About L4D, for a change

It sure is a good thing Valve fixed dedicated server searching in L4D. Tried playing a few nights ago, and since I had four friends along, we of course made a lobby to make things a bit easier. I (or Slaver) usually host locally, because our connection's upload rate is pretty okay, and at least my friends hardly ever get any lag, but since the dedicated business was supposed to be fixed (and sometimes Steam decides to kick me while hosting locally, naturally making the server shut down), we tried that.
Did we find a server?
Yes. Once, out of five tries. And we had 170 ping. So matchmaking indeed! Server searching was fucking better before this so-called fix.

And why do people try to invite me to play L4D when I'm in-game? I never really understood what's the point in that. If you see me already playing on a server, what in the world makes you think I'll just jump servers and join your game? I get a lot of invites suddenly, from several different people on my friends list, and for some reason those always get under my skin.
So take note, people: when I play L4D, I usually play with a rather large group of friends (who are people I know irl). So if you want to play with me, drop me a line instead of just throwing a random invite, and I'll see what I can do.

And if there are a bunch of people with "Esa" after their name playing with me, yeah, those are my friends. We decided to start wearing a tag to confuse people (and scare them away in lobby when they join: there are four people in already, all going Infected, and all wearing the same tag after their name. Hehehe) and make it obvious that we know each other and any insults we may fling at each other are not to be taken seriously.
And if you ask, Esa stands for European Space Agency, and yes, we all work there.
(In reality it's just a silly in-joke which really doesn't make any sense in any other language but Finnish. Or, well, imagine replacing a part of any compound word - or in severe cases, any noun - with a very common male name, eg. John. There you go).
And don't mistake us for a clan of any kind.

And while we're on the topic of L4D, I wanna write about another thing. If you, for any reason at all, go AFK during game, even for a moment, TAKE A FUCKING BREAK FROM THE MENU. The goddamn idle mode is there for a reason. Because what happens if, during a versus match, you go to a toilet, or where the fuck ever, and just leave your character standing there? Yeah, we get slaughtered, that's what. Because we have to
a) Wait and protect you in one place, making all of us easy prey for the enemy team, and Director of course thinks that we're bored, and marches out a few hordes to make us feel alive again,
or
b) Run for it and leave you, which gets all of us killed. Because a smart enemy team knows that you, being AFK, are not a threat, and thus goes after US instead of YOU. Because we're one man short, you can't help us, and after we've been overwhelmed and incapped, you're the easy target.
Next time you go AFK without going idle, we're going to votekick your sorry ass that fucking instant.

And why don't people stay together in versus? I hate it when our game falls apart just because one man stays behind for some reason, and then gets assaulted by a Smoker or a Hunter, and we have to go back for them, and then we lose. I'd love to leave them to die because it was their own mistake to stay behind, especially when we make it very clear at the start of the match that we're going to stay together and keep moving, but you know how it goes, it's a team game.
If you're going to heal, SAY SO, so we know to hang back. Don't go after Smokers or Hunters you saw behind us in the distance, just inform the team of the threat and KEEP MOVING. The infected have to keep moving too in order to catch us, so a Smoker hanging back won't be doing much if we ignore him. If YOU go after him, by yourself, you're a fucking idiot, because the Smoker sees you, you probably won't see him or his tongue, and then you're in trouble, and fucking things up for the rest of us. And if you need to do anything that requires you to be away from the keyboard for more than five fucking seconds, go idle. For the love of god, it's not that hard.

And here, have a GTA-style Francis (who's incidentally my favourite Survivor):



I've also been getting back to TF2 and I would appear to be a kickass Pyro (my brand new most kills record is 20) while I've nearly completely lost my touch with both Soldier and Demo (although it is debatable if I ever really HAD any touch with either, oh well).

Omg.

Yeah, I haven't been around a lot.

I don't think I've played TF2 for a month. First there was the school project from hell, then I didn't feel like playing, then Slaver got Xbox360 and there was shameless Halo 2 co-opping going on for a few nights, then I went to my parents' place for a week, then I got a cat, and then my desktop broke, and now I've been on my laptop for a week. So that's why I haven't been on Steam for quite a while, and you haven't caught me in-game for even longer while.

