The Unbalanced Fun of The Vaccinator 

Okay, okay, I hear you! I missed the Battalion's Backup at 9:53, gahd DAMN

Interestingly this weapon is simultaneously useful against hackers and it's name is also a pun on Valve Anti-Cheat, "VAC"cinator. Like a parting letter by Valve before S- hit the fan.

"The joy of random crits is also countered, something no other weapon can do." Meanwhile, the battalions backup: 👍

As a medic main myself whos used every medigun for a while, i think the biggest appeal of the vaccinator is "Active gameplay" where most of the other mediguns promote a very passive/linear style of "build uber, count uber, be safe" The vaccinator gives you a whole other minigame to juggle with your job, which in total fairness, a lot, and i mean a -lot- of competitive games/shooters/genres struggle with in general. Take final fantasy 14, healers in that game are for the most part, very 1 dimensional like medic, heal when people are hurt, use your bigger heals [crossbow for example] for burst healing and safety while throwing out damage [maybe a stray bolt or two at the enemy lines for example] when you're feeling it. What changes this like the other mediguns are the classes, Astrologian has a entire mini game like the vaccniator, but it provides a damage buff for the team. or if you want the basic medigun, white mage is your go to. The issue when taking this to tf2, is that medic, unfortunately, doesnt really have differing playstyles outside of his first one, and the vacc is very attractive to players who are willing to take another step of mastery in the game, while not left clicking a soldier and sitting behind a rock/at a dispenser and waiting for the coveted right click to highlight, Medic is a very fun, and extremely satisfying class to learn, especially when you start feeling the impact of your actions and understand why medic is so powerful to begin with. Vacc just takes it a step further with mastery and offers a more frustrating experience on the recieving end, while giving the medic player the sense of satisfaction that no other medigun can provide, outside of a sick pocketed 2000 hour demo man with kritz.

The vax song had me laughing like crazy, this was such a fun watch. I love the personality you put into your videos Mr. Medicinal Man

I think Vaccinator's balance is much more directed towards "very good against single enemies, pretty weak against actual organized teams" since you can't really do that much against all damage types simultaneously unless you use all bubbles at once, and even then the 2.5 seconds of pseudo-uber might just not be enough. It's extremely good at countering single enemies, and if those enemies carry the team, then you as a Vax med can completely shut them down (unless it's a Spy or Demoknight), but when it comes to playing against a whole team of good gamers, the Vax seems to be quite behind the other Mediguns, especially with the weak overheal. Still extremely good in some situations, and probably still quite good in a typical pub setting

9:53 You forgot the Battalion's Backup. We are insulted you forgot this. The Battalion's Backup Battalion will remember this.

I feel like the downside of no actual uber is something that probably should be mentioned a lot more. Without it, pushing into an area where you know there are multiple damage sources means you are guaranteed to have to pop two, potentially three bubbles, which cuts down on how long you can be effective in that environment.

All right buddy, you DID NOT just diss the Vaccinator's sound design.

With roughly 100 hours into medic, I still find the Vacc rather hard to use. It REALLY stretches your game sense to understand the circumstance so you could react accordingly. In my experience, the Vacc saved me countless times from being trapped across a doorway due to a Heavy or crockets about to kiss my face, but to apply this to your teammates however takes a lot more skill. I first have to get used to the switching, then I have to apply res accordingly. On simple encounters like a flanking scout or lone soldier isn't hard to deal with at all. Pushing choke points? That I'll need at least 3 charges before I dare to peak, plus I don't find these charges disposable at all, I mean it. I don't get charges as quickly as every critique towards the Vacc seems to say. Always having 1 charge might seem enough but it isn't enough when facing multiple DMG types which is basically 80% of what I'm faced with. "Having a bubble almost immediately after respawn" unless you count traveling and hanging around the front lines for at least a minute immediately then, okay...

At least we can all agree that vaccinater makes playing medic in casual much less suffering and frustrating,especially when you are playing with a shit team.

Love your style of content, it clearly shows the fun and love put into it. I also really liked the musical bit.

The Vaccinator is also easily countered with fire damage, due to fire damage causing a healing penalty to all mediguns since the Meet ur Match Update.

