ÜberCharge
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— The Heavy on the finer mechanics of an ÜberCharge
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ÜberCharge is an ability of the Medic. ÜberCharge is built up as the Medic heals players with his secondary weapons, Crusader's Crossbow, hitting enemies with his Ubersaw, or the Medicating Melody taunt. Each healing tool has its own unique ÜberCharge effect, which the Medic can unleash once his charge meter reaches 100%, excluding the Vaccinator, which can unleash an ÜberCharge at increments of 25%.
Contents
Charge meter
While the Medic has their secondary or melee weapon drawn, a bar showing how much ÜberCharge is built up appears where the ammo count usually is on the HUD. If a friendly Medic is healing the player or is under the player's crosshair, a team-colored box pops up on the HUD, displaying the username of the Medic, the name of the healing gun they have equipped, and their ÜberCharge percentage (if the Medic uses a Name Tag on their secondary weapon, that name will be displayed instead of the weapon type). Medics with the Solemn Vow equipped and Spies will also see this information when their crosshairs are on an enemy Medic.
Accumulating charge
The ÜberCharge meter fills at different rates, depending on the state of the Medic's healing target.
Rates
| Healing tool | State of target | Fill rate | Fill time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Medi Gun | <142.5% Health | 2.50000% | 40 seconds |
| >142.5% Health | 1.25000% | 80 seconds | |
| >142.5% Health + 2nd Heal Beam | 0.62500% | 160 seconds | |
| Kritzkrieg | <142.5% Health | 3.12500% | 32 seconds |
| >142.5% Health | 1.56250% | 64 seconds | |
| >142.5% Health + 2nd Heal Beam | 0.78125% | 128 seconds | |
| Quick-Fix | <142.5% Health | 2.75000% | 36.4 seconds |
| >142.5% Health | 1.37500% | 72.8 seconds | |
| >142.5% Health + 2nd Heal Beam | 0.68750% | 145.5 seconds | |
| Vaccinator | <100% Health | 4.17500% | 24 seconds |
| 100% - 142.5% Health | 2.80000% | 36 seconds | |
| >142.5% Health | 1.40000% | 72 seconds | |
| >142.5% Health + 2nd Heal Beam | 0.70000% | 144 seconds |
Notes
- During Setup time, the Medic's ÜberCharge meter fills at three times the healing tool's maximum rate, regardless of the target's health; healing any injured player during this period offers no further speed-up.
- ÜberCharge build rate is halved if the patient is at 142.5% health or higher. This encourages Medics to heal other teammates who are not fully overhealed, rather than continuously healing a single player.
- Fill rate is further halved if the target is affected by an additional healing beam (such as from another Medic, a Dispenser, or the Payload cart). The target will not be healed faster by two beams. This encourages Medics to heal as many different teammates as possible.
- The Vaccinator builds ÜberCharge at 33% reduced rate if the patient is at 100% health or higher (e.g., they are being overhealed). This reduced rate can be further compounded on healing a fully overhealed teammate or by stacking heal sources on the same target.
- Upon the patient taking damage from the same type that is being resisted, the Medic is granted a small ÜberCharge bonus based on the amount of damage resisted.
- Accumulated charge does not carry over if the player changes secondary weapons. For example, if a Quick-Fix Medic with 75% charge switches to the Medi Gun at a Resupply Cabinet, the ÜberCharge meter will be reduced to 0%.
- Healing enemy Spies (disguised as one of your teammates) also fills the ÜberCharge meter. The fill rate is determined by the disguise's health meter and not the Spy's actual health.
- Healing on teammates performed by means other than the healing beam (the Crusader's Crossbow and the Amputator's Medicating Melody) provides a small amount of ÜberCharge to the Medic's meter. Because the Kritzkrieg's Oktoberfest taunt only heals the Medic, it does not boost ÜberCharge.
Non-healing meter effects
- Striking an enemy with the Ubersaw adds 25 percentage points per hit to the user's ÜberCharge meter.
- This can be done even during an active charge, although the meter on non-Vaccinator Medi Guns will continue to drain, and the effects of the charge will cease until the Medic draws his secondary weapon again.