Planning to finally buy a new computer, since Fallout 3 comes out, like, tomorrow, and Left 4 Dead is supposed to come out next month (although I'm not holding my breath, because of Valve Time and everything...), and if I do manage to get things sorted out with Blizzard, I have 30 days to spend on World of Warcraft. Which I finally succumbed into after a friend practically begged me to play with her. So I have a level 15 Undead Warlock there, on a banned account. I don't know WHY I was banned, all I know is that the payment for the full version (I played the 10-day trial first) didn't register, and I was banned right out of the blue. It's been a week since I sent a support request to Blizzard asking all kinds of whys and whats, but haven't received a word since. Getting pretty impatient, because I haven't even gotten my money back.
So yeah, WoW would probably be pretty addictive if only getting to play it in the first place wasn't motherfucking impossible. Yeah, the 3,3 Gb patch came out right in the middle of my trial and I spent a whole day downloading and installing THAT instead of actually playing the goddamned game. Then there's been server downtime and maintenance and whatnot, and now the banning right out of the blue. Yeah, fuck you, Blizzard, fuck you.

And yeah, I'm dying to play TF2, but what can I do. I'm stuck with a sucky laptop (which incidentally can run WoW, but that's about it), watching Slaver play Dead Space, and reading fuckloads of comics.

I was also starting to seriosly consider making a TF2 map, since I have a good idea, and I can actually use Hammer to some extent. Slaver's probably going to help me.
It's going to be a three CP map, much like Gravel Pit. I'm probably gonna post concepts and screens and run some ideas through you once I actually get to it.
But that'll also have to wait until I get a new computer and Fallouts and Left 4 Deads are out of the way, so don't hold your breath.

I demand more nerfing.

Well well well. Last night I had the best melée only times on a random server with Sonneteer, one of her friends and a bunch of random people (who were awesome and immediately agreed on melee only rules). We melée only-ed our way through several maps and had heaps of fun - well at least I did. Naturally it lead into several interesting records, my max kills as a Medic is 7, and damage dealt about 1,400. My max kills as a Scout is 4, and my max captures as a Pyro is 9 and max points 24, which makes me rage a bit, because it's the same as my Medic record and dammit, I'm trying to keep my "career class" the one with the most points.
Also scored a few achievements, I actually got Sawbones completely out of the blue during a match in CTF Turbine (which sucks, by the way). What's funny is that the enemy players were Scouts at that point, so I got Sawbones by killing Scouts. That's... pretty wtf.
And dammit it feels like such a waste to run around with a full übercharge. And because I kept using the Übersaw (although it's admittedly inferior to the normal bonesaw in melee only matches), I had a full charge nearly all the time. I came pretty damn close to getting Placebo Effect, though (got killed when I was one kill away from it).

And I've actually never heard the "You vant a second opinion? You are also UGLY!" in game before. Couldn't stop laughing after my Medic yelled it after a few bonesaw kills.

I also got lots of progress to Peer Review, since Sonneteer was mostly playing as a Medic, and in the enemy team. She dominated me a few times, though, insane crazy crit streaks, dammit: I get out of respawn, attack her and immediately get critted in the face. So I get out of respawn, striving to kick her ass this time, and again I get critted in the face. And with the annoying fanfare the game informs me that I have a new nemesis.
It was hilarious. Crit magnet, I am.



I also got a few Pyro achievements. OMGWTFBBQ I got completely consciously, and dammit it truly is the most amazing thing EVER to kill someone with a Hadouken. And melee only of course inspires a great deal of taunting, so at some point I got Freezer Burn. And I'm 2/3 through Dance Dance Immolation. Getting Lumberjack goes almost without saying. And all of those lead into this:



Which means that I finally have hands-on impressions about the Backburner's overpowered-ness.
And yeah, I was playing on my own computer for a change, hence the crappy graphics and smaller resolution. Yes, I had the 20 fps handicap. Made the whole melee thing pretty difficult, but at least I got used to it after a few minutes of whining about it (ahaha serious handicap: playing with the Übersaw AND 20 fps, I wonder how well I would've done with the regular bonesaw and on my little brother's computer).

