History ShootTheMedicFirst / VideoGames

** The Tropicaleon can literally lick the wounds of its allies in order to heal them. You'd probably kill them first if [[HollywoodInvisibility they weren't factoring chameleon Noise]] that can become untargetable throughout the fight.

* ''VideoGame/{{Overwatch}}'': Supports that can heal are usually high on the kill-list, since they make their entire team stronger when they're around. This is why most healers have defensive abilities to improve their survivability: Mercy can quickly fly toward party members, making her hard to aim at, Lucio can run up walls to make himself a more difficult target, Brigitte has a shield to block attacks, and Moira can invisibly dash a short distance away to confuse her enemies. Ana has no such ability because she's a sniper and should be out of the fray, but instead packs a tranquilizer dart that will put her target down for up to a five second nap. usually more than enough time to rejoin the safety of her team.

* ''VideoGame/{{Overwatch}}'': Supports that can heal are usually high on the kill-list, since they make their entire team stronger when they're around. This is why most healers have defensive abilities to improve their survivability: Mercy can quickly fly toward party members, making her hard to aim at, Lucio can run up walls to make himself a more difficult target, Birgitte has a shield to block attacks, and Moira can invisibly dash a short distance away to confuse her enemies. Ana has no such ability because she's a sniper and should be out of the fray.

** In some games, enemy units that are wounded will purposely retreat to be healed by their priest. This is particularly [[NintendoHard frustrating]] in ''Thracia 776''. ''Genealogy of the Holy War'', because of its unique gameplay, has some armies that surrounding a SquishyWizard wielding a reserve staff, which heals ALL units within ten spaces of it. Great. In ''Path of Radiance'', this also means taking advantage of the heal bushes, but that is more annoying than an actual threat.

* ''VideoGame/LostOdyssey'' starts off by showing us what happens when healing magic is applied ''en masse'' to an entire army. The bad guys are cutting down the good guys, but then the good guys keep getting healed back to full effectiveness right in front of them. The bad guys would have had to target the healing mage tower to have any hope of winning this war of attrition, had a giant meteor not fallen on everything.

*** Part of the main advantage of Paladins is ShootTheMedicFirst doesn't work when shooting the medic means the big guy with the big sword he's healing stops, and starts healing the medic instead. As most healers have some ways to get out of trouble, this leads to a somewhat problematic situation of "Whoever you aren't shooting becomes a medic" even if said medic is inferior to an actual one. While less notable, Priests, Druids, Monks, and Shamans can also pull it off to a lesser extent.
*** Healing Paladins are also [[StoneWall ''very'' tough to kill]]

** Similar to the Faction Champions is the Illidari Council fight in Black Temple. While you couldn't "kill her first" (the four [=NPCs=] share a single health pool), Lady Malande was more than capable of healing her group through most attacks unless you assigned specific roles to players to knock out her healing spells before she could cast them.

*** Hilariously enough, if your tank is a paladin, s/he could be the only one in a Robe rendering his advice pointless.

** Likewise, in ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'', the best way to deal with Griefers is to make sure you kill the healing companion they're using first, ''then'' kill the griefer. Creator/BioWare tried a workaround where you can't being companions into [[PlayerVersusPlayer PvP]] areas.

** ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBindingBlade'' forces you to do this when fighting Zepheil, as Bishops with Physic staves will spawn from staircases at the top of the map and heal him if you don't kill Zepheil in one turn (not happening without a Crit) or kill the Bishops before they can heal Zepheil.

** In some games, enemy units that are wounded will purposely retreat to be healed by their priest. This is particularly [[NintendoHard frustrating]] in ''Thracia 776''. ''Seisen no Keifu'', because of its unique gameplay, has some armies that surrounding a SquishyWizard wielding a reserve staff, which heals ALL units within ten spaces of it. Great. In ''Path of Radiance'', this also means taking advantage of the heal bushes, but that is more annoying than an actual threat.

