Assault Kit Guide Part 1: The Revive

[Bommando]

This is the first in what I hope will be a series of guides to various kits for 2142.

People who know me from BF2 will know how adamant I get about reviving team mates. Some people think I get worked up over nothing, but I am starting this thread to point out that reviving is not as hard as people seem to make it.

I notice the failure to revive pretty much falls into two categories:

1. Fear of enemy fire.
2. Failure to clear the area before a revive.

Both are fundamental problems which I believe can easily be avoided.

To alleviate your fear, you need to understand that your revived friend will actually add to your firepower. It's like gaining an instant extra weapon. So, if you're afraid that your foe will take you out, remember that if you're smart and stay in cover, you may end up actually outnumbering them once you successfully revive.

Clearing the area is also vital, since the worst possible scenario that can occur is that your enemy not only picks up another kill on your revived team mate, but they also pick you off as well and stop your assault dead in its tracks.

So, here are my tips for keeping your friends alive without putting yourself at unnecessary risk.

General Principles.

Use cover.

So few people actually do this and it's your single biggest advantage. You should whenever possible put a wall or a corner between you and your foe. It's easily possible to go prone behind cover and reach out quite a distance to make a revive.

Use your keys, not your mouse.

Scrolling through weapons is prohibitively slow. You should always use the key binding to select your defibs. While a little unintuitive, it's still pretty consistent.

For stock guns, 6 will select your defibs, for unlocks, the key is 5. Silly I know, but them's the breaks. Don't forget to switch back to your rifle after every revive as detailed above.

Don't hump the corpse.

Sounds simple, but so many people do it. Don't lie on top of your friend to revive them. This is the single most common cause of multikills and failed revives. Not only are you slow when prone, but you also can't get as good a hit with the paddle.

Your defib has a range.

Your defib has a decent range, so you should always keep about 1-2m distance from your patient. You can even revive standing up at times (although I recommend crouching for the most consistent results). I tend to move towards my patient as fast as possible and left click a fraction before I actually reach the range, allowing the wind-up to occur before I reach the body, thus meaning I don't have to stop moving at all, as long as the 'pulse' hits the body at the right time.

Retreat after every revive.

Do not ever stay at the location of your original revive. Even if you have multiple revives to make, go back behind cover first, then rush your next patient once you are clear. Often your enemies will have tried to shoot you and are either now overheating or reloading while you go for the next revive.

Switch back to your rifle after every revive.

Even if you have multiple revives to make, you should always assume an enemy is looking to catch you with a defib in your hand, so switch back to your rifle to be ready to take out your foe. Usually, your newly revived friend will be facing your foe and can help you bring them down first.

Clipping.

Sometimes bodies will not revive due to a physics bug in the game. I made a video demonstrating How to revive clipping bodies with the Med Hub.

Assess the risk.

If you see your team mate get killed, you have an idea of how long you have to revive. However, if you are in a high risk situation, it can sometimes be valuable to ask them to relay how long they have until killed by VOIP, so you can decide whether you can reach them in time or whether you're taking unnecessary risks for a borderline revive.

When someone goes down, the you need to assess the chances of encountering the enemy who took your friend down. Watch the kill ticker at the top of the screen to determine the weapon which killed your buddy. These fall into a few categories:

Assault Rifles / MGs (Auto):

If you hear full auto fire, you know your enemy is near. Your first reaction should be to throw a grenade past the body of your buddy (always 7 to select). If the enemy is camping his body or following up / reloading, this will either kill him or suppress him for long enough to be wary of moving towards the body again. This will buy you time to switch to your defib and go for the revive.

Sniper Rifles, Semi-Auto Rifles:

Sniped kills are relatively easy to revive, since your enemy cannot bring enough firepower to bear on you before both of you scurry to safety. Use cover and go rush-revive your friend.