But the Backburner. Is the cutest little thing ever (it has a face!), and also very, very good at one thing: defeating its very purpose. Stick with me. So the Backburner gives 100% crit change from behind. I don't know how flawed the recognition was before the latest batch (which apparently fixed it), but it feels pretty alright: the enemy has to have your back right at you or else it won't work. I didn't even once get crits from the side or from the front, but then again sometimes I didn't get them from the back either. I suppose that could be because of lag, so I won't blame the game being broken. The Backburner also provides the Pyro with a +50 HP increase, and this is where the weapon defeats its purpose.
Valve said, and I quote, "This flamethrower is built for the Pyro who likes to ambush their opponents [...] To aid in survivability, it grants the Pyro an extra fifty health." Which means that the Backburner is supposed to be the ultimate ambushing weapon with the guaranteed crits from the back, and the health buff helping in making a getaway after the ambush.
With the health buff the Pyro has 225 HP, which is more than the Soldier has and only falling 75 HP short from the Heavy. Now add a Medic, and the Pyro has 318 HP - more than the Heavy has normally. The Pyro has no reason to ambush his enemies anymore. What with the flamethrower's damage fall-off reduced, the Pyro doesn't even need the crits to be a total killing machine in close range. And the +50 HP really aids with survivability, because you can just hit and run, and remain almost unscathed. Sure you can still ambush enemies, good for you, it's just that with the Backburner you don't have to. It affected my mentality immediately after I noticed that I could get away with almost anything: I just charged head-first at Demomen and Soldiers, even goddamned Heavies, took some damage, set everything afire (or in Heavies' cases circle-strafed them to death), and ran away to get a medkit or find a Medic and ready myself for the next attack. And dammit it worked, and felt so much more useful than waiting silently in ambush just to get a few crits. I don't think the weapon is balanced if it can be "abused" in such a way.
Dammit, the Pyro was good the way he was, I never felt he was underpowered. Backburner would be a good and balanced weapon if you removed the health buff, because then the Pyro would be forced to go back to ambushing, and the Backburner would be the more effective ambushing weapon with the guaranteed crits, while the regular flamethrower would be more suitable for other confrontations because of the ability to deflect projectiles and thus get right at Soldiers' and Demomen's faces. Now the Backburner is a clear upgrade from the regular flamethower instead of an alternative weapon.

I wish Valve would realise this and remove the health buff. And dammit, this comes from a Pyro player who refuses to use the Backburner from now on, simply because it is ridiculously overpowered (and because I like the airburst).



And that's my 2 cents on the matter of the Pyro unlockables. NERF, VALVE. NERF.

I also played as Engineer a bit (because it's the easiest class to play with my low fps), and I've never randomly left my sentry in a more suitable moment: we were attacking in Dustbowl's third stage, and I saw our other Engineer (the team was whining about "too many Engineers" and I agreed, because when you attack you don't need but one Engineer if he can keep his act together) building his own sentry. I was BORED because I had just sat about five minutes behind my sentry, waiting for some action, so I fucked off to help him build the thing. I figured that okay, if he insists on being an Enigneer, at least his sentry should cover our back in case mine gets taken down, so I better help him with it (and I'm all for "All for one and one for all" attitude when I'm an Engineer, I help my comrades as much as I can, and then rage when they don't return the favour. Selfish fuckwit Engineers are the cancer that's killing my will to play the class).
And while I'm there I see a goddamn übered enemy Demo coming around the corner and starting to chuck stickies at my sentry. So what do I do? Upgrade the friendly sentry to second level, watch it massacre the Demo and his Medic, and then just simply return to my dispenser to put my sentry up again.
Damn. If I hadn't left I had probably died, because I'm still stupid enough to stay and hope that the Demo wouldn't kill ME too. And my colleague's poor little first level sentry would've probably been goners as well. I would've lost my dispenser AND my teleporter exit which kept our team pushing mercilessly. And we would've had to fall back.
And this, gentlemen, is why I was an MVP on Dustbowl's third stage, playing as an Engineer in BLU. I've never seen an Engineer being an MVP in the attacking team on third stage. And most of my points? Teleports. The main reason I even build a sentry was to protect the teleporter exit, I didn't really care if I got any kills (didn't, really, I got maybe three or four), as long as the sentry kept enemies from charging at us and destroying the teleporter. And at least we won, so it must've been a successful effort.

I'm thinking of going Strictly Engineer for a day.

Pyros! Every-fucking-where!

Okay, the only way to stay alive on TF2 now is to be a Pyro. At least that's the only way I can stay alive right now. Fight fire with fire, you know.

