KF2 Medic Guide: Armor First, 401 Rifle, Positioning

This page is a translation and paraphrase of a Simplified Chinese guide that was originally written for a Baidu Killing Floor forum and re-posted on Steam in June 2015 (last updated September 2015). It covers the Medic as it played in early Killing Floor 2, so numbers and some skills have since changed. The author's experience is mostly Hard and Suicidal co-op.

Why play Medic

Strengths the author lists:

• Up to 175 armor and 120 health.
• The 1500 dosh 401 rifle hits hard: one shot kills a Stalker or a Crawler, one headshot kills the small white and red Clot-type ZEDs, and three headshots kill a Gorefast.
• The healing darts on the 401 recharge extremely quickly.
• Medic weapons are light, so loadouts can be mixed freely.
• The Medic can repair armor.

Weaknesses:

• Burst damage against big ZEDs is poor, because the weapons get no damage bonus.
• Holding the trigger on the Medic rifle produces heavy recoil, which can be uncomfortable for new FPS players.
• The role demands good reading of the situation. Like a support hero in a MOBA, it looks easy to start with but takes practice to play well.

Setup notes

• The author plays on a laptop that throttles under heat, which causes stutter, frame drops and audio crackle. Lowering graphics quality and improving cooling fixed it.
• Enable the CS-style crosshair in the game controls settings. It helps aiming for every perk, especially Support.

Skill picks

Skill icons from the author's allocation picture.

• Strongly advised: the armor-heal skill at level 10 and the armor-cap skill at level 20. Without these two the author says there is little point in playing Medic.
• Level 5: extra health. Spare dart ammo matters less than staying alive, because on high difficulty a Medic death usually ends the match.
• Level 10: heal-armor skill. On a fresh spawn you can temporarily take the starting-armor skill to save about 300 dosh, then switch back.
• Level 20: armor cap. The author calls it the key skill.
• Level 25: free choice. The author prefers the right-hand option, the tranquilizer effect, which works well with a Berserker for controlling big ZEDs.

A note added on 2015-09-21 says the idea of picking Medic skills to support Berserker resistances became outdated after the Incinerate and Detonate update, when Berserker resistances (including immunity to some Bloat attacks) became a built-in trait rather than a skill.

In the comments the author answered a question about the 10 percent healing penalty of the armor skill: armor matters more than the lost healing, because unarmored players take heavy hits (boss melee got stronger after the update), and 10 percent less healing means about one extra dart in practice.

Weapons

The author notes that every Medic weapon except the pistol has a flashlight. Use it, because the Medic also provides vision for the team.

Weapon	Notes
Medic pistol	Cheap, light, the only purchasable pistol at the time. Best given to other perks as an emergency long-range heal. Two darts by default.
201 SMG	The KF1 MP5 equivalent: 40 rounds, low damage, burst-headshot weapon for the early waves. The author recommends saving for the 401 instead.
301 shotgun	Damage similar to the Support M4 shotgun. Needs recoil control for headshots, loads a full magazine at once and reloads quickly.
401 rifle	The standard Medic weapon, 1500 dosh. Starts with three darts and regains one roughly every 1.5 seconds after emptying. Damage is also solid.
Medic grenade	Creates a healing cloud (the author calls it a fountain). It is useless against a Siren, so kill Sirens with 401 bursts first.
Medic syringe	The fastest self-heal of any perk. With the armor skill it repairs 11 armor per use. Early on you can take hits on purpose and heal up to build armor toward 175.

Loadout and team role

• Front and middle Medic: 401 plus a Paladin hammer (the Berserker melee weapon). Use when there is no Berserker, with two Medics, or with two trusted friends.
• Middle Medic: 401 plus 301. Use with a reliable Berserker.
• Rear Medic: 401 plus SCAR. The all-purpose choice. Note that the SCAR has no flashlight.

Dual rifles still deliver strong firepower, and from the back row the Medic gets a wide view and acts like a scout, reporting threats, telling hurt teammates to fall back and throwing grenades. When retreating, do not be the first to leave: make sure the front line gets out first.

Movement and shooting habits

1. Official maps usually run with six players holding fixed spots. Watch each teammate's position. On snowy Outpost, for example, defending around the armored vehicle blocks the view front and back, so go find your teammates and give them a dart or two.
2. When a wave arrives: healing is priority one, killing Sirens priority two, and throw a grenade when the front line begins to give way. If a Scrake breaks in, clear nearby small ZEDs and circle it, even without a hammer.
3. Keep the flashlight on at all times.
4. Do not roam recklessly on low difficulty just because you regenerate. Stay close so the team feels supported.
5. On the last wave give surplus dosh to the Support, or buy an AA12 and throw it to them.
6. Healing darts curve towards allies. They automatically track when the crosshair is near a teammate, roughly inside the yellow box shown below. Avoid aiming down sights, since slower crosshair movement hurts a Medic who needs fast reactions.

Diagram of the dart auto-tracking region around the crosshair.

7. Self-heal weapon cancel: after you heal yourself there is an animation tail. As soon as the blue flash hits the screen, switch to your main weapon to cancel it and save time.

Closing thoughts

In KF2 the Medic plays much like a healer in an online RPG: DPS can be swapped, but on high difficulty a healer is required. The author had never cleared a six-player Hell on Earth game without one. For related pages see the Medic perk page and a Medic beginner guide.