What grows this track: SMGs and medical tools. What you're actually doing: Close-quarters sustain and revives — staying close enough to your squad to save them, and armed well enough to survive doing it.
What Medic does for the squad
Reviving a teammate pays real cash, the same economic weight as other support actions — this is not a "thankless" role in WARDOGS, it's directly rewarded. A squad with an active Medic effectively has more total lives than a squad without one, because downed teammates come back into the fight instead of eating a full death-to-rebuy cycle.
Starter loadout (under $1,500)
| Item | Price |
|---|---|
| AMP-9 (SMG) | $900 |
| GGX 17 (sidearm) | $200 + unlock |
| Stim Pen ×2 | $500 |
$1,600 total gets you into CQB range with sustain tools to carry. Add a Defibrillator ($1,600) as soon as you can afford one — it enables instant teammate revival rather than the slower channel-based revive.
That's the weapon, not the kit. A gun in WARDOGS is sold empty. Before you spawn, add two magazines, an ammo box for its calibre, a bag to carry them (the Field Backpack at $650 is the best early buy — 9 slots), and the Emergency Resuscitator, which is free. Full walkthrough: How To: Buy a Weapon.
What it earns
A Hot Zone revive with a Defibrillator pays around $2,400 — so the $1,600 Defib pays for itself on its first use and profits every time after. That reframes it from a luxury upgrade to an early buy. Plain revives run ~$400 in the open, ~$800 in the Control Zone, ~$1,600 in the Hot Zone. See How To: Make Money.
The GGX 17 is $200 at the vendor but needs a one-time $5,000 unlock at Career Lvl 1 — reachable immediately, but half your starting bank. No sidearm in the game is unlock-free. See How To: Buy a Weapon.
Growing into it
- PP-19 Vityaz ($1,200) or MP5 ($1,500) for more control at slightly longer SMG ranges.
- Medical Bag ($2,000) heals and revives over time — pair it with a Defibrillator so you have both a fast option and a sustained-healing option.
- SUPER-45 ($2,600) is the premium SMG pick once your medical kit is covered.
How to play it well
- Stay in SMG range of your Assault players, not behind them. Medic is a close-support role; if you're hanging back at rifle range you can't reach a downed teammate in time.
- Revive under cover, not in the open. A revive animation is a commitment — drag or reposition a downed teammate behind hard cover before committing to the revive if the position is still hot.
- Prioritize revives that matter to the fight, not just the nearest one. A downed Support player holding a chokepoint is often worth reviving before a downed Assault player who's already clear of the fight.
- Don't forget you can fight. SMGs are genuinely strong at close range — Medic isn't purely a support-only role, it's a CQB specialist that happens to also revive.
Common mistakes
- Sitting at long range "to be safe," which makes revives impossible when someone actually goes down.
- Attempting a revive in the open under active fire instead of repositioning first.
- Never upgrading past the Stim Pen — a Defibrillator or Medical Bag dramatically increases how many teammates you can actually save per life.
- Forgetting your own sidearm/SMG discipline because you're focused on your squad — a dead Medic revives nobody.
Drills to run
- Revive-under-pressure: practice repositioning a "downed" teammate behind cover before reviving, instead of reviving on the spot.
- CQB SMG control: spend a session using only your SMG at close range to build recoil familiarity before mixing in the sidearm.
- Priority triage: in a squad wipe scenario, practice calling out and reviving whichever role is most tactically urgent first, out loud, over voice.
See also: Reviving and Extracting a Squadmate, Proximity Voice & Squad Comms, Gear & Equipment Reference.