And I can't believe how much I actually nerd RAGE'd after realizing what Valve had done to the Soldier. I read the update message, "Removed Soldier's 40% damage reduction from his own rockets. Does not affect rocket jumps." but I didn't even realise (or think about) what it actually meant until I connected to the server today, saw the amount of Pyros and went Soldier. Because hey, at least before the update I was learning to kill them.
And guess what?
Nearly all my deaths? Suicides. If it wasn't some Pyro chucking my rockets back at my face (thank god nearly everyone is using the Backburner already, but more on that later), it was just me, playing like I've used to, and getting owned. Fuck, I'm so used to just shooting at my feet when a Pyro or a Scout or anything gets too close for comfort, and taking some damage but walking out alive. Now if I do that, I die. Not even mentioning the times my aim is a bit off and I shoot the goddamn wall in front of me and get a crit rocket in the face. Now such mistakes are an instant kill. It will probably take me forever to learn to jump whenever I shoot a rocket close enough to get damaged by it too (it apparently counts as a rocket jump then, I had to do some testing by shooting a wall in front of me while jumping, and I got the same old 40% reduction instead of the full damage of about 80 HP).
And imagine how much that must suck from the viewpoint of the player who was chasing me? They get NO points from chasing me down and actually making me suicide - which is not even their fault, but my own. I think that's kinda horrible. I know, because later on I was playing as a Pyro and a friend was a Soldier in the enemy team, and he was mercilessly dominating me. And after I had tried to kill him a dozen times, always getting owned, I finally managed to kill his Medic and chase him down and fuck me dead: he suicided. And I almost banged my head against the keyboard, because so much for my long-pursued revenge.
So at least Valve needs to do something about that, because it's downright unfair.
And if Demomen don't get the same fucking nerf I'm going to rage some more. Fucking unfair.

Okay, yeah, no one's going to agree with me on this, seeing how everyone else thinks that the Soldier is overpowered, the easy class that doesn't need any skill to be good at, and that it needs to be nerfed hardcore. It took me actually ages to learn to play as Soldier. Maybe it's easy to pick up by someone who has years and years of FPS experience, and be good at it, but I had to learn. And I've had fucking great times playing as Soldier. And it's not the easy class for me.
But yeah, Chrome vs. rest of the TF2 community. Valve did what they thought is for the best, and I want to understand, but it's pretty hard when one of my favourite classes is now nearly unplayable for me. And yeah, I feel quite horrible for whining about this, especially since I've been all "I wish I knew how to quit you!" with Soldier for the longest time. But yeah, it's a complete love/hate relationship. And it doesn't matter what I say, I have over 80 hours as a Soldier, I find myself going Soldier even when I think I shouldn't, so on some level I really must like playing as Soldier.
So I can still feel upset because of it, can't I?

But yeah, Pyros.
I'll just come out and say that Backburner is overpowered as hell. I mean ffs guaranteed crits from the back and +50 HP increase?! I know the tradeoff is supposed to be the lack of the airburst (which, I admit, is fucking awesome, and makes me think twice about starting to use the Backburner), but because the airburst is new and I rarely even remember to use it, Backburner just seems like an upgraded OLD flamethrower that has no drawbacks.
They could do without the +50 HP increase, for real. Both Slaverstrike and my little brother who played as Snipers today noticed that Pyros are fucking impossible to kill if they have the Backburner equipped. 225 HP is just insane. And when I did play Soldier, I am so used to juggling them into the air once, and the second rocket usually killed them. Backburner-equipped Pyros? Fucking unstoppable. Add a Medic and they're seriously invincible. So I needed to juggle them twice, which meant shooting at my freaking feet twice, which usually meant a suicide.
Flare gun seemed to correspond better as an alternative to the shotgun, and I actually didn't have anyone kill me with the Axtinguisher, so I can't really say anything about that. Only the Backburner seems a bit unbalanced, but, uh, I'll probably love it once I get my greedy little hands on it. Maybe I'll become a career Pyro. I mean, I was doing pretty fine without the changes (was I the only one? I never really thought the Pyro was underpowered, even against Soldiers. I died a lot, but once I adapted the kamikaze mentality - that I ambush and I might die, but it's okay - I came by pretty well as a Pyro. Maybe I was the only one.)

At least I was doing pretty well as a Pyro today.



