ÜberCharge (German for "supercharge" or "overcharge") is an ability of the Medic class. When applied, it grants invulnerability or guaranteed critical hits for a brief period of time, depending on the used healing gun. The ÜberCharge is built up by focusing the Medic's healing beam onto a teammate (or a disguised Spy).
A bar on the HUD, where the ammo icon usually appears, shows how much ÜberCharge is available. Once the bar is 100% full and begins flashing, the Medic has the ability to activate the ÜberCharge, either granting the Medic and his target invincibility for 8 seconds (with the Medi Gun) or guaranteeing Critical hits from the heal target for 8 seconds (with the Kritzkrieg). With a Medi Gun ÜberCharge activated, the two players will glow their respective team colors. With a Kritzkrieg ÜberCharge activated, both players will appear normal but their weapons will glow and crackle with electricity of their team color for the duration. When looking at a friendly Medic, a colored box shows up on the HUD displaying the username of the Medic, whether or not he is wielding the Kritzkrieg, along with the percent of his ÜberCharge.
It should also be noted that a player can receive an ÜberCharge from a Medic wielding a Medi Gun and another Medic with a Kritzkrieg at the same time, giving the player the effects of both ÜberCharges and allowing them to cut a devastating swathe through the enemy.
A skilled Spy can trick an enemy Medic into ÜberCharging them while they are disguised, wasting the charge and allowing him to wreak havoc on the enemy team for its duration. When this happens, to the team the Spy is on, he'll appear ÜberCharged in his team's color with the enemy Medic trailing behind in their own color. To the team of the Medic, it'll be the same as their own team color.
Switching weapons from the Medi Gun to another will stop the ÜberCharge but continue to drain the ÜberCharge meter.
Charging the ÜberCharge
The ÜberCharge meter fills at two different rates, depending on the health of the Medic's heal target.
- The Medi Gun meter fills at 2.50% / second when the Medic...
- Heals a player with less than 150% health (full Overheal).
- Heals a teammate during Setup time (even when fully overhealed).
- This was added in a December 2007 patch to replace the strategy of one player constantly self-damaging during setup to keep the Medic healing damage and filling the meter at this rate.
- The Medi Gun meter fills at 1.25% / second when the Medic heals a player who is already 150% health, outside of Setup time.
- This was designed to encourage Medics to heal more than one target.
- The Kritzkrieg meter charges at +25% the rate of the Medi Gun.
- With the faster charge rate, it takes a total of 40 seconds to fully charge the Medi Gun ÜberCharge meter. When charging at the slow rate, this takes 80 seconds.
- With the Kritzkrieg, filling the ÜberCharge meter takes 30 seconds (25% faster) at the faster rate. When charging at the slow rate, this takes 60 seconds.
- Healing enemy Spies (disguised as one of your teammates) also charges the ÜberCharge meter.
- Also, a Medic who wields the Übersaw charges his ÜberCharge by 25% with each successful hit on an enemy (excluding enemy disguised Spies). This includes enemy Scouts under the influence of Bonk! Atomic Punch
- He can also gain a 50% charge by using his Übersaw to successfully taunt kill an enemy.
Using the ÜberCharge
Note that while the players are immune to damage with a regular ÜberCharge, they are still affected by knockback from weapons such as the Sentry Gun and the Pyro's compression blast. This can be useful for nullifying an ÜberCharge, because if the Medic is separated from his team-mate, the team-mate's ÜberCharge will be deactivated.
After a Medic deploys his ÜberCharge onto his target, if he releases his focus on the target, the target will remain ÜberCharged for one second while the Medic heals another target. A Medic can use this to keep multiple patients ÜberCharged at once. However, each player ÜberCharged in addition to the current heal target will cause the ÜberCharge to dissipate at an additional 50% of the base speed [1].
Medi Gun ÜberCharged players cannot capture control points or hold intelligence or flags (but can still defend control points from capture). ÜberCharging while healing an intelligence (flag) holder only ÜberCharges the Medic. These same rules apply to the Scout's Bonk! Atomic Punch.
Related Achievements
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Doctoring the Ball
Kill 3 enemies while under the effects of a Medic's ÜberCharge.
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Pyrotechnics
Kill 3 enemies in a single ÜberCharge.
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Soviet Block
While invulnerable and on defense, block an invulnerable enemy Heavy's movement.
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Double Blind Trial
Deploy an ÜberCharge within 8 seconds of a nearby enemy Medic deploying his.
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Group Health
Work with 2 other Medics to deploy 3 simultaneous ÜberCharges.
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Triage
Deploy an ÜberCharge on a teammate less than a second before they're hit by a critical explosive.
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Blunt Trauma
Assist in punching 2 enemies with a single ÜberCharge on a Heavy.
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Family Practice
ÜberCharge 5 of your Steam Community Friends.
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House Call
Join a game that one of your friends is in and then deploy an ÜberCharge on him.
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Placebo Effect
Kill 2 enemies in a single life, while having your ÜberCharge ready, but undeployed.
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Trauma Queen
Deploy 3 ÜberCharges in less than 5 minutes, and assist in 5 kills during that time.
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Update history
October 25, 2007 Patch
- Fixed an exploit that allowed disconnected medics to continue Übercharging their target until they timed out.
November 07, 2007 Patch
- Fixed Medic's Über-charge stats tracking.
December 20, 2007 Patch
- Fixed exploit where the Medi Gun ÜberCharge wouldn't drain if you switched weapons.
April 1, 2008 Patch
- Each extra player ÜberCharged drains the ÜberCharge an additional 50% faster.
May 5, 2008 Patch
- Fixed unlimited ÜberCharge exploit.
May 7, 2008 Patch
- Fixed another unlimited ÜberCharge exploit.
May 21, 2008 Patch
- Fixed rapid weapon switching allowing Medics to prevent deployed ÜberCharges from draining.
August 13, 2009 Patch
- Übercharged players can not be stunned.
Trivia
- Most environmental hazards ignore invulnerable players, and will kill them regardless. However, an ÜberCharge can save the Medic and his healing target(s) from drowning.
- ÜberCharges extinguish Fire on both the Medic and his target.
- While having an ÜberCharge active, the Medic may switch to another weapon such as the Übersaw and use it against enemies to counter the ÜberCharge drain. However, the Medic is vulnerable while he is not holding the Medi Gun.
- ÜberCharged players can be killed by telefrags.
- The textures for ÜberCharged players 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.
- When you hit an ÜberCharged player with a critical hit, they will take no damage. However, the critical hit sound will still play.
- ÜberCharged players are not immune to Jarate or Mad Milk.
See also
 Medic |
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