How can you earn the Specialist achievement?

Question

Specialist - Accumulate 10000 heal points health in a single life.

Thanks to the on-hud Chief of Staff achievement tracker, I can see that on a good life I'll accumulate ~1.8k-2k healing. My record somehow is 6.7k, but I can't even remember what I did so special on that map (all I know it was CP Egypt; perhaps that server rigged medics in some way).

How would one heal 10k hitpoints in a single life? Overheal many different team members? Uber like there was no tomorrow?

Achievement servers and maps need not apply. I'd rather not earn an achievement than just getting one.

Answer 1

Here's my suggestion, based on the actual circumstances that earned me the Specialist achievement.

Play defense on pl_badwater. Make sure your team has a few competent damage sponges (Heavies, Soldiers, and Demomen) who know how to retreat (you may need to explain that bullets are hazardous to your health).

You want to stay alive. You can facilitate this by always sticking to a buddy. The best buddies to stick to are the ones that hang around sharp corners near narrow corridors:

In these locations, you and your buddy can stay behind cover in the yellow area, and once they are fully healed (to 150%, conditions permitting), they can venture into the red zone for ideal damage exchange along the highlighted lines of sight (where Heavies, Soldiers, and Demomen have a captive audience, so to speak, of the cart's escorts).

Note that the general advice here (be on a good team, play against a bad team, heal everybody) still applies, and that you'll still need classes like Engineers (who can help by putting dispensers near you) to cover your back.

Answer 2

You really just need to play extremely conservatively, preferably on a long map that favors static positions, ideally some standard (not attack/defend) cp_. Overhealing does count as healing, but the best way is to try to heal people that are retreating from the front as they heal faster than those that have recently took damage.

As far as weapons to use, the new bonesaw that heals on taunt may help a tiny bit, it heals almost as well as the Mediguns, though it doesn't overheal.

A final note, your ability to heal is highly dependent on your team. People who play on pubs where nobody goes medic will play differently, just running to their death, instead of trying to get heals when low. I have no actual evidence of this, but I would assume servers with instant respawn encourage such bad behavior. If you play on higher quality pub servers, you may have better luck.

Answer 3

Heal snipers on the battlements on ctf_2fort. This is how I got the achievement.

Answer 4

I did this by playing cp_dustbowl on defense. A lot of times on this map, if you are on defense, you'll end up with 10+ minutes of time to defend the very last point on the last stage.

On that last cap point, there will be a lot of people running away from the point to go back into spawn to heal. I recommend staying out of sight of snipers (just inside the spawn), and just healing people who are heading to the cabinet.

Save your uber charge for those moments when the other team makes a big push to capture the point, or if somehow you think you are about to die. Don't use it offensively, as you are putting yourself at a big risk when it runs out.

I realize this is not the most helpful or proactive way to play normally, but you do pretty much stay completely safe, so it's easy to rack up the required 10k as long as your team doesn't get run over too quickly.

Answer 5

Heal snipers or heavys on CTF_2fort. For heavys just let them camp at the bridge and heal then from behind the walls of the entrance and For snipers if there is no dispenser near by just stand on the right side (facing the bridge in the middle of the map) and heal snipers that are low on health because the spys and other enemies can only come from the left side and you should be able to see them coming and help take them out for the snipers (trust me they will be grateful).