Projectile Shield

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The Projectile Shield is an upgrade function for the Medic's secondary weapons available through the Mann vs. Machine Upgrade Station. This upgrade costs 300 credits and has two levels. Purchasing the first upgrade permits the Medic to build up an Energy charge by healing teammates for activation of the Projectile Shield. When activated, a glowing shield appears in an arc in front of the Medic, blocking most enemy attacks through it and damaging any Robot it touches. The second upgrade increases the shield's width and doubles the damage dealt.

Charging and activation

When a Medi Gun is equipped after the Projectile Shield upgrade, an additional Energy charge bar appears next to the ÜberCharge bar. The Energy bar fills much faster and from more sources than the ÜberCharge. The Medic may build Energy by healing damaged teammates, Overhealing teammates, healing teammates who are damaging Robots, blocking teammate damage with Invulnerability ÜberCharges, or Reanimating fallen teammates. A beep cues the Medic player when charge is complete. When Energy is fully charged, pressing the Special Attack key (default key: MOUSE3) deploys the Projectile Shield for 12 seconds.

Projectile Shield activation normally does not interfere with the normal operation of the Medic's secondary weapons; the beam can continue to Heal or Reanimate, Canteens can still be shared, and the ability to build and activate ÜberCharge continues. However, the Medic cannot start to heal the patient if the patient stands behind the Projectile Shield of another Medic.

Effectiveness

The Projectile Shield can destroy rockets, grenades, stickybombs, Huntsman arrows, and most other projectiles. It can also block attacks from hitscan weapons, and will deal damage to robots that come into contact with it. Slowdown is also applied to robots that collide with the Projectile Shield. The slowdown is -30% from a level 1 Projectile Shield and -50% from a level 2.

The Projectile Shield cannot block attacks from any of the Pyro's primary weapons, the Pomson 6000, the Righteous Bison, or these following weapons when they possess the Projectile Penetration upgrade: Huntsman and its reskins, Rescue Ranger, and Crusader's Crossbow. It is also unable to block splashes from Mad Milk, Jarate, or the Gas Passer. The shield doesn't block deflected projectiles, such as rockets (including sentry rockets), grenades, arrows and other types of projectiles. It also cannot block the explosion of a Sentry Buster when in range, so remember to back up when one is about to detonate.

If the Medic with his Projectile Shield deployed gets too close to a robot, the robot able to damage him. However, it is possible to avoid this by moving the shield closer to the Medic, which is done by looking up or down.

Damage

See also: Damage

Damage and function times
Damage type		Untyped
Ranged or Melee damage?		Untyped
Damage
Base damage	100%	66-67 /s (level 1), 133-134 /s (level 2)
Mini-crit		66-67 /s (level 1), 200 /s (level 2), 133-134 /s (level 2 against Tanks)
Charge fill damage		4000
Charge fill health		400
Function times
Effect duration		12 s
Values are approximate and determined by community testing.

Charge and duration times

Projectile Shield charges by healing and overhealing teammates, by healing yourself with the Quick-Fix Über, by charging Reanimators (including instant charge from the Vaccinator's Über), by any damage dealt by patients (including self-damage), or taking damage by yourself or by Medic's patient which is being under Medi Gun's ÜberCharge effect. 400 points of healing, 4000 points of patient's damage or approximately 800 damage blocked by Medi Gun's ÜberCharge (either by Medic or his patient) is needed to completely charge the Projectile Shield. Shield recharge rate is doubled when healing reanimators. Applying the Vaccinator's ÜberCharge on the Reanimator instantly recharges Projectile Shield's, the value of charge depends on the Reanimator's health amount. Healing from the Crusader's Crossbow or Mad Milk Syringes upgrade does not count toward shield charge.

A limit exists for how much a patient's damage can charge the Projectile Shield at once. Only the first 250 points of damage on each hit on a single target counts for the charge. For example, if a rocket does 300 points in a direct hit on one Robot, only 250 damage points count towards the charge. But if a rocket splashes 300 damage on each of three Robots, charge gets 750 points (250 + 250 + 250), because the resulting value of charge is an addition of all charge values from every target. In contrast, each of Heavy's Minigun bullets and Pyro's Flamethrower particles count as individual hits, allowing these attacks to avoid this limit.

Strategy

Main article: Community Projectile Shield strategy

Related achievements

Wall of Pain Block 5,000 damage with the shield as a Medic in a single life.

Update history

November 21, 2013 Patch (Two Cities Update)

• Projectile Shield Upgrade
  • Build Energy by healing teammates, reviving and preventing damage via Invuln ÜberCharge.
  • Press ATTACK3 to activate when Energy meter is full (mouse3 by default)
  • While active:
    • Blocks all enemy projectiles
    • Damages enemies on touch

Bugs

• Projectile Shield blocks Wrench melee hits targeted at buildings.
• A Medic cannot start to heal the patient through the Projectile Shield of another allied Medic.
  • However, if the Medic is already healing them, the Shield of the other Medic does not interrupt healing.
• Buying the Projectile Shield upgrade, changing loadout to the same or switching class to someone and back to Medic causes the shield to last for 10 seconds instead of 12.
  • Buying the Projectile Shield upgrade again through refund or upgrading it to level 2 (if the player had bought only the level 1 upgrade) will fix this bug.
• Damage blocked by ÜberCharge, on both the patient and the Medic Übering, will normally charge the Energy meter, however, an Über Canteen does not grant Energy on damage blocked by the Medic that used the canteen, only damage blocked by the patient.
  • Rarely, damage blocked by the patient from a canteen will also not charge the Energy meter.

Gallery

• 

  The first upgrade coverage.

• 

  Second upgrade coverage.

• 

  Shield in action.

• 

  Comparison between the first and second upgrade.