Aliens: Fireteam Elite How to not make your team sad as Medic

Preface

A few things I want to state before going on to the "guide". I put guide in quotations because this is NOT the definitive guide on how to play medic, and at the time of writing this I haven't even cleared the campaign on Extreme (because I can never find a match T.T) but anyway, a few points before I start:

As I just said, this is just me sharing how I like to play medic, and it usually works out ok.

This guide is intended for people playing on Intense or higher BUT I'm sure it could be applied to casual or standard. I play this way in both the campaign and in horde mode but the amount of medkits varies between these modes so I may do a "differences" section but we'll see.

If I get any numbers wrong, I'm happy to make corrections if you post a comment.

This guide may contain spoilers. I'll try to tag any that I can remember but I'll likely forget to censor everything.

Most importantly, take this entire guide with a grain of salt. Play the game how you enjoy.

Basics: Role

Official Doc Role:The Docs that serve Marine formations not only keep comrades on their feet and in the fight with fireteam-healing Trauma Stations, they also enhance their performance through administration of a "cocktail" of Combat Stims. Every Marine is a combatant first, and the Doc is no exception - they carry a Rifle and Handgun.

I'm not going to say Doc, so just pretend that's what I said, anywhere I say Medic.

My description of Medic:While every character can heal themselves or a teammate with a medkit, it's hard to get the most out every medkit. A quick reminder, medkits heal for 1250 hit points (with no perks) and every marine has 1500 hit points (again, no perks). That means if you want to maximize a medkit, you have to be at 250 hit points, or less, to "fully use" the medkit. This is where the Medic comes in. The Medic is able carry around a canister of hit points that everyone can use to heal when a medkit would be a waste. The Medic can also buff their team, but I feel that CS has less impact than say, the Gunner's Overclock ability.

My thoughts when playing medic:I have a list of priorities when playing medic that I'll try to summarize, in order:

I need to keep myself alive.

Don't do stupid stuff that'll end in death. Also be aware of xenos that are threats (drones, prowlers, and spitters)

I need to keep my teammates alive.

Heal people that need to be healed. *More on this in later sections

I need to keep my teammates safe.

Kill any xenos that are in range to attack any of my teammates.

Try to kill any dangerous xenos (spitters, drones, bursters, prowlers) that my team isn't already addressing Stim. *More later

Shoot bugs

Loot

I tried to just list the tl;dr version of my priorities but gave the ones that deserved some detail a sub-bullet. The order of this list is not absolute and you should play to the situation.The main things I feel are most important are, I focus healing over shooting but sometimes shooting is necessary to make it safe to heal. With this list in mind, the biggest take away is I'm only shooting when I need to. Again, this is just how I choose to play Medic but I enjoy playing it as a more supporting role rather than just being the guy that CAN heal but is more focused on just killing bugs. *Not saying I don't shoot bugs, I just wait till the other stuff is done first, usually...

Basics: Base Kit (Skills/Abilities)

This section assumes you're a newer Medic so if you already play Medic, you can probably skip over this.

A few quick keywords that I'm going to abbreviate:

Trauma Station = TS

Combat Stims = CS or Stim

Field Medic = FM or PassiveTrauma StationAbility Description: "Deploys a Trauma Station in front of you that heals nearby allies. Has a limited supply of Healing. Can be picked up and redeployed."

The TS is your most important ability imo so this bit may be a little lengthy.

By default, this is bound to Q. When you first press Q you'll see a green hologram, I'm not sure how to describe it but that's your TS. You can left click to place it or you can right click to cancel and put it back WITHOUT putting it on cooldown.

You can only have 1 TS on the map at a time and anytime you remove one, there will be a cooldown before you can place one again. You can pick up your TS after you place it by holding Interact (F by default); you'll see a prompt to pickup if you're close enough. Picking up your TS will put it on a short (~3sec) cooldown. You can also press Q while you have a TS placed to destroy it, remotely. If you destroy your TS with Q, it's put on a cooldown for 15+ seconds (similar to Technician's Sentry). Currently, your TS can't be destroyed by enemies like a Sentry can, and will persist until it runs out of charge, or you remove it.