** ''VideoGame/PaperMario'': White Magikoopas in the first two games can heal their allies. Your partners' [[EnemyScan Tattles]] in both games recommend going after them first.

** [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioRPG'' in the fight against the Axem Rangers. Axem Pink is the only Axem who can heal, and the official strategy guide suggests taking her out first, as do many [=FAQs=]. This is actually '''bad advice'''. Axem Pink has a 25% chance to cast her heal, and then a 20% chance to heal the character you're attacking. The first one to take out is the Axem Ranger's SquishyWizard, Axem Green - he's going to be doing by far the most damage to the party with his spells and on the tiny chance that Axem Pink heals him, his defense is so low her heal will only recover one attack's worth of damage. Pink should be taken out second.
** White Magikoopas in the first two ''VideoGame/PaperMario'' games can heal their allies. Your partners' [[EnemyScan Tattles]] in both games rightfully recommend going after them first.

* When playing ''Videogame/{{Doom}} II'', whenever Arch-Viles appear, they should be given top priority, both because of their [[PlayingWithFire very nasty line-of-sight flame attack]] and their habit of resurrecting dead monsters.

** Likewise, Archviles are usually the top-priority targets in ''Videogame/DoomTheRoguelike''.

** White Magikoopas in the first two ''VideoGame/PaperMario''s. Yes, there are other kinds that raise Defense and Attack and make their allies intangible and imbue them with electricity, but go after these guys first.

** Averted in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioRPG'' in the fight against the Axem Rangers. Axem Pink is the only Axem who can heal, and the official strategy guide suggests taking her out first, as do many [=FAQs=]. This is actuallly '''bad advice'''. Axem Pink has a 25% chance to cast her heal, and then a 20% chance to heal the character you're attcking. The first one to take out is the Axem Ranger's SquishyWizard, Axem Green - he's going to be doing by far the most damage to the party with his spells and on the tiny chance that Axem Pink heals him, his defense is so low her heal will only recover one attack's worth of damage. Pink should be taken out second.

** Likewise, in ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'', the best way to deal with Griefers is to make sure you kill the healing companion they're using first, ''then'' kill the griefer. Creator/BioWare tried a workaround where you can't being companions into PvP areas.

* ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'': Averted in VideoGame/SuperMarioRPG in the fight against the Axem Rangers. Axem Pink is the only Axem who can heal, and the official strategy guide suggests taking her out first, as do many [=FAQs=]. This is actuallly '''bad advice'''. Axem Pink has a 25% chance to cast her heal, and then a 20% chance to heal the character you're healing. The first one to take out is the Axem Ranger's SquishyWizard, Axem Green - he's going to be doing by far the most damage to the party with his spells and on the tiny chance that Axem Pink heals him, his defense is so low her heal will only heal one attacks worth of damage. Pink should be taken out second.

* ''VideoGame/SeikenDensetsu3'':
** [[InvertedTrope Inverted]] with Potos. They will only cast Heal Light on the entire enemy party when ''their own'' HP gets low. Thus, it makes sense to target the Potos last.
** But played straight with [[spoiler:the God Beast of Darkness, Zable Fahr. Once you kill the two heads, a third head comes out, heals the other two, and then they attack hard. Suddenly those other two heads don't matter anymore, you go for the new one that has the capacity to revive them...]]