Frag Grenades:

Nade spam can be dangerous for a Medic, but luckily in 2142, grenades make a distinctive hissing sound and your revive can be timed to avoid them. If you have several enemies spamming the same body, you are best to avoid it, since you are likely to get caught and they will probably have an ammo hub resupplying them. Against a lone foe, you should be able to revive between nades or just wait for them to run out.

One thing to remember about nade spam is that your enemy is usually holding nades the whole time, so this often makes them vulnerable to gunfire as they are preoccupied with tossing their frags. This could provide an opportunity to flank them and take them out with rockets or semi-auto rifle fire.

Armour:

You need to be very careful here. Tanks and APCs with mortars are especially deadly due to their large splash damage. Even a careful Medic can easily be cleaned up. You should always try to get a visual of the armour to make sure they are not watching the body before you go for the revive.

Summary.

Hopefully, there are enough tips here to get you on the road to smarter Medic play.

Happy zapping!

[Thanatos]

Smoke grenades.

This medic unlock can help provide you some help as you go for a revive. I find these are tricky to use however. The smoke screen isn't like in BF2 / POE2 where it gives you a lot of useful concealment. It's a small cloud and it doesn't last very long, so you need to use both smoke grenades if you're thinking about creating concealment.

Even with two grenades, it gives you only enough time to dash out for a revive.

Smoke grenades aren't a catch-all solution though. Since smoke grenades tend to say 'there's something worth hiding over here', enemies tend to blind-fire into smoke or throw frag grenades into it so you'll have to weigh the merits of this equipment depending on your current situation.

[Bommando]

Yeah, I intentionally left out the use of smoke grenades. I find they don't provide enough cover in 2142 and the slot is much better used for rockets.

[Gillespie]

I've been using the assault kit in the medic role and I find it to be a great experience (even better than using a medic in BF2). I'd like to reinforce one of Bommando's points:

The defribs have excellent range now! You can easily run up to about 2 feet or so from your casualty and without needing to crouch or go prone (as in the original BF2) you can give them a zap.

Also, I've found the ability to revive your teammates to be absolutely crucial in Titan defense (and offense). One medic with a defrib and advanced medkit can keep an entire section of your defense up and going. For example, in a recent match the enemy was able to breach our reactor room. A squad of us holed up inside with the support guys dropping a pair of sentry drones at the entrance.

If you're a medic (as I was) drop your medkit in a central location so that everyone is recieving the healing effect at the same time. Now stand behind the large window/shield in front of the entrance so you have easy access to any wounded teammates you'll need to revive.

The enemy threw grenades in. I revived fallen comrades almost instantaneously.

The enemy fired rockets in. I revived fallen comrades almost immediately.

They tried to make a coordinated rush, killing most of us inside before falling back. I scooted out of my protected position and revived four guys (the fifth being in front of the entrance and too risky to revive). The defense was immediately restored.


The point of that anecdote: it's okay to sometimes abandon your "assault role" and go full-blown medic to help your teammates. As a very good plus, I find running around reviving and healing teammates to be immensely rewarding and at times (in those situations where you have to run across a field of fire to get to your "patient") exhilarating.

If you haven't unlocked them yet, the stamina boost and increase unlocks are both absolutely necessary to be a good medic. You'll be sprinting a lot.

[Gillespie]

Oh, yeah. The reason you don't get dogtags for defibrillator kills (for those that care)? They have excellent range. Take your knife kill range and increase by a factor of 3 or so, and you have effective activation range for your defrib. Its not recommended, but its good for those moments when someone sneaks up towards you expecting an easy kill.

[WhiskeySix]

One thing I find situationally helpful is to pause before reviving a team mate that's downed right in front of you: Give the killer time to look away/engage another target.

[ThePenguineer]

• Always tell a downed teammate that you're coming to revive them. You don't want to catch them off guard and revive them as they're looking around in their spawn or customization window, delaying them from finding better cover. If you're not sure whether or not you've cleared the area, you want your friendly ready to run and gun after the revive, not trying to cycle back out of menus.
  