And that was the first time in ages I actually had some fun on CP Well. (Oh! That reminds me, I need to talk about CTF Well once I've said everything I need to about this Pyro stuff!)
I even got some achievements. I have Camp Fire, I Fry (and here I was thinking that there would be no Spies around, what with Pyros having a field day...), Burn Ward, Next of Kindling, Hot on Your Heels and Second Degree Burn. I'm also 13/15 through Fire and Forget, 8/10 through Spontaneous Combustion and Trailblazer, 15/50 through Makin' Bacon (and here I was thinking it would take forever... I would have at least 20 Heavies in this, but more on that in a moment...), about 25/50 through Arsonist (ahihi I dominated one Engineer, and he provided me with at least eight destructions: poor thing had always put a teleporter, dispenser and a level one sentry down when I came around the corner, and the whole little nest succumbed to my flames like a house made of paper), 250 through Firefighter/Fire Chief (...I was on a roll), and some others, but they're not yet worth a mention.
I also spent SO LONG on CTF Well trying to sneak behind enemy Snipers and use the Hadouken taunt on them (whoops! Chrome, acting like an idiot? On YOUR server? It's apparently more likely than you think!), but stupid friendly Snipers always managed to kill them right when I was behind them, readying my shotgun. Damn stupid Snipers!
And in one evening, I learned to use the shotgun. Seriously, I probably killed more people with the shotgun today than I've killed in those 30 hours I had as a Pyro. No, really. Too bad that most of those were fellow Pyros (which I used to be very weak against), so I don't have much progress on Combined Fire yet.
And yeah, about Makin' Bacon... I was kinda going crazy on Badlands. I think I killed about eight Heavies with the axe. I imagine them being beyond pissed: one crazy Pyro kept just ambushing them from behind and axing them to death. I even critted ridiculously often against them. But damn it, Heavies are so much easier to kill with the axe than the flamethrower! Usually they don't even have time to turn around before they're dead meat.
And then I realised that the achievement is named "Makin' Bacon" because I have to kill 50 Heavies with the flamethrower, and went aww dammit. At least I had lots of fun. And I imagine my Medic was having fun as well, following me around while I melée-killed Heavies (Medics liked me today).
Too bad that my axe kills record remained as two, I didn't get Lumberjack.

And finally, the regular flamethrower's new airburst. The best thing ever. It took me ages to remember even trying to use it, and luckily I remembered it just when an übered enemy Pyro was rushing at me. One poof, and flying they went. Another poof, and flying they went again. Goddamn, who seriously even needs Soldiers anymore: Pyros do juggling too these days.
Then I once again forgot to entire thing until I saw a crit rocket heading towards me. One poof, and the rocket chenged colours and I couldn't stop going FUCK YEAH THIS IS THE MOST AWESOME THING EVER! when I saw the crit hit someone in the distance. Ahihihi. I didn't actually kill anyone with returned rockets although I did it a few times after that (I even started to remember using it after a while), but it's always a blast to see the crit rocket changing colours and directions and at least hitting something. I blasted people away from control points and the bombcart in Gold Rush. I saw a Medic/anyone combo approaching and blasted them once before hightailing and trying to get behind them.
I got killed once with a bounced grenade, though. It sucked, haha.

Oh! Yeah! CTF Well! Is actually fun now! I was really surprised when I saw the changes to it, and I was having a blast playing there! The new central area of the map is AWESOME, and the reduced size makes it easier to defend AND attack. I have to say that it's easily much more fun than 2fort has ever been, seeing that 2fort turns into an insane turtling fest nearly always and on Well there was this INSANE battling going on near the central area nearly all the time, because both teams tried to get control of it in order to get easier access to the enemy base.
Or then I'm just so happy that it's almost a whole new map and you probably know how much I love those.

That's about it for now, I think.
And yeah, I'll be playing as Pyro until there won't be as many around as there are now. And until I get over the Soldier nerf, pick it up again and learn to jump whenever I fire a rocket. Dammit, Valve...

Oh yeah! I also wish they would change the Medic achievements to correspond to the Pyro pack, and the Milestones would come at 10, 15 and 20. Because I'm slowly getting pretty sick of still being two achievements away from the Kritzkrieg, and I still refuse to farm any of them. My pride, it is my downfall.
Seeing that the Medic achievements are so much harder than the Pyro ones. Besides, everyone has the Kritzkrieg and Übersaw already, so it would be just me, har har.

And I fucking hope Soldier gets the next unlockables and achievements. Soldier needs some love after all that nerfing.

Ooh!

I have finally found a TF2 custom map that sounds so awesome that I'm dying to actually play on it. CP Steel. I saw the introduction video for it a couple of weeks ago and it picked my interest immediately, and now Chris of 1fort did a review of it and I'm going DO WANT.
Once again I might have to venture away from my safe, familiar servers, I'm really wanting to play on Steel. Or at least try it and decide if I like it or is all the hype just a load of bull.
And it might do me good either way, I'm finding myself playing on the 24/7 Gold Rush/Dustbowl server almost all the time or hopping from one server to another depending on when Hydro, Gold Rush or Dustbowl comes around.
So sick of all the other maps, you know the drill.