9:49 battalion’s backup Its active is straight up take no crits or mini crits

one weakness of the vacc is that it struggles to push against frontlines where different players are present. while the stock just makes you invincible for 8 seconds, a similar effect with the medic lasts 5 if you burn through all charges, at the risk of being attacked by a pyro, not to forget the bubble managment necessary. moreover, the examples you showed of players facing vacc medics were 1v2 matchups. how would a vacc-heavy combo do against a sniper/scout and demoman? they still probably win, but less so because of the bubbles.

“Switching to another weapon is not fun” 5 min before: “Spy can just shoot the sniper, so razorback is ok”

It's good to see Sips is still malding in his old age

The unbalanced nature of sniper that will NEVER be fixed and how "bot" prone sniper is makes this medigun a necessary evil. It also gives the medic more agency over smaller things like avoiding getting picked by that one scout who manages to escape the pocket's fov.

okay vaxman really got me, taxman was one of my absolute favorites as a kid. phenomenal vid as always!

The kunai should be added to the list since the overheal per kill allows you to negate a player hitting you consistently Also you see your enemies as nothing but health packs

Much like most things people say are overpowered in this game the easiest counter is something called "teamwork" a foreign concept I know. But all it really takes is 3 people targeting them to shut the vacc down. Hell if you're willing to take off the scorch shot or gunboats you can probably do it with 2. I will admit the SPEED it creates bubbles with is pretty absurd but it's far from impossible to counter. Another good thing to note! If you set their heal target on fire even with a fire bubble they will deal less heals to their target making them more vulnerable(plus if they pop a fire bubble they're not using a bubble for a damage type that actually exists.) Any sort of minicrit will also bypass the crit resist so things like crit a cola the jarate fan of war and that one banner nobody uses cause it has no passive can all help you if coordinating is too difficult. It's also worth noting that unless the medic is particularly good at predicting who they're fighting when the opening move of any fight is your best time to strike. Before they know what you're using against them. I would also suggest strongly to any scouts to give bleed a shot. Much like fire it can reduce a medic's effectiveness and with things like the guillotine and Wrap assasin (one of which is pretty much the most common scout melle) you can both stay safe and at the very least be annoying to the medic. The vaccinator is one of those weapons that if you see the enemy using it you need to be ready to engage them accordingly. Much like how a scout or pyro cannot safely traverse land being watched by a sentry a player cannot expect to solo win a fight with a vaccinator medic. You may need to stop playing fortress 2 and start playing team fortress 2. If I was going to nerf it. I'd probably reduce its charge rate a bit and make it so only 1 bubble at a time could be active. So that at LEAST players who decide to take a shotgun secondary have a chance to counter the weapon every time. I feel like the big thing with the vaccinator is it's pretty much the ONLY active medic secondary. Everything else really requires you to pretty much press w and m1 with very little actual gameplay action between uber charges. Meanwhile the vaccinator expects the medic to pay attention to enemy weapons, swap resistances, pop bubbles when appropriate, ensure they're healing damaged players whenever possible occasionally tank damage for allies and so on. Vaccinator medics have so much more to do compared to any other medic and it would honestly be a shame to remove the variety entirely. Something I noticed in your video is that it focused almost entirely upon the experience of the enemy gamer and hardly mentions the medic at all aside from a few mechanical discussions. It's interesting to me how often the "victims" discount the actual complexity of using the weapon. It may be virtually free to get and deploy a bubble but determining which to use is actually a little bit more complex than mashing m2 and r. Like for example. Which damage type do you prioritize in this instance? The explosives do deal splash but with falloff it may be less concerning than the pyro rushing you down. And is that a sniper in the distance? Will the sniper get you before the pyro does? It's also basically the only way to keep alive when a bot is around. So YK. Maybe nerf it after you publicly execute whoever keeps making the damn things.

Vaccinator is good in term of punishing a disorganized one type of damage stacking team . as much strong the Vac is , people forget it's true weakness. it will crack under enough pressure , and you can easily up the pressure when using two type of damage . as someone who use vaccinator as his main medigun . if you on top of your game , you will always only have 2 charge ready . it's so hard to have all 4 unless if the enemies really suck . the reason why i use vaccinator because it's the only medigun that give you agency on the situation . let be real , it's not fun to die in pub game because that one enemy keep sneaking past your teammate who never care about doing nothing other than pressing W all the time . also i HATE SNIPER AS CLASS .