• Watch the mini-map. As the 3D map isn't as helpful in terms of downed teammates as in BF2, you need to rely on the mini-map to get the location of wounded friendlies. In addition to spotting wounded and low-health friendlies, you can predict enemy movements by spotting clumps of teammates in need of revives.
  
• Distance yourself from the mass of your squad. If they're assualting a flag and the SL gets exploded or most of them get wiped out by an enemy, you're the last resort to picking the assault back up. Keep some distance so that whatever got them won't get you.
  
• Patience. Like Whiskey said, sometimes it's better to just to wait a few seconds for the enemy to dozey-off before the revive. Instead of wasting time to gamble on hunting them out, wait a few seconds, revive your teammate, and now you've got 2 guns to one.
  
• Not so much for the assault guy, but for his teammates. For goodness sakes, when your medic is down, PICK UP THEIR KIT!!! I'm sure all of us are super god-like soldiers, but in the case that YOU get killed, you want that Med kit alive, don't you? Help keep it in the squad by switching kits and reviving downed medics. They'll love you for it.

[Lorax74]

Originally Posted by ThePenguineer

• Always tell a downed teammate that you're coming to revive them. You don't want to catch them off guard and revive them as they're looking around in their spawn or customization window, delaying them from finding better cover. If you're not sure whether or not you've cleared the area, you want your friendly ready to run and gun after the revive, not trying to cycle back out of menus.

I get caught by this all the time

[Exploding_Silver]

Originally Posted by Bommando

Don't hump the corpse.

Sounds simple, but so many people do it. Don't lie on top of your friend to revive them. This is the single most common cause of multikills and failed revives. Not only are you slow when prone, but you also can't get as good a hit with the paddle.

Exactly, if people get this then they would become quickly a lot more confident in revives. I run > dive > zap > immediatly get up & switch to main weapon at same time > immediatly run on (over their body as such). The key to you staying alive is movement.

Originally Posted by ThePenguineer

• Always tell a downed teammate that you're coming to revive them. You don't want to catch them off guard and revive them as they're looking around in their spawn or customization window, delaying them from finding better cover. If you're not sure whether or not you've cleared the area, you want your friendly ready to run and gun after the revive, not trying to cycle back out of menus.

Personaly I think this is one of the best feelings of comaraderie when its clear your squad mates are aware of your situation and coming to help, "Silver hot revive in 2"

[Tarenth]

There are actually two states to a fallen body.

1. Critically Injured
2. Dead

Someone is critically injured if they are taken to 0hp via any method of destruction. They are pretty resiliant and will probably last through ~200hp more of damage before they are killed. When critically injured you can revive them with a shock from the defib padles. You can actually unload some extra rounds into someone critically injured to convert them to dead and prevent a revive.

Someone is dead if they have taken over ~300hp of damage total or if they are knocked away from a kit far enough that they cannot pick it up. Excessive damage is usually seen with roadkills, direct heavy artiliary hit, grenande spaming, heavy suppression fire, orbital strikes, and intentional 'gibbing'. Distance death is usually attributed to falls pre- and post- the critically injured state (falling down a ladder and getting stuck or falling off a platform when critically injured), high power artiliary kick (taking a tank round to the bootstraps), and high speed roadkills. Obviously if a critically injured person is not revived within 15 seconds of becoming wounded they will 'bleed out' and become dead.

While critically injured the damage you recieve is reduced from small arms fire so you can actually take more rifle rounds and granades then you would if still active. However, a tank round or two will still gib you if the driver wants to get rid of you baddly enough.

Learn to spot a lost cause when you see one. If a FAV just zipped past and vented their road rage on your squad there is a good chance a majority of them are dead and you will be unable to revive them. On the flip side, it might also be advantageous to stick around a fallen foe and pump a few extra rounds into them to make them dead if the fighting is hot and heavy. Show how much you fear that enemy medic by taking them down and making sure they stay down.

