TF2 | Rebalancing Medic's Melee's 

Damn Yoney, that is an amazing idea for the Vita-Saw in particular. I can imagine it hurting at first, but I can think of so many times where I'm the solo with a pocket, but I'm low on health and want to dip, but also don't want to leave my pocket in the dust. Without voice comms, it can be hard to let them know you want to retreat. With that Vita-Saw, as long as your pocket is still fragging, the Medic should be able to stay in the fight longer and stick around. I think it would also add some more skill decision to the crossbow - at present, it's a no brainer to do the crossbow shot when a teammate is weak (assuming Uber isn't more important in the moment), but with the Vita you'd have to consider if your pocket is about to get a frag and if it's safe to disconnect the beam. You'd see inexperienced medics who refuse to disconnect the beam for fear of missing the Assist (You already see this I think, just because they want points), and Gods who can juggle arrowing, crit healing the weak, and farming assists. I also think it's pretty balanced compared to the new Amputator that you suggested. That +3hp passive is really attractive, but if your pocket is killing more than 1 player per 5 seconds, or if you took damage recently, the Vita-Saw would be healing (and overhealing!) you more. If there's a second medic on the team, the Vita is less appealing. Those aspects really plays into the idea that "there should be no overall best option for every situation". Honestly, I have always thought that it'd be nice to have a few more passive options for Medic melees. Like you said, the Medic shouldn't be going in for Melee saws, and I always feel like a dipshit putting my life on the line for a risky play that might massively backfire if my opponent turns around and slaps me with a 195. Solemn Vow is already nicer in that respect as it lets you make safer plays with the crossbow or tells you when you can take a cocky player, making you a more useful team-mate or survive some encounters. With these items, you have a stand-out choice for many scenarios. If your patient is fragging, you might find the Vita-Saw worth it. If you're focussing on the team rather than an individual, you'd probably go with the Amputator. If there are some weaker players and you keep meleeing them anyway, the Ubersaw would be a solid choice. If you just want the information allowing you to better choose to frag or fly, the Rocky Ronald is your man. Honestly, I'd love to see these implemented. Really nice ideas!

I just want the Ubersaw to have an actual downside instead of just being a direct upgrade from stock. Also fun fact of the day, the Amputator actually heals SLIGHTLY faster than the medigun

7:26 Little known fact about overheal: Unless you are using the Quick-Fix, your max overheal is always rounded to a multiple of 5. So for a 125 HP Medic, their max overheal would align with other classes that have a max of 185. The quick-fix is different because the -50% overheal is done after this rounding.

5:57 those crossbow shots on that pyro is the most beautiful thing i've seen in my life

Please do one of these with the syringe guns. They need on-hit-ally abilities to step up to the crossbow. Tiny heals for Stock, Blut gets slightly more heals at the cost of your own hp (1/syringe), and Dose gives the hot hand 1sec speed boost.

This idea for the Amptutator sounds so fucking cool, I can imagine it'll be really obnoxious to fight vs 2 medics with it but that might be offset by being less healing to farm per medic

this is my idea for a healing focus melee: hitting a teamate with the weapon increases the effectiveness of healing for a short period of time. This could lead to decision making of if its worth getting close enough to make your teammate tankier at the risk of getting into the lime of fire, it might require making the range slightly shorter to reduce the possibilty of cheesing by hiding behind cover while still reaching them

deadass, solid options, that have actually been thought through. You've even given me ideas on how to balance things not in TF2 with this "Dont fight for dominance, cover the bases" build path

I think the Uber saw should maybe get a slight nerf, and I think I know how. 1: swap the numbers. Go from 25% Uber to 20% and from 20 slower swing speed to 25. 2: also remove random crits

That vita-saw concept is hilariously cool. I can imagine it becoming part of a massive gambit in competitive 6v6 when paired with the kritzkrieg (and I mean _massive_, not sure how often you would see it in official matches, but super fun anyway). Much more applicable to casual though, where it would demolish quickscope headshots while running the kritzkrieg and pocketing a sufficiently competent player.

I LOVE YOUR IDEA FOR THE VITA SAW. I'm a very big fan of high risk high reward playstyles, ESPECIALLY when it comes in the form of tradeoffs, such as with lunar items in ror2 and the kunai. Adding more items like this would make the game so much more engaging, and force you to play a specific way as to not be largely punished. Well done.

