KF2 Battle Medic: Why Right-Side Medic Works

This page paraphrases an opinion guide about playing the Field Medic's right-side tree in Killing Floor 2, often called battle medic or combat medic. The author stresses it is not a basics guide but a showcase of how they play, and that you should try right-side medic for a whole night before judging it. For general Medic basics see the Field Medic guide and the Field Medic team guide.

Intro

After many games where everyone dies except the medic, who runs in circles for seven minutes and then dies to a Fleshpound, the author tried right-side medic for the meme and found a playstyle that suits them, reminiscent of the Phoenix in Dirty Bomb. They also play left-side medic and switch between them.

Overview

Your job is to keep the team from dying, whichever side you choose. The left side can be proactive but is more reactive: look who has low health and spam darts. The author finds that killing zeds with the right side prevents damage to teammates altogether. It is not as easy as the left side, and may be the hardest playstyle to understand in the game because you help indirectly.

Resilience

Imagine a perk with full health 100 that takes half damage, a syringe that heals 40 instead of 20, three times the recharge rate and twice the healing speed. Halve those values except the recharge rate and that is a level 25 Field Medic using Resilience. At 50 health you are practically at 100 health, and depending on how damage arrives you can effectively reach up to 175 health versus 125 with Symbiotic Health.

Objection: Symbiotic Health heals automatically. True, but that is only useful in sight of teammates and does not save you from a swarm of Quarter Pounds. You must heal yourself manually with Resilience, but you can cancel the healing animation: when the blue fog appears or you read "You healed yourself", switch weapons right away.

Damage resistance is applied before armor damage, so at 50 health you take half armor damage. If you heal yourself only at 20-30 health you save money on armor and spend it on ammo, weapons and upgrades. Keeping yourself at 50 health feels awkward at first.

Adrenaline Shot vs Combatant Doctor

Adrenaline Shot's flat 10% movement speed is enough to outrun an aggroed Scrake or Fleshpound, and the extra magazine size helps against packs and even Scrakes if no big-zed killer is near. A crossbow as an off-perk secondary or a flashbang can stun a Scrake long enough to spam its head. The choice is a matter of preference.

Focus Injection vs Acidic Rounds

Focus Injection buffs teammates before big zeds but a 20% damage boost will not save someone about to die. Acidic Rounds do little damage but slow and disorient zeds, helping against swarms of trash and debilitating mid-tier zeds like Gorefasts, Gorefiends and Sirens. It plays like the Hemogoblin, an added debuff that helps teammates. Edit: stumbled zeds make headshots harder for precision perks, so make sure your acid does not get in the way. When running away, poisoning zeds buys time to react.

Coagulant Booster vs Battle Surgeon

Battle Surgeon makes the right-side build happen. Without its flat 20% damage boost nothing else is effective enough. If you dislike Acidic Rounds you can use Symbiotic Health with Focus Injection for even more damage. Battle Surgeon is nearly as good as passive damage bonuses on other perks (a 5% difference), so you can help in holdouts.

Airborne Agent vs Zedative

Airborne Agent is the safer, more reliable option: it heals teammates and poisons nearby zeds so you can focus on other things during zed time, such as poisoning far-away Gorefasts and Sirens or unloading on a Scrake. If you have a great Commando extending zed time, Zedative can give more. The Hemogoblin has the highest damage during zed time in the author's videos, but it requires carrying it, which is not ideal for right-side medics; if you use the Hemogoblin on the left side you can pick Zedative over Airborne Agent. If a nearby Commando struggles to extend zed time because you poison and kill the weak zeds around, let them handle the weak stuff while you hit bigger threats. The author's motto: "You can't take any damage if nothing survives." Edit: the guide was written before the Halloween beta, and after it Airborne Agent is the better pick unless things change.

Tips and strategies

• In a holdout, throw a healing grenade into another hallway to heal teammates and focus on your own part.
• You are a pseudo-Commando and can hold a hallway alone, though you still need a big-zed killer for Scrakes and Fleshpounds.
• Poison as many Crawlers and Slashers as you can, as soon as you can. Even if none die they become weak enough for anyone.
• Acidic Rounds and Battle Surgeon affect your scalpel too, so using it on weak zeds early saves ammo money.
• Battle medic is not suited to big open maps; take Symbiotic Health and Adrenaline Shot to cross distances faster.

Questions can be posted in the original comments.