I loved the part at 0:00 when he said "Gaming". I really felt that

That is a very fair point about how those uber bubbles can make an attacker's effort feel (and sometimes be) futile, especially for snipers, engies, demos and scouts. It should be noted, however, that these focused on assessing 2-on-1 encounters. The moment we have a 2-on-2+ encounter, which is much harder to avoid when you're on the front line, it turns into just a contextual upgrade from stock without the safeguard of invincibility. If approached by a phlog pyro, this may 'force' the medic into budgeting their bubbles to negate the phlog... but leaves them pretty near the stock medigun experience for all other opponents during the phlog push if the medic chooses to counter the phlog. And if they don't counter the phlog, the phlog gets them. The vax's whole thing is not having an 'ultimate', but instead opting for an improved 'normal' operation. The best the stock has in that regard is building overheal between engagements and delayed hits. But with the vax, the medic has to assess incoming damage sources and attempt to mitigate whatever they deem the most threatening. Having to make these assessments also usually means the medic can't just hide around a corner, and will still be subject to picking through all means that are "not their type." It takes two opponets to force the medic to choose who to block and who to let through, and with only one soldier or pyro, some spontaneous juggling can help bypass the bubbles, too. Is it unbalanced? I guess? Maybe if you want to roam around with your pocket medic who gets diminishing returns for pocketing, and want to bully stragglers back into the spawn room while keeping said medic away from the front lines where they belong. It gives the medic a much more active and attentive role, and sacrifices the table-turning plays of the kritzkrieg and stock to instead give one person a better survival rate against a single damage type, with the flexibility of swapping protection types on the fly. Sometimes you gotta pick between saving your teammate from demo pipes or saving yourself from that sniper who's eyeing you up like the last hottie they saw on Tinder. And that sniper only has to wait a couple seconds before he can swipe.

6:02 This monkey fairness study has been done, by Frans de Vaal and his colleagues. For the same task, one group of monkeys was getting cucumber (acceptable food), and the other was getting raisins (sweet food, basically monkey candy). Monkeys from each group could see each other, and of course the cucumber was quickly rejected as a form of payment (even though it was accepted before they could see what the other group was getting :,)). Yup. They did not open the cages because they knew the researchers would be in danger (they were already getting cucumber thrown in their faces lol)

The thing with Vacc is, it's only good in 2 kinds of situations really a) when you're facing just a single heavy, or a single pyro, or a single soldier b) in hands of a juggling multitasking medic main who would be as annoying with any other medigun anyway And frankly, the charges aren't as disposable either outside of the former, since usually pushing towards enemy means facing classes of all 3 damage types at once, and you also have to pick and choose anyway since last I remember using the damn thing you could only pop 2 resistances at once, no more, so gotta read the situation near instant as well to know which one you need the least.

This is why I use the Blutsauger amputator with the Vaccinator, great synergy.

2 players against 1 should always have the advantage, specially when 1 of them is meant to EMPOWER team mates The vaccinator is more reliable but it's weaker, giving you a clear edge in 1v1s but being a downgrade when swarmed (which is most of the time) If one players is frustrated because the player/medic combo saw them coming and are ready to deal with him, that's not a problem, that's how the game should play You should not be capable of reliably besting a couple of players that are ready for you And the scout example is even dumber, scout's whole gimmick is that he can bail out of unfavorable engagements, so he should not be taking them at all. Scout is supposed to pull out and either look for another target or go for another attempt when the enemy is distracted

I just realized besides melee there is one other dmg type that can soft counter vac and it’s bleed damage which is a uncommon dmg type only normally found on cleaver scouts edit 1: spelling fixs

As a medic main The Vaccinator is one of my all time most used mediguns. I use it even more than stock. I will admit the learning curve of it is hard to master, but I will also say with the right set of a config script for it switching between resistances is much easier to manage than clicking the reload key. Also just want to say amazing video keep up the amazing work.

My favorite and most used medigun, and equip, is said Vaccinator. I'm a freak for items that reward micromanagement, and honestly there's a reason why mine is called the "Last Resort". It is garbage at pushing against chokes. It is also garbage at dealing with massive swathes of enemies because it's guaranteed to have equally high DPS's of two, if not ALL damage types at once. The vaccinator is really a pure defense/flex medigun best applied against a good team when your own team can't defend you, do the objective, kill enemies, have any sense of how the game works, or if the teams are so god awfully balanced even stock uber wont save you. I do agree it can be annoying to play against, I've had my own ubers and picks denied by it. But it collapses so fast when a team has multiple damage types barraging your team at equally alarming amounts that even the fastest macro will eventually fall when the 10% damage still amounts to over 100 dps. It's great on 1v1s (duh) and when the enemy team only has the entirety of the US, but it really falls short in casual in doing what medic does best, changing the tide of battle. You'll hate fighting it on symmetric maps, but the main reason they're using it is because their team can barely hold up in the first place. If the team is good, there is no reason to use anything other than uber and kritz because they realize if their medic is alive, so are they.

