I've been watching a lot of demos recently, and I noticed a lot of the "top" medics around use the blutsauger instead of the needle gun. Which I find odd because I thought the reduced health regeneration made it not worth the switch in competitive play.

Does anyone know why?

I'm not a mind reader, but I'd guess they trust their pockets to keep soldiers and demos off them, and are good enough at dodging spam that they aren't too worried about the regen. Its really hard to be 100% perfect predicting flanking scouts, and if whipping out the Blut keeps the medic from getting 2 shot, it is a pretty fair trade.

Honestly? From what I've heard it's more of an elitist thing than any sort of strategic choice.

I'd imagine it depends on the medic's style, a medic that's in the thick of things more often might want the blut because it'll heal them as they escape and do damage. But I wouldn't be certain, I'm not a medic. :cool:

Style choice. Having the blut is nice if a scout gets the jump on you. Having the regular gun is nice because you can draw more spam without being punished.

In my opinion the blut is worse, but I recognize that it's useful sometimes. Even so, it seems to me that for every time a blut medic is saved by his needles, he suffers for the poor regen 5x. Having to go back for health and give up a position, or just being at 50hp when a scout drops in on you rather than 100hp... not for me.

Personally, I also dislike the blut because I feel like I have to use it over the ubersaw to make it worth it, when sometimes it's better to try to land a melee hit. The choice is easier for me with needles.

I personally use blut when I'm not getting covered from scouts as well. It also teaches me how to needle, since the regular needlegun essentially precludes the use of needles as a weapon.

Also, taking a little bit of spam feels a LOT bigger with the blut

blut's nice if you can get those meatneedles in 8<
I like the regen though. It can easily save you even during a battle, once it did against a blackstar pyro on badlands.

Really? I've seen a lot of them us the needlegun.

Its not an elitist thing, it really is, as previously stated, a style choice.

Personally, I use the needlegun. I'll use blut sometimes if I'm pubbing because there are pyros. Blut is excellent when running from pyros. BUT the needlegun will keep you alive longer if there isn't any enemies to leech from.

But when I pug, I always use needle. I only use it when I need to. While the ability to leech health is nice, the health regen overall has been much handier and has saved me more times.

To me, it works like this:
If your pocket dies, you want to get out of there quickly, you don't want to continue attacking them with your blut/ needle in one spot. You can attack them as you tactically retreat, but you don't want to just stand there. If you make it out, that health regen will bring your health back up to normal faster. You want to spend the least amount of time within range of the enemy as possible. So, you wouldn't have much time to use the blut effectively anyways. So, if/when you escape, you'll have to rely on the regen.

But thats my personal preference. I'm sure a more aggressive medic has an excellent reason why he uses blut. My personal play style calls for the needle.

To my knowledge Pure is the only Invite medic that still uses the Blutsauger

playing a game as medic with the vamp gun and playing a game with the needle gun is almost night and day.

I do have my own process to which gun I pick and if you know the features and benefits of each gun, you can make a guess

I would recommend just using the Needlegun. Like previously mentioned when you take damage with the vamp gun, your health regen is nearly cut in half.

playing a game as medic with the vamp gun and playing a game with the needle gun is almost night and day.

I do have my own process to which gun I pick and if you know the features and benefits of each gun, you can make a guess

I would recommend just using the Needlegun. Like previously mentioned when you take damage with the vamp gun, your health regen is nearly cut in half.
Care to share that process? I'm sure the aspiring medics would love to know it.

I have to agree with Pure. Its night and day.

When I'm not in a pub game, I'm a lot less aggressive (quite aggressive in pubs). I try to rely more on positioning and my pocket. If I'm in, say, a pub, and I don't mesh with my pocket and he/ she would rather be roaming (this happens all the time for me), I'll sometimes go blut because I know I'm going to have to defend myself. To me, if I trust my pocket, and my positioning has been good, I'll stick with the needle for the regen.

However, thats still a personal preference and you could just as easily get away with using the blut if you're with a solid pocket. Its really going to vary on your play style, aggressiveness, and pretty much your personal preference.

Wow. You guys replied really fast. Thanks for all the input.
Guess I'll play a few PUGs to see which one helps me survive better.

Generally I use the needlegun, but on some maps where I expect to be in the think of things and may not have escorts a lot of the time, I will pull out the Vamp every now and again. It saved me from the odd Pyro rush on Badlands a few times..

I tend to use regular needles on gpit and badlands and vamp needles on everything else. Basically, I don't think the passive health regen is all it is cracked up to be. While a default +3 hp/s is nice, that isn't going to actively save you from any fights really. It's basically good for nullifying spam damage and keeping you as close to full as possible at all times. The thing is though, if you ever actually take significant damage you are going to be heading for a health pack anyways, and those tend not to be in short supply. So, if you are just going to go to a health pack anyways, that extra regen really isn't doing a whole lot for you.

