now for some little hints based on map type:
- Urban maps: if you’re aiming to get a decent score, stick with the first mass assault/defence and keep it up and running. Use squad leaders to keep up with the surge and make sure you keep combat troops in the fight, auxiliaries come second. Use grenades to suppress the opposition while you’re resurrecting and make sure to keep yourself alive. Later in the game, get a squad and stick with them as this will guarantee you combat action and bodies to resurrect. You can also use APCs or cars as mobile hospitals, just drive them up to a choke point where there are lots of friends, man the turret and wither those suckers while you wrack up healing points as well
- Armor maps (Kubra, Gulf etc). Get in a light vehicle and run from hot point to hot point. If you see a firefight, steer clear until it calms down, then go in and turn your corpses back into soldiers and watch the carnage start anew
- Chinese maps (dragon valley/dailan plant): use transport choppers and FAVs to get where the action is. Alternatively if fights are going all armor, stay back and try and sneak into a ground defence or vacant tank and show those armor plated freaks who’s boss.
- Wake island: deserves a long tactica of its own. Suffice to say, stay low, use the grass and ensure you provide combat support as well as healing. Turn those bunkers into hospitals and use light vehicles to keep up with the pace of battle, ferrying friendlies around as you heal them.
Finaly, tips to getting your medic badges:
Medic combat badge:
You should easily be able to get a bronze badge while doing normal medical work, it's silver and gold that are harder. The best way of getting silver is to head over to a kharkand server and play the map like an assault-lite trooper. Pick a good mid ranged spot and camp it up, use grenades to flush clumps and generaly cause carnage. Getting a gold one is the hardest of all. The best way is to learn how to fly well and get in a chopper gunner or bomber cockpit position and let rip as much as is humanly possible on a big server. Give it time and you'll be shiney all over
Medic heal badge:
The best map for this is kharkand or sharqi, depending on your preference. drop a lot of heal packs at choke points and actively search out wounded troopers as a lone wolf. stay with big groups with your medkit out and heal people gradually as they take damage. This is difficult if you don't know what to do, but if you stick to my guidlines above, you'll have gotten it in no time, though the gold one is pretty damn impossible. As a side note, if you're one heal short and running out of time, you can always pop a few pistol rounds into a team mates foot and toss him a heal pack. not particularly nice, but generaly no harm, no foul and you only lose a few points for team damage.
Well, I hope you enjoyed this small epistle on the uses of the medic in BF2. if you have any futher enquiries, questions or things you want me to add to this, contact me at [email protected]. Get out there and don’t forget your asprin!
Happy gaming
Thereisnosaurus
edit: added badge guides
Painkiller- a guide to battlefield first aid dispensal
So, you want to be a medic do you? Medics have one of the toughest jobs in battlefield 2. Not only do you have to watch your unarmored and bright red and white back (I wish they’d just go and replace it with a bull’s-eye, that’s pretty much what it is) but you have to watch out for your team as well. The key to playing a valuable medic is to understand you are not purely there to dish out headache tablets and Band-Aids but, as the rules of war go out the window in a modern battlefield, you’re likely going to have to perform open-heart surgery with your knife and stitch up the opposition with your guns as well. While this is all good and natural (who wants to live off teamwork points anyhow), it is a mistake so many medics make that they are healers first and warriors never. So I present to you the art of ensuring your team-mates survival, not to mention your own, in a dangerous world.
The first thing a medic must learn is his arsenal. And you really do have one. Before SF, medics had the largest amount of kit around, and still have an equal share. Let’s have a look at them in detail:
Knife: The good old combat knife will help you out in many a situation, always keep it to hand. It attacks fast, has instant deathing capability and can generally dish out the hurt far better than the pistol at close range if you run out of ammo. So if you hear that ominous click, go 1, not 2, and introduce the enemy to the art of a battlefield vasectomy sans-anesthetic style
Pistol: your little black friend, your pistol has several uses. While the knife is better as backup in point blank situations, in mid range firefights a good pistol user can carve through the opposition as effectively as an assault trooper. Remember to only scope if you are sure you’re not visible to the foe. Fire over open sights and do so while moving, preferably in the air and on the ground as well as side to side and forwards/backwards. Without armor, you must rely on your extra stamina to keep you out of harms way. A still medic is a dead medic, even more so when ranges tighten.