** In the original game, medics were not quite that powerful (slowly heal one soldier while standing next to him), but since ''Battlefield 2'', they can instantly resurrect dead teammates to full health, which DOES make them an important target. Also medics in ''[=BF2=]'' are [[CombatMedic extremely capable fighters]] on their own already. Good luck taking out an entire squad of them.
** Well, the Battlefield 1942 medics are quite an nuisance compared to assault class. The submachinegun has low recoil, making it easy to pick off enemy soldiers, and being able to heal themselves make it a difficult ordeal to kill them as if you die, they will come back in full health.
** In Bad Company 2, the M60 machine gun was horribly overpowered for quite a while, leading to most games being half medics, and half snipers.
** Notably in ''VideoGame/{{Battlefield 3}}'', the Assault class has to choose between AOE healing or an extra assault weapon (either a grenade launcher or a shotgun) for the first class ability, but once the [[MagicalDefibrillator defibrillator (revive device)]] is unlocked it's always the second gadget, which can make them priority targets in certain circumstances.
*** Of course, in practice, Battlefield is so fast paced and it's hard enough to take down any enemy, that actively targeting a medic is more a case of luck and aiming in the right place. Actually trying to only target medics will just get you shot by the rest of his squad.
** The Engineer class is the 'medic' for Vehicles. Often people will buddy up as a tank driver/gunner combination and work in tandem to keep their vehicle operation. Some vehicles have enough capacity to hold three people. Trying to take out a tank with 2 engineers repairing is impossible for a single infantry player unless he can kill the engineers first, or can sneak up and plant C4 or mines on the vehicle.

** The fight against Lavos Core is [[AvertedTrope something of an exception]]: it looks like a FlunkyBoss consisting of a humanoid-looking part in the center and a "[[FanNickname Lavos Bit]]" on the left and on the right. The Lavos Bit on the right can revive the other two, so normally you'd want to kill it first. However, unless at least one of the other two parts are dead, it will take almost no damage from attacks, so, in this case, you have to kill the medic last. (And when you do kill it, you win the fight immediately, guaranteeing you will indeed kill it last.)

-->Medic: Oh God, they're shooting medics too! They're not playing by [[KilledMidSentence the-]]

* ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'': The ideal strategy for fighting the Axem Rangers in VideoGame/SuperMarioRPG is to take down Axem Pink first. She can heal, which pretty much sells her position as first to go down. The Strategy Guide even suggests this.

* ''VideoGame/{{Overwatch}}'': Supports that can heal is usually high on the kill-list as they have Ultimates that can give a great health/shield boon to the teams surrounding them. Nothing more frustrating than just succeeding to a semi-Team Kill, only for Mercy to pop in and '''[[MassResurrection HEROES NEVER DIE]]'''. There goes your hard work.
** There's a saying that pops up occasionally in Overwatch discussions: "you can kill Mercy first, or you can kill her 11th"[[labelnote:Explanation]]Teams have 6 players so if you kill everyone but Mercy and then she rezzes them you end up having to get 11 kills.[[/labelnote]]
** Mercy has since been reworked, changing her rez to a single-target rez with a thirty second cooldown (the longest in the game for non-ultimates). Her new ultimate, Valkyrie, resets the cooldown on her rez as well as shortening it, ''and'' gives her free-range, unlimited flight and the ability to chain healing/damage boost (although, at the time of writing (October 2017) these abilities are being fine-tuned on the PTR). All that said, it's still incredibly wise to kill Mercy first, if you can: her single-target rez means that taking out an anchor tank like Reinhardt or Orisa or a high-DPS hero like Bastion or Pharah can easily be undone; thus, killing Mercy is just as good an idea as ever.
** Mercy's Valkyrie went under several nerfs after that. It went from the earlier description to not shortening it's cooldown anymore, instead giving Mercy a "bonus" charge of rez during her ultimate's time, then adding a casting time of 1.75 second when she wasn't using her ultimate. As of April 2018, her ultimate and rez ability have no connexion whatsoever anymore : the cooldown is locked to thirty seconds, isn't reseted nor does it gain a bonus charge when under ult and the casting time is applied regardless Mercy's ulting or not.
** Aside from Mercy, it's wise to take out the support(s) first in a team fight: Lucio's ultimate provides a large, quickly draining health boost to his allies, Zenyatta's an incredible amount of healing within a fairly wide radius around him, Ana's can power up another hero's abilities, Moira's can unleash a beam attack that massively heals her allies and damages her enemies, and Brigitte's can give a massive armor boost to her allies.