- Striking an enemy Scout under the effects of Bonk! Atomic Punch will deal no damage but still add 25% to the Medic's ÜberCharge meter.
- Striking a disguised enemy Spy will not grant the boost even if the strike kills him or triggers his Dead Ringer.
- Striking an invisible enemy Spy will not grant the boost regardless of disguise status and whether or not the strike kills him.
- The Ubersaw's Spinal Tap taunt-kill also fills the Medic's ÜberCharge meter: 25% for the initial stunning thrust and 75% for the killing retraction. Note that it is possible for the thrust to connect and the retraction to miss, and vice versa. Each bonus is only awarded if that part affects an enemy target.
- When a Medi Gun is dropped, either through death or by picking up another one, the ÜberCharge stored within it will begin to drain at a rate of 10% per second until it is fully drained. The only exception is through suicide.
- A Medic struck by a shot from the Pomson 6000 will immediately lose a certain amount of ÜberCharge, depending on the range at which they were hit and hear a distinctive sound effect.
- 10% is lost if the Medic was hit from within 512 Hammer Units, and scales linearly down to 0% at 1536 Hammer Units. However, if the Medic has already activated his Übercharge, hitting him with the Pomson 6000 will not drain his Übercharge.
- The start of Sudden Death resets the meter to 0%.
- The canister in the Ubersaw and Vita-Saw fills in relation to how much Übercharge the Medic has. The canister will glow bright red or blue if at full Übercharge.
- If a Medic dies with the Vita-Saw equipped, and has atleast one Organ (one hit against an enemy), he will respawn with a percentage of his ÜberCharge meter preserved. The Medic can retain up to 15 percentage points per Organ, with the upper limit being up to 60% ÜberCharge stored at 4 Organs. This will work even if the player elects to respawn with a different melee weapon, but it does not allow the Medic to carry over prior charge into Sudden Death.
Activation
When the Medic's charge reaches 100% (or 25% for the Vaccinator), the meter on the HUD will begin flashing and the character will speak a related voice response. This announcement can warn enemy players of the Medic's full charge, but the Medic can cancel the response by activating another voice command. Medics can also use the "full charge" command at will with option 8 of Voice Menu 2, regardless of if they have a charge ready or not.
Once the meter is full, the player can deploy the ÜberCharge by pressing alternate fire (default key: MOUSE2). Upon deploying the charge, certain visual effects will be applied to the affected players; the deploying Medic will play an activation-related voice response, and soon after the patient will play his own voice response. Like the "fully charged" announcement, these can warn enemy players of a deployed charge, and they can be canceled if the speaker activates a properly-timed voice command.
An ÜberCharge will only affect a player for as long as the healing beam is trained on them; if the Medic dies, deactivates the healing beam, changes healing targets, draws another weapon, or is forced out of range, its benefit to the patient will end prematurely. Once activated, the ÜberCharge will continue to drain, regardless of the Medic's active weapon, though the Medic will only receive the Übercharge's effect if he's holding out the Medi Gun as his active weapon. In other words, Medics cannot charge into battle with their offensive weapons while being invulnerable or crit-boosting themselves. With a single patient, an activated charge lasts 8 seconds, draining the meter at a rate of 12.5 points per second. The Medic is free to move his healing beam to another player, which will give the effects of the charge to the new patient, but the total ÜberCharge duration decreases by half a second for every second that another player is being ÜberCharged.
| ÜberCharge Duration | Number of recipients |
|---|---|
| 8 seconds | 0 recipients |
| 8 seconds | 1 recipient |
| 5.33 seconds | 2 recipients |
| 4 seconds | 3 recipients |
| 3.2 seconds | 4 recipients |
| 2.66 seconds | 5 recipients |
The only exception here is the Vaccinator, which places a shield on both the Medic and patient upon activation, and which lasts for 2.5 seconds, although if the Medic switches away from the Vaccinator he will still lose the benefits of the shield. Vaccinator charge is immediately consumed upon each use, rather than gradually draining, and multiple shields of different resistances can all be placed upon as few or as many targets as necessary.
