Re: THIS IS THE OFFICIAL TEAM FORTRESS 2 TOPIC
Well for one, you're doing minimal healing for your team, and minimal damage to your enemies (assuming you're actually connecting your shots). If you're switching between the medi gun and the crossbow to heal your pocket, you're doing it wrong. The continuous stream of 24-72 health per second is infinitely better than the maximum 150 health per two seconds (Keep in mind, I said maximum. You have to be at the longest range to heal 150 health. And that means you have to not only connect your shot, but you also have to wait to reload before you can heal a heavy back to full health. And since you're most likely pocketing, your healing with a crossbow would be at 72 health per 2 seconds)
While you do technically heal more with the crossbow, that's like saying picking up a medium health kit is better than a pocket medic. In a firefight, you're constantly healing 24-72 health per second, whereas you heal a maximum of 150 health at a single point in time. On the other hand if you're fighting an enemy pocket combo, you're being even more ineffective. The time it takes you to take out your crossbow, firing at either your heavy or their medic, then switch back to the medi gun, you'll have a severely injured pocket. Plus the fact that you aren't even charging your uber for this pretty much makes it even more ineffective.
Let's assume that you're at 0% uber and you start healing a healthy heavy. That means you'll heal at 24 health per second. Meaning when you get him to full buff, it'll have taken just a little more than six seconds. In about six seconds, you'll have gained 15% uber charge. Now let's say right as soon as he's fully buffed, you see the enemy pocket combo and immediately quickswitch to the crossbow. It'll take nearly one second to pull that crossbow and be ready to fire. Assuming you fired immediately without even aiming and quickswitched back, that'll take about two seconds. In those two seconds, you could've gotten an additional five second charge, assuming you did everything as quickly as possible. And at that same time, the enemy pocket would've probably put in a good amount of damage on either you or your pocket. And now your combo is at a disadvantage because either one or both of you are hurt, and the enemy combo is either healthy (If you missed) or their medic is somewhat damaged (If you hit them). And consider this: Your puny crossbow damage on the medic versus the offensive class's damage on either your pocket or yourself.
Say it's your heavy-medic and their heavy-medic. If you pull out your crossbow to fire at the medic, you stop healing your heavy. This means while you're trying to take out the enemy medic, the enemy heavy can either attack you or your heavy. And since the enemy medic was still healing his heavy, that's a constantly buffed heavy versus a rapidly-dying one.
So now we have a couple scenarios if you try to attack the enemy medic with your crossbow. 1. The enemy heavy attacks you. 2. The enemy heavy attacks your heavy. 3. You killed the medic during either scenario one or two. 4. Your heavy killed the medic during either scenario one or two.
In scenario one, you'll likely die. You're not healing your pocket and you're trying to go offensive, meaning you're away from the safety of your heavy. You die, the enemy medic will be hurt, but will survive. Even if your heavy manages to take down their medic, the enemy heavy will end up winning because he was always fully buffed while your heavy was losing health.
In scenario two, your pocket will likely die. You stopped healing him, meaning he loses his supply of health while the enemy heavy still has his. Like scenario one, even if you and your heavy manage to kill their medic, the heavy has more health and has a clear advantage over the two of you. And even with quickswitching, one of you will likely die.
In scenario three or four, you or your heavy got their medic. The other heavy was either firing at you or your pocket. If it's your pocket, he'll likely die because you didn't provide a constant stream. If it's you, you're very likely to be dead because your pocket was focused on the medic or couldn't outdamage the heal rate of the enemy medic. Either way, someone on your team dies.
The crossbow only encourages medics to recklessly go the offense, which doesn't benefit your team all that much. If you're simply taking potshots while you're waiting to push or prepare for the incoming push, then go ahead. But if you're using it the way you're describing it, you're absolutely doing it wrong. No matter how good you are at going offensive as a medic, you're being a terrible teammate because you're endangering your pocket and yourself for the sake of possibly dealing a little extra damage. Even if you manage to win your battles through this method, you'll end up developing a habit of trying to be an offense medic. What happens if your team is incompetent? You hurt the medic, but your team didn't follow up on it. What if their team is better? They see you not healing, they immediately get extra offensive. All you do is invite trouble by using that thing.
Basically what I'm trying to say is this: The crossbow makes you heal much more ineffectively, doesn't charge uber, and puts both you and your pocket in a vulnerable position because you're doing something risky and he's not being healed. It's simply not worth it.
The numbers I got here can be found on the wiki. I'm also a medic main, hence why I spent HALF AN HOUR TYPING THIS UP WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME.