Your TS will start every game with 3000 charge. It provides hit points to anyone standing in its area of affect(aoe) at a 1 charge to 1 hit point ratio (without perks). Your TS will NOT passively generate charge. You can however gain 750 charge when you pickup a medkit. Your TS cannot over charge; 3000 charge is the max. If you have 2700 charge and you pick up a medkit, your TS will gain 300 charge and 450 charge will be lost (that's ok, but keep that in mind when rationing health).

At the time of writing this, picking up a medkit is the only way to gain charge for the TS.

My advice: TSThere are a lot of ways you can use your TS but it's most efficient in one of the two ways:

To top off the team's health, or to provide healing while I'm busy shooting, reviving, or otherwise engaged.

My general rule of thumb is, if full healing someone is going to cost ~1000 or more, they get a medkit, but if say someone takes ~200 damage from a spitter's acid, I drop my TS to top off their health. Use your best judgement on how to go about keeping your team alive but remember, if you don't use your charges, you lose em'. Additionally, to gain any charges you need to not already be holding a medkit; you need to be able to pickup a medkit. I might add a health/resource management section but that's all I'll say on the TS for now.

Combat StimsAbility Description: Increases Accuracy and Stability by 50%, Stamina Regen by 30%, and Movement Speed by 15% for you and nearby allies.

Your Stim is bound to E by default. This is your "support buff" ability. In short, you make your team more mobile and more accurate, when stim is active. The cooldown is ~40 seconds (without perks) BUT Medic has a few ways of shortening cooldown.

My advice: StimsI pretty much use this ability on cooldown. I said earlier that CS has less impact than Overclock but CS increase move speed and stamina regen. I like to go fast so being stim buffed makes the whole team go faster. Obviously, there are times when your team can benefit greatly from the accuracy and stability buff (during overclock) but if you're using your passive and have some perks, you can have stims going every 10 or so seconds. Alternatively, you could run duration perks and just have stims last forever.

Field MedicAbility Description: For each nearby ally, your Ability Recharge Speed is increased by 15%. Picking up an Aid Kit restores a portion of your Trauma Station's energy.

This is the green bar and two outlines that centered at the bottom of your screen (if you HUD on) Your passive is something that you should be aware of but I wouldn't say you need to focus on it, or freak out if you aren't able to get both stacks. Basically, if you're close to your teammates, your stims cooldown faster. Oh, and this is what actually lets you gain charge for your TS; idk why it's not bundled with the TS itself but oh well. You'll gain 750 charge each time you pickup a medkit but any excess charge is lost.

My advice: PassiveI try to keep my passive up, with at least 1 stack, whenever stims are on cooldown. This means I'm like hugging someone most of the time. The only ability that you have to speed up the recharge of is CS, so when CS is active, you're not even benefiting from your passive. Keep your passive in mind, but it's not a huge deal if you aren't getting the 30% all the time. Try to stay near your team (which you should already be doing) but be mindful of friendly fire.

Perks

Rolling Doesn't Cost Stamina

I'm only going to list the perks that I really like/think are really helpful. The game is new and I haven't looked into the meta and it's likely Medic will get a rework as the community doesn't really like the "no passive" charge thing.