Effects
Medi Gun
Visual effects
The Medic and his healing target will glow in their team color, with yellow or purple eyes and a metallic sheen across their bodies. A slight team-colored distortion will appear around the first-person view of the Medic and his patient.
Immunities and vulnerabilities
The stock Medi Gun's ÜberCharge makes the Medic and his patient invulnerable to most forms of damage. Both players are still vulnerable to telefragging and certain environmental effects - namely saw blades, trains, and pitfalls, but not drowning or fall damage. They are also still subject to knockback and the Pyro's compression blast. The Sandman's alt-fire attack cannot stun them, but the initial strike of the Organ Grinder, Skewer, and Spinal Tap taunt attacks can (though they will still inflict no damage). If the deploying Medic is stunned, the healing beam will temporarily break and leave the patient vulnerable until the Medic has recovered. Similarly, striking an ÜberCharged Medic from behind with the Holiday Punch will cause him to laugh, breaking the healing beam.
Secondary effects
The Medic's target will continue to be healed at the normal rate. Activating the Medi Gun's charge or applying it to a new target extinguishes fire. Invulnerability will linger for one second after breaking contact with the beam, allowing a dexterous Medic to grant invulnerability to multiple patients simultaneously. Medi Gun or Quick-Fix-charged players do not count towards pushing the Payload cart or capturing control points (although they can block enemy captures). Medi Gun-charged players cannot pick up the Intelligence while invulnerable, and a Medic activating a Medi Gun's ÜberCharge while their patient is carrying the Intelligence will not apply invulnerability to the patient. The Medic cannot activate a Medi Gun's ÜberCharge while carrying the Intelligence.
Kritzkrieg
Visual effects
Upon activating Übercharge, yellow sparks will travel down the healing beam (identically to the stock Medi Gun), and a team-colored glow and a crackle of electricity will be emitted from the Kritzkrieg and the weapon of the Medic's patient.
Benefits
For the duration of the charge, all attacks made by the Medic's patient will be critical hits, which deal 300% of the weapon's base damage to enemies and ignore the normal modifiers for range and randomized damage. This can help with the Holiday Punch due to the fact that the laugh occurs on critical hits, and the Kritzkrieg deals critical hits to the ÜberCharge's target patient. Projectiles fired during the Kritzkrieg charge's duration will retain their critical effects even after the charge has ended.
Weaknesses
While the Kritzkrieg will continue to heal its target at the normal rate, activating the charge grants no additional defensive benefits to the Medic or his patient. As buildings are immune to critical hits, the Kritzkrieg is a poor choice for assaulting an enemy Sentry Gun (though critical hits can easily dispatch any Engineers attending to the Sentry Gun).
Quick-Fix
Visual effects
The Medic's healing beam will pulse and glow with greater intensity, and a team-colored ring surrounds the Medic and his target.
Benefits
The Medic and his healing target will be healed at an accelerated rate (from 100.8/s while under fire, up to 302.4/s if not wounded in the last 15 seconds.) Both players will also be immune to stun effects, slowdown, and any forms of knockback. The charge will heal the Medic at the accelerated rate when deployed, whether or not it is actively healing another player. If the Medic is healing a rocket-, sticky- or flare-jumping player, the Medic will be launched with equal force in the same direction.
Weaknesses
While offering greater resiliency, the Quick-Fix's ÜberCharge provides no protection from bursts of high damage, such as Stickybomb traps, backstabs, headshots, or critical hits. Even discounting these threats, focused firepower can overcome this accelerated healing.
Vaccinator
Visual effects
The patient and the Medic will be covered by a shield with an icon of the type of damage being resisted above both their heads.
Benefits
Unlike the other Medi Guns, the Vaccinator's ÜberCharge is split into 4 segments of 25% each, which can be activated individually. Like the Kritzkrieg and Quick-Fix, it has an increased ÜberCharge build rate which allows it to have an ÜberCharge ready much faster, although this rate is reduced once the patient is at full health or higher. While actively healing a teammate, the Vaccinator grants a 10% resistance to one of three types of damage: Bullet (including arrows from the Huntsman bow, bolts from the Crusader's Crossbow, and syringes from any of the Medic's Syringe Guns, despite them being technically projectiles), Explosive, and Fire.