I like the idea of the Amputator having a special AoE heal while moving, but I think outright removing the taunt heal would ruin the uniqueness of it healing from a taunt and would also ruin its use in medieval mode. The Amputator is made with medieval mode in mind, with it being the only source of healing from a medic besides the crossbow. Which coincidentally shares a cosmetic set based around medieval times. I think just the addition of the ability would be a good change for the Amputator as a bonus to his normal taunt heal. Of course being able to choose whether to do a taunt heal or the AoE ability when you have your bar full. (Alt fire for tauntheal and tauntbutton for taunt heal when bar is empty, alt fire for ability and taunt button for taunt heal when full) The taunt heal should also be able to fill the meter like with his medigun, and crossbow too. The filllrate for the bar might need to be heightened from 500 to something like 700 since 500 hp is pretty easy to heal when you have to constantly care for a team under fire from splash damage or quickscoping snipers. (This would however reduce the effectiveness of it in medieval mode, but the aoe heal probably makes up for it in fast charge rate during the final cap rush.) The regen I think probably could stay as being only when the weapon is out, but without the buildup. Making it more useful for surviving afterburn and bleed when there are no healthpacks but without it being annoying to deal with against a pocket medic that is only using his medigun. As for the Vita saw I think it should have a similar design to how it used to be, but at the same time not. The weapon is based on the Little sisters' syringes in Bioshock when they are recollecting ADAM from corpses. So removing the recycling of ubercharge would be against the original source material for the weapon. I think the -10 health should be removed, have no random crits but be able to extract ubercharge from corpses. With the ubercharge gained vary depending on the corpse collected from. Heavies and Medics would yield the most ubercharge, spy and engineer the second most with the rest having about the same amount. This is mimicking sort of how some splicers in Bioshock use more ADAM than others, and I base it around how I think some mercenaries are more unique from a normal human and the importance + difficulty of killing. Medic and Heavy would have the most since medic is the one who has a medigun backpack filled with uber and heavy is the biggest mercenary with the biggest healthpool. Allowing him to hold more uber in his corpse. Spy and engineer being second since spy reminds me of the Houdini splicers, and engineer since he has great intelligence which is most likely because his ancestor worked with Australium. The amount would range from something like 30% down to 15% for all the classes' corpses. Medic & Heavy 30%: Medic is usually hard to get to his corpse since he is mostly in the backline, heavy is tanky and hard to kill (sometimes). Spy 25%: Hard to kill because of invisibility and deadringer, and not always near medic when he dies so he is rare to extract from without endangering your team by leaving in search of the corpse. Also same rate as ubersaw since you usually randomcrit with that and just insta-kill the spy if you catch him undisguised lol. Engineer 25%: Huddled behind nests most of the time so he is hard to get to unless after an uberpush, can help extending the uberpush by extracting mid ubercharge after wasting time on a wrangled sentry nest. Rest 15%: More common to see as corpses on the frontline or easier to kill. I felt the rest were a bit more like 'mob' enemies since they fight more close range most of the time with large numbers or aren't that special/have low hp. (also just to have it a bit more balanced and encourage you and your team to kill the other 4.) An extractable corpse will have a glowing outline, kind of like the payload cart or Scottish resistance stickies but without seeing through walls. (Deadringer corpses will show outline until the medic tries to extract from it, realising that it isn't giving off ubercharge.) Extraction would only work once per corpse and gibbed enemies can still be extracted from. Once extracted the corpse will no longer have an outline and will look a bit dried out like a mummy. Extraction would last about 1 second, lasting 2 seconds on Medics, Heavies, and 1,66s on Spies and Engineers. (since there is more ubercharge to be extracted for all of these) Extraction can be cancelled early by rightclicking again or switching weapons, but you don't get any ubercharge from it then. You can retry extraction but have to start over with the process. Stats shown ingame on the item: The Vita-Saw Level 5 Bonesaw "Alt-fire: Extract übercharge from corpses, can only extract übercharge once per corpse. Amount gained will vary by the class of the corpse." + Enemies killed get extracted instantly + 33% damage resistance to all sources during extraction + Instantly extract from corpses during übercharge - 35% slower übercharge rate on wearer. (Only applies to medigun) - Can't extract more than 2 corpses during an übercharge - No random critical hits This might be a really OP vita saw or a really bad one depending on the situation, but it's one I'd like to see get added into TF2. Stats can be tweaked for balance

Nice ideas. Got me thinking of one for possibly the amputator. When equipped it passively acts like a level 1 dispenser (health only) so it retains a bit of aoe healing and entices teammates to hang around and defend the med.