Perk NameDescriptionThoughtsAnesthesiologistAfter not taking damage for at least 10 seconds, gain 10% of your current life as Temp Health.This perk is amazing. Basically, you get a shield (extra hp) every 10 seconds you don't take damage. It doesn't seems to actually be every 10 seconds, it's more like 10 seconds of not taking damage, after taking some damage. I've gotten the shield up to 600 before*, which I'm not sure if that's intended but if you just touch some acid, then chill for 10 seconds, you'll stack your shieldBedside MannerYou can pick up downed allies twice as fast and your entire team's Bleedout Time is increased by 25%.This perk is universal and I run it on pretty much every loadout, for every class. On intense, without Bedside Manner, the bleed out time is 30 seconds. On standard I think it's 120 seconds. That 25% really matters on the higher difficulties so it's a nice safety net. Additionally, the increased revive speed is just niceMigraine SolutionHeadshot kills reduce the cooldown of Combat Stims by 1 secondI love this perk. It's part of how I can spam stims. As long as you're getting headshots, this perk can make your horde rounds go so fast. As a note, this is a perk you need to buy from the shop guy (4500 credits).Rapid RecoveryPicking up a downed ally grants them 50% more health and your entire team's Bleedout Time is increased by another 25%.Bleed out time is just a nice thing to have. The big thing this perk offers though is the 50% more hp on pickup. This means you can pick someone up with around ~900 hp and using 600 charge to heal them isn't too bad. Note that to run this perk, you have to connect it to Bedside Manner. ReadinessYour Movement and Ability Recharge Speeds are increased by 10% and your Reload Speed and Handling are increased by 20%.This perk is just good. It only takes up 2 slots and it's nothing but benefits for you.Super SerumCombat Stims grants 30% Handling and additionally causes stamina regeneration to no longer be halted by dodging for its duration.Remember when I said I like to go fast? This perk makes it so when stims are active . That's not entirely true, but your stamina will continue to regen while your roll so it makes dodging a drone or warrior, much easier. I have a feeling this perk will get nerfed or reworked but for now, it's one of my favoritesSupport SystemYour Outgoing Healing is increased by 20% and allies now gain 15% Ability Recharge Speed while standing near you.This perk increases your healing output. I haven't test to try and figure out exactly how it affects the TS but at the very least, you get more out of medkits AND any teammates granting you a stack of your passive, also get increased recharge speed.Surgeon's Hand'sYou can no longers be stumbled while interacting with objects, reviving allies, or using an Aid Kit.This is another universal perk that I just run on everything because it's so good. It says you can't be stumbled but I've definitely been knocked off the data console on Act 1 ep 1 so it's more like sometimes, you don't get stumbled when interacting with things. Either way, this perk is amazing and you aren't already running it, give it a try.

Medic has a lot of other perks but again, this is just a list of perks I often use and think benefit the playstyle well.

*Update, I've confirmed that it's 10 seconds of not taking damage AFTER taking damage. My new record shield was 1120, so almost a second health bar

Tips

Try to heal when people are grabbing ammo. This can mean putting down your TS in front of an ammo crate but most often I try to medkit anyone who needs it when they go to pickup ammo. Sometimes, peoples don't hold still when the medic keeps walking at them while they're at 100 hp.... so I just wait until they have to hold still, which will happen any time they have to interact with something.

Don't be stingy with your TS charges. Medkits are more valuable than TS charge, imo. Here's my reasoning: A medkit provides 1250 health after ~3 seconds of interacting. The TS will provide a few hp a second, passively to anyone standing in its AoE. Once you have the Surgeon's Hands perk, you can heal someone (including yourself) by 1250hp in 3 seconds. If someone is at half health, reloading, and a swarm is coming, healing them up in 3 seconds sounds amazing, as opposing to playing "please stay in the zone and don't run in front of my bullets".

Use Stims often. The cooldown seems long but with your passive and some perks (Migraine Solution), it really isn't that long and being able to move faster and roll more often if really nice. Oh, and I guess it makes it easy to shoot stuff too.

Your life is the most important but your hp, isn't. You need to stay alive, and that should be your focus. This doesn't mean you should run anytime your team starts to get swarmed or that you shouldn't fight, it just means that your role as medic is to keep everyone alive. Gunner and Demolisher have a much higher DPS than Medic does (without a build for dps) so I find it best to let them do what they're meant to do, and I'll keep us all alive.

As your charges get lower and you have to ration a bit more, you can quickly remove your TS by pressing Q a second time while your TS is out. I use this a lot when I'm trying to get everyone up to 75% health and I don't want to waste charges/use too many if I'm not going to see a medkit soon.

Sync up with your Gunner/Demolisher, if you have one. Using Stim with Overclock is amazing; you get insane fire rate and next to no recoil. If you don't have a Gunner, but have a Demolisher, try to use your Stim when they've got their heavy weapon out or if they get a knock down on a bigger xeno

Loadouts

Coming soon?

Summary

I enjoy playing Medic as a support role where I prioritize my team's health over all else. This is not the only way to play Medic and everyone is welcome to play and enjoy the game however they want.

Major points Stay alive

Use your TS for times when a medkit would be a waste.

Try to be the only one picking up medkits

Your gun is for defense, not just killing xenos

Minor stuff Picking up a medkit gives 750 TS charge

If you have Super Serum and you space your rolls just a little, you can out run anything.

If you liked this guide, or have questions, or have things you think should be added, feel free to leave a comment. I really enjoy this game, even with the "quirks" it has so this guide is just me trying to help others get some enjoyment out of it as well.

Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2588035881

How to not make your team sad as Medic