KF2 Field Medic Guide: Weapons, Skills, Loadouts and Poison Myths

This page paraphrases a detailed Field Medic perk guide written in the style of the well-known Dodo guides, updated several times between 2016 and 2017. Your job is simple to state: heal, heal, heal. Shoot the sneaky small ZEDs your team did not see coming, help finish stunned ones, and leave the rest to the damage dealers. For other perspectives see the in-depth darts vs AOE guide and the perk overview.

Perk weapons

All medic weapons heal the same amount per dart (15 HP at level 0, 22 HP at level 25); what differs is dart recharge and capacity.

Weapon	Weight	Price	Damage	Magazine / reserve	Dart recharge	Darts
101 Pistol	1	200	20	15 / 240	7.5 s	2
201 SMG	3	650	15	40 / 480	7.5 s	2
301 Shotgun	6	1100	120 (20 x 6)	10 / 80	4.8 s	2.5
401 Assault Rifle	7	1500	40	30 / 390	3 s	3.33

The 101 Pistol is one of the best Tier 1 weapons.

• 101 Pistol: an upgrade to the 9mm with the same magazine, higher damage and healing. It decapitates most trash in one shot.
• 201 SMG: one of the worst weapons in the game, with 9mm-level damage and high recoil. Skip it, except as an early stopgap or in solo, where damage skills on the right side make it usable.
• 301 Shotgun: weaker than other shotguns but a better healer than Tier 1 and 2. Good burst against Husks and Bloats and for finishing stunned ZEDs.
• 401 Assault Rifle: by far the best medic weapon, with damage, recoil and magazine similar to the Commando's AK-12 and the best healing. Fire in bursts of 1 to 3 shots because holding the trigger wastes most shots.

The 401 is the premier medic weapon.

001 Healer (syringe). Technically every perk has it, but the Medic gets the passive bonuses and the most utility from it. It recharges every 15 s, holds 1 and heals 20 HP (30 at level 25). Use it when darts run out in early waves. Healing a teammate with your own syringe recharges it twice as fast.

Healing grenade. One of the best grenades: the blue cloud heals everyone, including you, at 5 HP per second for 8 seconds with a 3.5 m radius, and poisons ZEDs for 50 per second. It passes through doors and objects. Throw it mainly to heal; it benefits from Syringe Potency (7.5 HP per tick at level 25).

The healing grenade cloud.

Passive bonuses (level 25 values)

• Syringe recharge rate: +8% per level, 200% at 25.
• Syringe potency: +2% per level, 50% at 25.
• Bloat bile resistance: 50%.
• Movement speed: +0.4% per level, 10% at 25.
• Armor bonus: +3% per level, 75% at 25.

Skills

Every 5 levels you pick one of two skills. The left side buffs teammates you dart, which is ideal for multiplayer; the right side poisons and damages ZEDs, which suits solo.

Level	Left (multiplayer)	Right (solo)
5	Symbiotic Health: +25% health; healing teammates heals you 10% of total	Resilience: +1% damage resistance per lost HP, up to 50%
10	Adrenaline Shot: +10% speed for 5 s, stacks to 30%	Combatant Doctor: +50% magazine, +10% speed
15	Focus Injection: +5% damage for 5 s, stacks to 20%	Acidic Rounds: perk weapons poison ZEDs
20	Coagulant Booster: +10% resistance for 5 s, stacks to 30%	Battle Surgeon: +20% perk weapon damage
25 (Zed Time)	Airborne Agent: healing gas around you	Zedative: slows ZEDs 30% and deals massive damage

Airborne Agent acts like a healing grenade on your feet for 8 seconds: it heals teammates and poisons nearby ZEDs, though it does not directly heal you.

Loadout

Multiplayer: all left-side skills. Solo: all right-side skills, optionally excluding Zedative. Weapons: the 401 Assault Rifle and the 301 Shotgun, buying the 401 first. You may have room for a 101 Pistol or Desert Eagle, but you will not use them, and extra weight slows you. Against the boss use the same setup and keep the team alive, especially the Berserker who tanks damage.

Tips

• During Zed Time you can finally use your weapons at full potential without recoil troubles.
• Medic optics show remaining magazine and dart recharge without aiming down sights.

The optic shows ammo and dart status.

• The iron sight detects a player in front of you and shows an icon with a little sound. Fire a dart then and it will home in on that player even if he moves. No icon means nobody needs healing.
• A dart at a full-health player still gives all your buffs, just no healing.
• A dart at a ZED that grabbed someone makes it let go, and the ZED cannot grab for 0.5 seconds after.
• Help a teammate fighting a large ZED by darting the teammate for speed, damage and resistance, not by shooting the ZED.
• Several darts do not heal faster but heal more in total and stack buffs.
• Each medic weapon and the syringe have separate dart cooldowns, so swap weapons while one recharges.
• You resist Bloat bile well but not all poisons, such as Albino Crawler and Hans gas.
• Faster reload trick: ammo shows as reloaded before the animation ends. Hold fire and press bash when the magazine is full; with darts, hold alt-fire and bash.
• Healing halves fire damage-over-time damage and duration.
• Health loss slows you up to 15%; weight slows 0.533% per block up to 8%.
• Crouching reduces recoil.
• With a dead teammate, keep the last ZED alive, carry their weapon to the Trader and throw it. Dropped weapons vanish after 5 minutes, but picking up and throwing resets the timer.
• Callouts: type Sc, Fp or no ammo, or use the quick chat menu (Z).
• Be careful where you weld; ZEDs can teleport and welding may cut off escape routes.
• Share spare money once you have everything.

Why not Resilience?

The guide argues against the "half health" Resilience technique. A good medic using Symbiotic Health constantly regains health from healing, has 25% more of it, and gets the buffs too. Resilience leaves you exposed to raged large ZEDs and Sirens. The Medic must play as safely as possible, because if the medic dies the team is in trouble.

Poison myths

Acidic Rounds poisons with any medic weapon, even the scalpel. On trash it does 1 to 3 damage per second for 4 seconds (knife 1, 101 pistol 2, 201 SMG 1, 301 shotgun 2, 401 rifle 3). On medium and large ZEDs it does only 1 HP per second for 4 seconds, 4 damage in total. Enough poison can panic a ZED so it wanders randomly, which makes headshots harder.

Zedative works only in Zed Time, kills trash a second after the hit and gives the same 1 damage per second against bigger ZEDs. It works without Acidic Rounds and does not stack with it. The green bubbles shown when a dart hits a ZED are purely cosmetic and do no poison damage.