Upon activation of ÜberCharge, the Vaccinator places a shield on both the Medic and his patient, increasing the amount of damage that is resisted. 25% of the ÜberCharge meter is immediately consumed upon placement of the shield, which lasts for 2.5 seconds on both parties regardless of whether or not the heal beam is broken. This shield resists 75% of the selected damage type instead of 10%, and fully negates critical damage. Multiple shields of different damage types can be placed on the same patient, or multiple shields of the same damage type can be simultaneously active on several teammates, limited only by the amount of ÜberCharge that the Medic has.
Weaknesses
Because it can only resist selected damage types, it is possible to deal full damage to players protected by a Vaccinator ÜberCharge by attacking them with a type that is not being resisted. It does not have a melee resistance option, so melee attacks will counter a Vaccinator shield. Additionally, due to its reduced healing rate and reduced ÜberCharge build rate on overhealed patients, it is not a very effective secondary weapon for buffing up teammates to maximum effectiveness.
Multiple charges
Multiple ÜberCharges from multiple Medics deployed upon a single player at once do not multiply the effect. While combining charges on a single target yields no additional special effects, Medics with different secondary weapons can grant a single target a combination of their effects. For example, a player receiving a normal ÜberCharge and a Kritzkrieg ÜberCharge will receive the effects of both; invulnerability and guaranteed chance of critical hits.
Enemy Spies
A Spy can trick an enemy Medic into ÜberCharging them while they are disguised, a tactic which can cripple pushes and give the Spy a surprise attack with the misplaced ÜberCharge. The Spy gains all the benefits of the charge. Until the Spy breaks disguise, they will appear to enemy players just as they would if they were on the enemy team (a Spy glowing in the color of the enemy team, in the case of a Medi Gun ÜberCharge, for example). To allies, and all players once the disguise is broken, the Spy and his ÜberCharge visual effects will appear in his own team colors (though dropping the disguise will terminate the healing beam and the charge's effects soon after).
Crusader's Crossbow
The Crusader's Crossbow gives a small amount of ÜberCharge based on the distance from the patient - the further the distance, the more ÜberCharge built.
Amputator
The Amputator gives ÜberCharge by healing players with the Medicating Melody taunt.
Related achievements
Scout
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Soldier
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Pyro
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Demoman
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Heavy
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Medic
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Sniper
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Spy
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Mann vs. Machievements
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Update history
- Fixed an exploit that allowed disconnected medics to continue Übercharging their target until they timed out.
- Fixed Medic's Über-charge stats tracking.
- The Medic's Medi Gun now charges at an increased rate during Setup time, to remove the need for self-damage grinding.
- Fixed exploit where the Medi Gun ÜberCharge wouldn't drain if you switched weapons.
- Each extra player ÜberCharged drains the ÜberCharge an additional 50% faster.
- Fixed unlimited ÜberCharge exploit.
- Fixed another unlimited ÜberCharge exploit.
- Fixed rapid weapon switching allowing Medics to prevent deployed ÜberCharges from draining.
- ÜberCharged players can no longer be stunned.
- Fixed the Kritzkrieg charge deployed sound getting stuck on.
- Fixed removing the burning/jarated conditions on players who are being ÜberCharged by a Medic using the Kritzkrieg.
- Added Mad Milk to the conditions that are cleared when players are made invulnerable by a Medic with an ÜberCharge.
- [Undocumented] Added ÜberCharge overlay for Quick-Fix users during the Megaheal.
- Fixed a bug where the Medic would lose his healing target's speed when deploying his ÜberCharge while using the Quick-Fix.
- Fixed an infinite ÜberCharge exploit related to loadout presets.
- Fixed a bug where Medics would be unable to deploy their ÜberCharge.
- Fixed the Medic not being able to deploy a Quick-Fix/Vaccinator charge while carrying the flag.