It's not that vamp needles are going to be consistently allowing you to just outdm scouts and dump all over them, but I think on most maps it ends up being a pretty fair trade off. Whenever I use vamps there are a couple of times where I'm in a bad position and think "Man I wish I had regular needles for that hp regen." Meanwhile, plenty of times when I have regular I think "Wow if I had vamps that scout would be dead and I'd still be alive."

Basically, I go regular on gpit and badlands because both maps have inconviently placed healthpacks. Badlands mid forces you back into the house and away from the action and yard is completely devoid of healthpacks, you have to backtrack all the way back into house for healing there. Same story for gpit, on C there is absolutely nothing and for B there are just 3 scattered small pills. Meanwhile, on maps like Granary I feel that there are adequate healthpacks everywhere and if I ever need one I can get one.

Grieve dropping logic bombs - I do what exactly he said

I was in a scrim three nights ago and was getting beaten up by scouts on granary, yet, I was still hitting each scout with 8-12 needles when they attacked me and I always died. I got frustrated, wondered what was wrong, and since i use no gun model, i quickly realized i had the needle gun. I switched to the vamp and did not die "like a bitch" for the rest of the game.

Damn grieve. nicely answered.
I usually switch to the vamp when I feel like my needle game is on that day. But your logic is a lot better than mine.

sounds good to me :biggrin:

I'm not a mind reader, but I'd guess they trust their pockets to keep soldiers and demos off them, and are good enough at dodging spam that they aren't too worried about the regen. Its really hard to be 100% perfect predicting flanking scouts, and if whipping out the Blut keeps the medic from getting 2 shot, it is a pretty fair trade.

Agree with this guy

Use whatever you want to.

I personally find that the bluts can save you in some situations whereas the regen isn't all that useful (usually you can find a health pack).

I'm not a big fan of melee seeing as a competent player without much trouble can make you miss and then you're caught with your pants down and you'll die.

In the end use whatever you want to

Another thread on this forum where someone is asking on specific information on how to play the game when it's, as with everything, something you should decide.

Logically, one would stay with the normal needle-gun for the increased health regeneration because 99% of the time Medics in Comp. TF2 are healing other classes. Other classes which should be protecting you and making sure you never have to resort to needles.

Realistically, unless the Scout's lit, if your team whiped and you happen to be the sole survivor running away desperately to Resupply when full health Scouts are after you, decent ones mind you, you're pretty much a goner whether you're wielding Bluts or not.

Okay, I've got a slightly (pah, slightly...) unorthodox playstyle:

I use the Blutsauger. As Grieve so conveniently said, if you take significant spam damage you're running for a medkit whatever happens. Despite playing very aggressively as a Medic (with my team, obviously), I can stay out of the way of a lot of damage behind my pocket/buddy. However, I'm not with a terrifically high-skill team and my pocket often gets overwhelmed. Generally, people don't expect a Medic to do anything but flee after his pocket is killed, but I find that (this depends on immediate enemies) a couple of steps forward into the enemy chasing firing Blutsauger syringes does two things.
1) Gives you a shedload of health to make up for the shot they'll inevitably hit you with.
2) Disorientate/confuse them for a fraction of a second, or even make them back off.

These confer various advantages such as the fact that anyone chasing will be running straight, and if your pocket has done his job and damaged them heavily they still probably won't wait/go for health by passing up the opportunity to kill me, the Medic. So, I often get kills with it, or in fact am allowed to escape thanks to a maneuver which requires just 3 seconds... and the Blutsauger.

Bear in mind that I've developed this playstyle personally over a significant amount of time, so everything you read on paper isn't exactly my judgement and thought processes: I'm just trying to widen the tactical spectrum here.

For example, if the teammate I'm healing is under significant pressure but with enough health and is out of ammo (loaded), I will often switch and start attacking the opposition with my Blutsauger to take the pressure off him. This, again, works because it's the last thing opponents think of and it gives my teammate space to reload and refocus, whilst once again, the 'meatneedles' more than make up for any damage I may take.

I find that the Syringe Gun isn't useful in the situations where generally it needs to be used! (i.e. no teammates to help you).

I'd basically combine Grieve's points with a consideration of how much you actually bring out your needles. If you die a lot when you're by yourself running through yard or something, vamps are great, but if your usual cause of death is more in the realm of overwhelming spam or quick flank picks, you're gonna want to have higher standing hp at any given time, which fits syringe gun better.

To add on to my previous post, in our game on Freight earlier today I was the last one left on my team as the enemy capped second. Their Scout had pushed forward ahead of the cap and thanks to my Blutsauger and *brushes shoulders* great skill I killed the Scout before the combo could reach me by which time my Soldiers and Demoman had spawned, thus denying the enemy the win.

These situations are actually more frequent that you might think*.



*At least for my team... but nobody can win all the time :wink:

You wont notice the syringe gun saving you, but it will. Its not as dramatic, but I prefer it.