13:22 the only spy weapon that could counter is the Enforcer

Surprising to know this quality is coming from a new RU-vid channel. I respect all the writing and editing that was put into this, and hope to see more along the way. Great content.

It's also a very feast-or-famine weapon. Using it against the occasional flanker or to bully people caught out? Basically free no matter what the enemy does, moreso than your usual 2v1. Against 2-3 enemies? You have two seconds to fight before you're overwhelmed by too many damage types.

Ways to fight vaccinator: - have more than 0 teammates on the server - spam scorch shot / detonator - fire decreases healing done by 50% and shields by 20%, medic retreats after 2-3 shots or dies - shoot the medic, ignore the patient - this way medic does not get double health regen and has much slower charge build rate - phlog (direct fire may also decrease healing by 100% for a moment - don't remember if it's true) - any mini crit buff - forces the medic to retreat / die to unexpected burst damage - huntsman across the map - nobody expects that - hit and run - force the bubbles and hide / reload while they are active, treat it sort of like an enemy uber - suicidal demo with any melee / caber / base jumper sticky bombing - uber push or using quick fix to prolong the fight and outlast the vaccinator

That's where the Enforcer gets to be one of the best guns to Spy

While I do think your editing style is fun and the video is well made, I do think some of the points in the video are flawed. -first off, a trap that both me and many other players sometimes fall into is that they see the medic as more of an inventory slot than a full character: what I mean is that very often players don't think of fighting a pocket as a 1v2, as they should. The vac really encourages that, since it is more build towards the flank instead of an actual Teamfight, meaning those 1v2 situations will occur more often, and it will feel more unfair. -i don't think you have actually covered the main, glaring weakness of the weapon: it's not übercharge. If you as a vacmedic get caught in a teamfight, you are fucked, cuz you can't bubble simultaneously against snipers, soldiers, and that one fucking pyro that somehow got through the backlines. Funny thing is, you brought that up by saying dropping a vac medic is less impactful than a full medic, but that is not just because h rebuilds his bubbles back up quickly, it's also because the enemy team LOST ÜBER. A bubble in the hand is not necessarily better than an über in the bush, although granted, that is why I like the vac: it puts less pressure on you to use that über effectively and not die, at the cost of your team not getting über. -you made a huge point about how it counters by requiring them to change their Playstyle putting emphasis on pyro and soldier, who have to change to their secondaries to effectively fight you. I wanted to point this out, because I think that that point would be incredibly flimsy and stupid if there was a class whose core identity was requiring those two classes to switch to their secondary. Maybe it wears a fire retardant suit and reflects rockets or sth, idk. -a sentries point on defense is to waste time. The entire point of defense is to waste time. Engineer as a class is designed to waste the time of the enemy, and reduce time wasted of your team(that it would spend rolling out or looking for a health/ammo pack). Critiscisimg a weapon because it plays into the engineers hands by essentially choosing to play into his gameplan instead of outright crushing it is like saying that firefighters should use planks of wood instead of water, because it takes time to connect the hose to a hydrant. Where I do agree with you is that not all engineers like to stick around in their nest and like to find other things to do outside of tending to it. A class shouldn't be that restricted to one position. But I also find it curious that the engineer in your example didn't use the most common engineer primary apart from stock, which would've countered the vacc in his entirety and made your example a bit more flimsy. -Oh no, not the random Crits (also, as others have pointed out, the backup exists) -also, I don't think that you think that it is, but it comes across as if new players learning to spread their heals instead of focusing on one target is bad.

I was hoping you'd mention the Flying Guillotine as being unaffected by the Vaccinator's damage resistance. It's niche, but occasionally useful.

