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Before you read the actual contents: This wall of text’s point is not to prove the QF is OP, it is OP, period. I am looking into making QF balanced and want to create a basis for discussion that, and just that.
Let’s compare the three mediguns first (disregarding Vaccinator here), to give a brief overview over the matter (numbers mostly based on the tf2 wiki)

Medigun
– heals 24hp/s (72/s out of combat)
– can buff people up to 150% of their hp
– builds at 2.5% uber/s max which results in 40s uber charge time
– uber lasts 8s without multi ubering
– uber charge grants immunity to any damage dealt to medic and heal target

The Kritzkrieg
– heals 24hp/s (72/s out of combat)
– can buff people up to 150% of their hp
– builds at 3.125%/s = 32s total charge time
– kritz lasts 8s without multiple targets
– kritz charge grants triple damage to the heal target (with some limitations, a Soldier’s shotgun or a Scout’s scattergun for example deals 180dmg max)

The Quick-Fix
– heals 33.6hp/s (100.8/s)
– can buff people up to 125% of their hp
– builds at 3.125%/s = 32s total charge time
– quickfix lasts 8s without multiple targets
– quickfix enables the Medic to follow explosive jumps the heal target does with the same vector and speed
– quickfix makes the Medic run after the heal target at the latter’s running speed if that’s – faster than the Medic’s speed (Scouts mainly)
– quickfix charge grants +300% of hp healed per second (it also makes the medic heal himself with the same hp/s), it also grants a 40hp buff to the healing medic
while quickfix ubered your movement cannot be stopped or impaired by explosions, natasha, compression blasts etc

advantages of using the QF:
– you’re faster to mid than with any other medigun due to either the qf jumps or the improved running speed which also enables you go gain height advantage on middle over any other medigun by simply jumping your medic somewhere high up
– you’re faster to reach any other location with your medic as well obviously, for example after spawning to block the 2nd cap
– you can jump your medic out of many risky situations (which kinda makes roamers useless/succeed much less than usual because of medics just jumping away)
– you can also hold much closer to the opposing team because it easier to get away with it (just jump the fuck out when the opponent gets forced)
– it makes heavies (any defensive class for that matter) much stronger because much harder to kill
– it speeds up the healing up / buffing process which makes it the superior weapon to hold a position with against massive uber advantage
– you can’t get backblasted by a pyro etc which makes it hard to stop a quickfix in its tracks and thus denying a successful uber deployment

disadvantages and/or counters:
– choke points through which you cannot force yourself like with a regular uber charge
– burst damage (focus fire, sticky traps, kritz, actually heavy too, any possible insta killing weapons including headshots and backstabs)
– smaller buffs

the stalemate factor (or slowing games down factor)
– pushing through choke points is much harder (similar to running kritz) because there’s a high chance your medic gets atomized rather quickly (that heavily applies to pushing into last) so you are more likely to wait for something to happen
– heavy is a really strong counter to qf which makes it a stronger offclassing option to play anywhere besides last which against creates a slower and possibly more stalemate heavy game
– picking/forcing the medic and thus creating an advantage to push on is really hard
>> you dont actually push with QF which makes the game slower and possibly creates stalemates

conclusion:
QF is stronger than both medigun and kritz and is THE choice to take to any mid fight, without much consideration. The regular medigun is basically no option, occasionally it might be a viable choice for last defense.
Because its on one hand harder force advantages/pops and on the other hand hard to push (due to lack of invulnerability) it promotes a slower gameplay on most maps (viaduct, for example, seems to work great with QF because it kind of lacks chokepoints in comparison to the standard 5cp maps, but QF is still much better of a choice than normal uber).
Alright, lets just ban QF.