Don't really have anything else to post for now. A friend asked me (in a comment to one of my earlier posts) to list all the TF2 classes and their pros and cons and I'M WORKING ON IT. Haha. I tried to reply in a comment, found myself being as verbose as usual and decided to do a proper list and post it in a real entry, so I'm posting that once I'm done with it.

And I'm still pissed off about the goddamn Specialist. I've been mainly playing as Medic after last Friday, striving to actually GET IT, and while I did come pretty close to it a few times (I've been staring at my health healed points like a nutjob), I still haven't actually reached it.
Probably never will, the poor pessimistic soul that I am.
Also, I have ONCE AGAIN been on top of the scoreboard with 80-or-so points and feeling that I'm an absolutely appalling Medic. OH WOE. Can I never be good enough for me?

More achievement stuff and general ranting

Oh, yeah, I'm just gonna add one little thing to that last entry: the number one reason for why I won't farm any achievements, even if it costs me the Übersaw.

I don't want to screw up my stats. I like looking at my stats and it's great to feel like I've actually got better every time I break my previous record for kills or healing or longest life or something. So if I suddenly have the highest life measuring in hours and max kills of fifty or something... that would suck. Then I would never again feel like I've got any better.
And yeah, I'm a total stats whore (if you haven't noticed!), I stare at my own stats waaay too often. The stats parser is my best friend. So I don't want to ruin that for me.

I know there's a lot of whining going on about the new weapon unlockables being tied to achievements that basically promote "acting like an idiot" and thus ruining the game for others. With that in mind I am kinda starting to resent Valve's decision to handle the unlockables this way... don't get me wrong, I don't mind the weapons being tied to achievements (and I like getting achievements, I think it's fun), it's just that some of the achievements are, face it, pretty stupid.
Yesterday was probably the first time I actually saw a Medic act like a total idiot. He didn't ruin things for the rest of us (we had two capable Medics to balance him out, but still we were basically playing 11 to 12), but it was still kinda annoying trying to yell for a heal and this idiot just kept trying to kill people and taunt.
Note to self: do not try to get Autopsy Report in the heat of a battle.
Then again, I did something that constitutes as "acting like an idiot" yesterday too, but uh, it kinda had nothing to do with the achievements. I was just being an idiot on my own accord. I DID get some progress for Peer Review for it, but now that I think about it, I have no idea what the hell was going through my mind then. So, Gold Rush, first stage, final checkpoint. I was defending, and I get out of the respawn and saw an übered Demo rushing towards me and up the stairs to get on top of our respawn building. So I followed. And bonesawed the Medic. And felt really good about myself, until I heard "the cart is nearing the checkpoint!" and got killed just in time to spectate as BLU wins the round. Ehhhh. So I could've been there to keep our Soldiers and Demos going instead of chasing down a Demo-Medic combo who were apparently trying to take down our Snipers. A horrible miscalculation on my part. This is why I don't go combat Medic on Gold Rush or Dustbowl or Gravel Pit. I always have better things to do than kill someone.

But yeah, I was about to say that sure, some of the achievements basically tell you to fuck teamwork and be a drag to your team, but face it: some of the achievements cause the exact opposite. Some of the achievements actually make you a good Medic.
For example, Grand Rounds. I see far too many Medics sticking to that one Heavy like they're Siamese twins or something, and nothing annoys me more than trying to get a heal and the Medic is basically glued to some other dude. Especially if I'm playing as Medic too.
Infernal Medicine. I got it yesterday (hee, I got it when I extinguished Slaverstrike), and that really didn't take very long to get.
But both of those achievements made me do my job a little bit better: I tried to heal everyone calling for Medic (except when my primary target was under heavy fire and I deemed it would be more useful to keep him alive than to fuck him and go heal the lone Soldier in the other side of the map - besides, another Medic would probably get him before I do), and I also tried to extinguish everyone whenever they were on fire. Especially other Medics.
And oh yeah, I'm 11 heals away from getting Grand Rounds, so consider that one done.
And First Do No Harm promotes being a good Medic and doing your job (and I find it extremely amusing how most of the people who have farmed achievements don't have this. HAR HAR). As well as Trauma Queen and Group Health and Double Blind Trial and Intern and Ubi Concordia, Ibi Victoria, which are just basically doing what Medics are supposed to do. Big Pharma and Specialist are taking it a bit overboard, but at least trying to get them teaches you to survive and stay alive and keep your healing target(s) alive. Which is what I should be practicing.

