KF2 Combat Medic Satire: Meet the Cockroach Medic

This page summarizes a satirical English Steam guide, written as a mock wildlife field guide, about a familiar multiplayer problem: the Field Medic who plays only for himself. The author calls this pest Blattodea asclepius, the "cockroach medic". It is humor, but it points at a real etiquette issue that serious Medic guides such as Field Medic mentality (Tamari handbook) address properly.

Know your enemy

Sometimes your own teammates are in disguise. The most common game pest, the "cockroach medic", is named for its fear of both death and healing teammates, and it uses only the right-side skills to benefit itself at the expense of the team. Its lifespan is nominally thirty weeks but in practice "the entire match": faster, stronger self-syringe plus extremely high damage resistance means only instant kills can squash it.

The five stages of the cockroach medic

1. Resilience. However badly they play, the high damage resistance at low HP pulls them through, letting them survive several Fleshpound hits in a row.
2. Combatant Doctor. More movement speed and bigger magazines for all Medic weapons, mostly a confidence boost. It gives more chances to get away from ZEDs and let teammates take the first hits. The typical battle cry: if you die you are bad at the game.
3. Acidic Rounds. Poison damage over time. The satire notes that big ZEDs reach the "teammates" faster because everyone misses headshots on flailing ZEDs, ending the round quickly (which also gives the teammates good reason to find another server).
4. Battle Surgeon. Stronger high-damage weapons make quick work of ZEDs, including big ones, so tag everything with the Hemogoblin. Remember that the damage-over-time is ineffectual, so "you are helping".
5. Zed Time - Zedative. Extra gas clouds in Zed time. The joke is to ignore the three Scrakes huffing the rage juice because you are a "battle medic".

Why it matters

The onset of this behavior is frequent, and the guide's complaint is that these players pick solo-only talents in a team game. An experienced cockroach medic makes sure the match is effectively single-player even with five other players in the lobby. The punchline: to such a player you are only a tool to carry them through the game, and only as alive as you are useful. If in doubt, call them out and start a kick vote for a proper Medic.

The author thanks a friend for help, and in the comments jokes that "only cockroaches, I mean combat medics, hate this guide".