Man I wonder what talented, amazing, sexy artist drew that monkey scene 👀👀 (in all seriousness absolutely phenomenal video man, fucking great stuff man 👏👏)

I think the worst part about the Vacc is that its the ONLY medigun to give the medic himself a buff while in use, not even requiring an ubercharge. This means that not only is the medic a far less valuable pick given how fast he can build new ubers in the case that the pick is successful, but he's also way harder to kill, since even if he doesnt pop a bubble he has a passive 10% resistance to whatever damage type you try to kill him with, giving his pocket an even larger window to kill you. And hell, if that somehow isnt enough, he only has to burn 25% of his Uber to stuff your pick attempt entirely compared to a regular medic both requiring and burning 100% of a full ubercharge to do the same thing.

You are going above and beyond with references and editing, mate. Even with references that will go over the head of most people. Keep it up!

This is crazy good content! Man had a whole song! Def subbing

10:00 IIRC the battalion's backup also negates/reduces crit damage in some capacity when it's been popped.

This channel is starting off with a pretty good momentum Keep up the good work bud

Very unexpected level of effort/quality from a channel with less than 5k subs, definitely a treat to stumble across criminally underrated channels like this. I do have to say that I don't think the Vaccinator is terribly unbalanced, it's largely dependent on the gamemode or format you're playing. Very team-fight centric modes like Payload or A/D make it difficult for a medic to receive one singular damage type at a time (and the rare competent demoknight could ruin your day too), whereas maps or gamemodes that are less linear and more wide-open allow a lot of those oppressive 1v2 situations where the enemy has zero chance of fighting you. It's like fighting sniper at long-range as being a non-sniper, you either have to run or die.

3:41 I’d argue the Kunai is about as / more frustrating than the vaccinator because it’s always frustrating to shoot at a spy and he just doesn’t die because of the overheal he can receive from backstabs. It sucks too, because the Kunai is the only knife I really see spies use due to its sheer versatility and leniency it has over other knives.

This had no business being posted on a 4k sub account idk why he's not at 100k

Excellent editing and a very fun video. I’ll watch more because of it :D

Fantastic video, great work! Hope to see more from you :)

Good Sips clip, knew I had to lower volume immediately lmaoo

I saw this video and I actually thought you’d have like 500k subscribers or something. Amazing content you’re posting out, keep up the good work man.

incredibly high tier content, vaxman goes hard!

I genuinely love this weapon. Got a prof ks and play with a buddy so I can use the solemn vow effectively by picking out weak players and relaying that to an class that can actually hurt them. The clear despair as they swap to their melee weapons after popping a bubble brings me joy

Hugely respect the amount of work you put into each upload, great video.

NGL, I had almost forgotten that medic has mediguns other than the vacBANinator with how much of a default its become on my rather cursed loadout (overdose and amputator) but yeah, its one of those weapons that is more often than not utilized as a means of stopping "That guy" from rolling the whole server with his own pocket girlfriend or just simply a (WELL DESERVED) middle finger to all sniper mains across all of gaming

i have 1 more thing to add broken bad>broken good cuz while its better to balance everything in my tf2 opinion all games should have weapons for fun and meming around and while they can be balanced i found that most of them are not so its always nice to have AT LEAST 1 funny weapon even if it wasn't balance(better to be weak than strong)

I 100% agree and have watched the entire video

Subscribed for the song and traditional mic with jumper cable clamps as a base. I like your style

Excellent video! Also i feel like instead of "should ten percent appear to small, be thankful i dont give it all," a better line in the taxman parody wouldve been "should ten percent appear to large, be thankful i dont ubercharge"

Amazing content!!

Honestly, something that i’d think would be weird would be something to interact with class specifics, something similar to vax, where it still takes a while to charge, but you get specific damage boosts, though these boosts would be overall balanced, and would be short.

11:53 LITTELARY AIRBLAST

I wasn’t looking at my phone and I thought the Vaxman was an ad lol

Very good video! The Vaccinator suffers from what I like to call the "Genji from Overwatch syndrome." IE something shouldn't be vastly above the general power curve because "it's hard to use." While I honestly think the Quick Fix is a far bigger problem than the Vaccinator (because it's both extremely powerful and extremely easy to use) the Vacc is definitely the far stronger option of the two with the only requirement being basic reaction time.

They nurfed hog in 1 but gave it back because he became useless. Also there was more shields in 1 that makes landing hooks harder

"Yea, I play medic!"

alright, 5 seconds into the vaxman segment and i'm sold, subscribed and belled

"Honey, wake up...Treggles just uploaded a new video."