July 2, 2015 Patch (Gun Mettle Update)
- Pomson 6000
- Über and Cloak drain decreases over distance from target. Decreases start at 512 Hammer Units (Hu) from target and reach 0 drain at 1536Hu
- Vaccinator
- Fixed a bug that gave Vaccinator patients full crit immunity.
- Vaccinator base resist does not grant any crit resistance.
- Vaccinator Über deploys now always take exactly 1 bar of Über charge.
- Vaccinator Über deploys give the patient a 2.5 second bubble of 75% damage resistance of the current resist type and full crit resistance to that type. These bubbles do not disappear if the Medic stops targeting the current patient. Multiple bubbles of different types can be applied to the same patient or multiple patients given the same resist über each consuming 1 charge.
- Vaccinator über build now suffers the same penalties as other mediguns when it comes to multiple medics on the same target and max overhealed patients.
- Added Penalty of 66% decreased uber build rate while healing a overhealed patient
- Dropped weapons now retain their ammo and ÜberCharge levels unless the player commits suicide.
- Vaccinator - ÜberCharge penalty no longer applies during setup time.
- Vaccinator Über bubbles once again work on Reanimators in Mann vs Machine, but now instantly fills them by 90%
- Changed the Pomson 6000 ÜberCharge and cloak drain effect's distance fall-off.
- Old: Drain 15 ÜberCharge at point blank and scale down to 0 at 1024 HU.
- New: Drain 10 ÜberCharge from 0 to 512 HU and scale down to 0 at 1536 HU.
October 28, 2015 Patch (Scream Fortress 2015)
- [Undocumented] Switching weapons while under the effect of a Vaccinator ÜberCharge cancels its effect.
December 17, 2015 Patch (Tough Break Update)
- During setup time, ÜberCharge build rate is now increased by 3x.
- Amputator
- Healing done with the taunt now grants small amounts of ÜberCharge.
- Crusader's Crossbow
- Healing a player with an arrow now grants a small amount of ÜberCharge.
- Quick-Fix
- Fixed cases where Quick-Fix ÜberCharged players could still be affected by certain knock-back effects.
- Players can no longer capture objectives while under the effects of Quick-Fix ÜberCharge.
- Vaccinator
- Added slight ÜberCharge build on proper resist
- Increased ÜberCharge rate from +50% to +67%
- Reduced overhealed ÜberCharge build rate penalty to 33% from 66%. As this penalty is applied after the base increase, healing an overhealed patient is now 33% more effective.
- Fixed Medics having an accelerated Übercharge build-rate when healing full-health Snipers who are using The Razorback.
Bugs
- All 9 classes use unique ÜberCharge textures (unlike cosmetic items, weapons, MvM bots, Asteroid robots, etc.) However, those textures were downscaled improperly, which make ÜberCharged classes have blurry or misplaced signs on them. Some of the textures are also from older player models (e.g. Soldier's "beta version" face). The most notable example of the whole bug is the RED Engineer's face, where his yellow-glowing goggles show up on his cheeks.
Trivia
- The textures for ÜberCharged classes, like the gibs, are for the old models from early versions of Team Fortress 2. If you look closely, you can see that the ÜberCharge textures for the classes are misaligned in some places (such as the goggles crossing the Engineer's nose).
- When you hit a Medi Gun ÜberCharged player with a critical hit, they will take no damage. However, the critical hit sound will still play and the letters that indicate a critical hit will appear above the enemy.
- Invulnerable players are not immune to Jarate (whether applied from the Sydney Sleeper or the item) or Mad Milk, although neither will have any effect while the ÜberCharge lasts.
- The word Über comes from German, meaning "over", which means that the name "Übercharge", in full English, means "Overcharge".
- Übercharge can be manually toggled on the player's host server using the console command "addcond 5." Cheats must be enabled before the command is executed. (sv_cheats1)
Gallery
The Medi Gun's ÜberCharge
The Kritzkrieg's ÜberCharge
The Quick-Fix's ÜberCharge
The Vaccinator's ÜberCharge with bullet resistance
See also