Grenades: These are a medic’s deadliest weapon. What better for an unarmored, juicy target than a gun that can fire around corners and kill even the mightiest with a single burst of red-hot cornchips? Unlike the combat classes, you don’t have backup explosives when your ‘nades run out so use them wisely. Leave preliminary bombardment to more suited classes and use your own packets of death to dispense with groups of enemies you have spotted. Learn to master the jump-throw and the bounce-throw to dispense with enemies near and far and soon you’ll be able to place a ‘nade in a jet cockpit from halfway across the map
-jump throw: time a forwards jump to provide extra momentum to your grenade, tossing it with a longer and straighter trajectory than a normal lob. Use this throw in confined areas to skim it off the roof or put it through a narrow gap, or in the open to take out or suppress distant targets
-bounce throw: jump up and back, simultaneously throwing the nade at the ground a metre or two in front of you. Use this while backing around corners to scythe down pursuit or if you find yourself surrounded by opposition to take a few of the bastards with you
Rifle: of all the things in your kit, this baby should be warming your hands for 90% of your career. Deadly at close ranges and deadly at long ranges, the assault rifle is the king of the battlefield when wielded with skill. It is also given to you for a reason. Your commander did not expect you to go into battle wielding only shock paddles and a bad attitude. You have a gun. Use it.
The key to using your assault rifle well is to understand 2 things:
1) you’re not going to hit shit standing up and
2) Even if you’re prone you’re gonna miss unless you know what you’re doing.
Assault rifle combat at mid range should be performed prone with the semi-automatic function selected and sights fixed. Used this way, even the humble M16 can out-snipe snipers. Time your shots carefully, with about a .5 second gap between bangs, taking careful aim at the head of a stationary opponent and the torso of a moving one. This way you ensure that almost all your shots will hit, probably doing lethal damage in half the regular time. Avoid getting stuck in long firefights, take a few shots and skedaddle, find a new position and open up again. While you have a weapon, this isn’t your primary purpose for existence, especially in a squad format. Let the assault and support troopers do the carnage and stick to cleaning up after them or flanking vulnerable foes. Lets have a look at the weapons available to the medics in the game. Remember that an unlocked weapon is not always the best choice.
M16: less lethal but faster firing than her competitors, the M16 is my least favourite of the medic weapons, but is still deadly in medium range situations and is probably the best of the medic weapons at carving up large groups of opposition. Remember to use single shot at anything other than point blank range with this weapon as the burst fire is very innacurate
AK47/101: Damn fine guns with nice sights and a good damage potential. Once again single shot mode is your best of friends with these babies, but automatic fire is somewhat forgiving if employed in short 2-5 round bursts. Up close, you can actually spam with these guys with some degree of effectiveness, but be careful, coz your magazine won’t last long, so keep your finger on the reload button and be aware of corners you can hide behind.
L85A1: this weapon is awesome at medium range but pales compared to the basic weapons in close combat. While its potential is awesome, you’re either a master or you’re not. If not, pick your basic weapon or the G36E unless you know you’ll be doing mostly mid ranged support, in which case, L85 all the way baby.
G36E: one of the best weapons in the game, the G36E combines the accuracy of the G36C with the clout of an assault rifle. A winner if you ever saw one. Burst fire while prone with this weapon is surprisingly effective, but single shot is still the way to go unless the pressure is really on. Still, keep your cool and pick your shots and this gun will see you ranking with the assault troops on kills.