[Elite_Master]

All great points (especially about picking up the assault kit if the medic dies), also one more --> this should be painfully obvious but it's happened to me more than once, stupid medics reviving me and others right in the middle of an ongoing kill zone. Case in point, an Orbital strike.. I was caught in one of these the other day and died and some guy ran in and revived me but he and I immediately died again (that's just stupid), I guess this goes back to 'assessing risk' but people need to stop doing it. Also, running out in the open at the titan core entrance and reviving me after I make an unsuccessful mad dash into the room while the enemy is nade spamming - revives me and we all just die again before I can even stand up - I'm like, 'thanks man for giving me another death and you a point even though I didn't even ask to be revived'.

[chaf3d]

I didn't read all the opints cause i'm in a hurry, but once a guy is down, you have 15 seconds before you have to revive him... take a tour around real quick. Then revive... better to wait than to die needlessly.

[IMI-50AE]

Actually Elite_Master, the tactic of reviving people in the midst of an Arty strike works. Look, if BF2, the Arty was 105-155mm Howitzers. You take one of those shells, you're done, period. This new stuff, while it hits faster and longer, is much weaker compared. I've waltzed through an Arty barrage in 2142 (well, maybe not waltzed) and lived with a good chunk of health left. Yes, the arty is death on vehicles, but it'd take either a direct hit or multiple near hits (like could reach out and touch the shells close) to kill you. That being said, the arty gets weaker towards the end of the strike. Now, if I revive guys in an arty strike, A: I'll be keeping them from dying from bleed-out, B: I'll get them back on their feet for the firefight undoubtedly going on, providing much-needed support from additional guns. And even if I die from the strike, unless they take a direct hit they'll live and will (hopefully) revive me in turn. End result: Barring any unforeseen problems (Direct arty hits, tanks, walkers, you know, that kind of stuff), we will have come out of the arty strike relatively unscathed and left the enemy CO cursing us for denying him his effectiveness.

[Fehmart]

Originally Posted by Elite_Master

Also, running out in the open at the titan core entrance and reviving me after I make an unsuccessful mad dash into the room while the enemy is nade spamming - revives me and we all just die again before I can even stand up - I'm like, 'thanks man for giving me another death and you a point even though I didn't even ask to be revived'.

Your death count is incremented only when you have to respawn, not if you are "critically wounded" and revived constantly. While running into grenade spam on a corpse is likely suicide, sometimes it's all you can do for someone who's down.

[jepzilla]

Originally Posted by ThePenguineer

Always tell a downed teammate that you're coming to revive them. You don't want to catch them off guard and revive them as they're looking around in their spawn or customization window, delaying them from finding better cover. If you're not sure whether or not you've cleared the area, you want your friendly ready to run and gun after the revive, not trying to cycle back out of menus.

I think this swings both ways. Letting a squad-mate know you're coming in for a revive helps, but a lot of time I get a blue-guy revive, or I revive a blue-guy. There's no convenient way to communicate the incoming revive in that situation. And in an intense firefight, if I'm playing a medic I don't take the time to figure out who I'm reviving. I just revive, revive, revive.

You can see on your minimap if there are any face-huggers around when you die. 95% of the time when I'm revived I'm on my feet and running in half a second, because I watch the minimap when I'm dead and don't let myself get caught offguard by a revive. Back in the 1337th days we practiced getting instantly back into combat as after a surprise revive. D. Anyway, It's a useful skill, especially if you don't like getting shot in the face by a sniper.

Originally Posted by Fehmart

Your death count is incremented only when you have to respawn, not if you are "critically wounded" and revived constantly. While running into grenade spam on a corpse is likely suicide, sometimes it's all you can do for someone who's down.

Not quite true. You lose a ticket whenever you are Killed. So after that 15 seconds of Critically Wounded is up, you become Killed, and lose a ticket, regardless of whether you respawn or not.