No, that’s the point I am trying to make. I enjoy (most)unlocks or any game mechanics that implement a higher amount of variation to the gameplay without breaking it. So, while I agree that the current QF iteration is not balanced in a competitive environment and shouldnt be allowed, I would really like to see the QF balanced and then offered as a third choice of medigun to be used in comp TF2.
Let’s take a look at the key advantages of choosing QF over the regular medigun or the kritzkrieg:
a. explosive jumping;
b. more heal with less buff;
c. higher running speed depending on heal target,
d. hp/s boost based charge.

a. & d. are basically the defining factors of QF. medigun grants invulnerability, kritz grants crits, QF grants more heals and jumps; taking them away wouldn’t serve the point of adding something new to the whole medic based mechanics
the whole flying medic (shoutout to anyone that’s still reading this, I love you!) thing is something fun anyways, as long as it serves to make the medic more mobile and thus make the game faster, so my idea is to keep that while reducing the QF ability to reach everyone mid faster AND reducing the medic-jumps-away aspect when somethings damages the medic (e.g. a jumper).
idea: the medic takes the damage the jumper does (the unreduced dmg, e.g. before being reduced by gunboats).

theory: the medic can still be fast as fuck to mids if he follows his demo, but he’ll need the pack usually the demo takes (e.g. the pack in badlands house), and if he then proceeds to jump up somewhere to gain height advantages he is instantly down to ~100hp or less.

it’ll also make it harder for medics jump get jumped away to safety when someone jumps them because there’s a risk he’ll just kill himself
(bonus: you can grief medics on pubs)

b. & c. are a trade-off – you heal more but buff less, boosting the pocket’s impact on the game because he is harder to kill while diminishing the impact flank players have after being buffed
I think it should suffice to remove the buff the medic gets when he deploys his charge so he is more vulnerable and actually IS the weak link in the ubered combo (similar to crits).

Another thing that came to my mind is that, to underline the more offensive nature of QF, it would be advantageous to make the hp/s healed not a static value, but rather tie it to the amount of HP a class has, but reciprocally: The less hp the class has per default, the faster the QF heals (exact numbers up for balancing, but I could imagine having the current hp/s for healing a scout and the current hp/s of a regular medigun for healing a heavy).
It would strengthen the faster classes while not-boosting the slower ones (soldier/heavy) while keeping true to the key aspects that define the QF (fast hit-n-jump).

tl;dr – ideas to balance QF
– med takes explosive damage the jumping heal target does
– no buff for med during charge
– less hp/s healed the more HP the heal target has

Discuss.

P.S. I would like this to be about how to balance QF to add a 3rd alternative to the choices of mediguns, not about how broken QF currently is. If you wish to argue about how broken QF is and about how it should be banned, go haunt some other thread.

thanks to Ceymoure for testing some stuff with me regarding this wall of text.

I am interested in people discussing it so you can actually go to valve with something thought through at least halfway.

Would be good, I just don’t see it working. Anyway, maybe just removing the buff from it could put it on a closer level to the medigun/kritzkrieg. It would have a big disadvantage, but also some advantages (capping on point, healing faster, no need to build, etc).

PS: if you ever manage to take this to valve please ask them as well about the higher fov

My view on the QF, we haven’t had enough of a chance to play it in EU but the way the yanks played it at LAN just….well it ain’t too interesting to watch, probably not to play either, it seems drastically OP in some areas then just bad at pushing a strong defence. That to me is interesting because in 5 years of TF2, I’ve reached a point where nothing surprises me, I know the ways you have to push and the ideal way to play most situations so I can predict what is going to happen early, but when I watched this LAN I had no idea, I mean a Conch actually winning a push for a team? QF meta changed my entire perspective, I’d never seen it before, teams not pushing uber advantages, teams switching medics to spawn, medics jumping away from bad ubers….etc.

The whole thing was just new and unique, if it was allowed I’d certainly enjoy the challenge of it but at the same time if the meta turns into what we saw yesterday in the Upper Bracket finals on Gullywash then I’ll probably stop playing TF2. It’s about the meta game evolving, but into what?

Quoted from dAGNER

-Explosive jumping and increased ms only works when ubercharged.
-The combo can be juggled around by compression blasts and explosives again.

Yes!