I think the ideas for the vita saw were very good, and creative. It would be interesting if there were a melee that reduced health, making you weaker to burst damage (-25hp) but greatly increased health regen, to be a constant as well. Just throwing ideas out.

What if we made every saw as OP as the ubersaw? Vita saw: +15 max hp on hit, lasts until death. -20% movement speed while active. Amputator: +15% max speed on hit, lasts until death. -25 max health, -100% overheal. Solemn Vow: See enemy Uber percentages. If you hit a medic or an enemy that medic is healing with this weapon, they lose -10% Uber, *even if the enemy is Ubercharged.* Came up with these on the spot.

The problem I have with the Vita-Saw is that pretty much every weapon that has no random crits has it because those weapons have situational crits/mini crits (exceptions are Demoknight swords as they're meant to be paired with the shields which give crits and mini crits and the Dragon's Fury which gives x3 damage on burning players and x3 damage is equal to a crit.)

There's a TF2 community that's about rebalancing weapons called Balance Mod. I'm curious what your thoughts are on the changes they've made to the Medic melees (not including the Bonesaw, even though they decided to change how the Bonesaw works.)

Here's my random ideas for "balancing" Idea was to make the weapons useful in their own ways. Ubersaw for high-risk plays (Very high risk. But still useful if you can manage to be sneaky) Amputator for healing your team (if they're all injured) Solemn Vow for revealing spies (probably better for defence) Vita-Saw for staying alive. (Like a sh_tty kunai) Stock Bonesaw: Nothing special, designed to be stock Ubersaw: Gain uber on hit (25%) Health is reduced to 125 (25 less hp) Swing speed reduced by 10% Tauntkill by right-clicking or pressing the taunt button Amputator: Taunt to heal all allies nearby (does not apply overheal) Deals 20% less damage, but damage increases by 40% if a target has less than half health. (20% to go back to base, extra 20%.) Health regen unaffected Solemn Vow: See enemy health while in loadout Enemy spies are revealed by meleeing them Default swing speed -15% Damage to non-disguised enemies -10% Movespeed Vita Saw: Gain 20 health for every hit. Can overheal with this effect. Do not gain health on disguised enemies Melee resistance reduced by 50% Take 10% of damage taken by current patient while in loadout

For Vita-saw, my first thought was to continue on the theme of losing max HP, but instead of benefiting you on death, it benefits you at the end of your Ubercharge. My stat revision would be -25 Max HP on wearer, but for each organ you collect, you get 10% of your Uber back after a charge (max of 3 organs, resets after Ubercharge.) So if you decide to equip it, you can become more of a glass cannon, but if you play it right, you can pump out more ubercharges and potentially win many Medic v. Medic matchups if you play your cards right.

I just wanted to take this moment to appreciate how you masked out the part of the ubersaw that the man's hand would be in front of in this small section here: 5:50 Attention to detail like this deserves to be appreciated :)

7:10 That Sniper is so insane

Holy damn, a rework video that I can actually see implemented in the game. These are wonderful ideas, and I think a lot of thought and balance consideration was put into it. Even the vita-saw, which at first sounded too strong, you balanced nicely with a powerful but fitting downside. It makes the trade between pros and cons feel justified for sure. I think the idea of the melee's specialties being one of the four quadrants is a really smart way to design weapons without making them compete for the same category. Thoroughly enjoyed the video. Would love to see you make more

This is super cool, the vitasaw removing debuffs and making overheal last longer is very unique

Ok, my brain ceases listening at 8:11 That heavy lmfao

You know, I have idea for vita-saw. Had this idea long ago tbh. So, the -10 max hp debuff remains, and collecting organs too. But for every collected organ you will gain 10 max hp on spawning with the maximum of 6 organs-200hp. I mean, this fits so good with it current stats, just replace preserved uber for added health. Make it some sort of diet eyelander. This btw can make battle medic play style a little bit more viable. But they still will be a easy target, even with soldiers health.