Medkit: Penicillin pie with a healthy dose of aspirin added in, this casket of wonders can turn even the most grievous of wounds into mere ketchup stains upon the fatigues of your comrades. The medkit can be used in one of two ways:
1) It can be dropped for instant health. Simply chuck it on the ground and wait for a second, then anyone who walks over it (including foes) will get a pleasant soothing feeling and a full health bar. This can be used on yourself if you’re getting mauled, making medics one of the best classes for infiltration along side SF. Those little prods and pains you get while sneaking through a fire zone disappear at the drop of a medpack, leaving you to continue in fine form. Dropping packs is also the best way of getting your healer’s badges. Drop them at choke points and defensive zones of your team and you can guarantee a healing point or two shortly. Remember you can have a max of 5 packs out at once, so don’t spam wherever you go. DO NOT throw them around in the middle of streets and in enemy bases, as it’s more than likely they will help your enemies more than you. A final trick you can perform is to throw a pack at your feet and lie on it while supporting. This way any sniper rounds that come your way will be instantly healed, allowing you to bugger off without risking taking a smoke grenade to the head and carking it.
2) It can be held, slowly healing team mates nearby and manually returning them to their prime. I tend to find I only do this if I’m down to my last pack. The other reason to do this is if you’re not sure if people nearby need healing (the health metre only appears after they’ve gone down past half health.). If you hear that bandage being unrolled, keep it out until you’ve patched up any nearby friends. That is, after all, why you’re there.
Shock paddles: Ever wanted to feel like a god? To know what it’s like to have the power over life and death? Wanted to put that ‘spark’ back into someone’s life? Well, now you can with these handy portable defribulators. Did I mention I love that word? Shock paddles will often mean the difference between victory and defeat, as every successful revive means one more ticket for your team and (if whoever you revived is any good at all) a few less for your opponents. While I won’t go into the utter unrealism of these little zappers, one thing is certain- they are why you are playing medic. You are essentially an invulnerability metre for your nearby soldiers. No matter what hits them (with a few exceptions), give you a few moments and they’ll be back and better than ever. Still, the shockies are one of the most badly used pieces of kit in your inventory and this will probably take a while to explain, so hunker down and pull a mars bar outta your kit or something. I shall now say the golden rule. Repeat after me:
“If someone is dead, there is a big fucking REASON they are dead.”
People don’t just fall over and twitch for no reason. It is generally because someone nearby has caused a bullet-skull convergence or at the very least they have been flattened by roughly a hundred tonnes of exceedingly hostile steel plating. Whatever did that to them would very likely want to do exactly the same thing to you, with interest. Therefore it is prudent to remember that walking out with that big ‘shoot me’ sign on your helmet waving nothing but a pair of unwieldy capacitators is not the most sensible of ideas. In fact it’s rather bloody stupid. Getting yourself killed will help no one, and resurrecting your friend only to have you both shot in the back of the head by a laughing twelve yr old on the other side of the world is not the most glamorous of ends and is really, really annoying for your team mate. I have spent a whole minute and a half lying on the ground getting resurrected and then instantly killed by an enemy in a tank. The guy killed me roughly fifteen times. I am NOT kidding. I got kicked from that particular server for abusive language, but I think I was justified.