So stop whining about the achievements. If you can't get some of them by playing normally, I have to think that you're a rotten Medic, and thus should go back to playing Soldier and stop feeling butthurt about not getting everything on a golden platter. What the hell would you do with Medic weapons if you don't even play that much as Medic?! You having the Kritzkrieg would mean just one idiot Medic more who just doesn't know when to use it!
I know I won't be getting any Demoman or Scout unlockables once they come out, and whine about the achievements being hard. Because I don't play as Demo or Scout. I don't care. Why should you? No wonder you whine about the MMORPG grinding aspects, you are the one making it a matter of grinding.

Also I don't know what everyone's whining about "too many Medics on every server," because I'm playing on public servers and only remember having an overabundance of Medics on two or three different occassions (okay, last night we started a 12 on 12 match on Dustbowl with only Soldiers and Medics in our team. THAT was horrible. I was a Soldier, btw, and got the only Medic with the Kritzkrieg, hee hee). Change servers, kthxbai, it's not that hard! Or talk to the admin about restricting the amount of Medics to the max of two or three.

Rant rant rant. Okay. I'm just getting so tired of basement-dwelling fanboys whining about every single thing. Yes, I do get the irony. Except that I'm not a basement-dwelling fanboy. Sry2say.

And what IS it with these jealous Medics?! Okay, I get it, you want in on the fun and our Heavy buddy is on top of the scoreboard, but Jesus Christ why do you stick to the same guy I'm sticking to, while there are people yelling for Medic in the direction from where you came from?! Sure, I don't mind, you can have the Heavy and I'll go heal the others, but WHOA. First come first serve, I think.
(Btw, if it's points you're after, you get so much more from actual healing than those precious assists, just sayin'.)
And for fuck's sake, Medic, don't heal the same guy I'm healing during the setup! Goddamn these noobs (or idiots, whatever) are starting to get to me.

Sorry, I'm talking a lot about Medics these days. I could tell you about how absolutely fucking scared I am of (good) Snipers, and how I should be playing more as Pyro now that there are Medics everywhere (I did it yesterday on Well and HEE HEE burning Medic flesh, everywhere), but I'll save those stories for later. I think I'm coming to a stop with the achievements pretty soon, so I'll have to come up with something else to talk about.

Dear Medic,

I know there is a battle going on and things can get pretty hectic. You have your primary healing target you have probably deemed worthy of your constant attention. But still, BROS BEFORE HOS, man! D:

There is NOTHING that gets to me and makes me as angry as ignorant Medics (when I'm playing as Medic, that is). I have twenty HP left, you took the medkit right from under my nose, my übercharge is at 80% and I'm running around you smashing E, and you just keep healing that Heavy who's slowly, slowly inching his way towards the door that's not even open (this is Granary, warehouse CP) and who's clearly not in danger of dying (I can forgive Medics who indeed have their primary healing target shot at, but when he's NOT I simply can't understand why you can't just fucking HEAL ME. It takes a second ffs!)
And then some fucking Scout comes in from the other door and shoots my guts out.
THANKS, MEDIC.
I was really fucking upset.
And what made me even more upset is that after I respawn and get back to the warehouse and cling to some Heavy in need of healing, and then I hear the all-too-familiar "MEEEDIIIC!" from behind me and there's the fucking other Medic, screaming for healing. I wanted to just ignore the fucker (DIAF, plz), but I'm better than that, so I checked my Heavy wasn't in danger of dying and turned around to heal the other Medic.

Yes, I felt like a good person after that.

Maybe it's just me, but other Medics have ALWAYS priority over any other target in my books. Usually I just leave whatever it is that I'm doing if I hear another Medic calling (provided that I don't have to trek to the other side of the map to get to them).

I did something outrageous today.
I went Soldier. IN HYDRO.
Because I was failing as Pyro and decided to just fuck it, I'm going Soldier. It was pretty awesome in the end, because I used my usual Pyro ambushing tactics as Soldier and nothing's as great as sneaking behind unsuspecting enemies as a SOLDIER and just firing away. Tee hee.