I just found this guy’s channel, and the moment he talked about the solemn vow being near the same level, I was wondering what else I could find

I love how my wifi cut out at 5:10 when there was a crocket flying at him and he was in the middle of saying "I digress." "I die." ...

Guess I'll throw my hat into the ring that is the Vita-Saw debate. First, the flavor of the weapon. I actually think right now, the Vita-Saw does a good job of representing its source material because, yes, this weapon has an origin in a completely seperate game: Bioshock. In that game, Little Sisters use needles that look quite like the Vita-Saw to harvest ADAM, a substance that genetically modifies people to give then various abilities, from corpses. When you die in Bioshock, you are basically reconstructed in a Vita-Chamber with a good amount of health and Ubercharge given to you and you can try again. This is actually where the name Vita-Saw comes from. This means that the weapon has 2 things it's trying to reference from Bioshock: harvesting ADAM (or, in this case, Ubercharge is the closest equivalent), and trying to give you something back when you die so dying is less harsh than it would be. On both fronts, I think the TF2 team did a pretty good job representing Bioshock in that sense. I actually don't think the Vita-Saw is quite as bad as people claim it is. I think there is a fairly big problem with it, but I also think people have complaints misplaced about this weapon. First, I'll talk about the organs. Look, the reality of the situation is that Medic is going to die. If the enemy team is better than yours, you're really likely to die. If you, the weakest class in the game in a direct confrontation, are forced to fight another class and you have to pull out your melee, you're in for a bad time. The Ubersaw can potentially save you if you can get enough to Uber, but that requires you to spend your charge, and forcing Medics to pop in an unideal circumstance is still a big win. Basically, the Ubersaw's benefit happens if either you expect to melee an enemy and live to tell the tale or if you're specifically in a situation where getting 25% will immediately save you, because going from 25% to 50% and then dying means the Ubersaw basically did nothing. In that respect, the Vita-Saw basically makes it less punishing when you know you're probably dead and meleeing that Pyro will at least give a consolation prize so you don't start from literally square one. That part of it I can get behind. I actually don't think the organ harvesting mechanic is bad, and I think the Vita-Saw probably doesn't have a big issue here, at least, in theory. I think the main issue here is two-fold: this weapon has a fairly harsh downside, and Medic, as a class, tends to get off rather scot-free with downsides on his melees. No, seriously, none of Medic's melees have any substantial downside except for the Vita-Saw. Solemn Vow and Ubersaw have slower swing speed, which is negligible, and Amputator gives a damage penalty, which matters about as much as it does on most melees in the game (being, not at all). Compare this to classes like Demoman and Sniper where stock melee is far more viable, despite literally being the same as the Bonesaw statistically, and you'll get an idea of what I mean. In a world where Medic's weapon options are all pretty much just straight upgrades over stock, the Vita-Saw sticks out like a sore thumb as a weapon with a real downside. I think they would either need to make the upside dramatically better on the Vita-Saw to justify the -10 health compared to his mostly penalty free alternatives, or, more realistically, just give it a negligible penalty instead of the -10 health it currently has. If the Vita-Saw had lower damage, like the Amputator (which makes more sense than slower swing speed to me because the Vita-Saw just looks really light and weak), I think that alone would fix the weapon, because the upside is actually rather substantial. It's just that the downside is also substantial, for a class that doesn't often get very substantial downsides.

I love this ideas. Good video man

I like the idea for the vita saw being a kunai like weapon that rewards good skill but not as easily

My ideas: *BONE SAW* ± Nothing, no ups or downs. It's just a melee… *ÜBERSAW* + On hit: Gain 25% of your Übercharge. - Only 140 max hp. - 10% less firing speed. *SOLEMN BOW* + When weapon is active: Watch every single teammate border lines through walls. - When weapon is active: Death mark yourself and for 2 seconds after switch weapons. ( ! ) The lines fade once pulled out the weapon. *AMPUTATOR* + 160 max hp. - 20% damage penalty. ( ! ) Alt Fire/Taunt: Play a sweet melody that heals every teammate in your field of view. *VITA SAW* + On hit: Gain an organ. Each organ lets you conserve 10% of your Übercharge on respawn (max. 40% Übercharge). + On hit: Gain 15% Übercharge. - 50% less heal and heal rate received (medi-packs, dispensers, food, other Medics, etc). - Only 145 max hp.