If someone nearby dies, pull out your gun. If someone not nearby dies, you should have your gun out anyway. This is the procedure you follow
1)Glance at the kill tally. This will show you how they died and who killed them. For example if you see something like
BlaZiN.uk[bigmuthaloadofbullets]tehnoobistan
Then it’s probably not a good idea to immediately pull out the shockers and run into the open. In fact, it’s probably a good idea to run the hell away as fast as you can and, if possible, leave that particular server. Forever. Its sometimes harder to pick who killed who and where than others, but in some cases its rather blatantly obvious that trying to resurrect would be hazardous to your health. For example, if there is a pile of friendly corpses just ahead and the kill tally reads
Thereisnosaurus[M1A2]goodone
Thereisnosaurus[M1A2]Owwww
Thereisnosaurus[M1A2]that’sjustnasty
Thereisnosaurus[M1A2]pwnage
Thereisnosaurus[M1A2]bloodyhaxor
Then it’s a safe bet trying to resurrect any of the above will lead to your own good self being added to that same list and a few more points to my score. If, however, the tally reads something like this
Thereisnosaurus[M1A2]Owwww
Thereisnosaurus[M1A2]that’sjustnasty
Thereisnosaurus[M1A2]pwnage
Thereisnosaurus[M1A2]bloodyhaxor
Cheatingbastard[MR-444]Thereisnosaurus
You now know that I have managed to be dubiously killed and the road is more or less safe for you to undo all my wondrous work. On to….
3)Find your friend, run to him, scanning for enemies and checking on any friends in the vicinity. Knowing where to seek cover after your successful resurrection is essential as your friend will often follow you, so if you run right into the middle of a killing zone, you’ll probably get him gipped as well. When you are maybe a metre or two away from him, pull out your paddles. Now for a warning courtesy of my good self. Please take good note. IF YOU SEE AN ENEMY, DO NOT PROCEED TO RESURECTION. PULL OUT YOUR GUN. AIM YOUR GUN. SHOOT THE BASTARD/S DEAD. REPEATEDLY. There have been COUNTLESS occasions on which I have killed some chap and immediately a medic appears, shock paddles ready, runs STRAIGHT PAST me standing there reloading and prones on the guy I killed, padding him. All while I stand literally on top of them and take a nice clean aim at their head. 3 kills to me, two corpses for them. In extreme cases, this happens multiple times. In one case I got roughly 15 kills in 15 seconds, five of those were one guy, simply because about ten medics turned up and started resurrecting as I gunned them down where they lay. The only reason the slaughter stopped was because I ran out of MACHINE GUN ammo…. I checked my score just after that and I had 50 points. The next best person on the server had 6. I IMPLORE YOU. DON’T DO IT!!!!!
4) go prone and aim your paddles at the chest area of your fellow soldier. Remember that you don’t have to be right on top of them, the paddles have a range of a few centimeters so you can undershoot by a little and still get the res, but if you overshoot and miss, you won’t get it. So a little too little is a bit better than a little too much. If your first attempt doesn’t work, DON’T LIE THERE. MOVE SOLDIER MOVE! This is why you did pushups in boot camp! Find cover, wait until the paddles are set and ready and then try again. When it finally works…
5) Bugger out of there and get under cover. Unless under immediate threat of termination from enemy fire, KEEP YOUR PADDLES OUT until they have charged again, THEN switch to gun. This means next time you pull em out they’ll be all ready for you and you won’t have lie next to your target like the squishy target you are waiting for them to power up. This is probably the second most important rule of em all, so don’t forget.
6) If everything worked (and god knows it doesn’t always do so) you now have 2 more points and a live team member to your name. Good work, but no rest for the wicked. Scan the minimap again and have a look for those resurrect symbols. Remember that dead team mates don’t always show up on your HUD, so the map is essential to your success. Having located a wounded fellow, gun up, head up, and ship out to save the day again.
And there you have it, the six steps to using your paddles. A few final notes on them- remember they can be used as weapons in a fix, if someone appears around a corner and you’re caught with your paddles up and charged, don’t switch to knife, take a good aim with those fribbers and spang him one good. Make sure it hits though, cause the paddles take FOREVER to recharge and almost guaranteed you won’t get a second shot at it. Also, shock paddles cannot hurt tanks. Consider yourself warned.