Bro really broke into someone garage to throw a wrench at their tractor

This video explains really well how frustrating it is to fight against a Vaccinator medic, as well as all of the other problems the weapon has. Great video! Also, i loved that Taxman parody 😂😂😂

love the beatles refrence

It's Interesting because I don't think the Vaccinator is broken, but it would not be hurt by an increase in time to gain charge. That's also true for a few things in TF2 but ignore that. I prefer playing Vax med especially against some of the most annoying snipers, because I have to work out which damage deserves priority. My Hybrid Knight is also not afraid of a Vax med. A team that's decently balanced in classes and capable of thought should be able to see the resistance and focus that annoying medic. I think this discussion is brought up by people who refuse to And I hate to say it GitGud. Playing TEAM Fortress 2 with your TEAM leads to some fun and insightful plays Also lmao the Sips Clip was gold, thanks for reminding me of it

the reason I play vaxx is that its the only way i both protect myself and also have to think about what im doing and respond to threats with at least some variation.

God damn the drum interlude was amazing xD I would very much like a full Vaxman cover

Great vid!

“Stun mechanics are always bad” people when they get hit by the Holiday Punch from behind (they find it hilarious)

This dude is confirming my suspicions that I have a video essay addiction, lol. :,,,,)

"And now for something completely different" killed me THE EFFORT IN THIS VIDEO. Chefs kiss.

Bro just spawned into youtube with quality tf2 content

what if there was a server with only the most hated weapons for each class, like the wrangler or gunslinger for engi, phlog for pyro, vac for medic dead ringer for spy etc. anneurism inducing fun

At first i thought that Medic had THE mustache on the thumbnail but its just my dirty mind.

When I see a Vac medic while im playing scout I use the most overpowered weapon known to man: the fan o' war. It's surprising how minicrits let you ignore the vac's shields. Of course though the playstyle is dangerous. This also probably means jarate helps too.

4:44 I appreciate the Taxman Parody, very funny 😆

Wait people dont like the free regen the amputator can give?

Loved the house md clip, one of my favorite shows

10:37 that's littelary what airblast does 💀

Another important point about the vax and its counter play is melee. Melee does not counter the vaccinator like people think it does. Melee damage is the only thing not entirely stifled by the vaccinator.

I generally don't use the vac, need to practice it more, but I remember being on a team that was just getting stomped by a soldier with a kritzkrieg pocket. Swapped to Vac and just hard countered the pocket pair. Their medic refused to swap to a different medi gun and we won the round.

Did you know that the bubble stays on the target for the full duration when you stop healing them. This allows you to crossbow them in between vac charges. Its basically a sigafoo save but for players and is absolutely broken.

This is a little thing but when I saw at 15:56 that you used a screenshot of the image I submitted to the TF2 bug report wiki of the floating resistance shield that was a nice little moment for me Also good video you've earned a like 😎

i love the beatles taxman parody that was hilarious

I don't have much to say except that taxman cover was incredible

Literal music video at 4k? Bonkers!

Small TFTubers has no chill editing this good

trolldiers: I don't have such weakness.

Great video! Soon I think your gonna be up there with Elmaxo and Soundsmith lol.

The batallions backup for soldier can block all crits too

wow fantastic work. music video was great too!

YES YOU FINALLY RETURNED

Gonna slight disagree on this one as long time vacc medic main, vacc isn't unbalanced, more so it's extremely punishing against lack of organisation (Which admittedly is extremely common in TF2). Yeah, the bubbles are powerful and protecting against single damage is easy and can be maintained for a long while, but now introduce 2 types of damage, on top of now having to juggle switches the time of the 75% protection just got severely cut and you have maybe single mistake to spare if you want to fully utilise it (and mind you this is the most common scenario when going for a push against defending team). Now compare that to stock, sure the recharge time is much longer but once you have it you outright deny ALL damage making you an unstoppable defence crushing machine and even if you and your heal target died right after you probably easily paved the way for your team to follow up. So, bottom line is that vacc is strong but primarily when defending, for pushing through defences stock is still by far superior. Oh and Vacc is just plain fun, not even because it's powerful, it's just that medic as a class is very passive, vacc changes that dynamic heavily by now asking you to actively seek out low health players to get your bubbles and also demands that you pay attention to your surrounding and either predict or quickly react to any damage source.