The way I’d fix the Vit-a-Saw would be to remove the -10 hp penalty and replace it with a -20 swing speed penalty. That way it becomes more of a sidegrade to the ubersaw with the uber being High Risk High Reward and the Vita being a more Medium risk Medium reward. More or less. Probably would also lower the ubersaws ubercharge gain to 20% instead of 25% and slap both with the No Random Crits penalty.

Great video! Pretty interesting suggestions in this video (specially for the vita-saw). I would make the taunt of the emputator loop able and cancellable, but only after 4 for second of the of it has passed. I think that the ability of healing multiple targets really good but it really annoying having to taunt multiple times just to finish healing my teammates putting my self in danger of getting rushed twice. And I don't see why not make it overheal. Your suggestions wore really interesting, but it sounds like the conch but for the medic.

All of these are really good. The only thing I'll change is make sure the Amputator health regen simply increased the regen cap on Medic instead of working alongside of his normal regen. Basically make the regen something you earn from not getting damaged instead of giving it to you right away, so that you still start at a base regen of +3 instead of +4. Oh, and remove random crits for all of the melees except for stock. Because dying to a Medic melee crit doesn't exactly feel good to the receiver, and to give stock some kind of benefit. That is, random crits. If he managed to melee crit you, you can't really be that mad because he isn't using utility in that slot.

really well thought through and interesting ideas, would love to see these in the game

you're unbelievably underrated! great vid, love the suggestions!

This is well done. Good job.

That extra overheal sounds amazing with Quick Fix uber

Wow what an amazing video idea, can't wait for the primaries now that I know the incredible ideas you had for the vita-saw and amputator! I would so take having 125 health for the extra benefits, it sounds really balanced as well imo!

The new passive effects on weapons lacking permanent visuals worry me since that seems to be something Valve sometimes tried to avoid in the past iirc However, if new models were an option, I could see there being an interesting fix: The Amputator and the Vita Saw are visibly holstered when not active. They also have team-colored hoses attached to them. Amputator's is attached to the backpack, and Vita-Saw's is attached to the Medic himself.

i always play around with the idea of letting the amputator collect heads since it's an amputation? would be a nice reward for medics who actively spy check to get that buff for it.

One change I’d actually give the Übersaw is “No random critical hits”. Now I know that this stat is a meme in the community but like, think about it. • Not insta-killing an enemy both can grant you more Über, and balances the weapon with more risk reward • If you WANT that instant kill, you’re going to need to use another option. (Stock Ubersaw for consistency, Solemn Vow, etc.) This only really balances for casual but it does work for that and doesnt effect competitive balance

the gameplay in the background is top notch wtf

Can we just respect this shot right here. That was rad as hell. 5:38

I actually was thinking about this earlier thanks for the awesome content!!!!!!!!!!

vita saw idea sounds really cool

6:00 that pyro owe you a life

I really like this video dude!

I think the vita-saw should keep its current stats but instead of keeping a percenfage of ur ubercharge when you hit people, you should get 10 max hp up to a cap of 50 health just like the eyelander but instead of killing people you just hit them like the ubersaw. I think this way makes the medic survive more as it makes him tankier and the weapon gets a similar use as the other weapons and stays balanced without complicating things

Just make that vita saw collect organs from corpses 1 organ per 125 health class 2 organ for 150 health classes

I love watching you play medic, its very relaxing :3

in my opinion, ubersaw should give health on hit for survivability and not ubercharge. this weapon has a really high random crit chance because of the damage you get from healing other players with your medigun, and this is doesn’t even have a damage penalty or anything else besides just slower firing speed

As much as i adore some of these changes, i still would like to have Amputator using it's taunt for AoE, sinoly because medic taunting to heal teamnates feels much more like a TF2 mechanic, much like medic's kritzkrieg taubt that heals himself. Getting utility in the taunts is in my opinion a very cool way of making balanced upsides that can be pretty huge, at the cost of being stationary for them.

also that reworked vitasaw goes insanely hard with kritzkrieg, the biggest downside of kritzkrieg is giving 0 survivality while uber but the passive aids it greatly

The thing with amputator is nothing but timing to uses it and a quick considerable heal to medium/light classes.

With the vitasaw, you can try to get at least one hit on an enemy before you die. If you are going to die, die swinging.