Of course, this is all just about you, and the medic of all kits is a team member first and foremost. Without your khaki covered friends you are about as useful as a blunt rubber knife in a smelter. The first step after spawning as a medic is to get a squad if you don’t already have one. In fact, do it BEFORE you spawn. Do what your squad leader tells you and help your team out. That is why you’re here, and with heal and res points, you’ll be rewarded for it. Don’t be tempted to jump into the nearest chopper or plane and hightail it off into the heavens, as you’ll probably get less points and be less use anyway. Nor can you resurrect yourself when I blow you the heck outta the sky. In an advancing squad, stick to the middle, spot enemies and heal any people in front or behind you that get killed. If pinned down, get outta there, take a few hits, duck and cover, heal yourself and flank the bastards then go back and patch up your friends. When defending, chuck medkits around so your friends can repair themselves for your benefit, and stay well back with gun up and finger poised on the shockpaddle key. Even better hide around a corner and cover the flank, using your HUD to find out when someone has bitten the bucket. The one big exception to the golden rule of medication is if your squad leader dies. Then it is your job, no matter what, to kill anything standing on him and then hit him with those paddles. If he’s dead, you’ve not done your job. Doofus.
In some situations it is wiser to go lone wolf with medic, particularly when on defence in maps like kharkand and Sharki peninsula. This way you can spread your services over a wider front, helping out where needed and generally being a nice/nasty guy. Just remember to keep yourself nice and healthy, well armed and ready to dish out the pain, just in case enemy units come hunting you down.
Now for some little hints based on map type:
- Urban maps: if you’re aiming to get a decent score, stick with the first mass assault/defence and keep it up and running. Use squad leaders to keep up with the surge and make sure you keep combat troops in the fight, auxiliaries come second. Use grenades to suppress the opposition while you’re resurrecting and make sure to keep yourself alive. Later in the game, get a squad and stick with them as this will guarantee you combat action and bodies to resurrect. You can also use APCs or cars as mobile hospitals, just drive them up to a choke point where there are lots of friends, man the turret and wither those suckers while you wrack up healing points as well
- Armor maps (Kubra, Gulf etc). Get in a light vehicle and run from hot point to hot point. If you see a firefight, steer clear until it calms down, then go in and turn your corpses back into soldiers and watch the carnage start anew
- Chinese maps (dragon valley/dailan plant): use transport choppers and FAVs to get where the action is. Alternatively if fights are going all armor, stay back and try and sneak into a ground defence or vacant tank and show those armor plated freaks who’s boss.
- Wake island: deserves a long tactica of its own. Suffice to say, stay low, use the grass and ensure you provide combat support as well as healing. Turn those bunkers into hospitals and use light vehicles to keep up with the pace of battle, ferrying friendlies around as you heal them.
Finaly, tips to getting your medic badges:
Medic combat badge:
You should easily be able to get a bronze badge while doing normal medical work, it's silver and gold that are harder. The best way of getting silver is to head over to a kharkand server and play the map like an assault-lite trooper. Pick a good mid ranged spot and camp it up, use grenades to flush clumps and generaly cause carnage. Getting a gold one is the hardest of all. The best way is to learn how to fly well and get in a chopper gunner or bomber cockpit position and let rip as much as is humanly possible on a big server. Give it time and you'll be shiney all over
Medic heal badge:
The best map for this is kharkand or sharqi, depending on your preference. drop a lot of heal packs at choke points and actively search out wounded troopers as a lone wolf. stay with big groups with your medkit out and heal people gradually as they take damage. This is difficult if you don't know what to do, but if you stick to my guidlines above, you'll have gotten it in no time, though the gold one is pretty damn impossible. As a side note, if you're one heal short and running out of time, you can always pop a few pistol rounds into a team mates foot and toss him a heal pack. not particularly nice, but generaly no harm, no foul and you only lose a few points for team damage.
Well, I hope you enjoyed this small epistle on the uses of the medic in BF2. if you have any futher enquiries, questions or things you want me to add to this, contact me at [email protected]. Get out there and don’t forget your asprin!
Happy gaming
Thereisnosaurus
edit: added badge guides
Last edited by thereisnosaurus (2005-12-26 04:24:58)