^ The round before those was so damn smooth though, I was so happy with that Hank who got lots of good shield times. Playing Val was a piece of cake and we had two proper supporters.
True, it sucks when you can't get there in time to shield but most of the time the range is rather good and you have others that can put on damage amps or even the devastating orbital strike. I feel like the extra shielding is just too useful still...might need the jetpack recharge instead of the battery capacity if we're spacing out a bit and just burst shield instead of holding it.
While Hank is pretty much always a solid choice, Bucket and Cabot both bring additional tracking and DPS amplification. Bucket's turrets can do serious work and in tandem with other hunter traps can give medic a lot of breathing room and retreat options.
The UAV and Dust also help out Griffin and Abe a lot, especially Abe. These two trappers also have more direct control options compared to Maggie on defending a medic with a direct harpoon tether and slowmo grenades. There can also be deadly combos like cabot with a damage amp, abe tossing down stasis fields then switching to his shotty, and parnell just RIPPING into the monster and doing so much damage that the monster can't ignore it and continue to bullrush the medic. As someone who mainly put in time as the monster, the damage amp is close to the shield projection at making me switch targets to get them out of the match.
Plus they all still have the cloak to coordinate with.
Slow-down grenades don't seem all that reliable - almost never work like you want them to from matches I played (in protecting someone enough) and having the support know to give group invisibility after the medic gets knocked back by the monster during the few seconds you have to catch up with jetpack boosting (if you have it and even if they're being held back by a harpoon...it only tends to last a few seconds with the monster still having eyes on the medic).
Doing damage is great but you just can't do enough without staying alive long enough and no one can do that well except for Hank and 2/3 medics. Monsters will ignore so much damage on them if they know they have the medic in their grasp, often they take it too far and get blindsighted by the damage they receive but it makes the next medic kill easier too and they run off to evolve and regen some health as well.
The damage beam is good for taking away attention, you're right, little bit less annoyed now...but the medic goes down so fast that it's worth it as you can spend the rest of your time doing damage that stays and no one is there to heal or shield.
It's why you often get straight up tunnel vision on the medic. Even the AI monster knows to do it.
So unless I've got a shielding Hank I don't think it's really worth playing Val (for her own safety) or Laz (for total group heal/damage prevention).
* If they're playing bucket I'm straight up going Caira in hunt.
* If they're going Cabot I may go Val because I love her tranq so much and he has the damage buff that kind of attracts attention, but will be safer with Caira as well. Not so much Laz as not enough group healing/damage prevention.
* If they're playing Hank - which I feel they should be (and shielding, or trying to most of the time), then I don't mind going anyone. Probably best for Laz in hunt, if the monster isn't getting around to eating corpses and people take the fight away after someone is downed by spreading out just enough to be able to shoot them from the body. Otherwise Val.
Okay, good. Think I've got a plan now, before I was always uncomfortable with making the medic choice and was happy just going hank knowing i'd be okay while also coming in real handy.
Otherwise no Laz for sure and I'll go Val for hunt or Caira for nest/rescue. 