My idea for the vitasaw would be passive damage resistance based on a percentage of your Uber, and at 100% it would halve the damage of crits. In exchange it would have -50% damage, no random crits, and -15% Uber gain on overhealed patients. This would make it ideal for the quick-fix.

I think that the Ideia behind the vita saw design is the following " I gonna die, I gonna Thrown some punches before that happens " so I think it would be nice if the benefit should come out of those caotic situations that you where forced to melee a pyro for some reason. My suggestion is the following, whatever you would take damage when the vita saw is your hand a part of that damage it would be delt to your ubercharge instead, flat 10 hp gain on hit.

Such good ideas man. Big brain

Ubersaw should have the health penalty and vita saw should have the firing speed debuff

I really do agree with that amputator stat fix, I think you nailed it👌🏻, if only😓

Stock ARE allowed to have upside texts! Just look at the stock flamethrower with 20+ health on extinguishing people. Valve could do something with stock if they ever cared enough

I think the only thing the amputator needs is to make the health regen completely passive, otherwise it's already an incredibly capable healing tool in the right hands.

One of Valve's hangups about weapons with passives is that it's hard to tell what melee an enemy is using unless they have to pull it out. From the linked details, it looks like all of the guns don't have sprint: It also sounds like the player can be targeted while sprinting as a cooldown can be activated if the player is close enough to the target (if the target is in range). To trigger it, the player would have to hit a timed button press, similar to something seen in CS:GO. We haven't seen sprint for attack animations in other games. I've got a few concerns here: 1. My instincts say this is a bad thing. I'm assuming that in some cases, enemies will be able to outrun players. I wouldn't want players to be able to get too far ahead of one another because of how fast these guns go. I can think of two ways this could be used to the advantage of the player: 1) For speedrunners who want to pull off wicked dashes to get up to strategic positions. 2) To get to spots where you'd otherwise need to worry about teammates being up to close to you for melee takedowns. The second point of that second scenario seems to be the worst case scenario, though. The speedrunning community seems to be the most concerned, at least in the esports side of things.

When I saw the upside to the Vita-Saw being able to overheal you, I thought it was gonna let you overheal to 165 so you can finally stop relying on friendly Medics to pop you an overheal for those quickscopes. Instead, you get to be 1-shot by Direct Hits, double-tapped by Spy revolvers, one-shot by Double Donks and burned up by Pyro combos at a highly-votekickable 125 health. And with how often Medics normally get random melee crits, you'll be visiting Uncletopia with that thing and getting smashed by the tryhards that lurk there. That downside is so bad, you could put it on the Ubersaw and it'd still kill that weapon.

not only are these ideas nicely balanced with thought put into them, they're also interesting, i can see how they'd be fun to use, it'd make medic more fun, that's fantastic. i like that i wasn't the only one who had an idea of allowing movement during the amputator heals, in the middle of battle it'd be like a bard playing the fiddle during the napoleonic wars or whatever, though making it something that has to charge first from healing exclusively like an mvm shield is pretty good, great vid. also, exceptionally based medic channel

My ideas for those weps would be as follows Amputator: after healing 600 hp, press rmb to release a healing aura around you that heals 20 hp per second to everyone in it, lasts 5 seconds, -25 damage, can't deal random crits. Vita saw: each assist increass max hp by 5, kills by 10, up to a maximum of 75 health, -25 health on wearer.

Ok, so the amputator didn't need to be hit that hard. So the AOE encourages you to make a decision based on what's happening around you. The whole spy and soldier thing is easily countered by putting yourself up against a wall around a corner. From my personal experiences using the amputator's AOE is a niche thing to use already but is extremely useful in situations where the crossbow or medi-gun can't dish out enough heals and since you also get uber from the AOE, I see no reason to touch that mechanic of the weapon. My personal fix is to make the added healing bonus passive.

