Medic PvP Guide

Author: Stow

Healing the wounded, and wounding the healed
As the master of life in PvE, you are the holder of life and death in PvP. You are the Global Agenda Medic class, and it is entirely up to you whether to be a savior to your team, or a scourge to the enemy. Your potent toxins can keep you and your team alive through certain death, and condemn opponents to a slow, painful demise. Which path will you choose?

Healing Specs - The Savior

One way or another, you are expected to heal. If someone is crippled, your team doesn't care if you're 7 points deep into poisons and using a 4 point weapon. They are going to run around you, mash the crouch button like a classy Halo or Call of Duty player, or die flailing their limbs reaching out for a heal. Do yourself a favor and just press your healing button and get the job done to prevent the inevitable whining that will happen if that person dies without receiving a drop of healing.

If you're actually going to focus on healing though, you have to figure out how you want to do it. 90% of medics will be wielding the Biofeedback Beam for the health return it gives you, and 90% of medics are correct in doing this. Your healing waves do not affect you, and while your Healing Grenade and Regeneration skills are potent, they're on high cooldown timers and will be down for some time after activation. This is fine on defense, especially on Payload, because there will typically be a Healing Station nearby or another medic to keep you in the game and dispel any debuffs. On offense though, the only person healing you will inevitably be you in the end, and smart people will try to focus you before the targets in front of you that you're healing. This isn't to say that the Boost Beam is bad. If you have a pre-made team, for instance, that Assault knows what he's doing and how to aim. In cases like that, the Boost Beam can produce results and you'll receive less fire as a result because he or she is downing targets that much faster.

That brings up another important topic: find a buddy. As a healer, you need a reliable target to heal. If some retard is charging into the open with turrets and drones wailing on him, there is nothing you can do and if you chase him healing him you will likely die about a second later than he does. Watch how people play and find the effective teammates to keep alive. That's not to say ignore everyone else, but prioritize them because they'll carry your team, and protect you in the process. Everyone does better when a good Assault/Medic duo, or duos are leading the charge.

Stay aware of the health displays in the top left. If you just saw someone and suddenly their health plummets, switch targets and keep them up. This is imperative on point-based offense and defense in PvP since there will be multiple skirmishes going on at the same time and there aren't enough medics to go around, unlike organized AvA. While it's wonderful to be a pocket medic and it certainly helps the team, the two man wrecking crew just doesn't cut it when a whole team is surrounding you at the capture point.

Do not be afraid to jetpack! The moment a situation goes to hell, or a recon has a sword at your neck, get out of there. Fly in front of your healed targets if you can't use voice to make them aware that there is a threat behind them. Find allies and get them pumped full of the good stuff so they can take over where your buddy failed before. As a healing spec, you're likely not running around with more than Poison Aura for offense, and most prefer to use the Agony Gun to hinder targets to allow a fast kill or an escape. Don't bother trying to kill 1v1!



You can't just watch healthbars in this. Otherwise you'll give new meaning to the WoW phrase 'don't stand in the fire'


Offensive Poisons - The Scourge


We might as well call you a Toxinmancer if you go this route. Playing a Poison medic is fairly straightforward, but has some glaring vulnerabilities such as dependence on your off-hands. You excel at two things in particular -- capture point offense, and recon killing.

A running joke in GA is that no one gets on the capture points. Against you, there's a good reason for that. As a poison medic you'll be rolling with Poison Aura IV and Poison Grenade IV almost always. Hurling a grenade into the defense like a shot-put, then running headlong and hitting Poison Aura will seal the fate of anyone without healing. The major downside to this is debuff cleansing. As good of a crowd killer as this combo is, you're not killing anyone with a Medical Station nearby. The station will negate the DOT with a good chance to purge it off entirely. Most medics prefer the healing waves with additional effects, and these waves do not dispel your toxins. Keep this in mind; if you see medics covering their allies in shields and buffs, you know you can go to work on them with poisons regardless of the medic.

Since the Pain Gun has a painfully short range of 75 ft... okay stop groaning. Since the range is awful, and the poison aura can't hit anyone outside of pretty much point blank, you excel against those unable to fight at point blank range. Wrecking Recons and AOE Assaults is a joy that only the Poisons Medic can experience. Recons find themselves unable to escape your wrath due to the DOT effects ruining complete stealth, and since very few people take the Recon off-hand that cleanses themselves, are pretty much at your mercy unless they're an amazing shot in close combat. The key to using the Pain Gun is to stay just outside melee range. You'll do high damage and be completely immune to melee retaliation, forcing Assaults to blow themselves up or attempt to fly away. Don't try this against Minigun/Inferno Cannon Assaults! They're one of the best types to fight off Poison Medics if they avoid your grenade, and will always win a straight up battle if they have any semblance of aim.

You still will need to heal, and this is where the Delivery System medic weapons come into play. Tapping your teammate with one and switching back to offense is highly effective and keeps you doing what you need to be doing--poisoning people. You aren't going to keep anyone alive through withering barrages of fire, but not only do you not have the healing skill tree bonuses (It's a bad tree, but some of them are quite good), you won't have a level 4 healing weapon. Taking a level 4 poison aura, grenade, and gun are pretty much required since your focus is purely offensive and these are you toys to do it with. Stick to the needle gun heal types, and stick to giving enemies an overdose!

The play styles of the Medic in both roles are radically different, and help to make this the most diverse class in Global Agenda. Whether you choose to show your allies love, or show your enemies the way back to the drop ship, you'll find a lot of fun to be had in each choice. There's one final piece of advice to give you: re-skin and recolor your armor! Normally such cosmetic effects are silly and pointless, but the default medic armor and color scheme stick out like a sore thumb and will direct more bullets your way than if you had otherwise. Now you're ready for action, so get out there and heal somebody! No, that just sounds lame so let's try that again. Get out there and poison somebody--much better.