*My take on the Amputator:* I agree with the team healing changes except for the ability to move. Similarly to the Sandwich, the taunt should be a risk to the user but reward them for good positioning. Unfortunately, the Sandwich requires you to get out of combat while the taunt should be used during combat. I propose the Amputator's taunt working like the Phlog taunt; it gives you immunity during its duration. It still punishes you for trying to pull it out in the middle of a Sniper sight line or when a Spy is nearby, but you're guaranteed to get full value out of the taunt as long as you are in a position where you won't die after completing the taunt. I also propose a small rework of the Amputator's self-healing. It would provide +2 Max Regeneration Ramp-Up on wearer, while holding it provides a flat +4/sec regeneration bonus. This encourages its use as an escape tool while also granting you the passive benefit of increased regeneration. Its passive bonus would be much less than it is now, but benefiting from a total of 12 HP/sec while holding it out can be greatly beneficial when you need to run away or regroup as fast as possible. *My Take on the Vita-Saw:* I love your Vita-Saw concept, but I think it could be reworked into something for the Battle Medic. It would have the -25 HP and no random crit penalties it has now. Those remain unchanged. Its assist/kill effect is now only activated on kill, but it now comes with the additional benefit of collecting heads. For each head you have, your damage output across both weapons is increased by 5% and your Uber build rate is increased by 5%. This is limited to 5 heads (+25% damage, +25% build rate). Most of you will likely prefer the 15 HP with overheal, but i think it could be neat to see the Battle Medic reworked into a class that can still support their team (hence why you have a high amount of Uber build rate, as this would pair with a more aggressive Medic who isn't focused on healing). This would be balanced by the fact you need to actively search for kills to benefit from the weapon, leaving you with 25 less HP for failing to do so. It also encourages the Battle Medic to still play by their team, as the Uber charge benefit allows them to go in and out of battle.

I really like these concepts. As much as I prefer keeping what the weapon has and just tweaking it there, these changes are pretty good and lend themselves to better balance. I don’t want to be restricted to using one or two weapons. And for that primary video, Overdose -15% damage nerf means nothing to it. It’s just that the syringe guns in general have a weird arcing problem I find, making hitting shots harder.

Maybe the Vita Saw should have -15 max health or +25 health on kill/assist. Take your pick Also, the fact that stock has no upside is dumb because it will never be able to compete with any of the other melees, maybe an extra health bonus from health packs could be handy.

i mean both new things sound kinda OP, but the ideas are really good

Your idea for vita saw might be more balanced then mine. i was thinking of using organ harvesting as diet eyelander

For the primary i think the theme would be like : (Syringe Gun) ~ Self Defense (Blutsauger) ~ Survivability (Crossbow) ~ Healing (Overdose) ~ Mobility I also got an idea for the overdose , you would trade some ubercharge (maybe 10%) for a speed bonus (maybe 140% speed) or you can use some ubercharge (also maybe 10%) to teleport into a desired place (also after teleporting keep the medic briefly ubercharged so the medic wont be vulnerable to focus fire)

My favorite idea for syringe guns is make it so switching from medi gun to a syringe gun keeps the beam connecting you to your ally for a second, as well as moving auto reload from crossbow to the syringe guns. Crossbow needing to reload gives a cost to the burst healing without taking away from the skill ceiling or reward, it just means that your long range burst heal costs you some downtime to use again. Meanwhile, syringe guns having the auto reload and lingering beams means that medics running those can contribute to the fight by shooting baddies without forsaking their teammates like a battle medic would, as well as giving the health on hit of the blut and the speed on equip of the OD more relevancy, and making a damage penalty actually matter

Policy of no special attributes on stock melee is what makes most of them not viable.

"Who would use the vita saw you would get quick scoped headshot!1!!1"

6:20 RIP that autobalance

I think a pretty ok stat that is also not overpowered is making medic be faster than normal but still slower than scout with the vitasaw, being faster by spy by a slight margin might make you survive a bit more but not become overpowered

Vita saw go in, dumbass style, hit all of them heavy behind you, overhealed heavy rips through everything 300 assists infinite health, immunity to debuffs.

This video is actually super good Heavy main approved

Amputator: Why not just turn the taunt into a looping taunt, thus allowing it to be cancelled at-will, and thus allowing a Medic to start moving if they feel they're in danger? Oh, and yeah make the self regen buff passive so that it can stack with medigun healing. Vita-Saw: I was thinking why not buff the uber preservation to 25%, but then also give the option to right-click to do taunt where the Medic applies one organ to the medigun, giving you 25% then and there (and thus allowing you to store excess uber swings for later in the round instead of strictly requiring that you die to use it).

While both of these changes would make the different melees distinct and viable, the vita-saw in particular has hidden, impactful passive effects that enemy players would have no way of knowing about unless the medic pulls it their melee This is a big reason as to why the overdose’s speed boost is limited to when you have the weapon out instead of as a passive effect, to avoid situations where the enemy gets caught flat footed by the medic’s much faster walking speed. That’s why most weapons with a passive effect like that are displayed on the class model when equiped even if they’re not holding that weapon (e.g Battalion’s Backup and Gunslinger). Since the vita-saw’s effect is entirely passive the weapon would need to come with either a character model change like with the soldier backpacks and gunslinger or the effect would need to be reworked to be an active effect somehow (probably the first option since that would be easier than the other). TLDR - vita saw needs to change the medic’s model somehow

The amputator is just fine. It becomes useful with 2 medigun: the vax and the quick fix since you won't need that 25% uber bonus from ubersaw cuz you've a very fast charge rate, also I use it when i don't select the crossbow as my primary, so i can heal anybody who needs as faster as using the crossbow. I love the amputator, it don't need any changes. Can't say the same about the vitasaw though.

As someone who use the amputator over the ubersaw . I love the changes to the amputator . i really really hate it that i be forced to stick my back to the wall and do nothing for few seconds .

Personally I would swap the ubersaw and vitasaws downsides and give medics stock melee +15% uber on hit

As an Amputator enjoyer, I think the weapon's secondary effect would be much more usable overall if it needed to be _held_ (and could be held indefinitely) instead of being a fixed duration trigger. Letting it overheal is dangerous, even if done at a reduced rate.

if the amputator was changed to this, it would work great with the quick fix.

I strongly disagree with your ideas however I respect your attempt at making those medic melees more viable.

This but for the primaries would be sweet. Particularly a fan of the Vita Saw idea

Medic needs more weapons that's for sure, and if god and Gabe Newell descends do make a new update for everything, i would gave more weapons for him. I was thinking, one Melee and a new medi gun. The Melee for example would be a electric bone saw, not like this mini ones, but actually looks like the stock saw with some other things on it, like more teeths, one needle and some threads with different colors wrapped of the needle. This saw would be able to gave for the medic 1 more second on uber per kill, the status: Name: Zeitt Gott Pros: - Every kill gained, one second is added in the über charge - Bleeding effect for 6 seconds - More damage (This weapon have two modes, Saw off and on, when it's off, just give the base damage of "65", but when is on holding mouse 2, this saw increase the damage according to each hit "75, 95, 105") Cons: - No random crits - When you're holding mouse 2, your hand will start shaking, reducing 15 of your accuracy per hit Now the medi gun. Name: The Geistermacher This über is capable to make you untouchable, everything will just pass through you and your patient. Pros: - 32% faster healing - 20% more over heal Cons: - less 60% über building

I had no clue the amputator only gave you more regen when it was active wow that's bad

A different idea for the amputator, is that (likely a bit op but idk) it gives aoe healing during uber charges, but removes -x% healing based on the mediguns +ubercharge rate. Or, gives extra healing to the medigun, like around +15%

Wait, so for the amputator, you want a bar that fills up with healing done, and after it reaches 100% you can buff allies? Isn't that just an.... Ubercharge?

your medic melee idea would be sooooo banned in 6s

The argument with regards to the vita-saw supposedly being terrible seems to be quite bad. 'It's better to just not die in the first place' sounds very much like 'why have debug tools instead of not introducing bugs?' Bad things like this ARE going to happen. Medics do die, regardless of how good they or their teams are.

I love your take on the vita saw! But the amputator could be better imo. I don’t think a melee with an ubercharge would fit into the game very well.

Honestly the old vitasaw was good. It was a good crutch if you and your team were having it rough and you can get back to being ready to make a push a bit quicker.

I do think a slight nerf to the top two choices is due. The UberSaw should gain 20% Uber instead of 25%, and the Solemn Vow shouldn't display enemy ubers and such, only health. Also, a free +3 passive heal for the Amputator is too much imho. +1 at best is reasonable.

I personally think the amputater is fine how it is. The clutch AOE heals that you can do are nuts if you find a good place to hide. My only gripe with it is that the heak does not work kn yourself despite you having the circle around you so it can't be usesurvive afterburner. afterburn. Make the heal work on the medic when he taunts and it is honestly a preferable weapon in conjunction with the vaccinator since the Uber saw only saves you 6 seconds per swing of uber.