Support
The clue is in the name, the support kit is best used for supporting rather than leading the fight wielding massive stationary firepower allowing one support player to stop an entire infantry assault in chokepoints by using the trusty bipod on the LMG. Generally the best thing to do is find a nice spot where the enemy will be funnelled down one corridor or road, post up with the bipod and let rip with over 100 bullets before an annoyingly slow reload. The support class is also home to the incredibly useful (and annoying for enemies) C4, which can turn a jeep in to a bomb or a tank in to nothing if you can sneak up on them. The support class can be both frustrating and hilarious all at once, the most hilarious kills usually revolve around C4 and you can run up behind enemies with a 200 round magazine and go absolutely Rambo for massive multi-kills or you might miss every single shot if they’re not right in your face and look like a fool.
Playstyles in Short:
Machine Gunner – Simple, bipod and a large magazine LMG, move around the map looking for key overlooks and chokepoints where you can stay still with the bipod set up for long periods and put down masses of cover fire and hopefully rack up the kills to. Best use is to float around behind your own troops when attacking or defending and use your LMG to keep the enemy pinned or dead, whichever comes first. Don’t waste all your magazine in one go, burst fire to suppress but feel free to hold the trigger to get the kills when necessary and use extended magazines wherever possible for a massive 200 rounds. Stop firing to fool enemies in to running out thinking they’re safe before unleashing another 100 rounds on them but always be careful to be fully reloaded when out of combat as the reload times are often extremely slow and painful. Note however that the magazine fed LMGs offer a great hybrid of assault rifle and LMG giving you more mobile accuracy but less stationary firepower so choose wisely for the situation. Mortars and Claymores are great on this defensive playstyle, use smoke to cover your team and claymores to cover their back though C4 is always handy to defend objective or blow up a tank quickly and allows you to turn demo-man on the fly.
Demo Man – One of the most hilarious and entertaining playstyles in BF period. A PDW is usually choice here, though the M27 IAR makes a great case as well due to fast reload time, high fire rate and relatively controllable recoil making it the best CQB support only primary. Use C4 to blow up tanks, or place a tonne of it around an objective so when the enemy comes hunting they’re in for a real surprise. Then there’s plan B, the mighty car bomb, strap a tonne of C4 to the front of a jeep and drive head on at a tank, that’s head on for you, avoid their turret at all costs, before jumping out and detonating (make sure you have the detonator equipped when you get in the vehicle, it will be there when you dive out). Got some enemies sitting on a rooftop? Get a ride over them in a helicopter, dive out and parachute across the top of the roof airmailing C4 down on to it, detonate and feel like a bad ass and sweep up the rest with your primary. Explosive specialisation highly recommended. Pretty much play like a normal assault soldier dropping ammo for your guys and such until you need to make a bit more of an explosive situation, if you catch my drift.
Equipment:
Primary Weapons - There’s essentially 3 subclasses for Support players, belt-fed LMGs with massive firepower on a bipod but terrible mobility due to poor accuracy and slow reloads, magazine fed LMGs with lower ammo accounts (still higher than most other weapons in the game) but quicker reloads and more controllability on the move and finally the PDWs which can be used to play a more CQB and highly mobile role.
Personal Favourite Weapons:
Stationary Machine Gunner: M60/PKP/M249 SAW + holo + bipod + ext mags – The M249 SAW has a high fire rate and great killing power whilst the M60 and PKP have a slower fire rate allowing a more constant stream of death once set up with the bipod which is often more accurate at range. Beware long reloads on these weapons. Suppression/Cover specialisation is useful for this loadout and playstyle.
CQB/Stealth Demo Man: UMP + holo +laser + suppressor (or shotguns) – Invisible until everything goes boom, the UMP is a useful PDW with probably the best range of PDWs and therein most versatile. The shotguns can also be useful here to just punch through the enemy when you need an objective and then strap a tonne of C4 around it for the second wave.
Hybrid: M27 IAR/L86A2 + holo + bipod + situational – Great all round weapons, more like an assault rifle than other support weapons with a great reload time meaning lower downtime and good performance all round. Can be coupled with a suppressor for stealth, flash suppressor for CQB or keep a standard/heavy barrel for good range. Useful for being a more mobile machine gunner whilst maintaining a good ability to hold down an area despite smaller magazine size, the M27 also has an excellent reload time. The RPK is great as well, the MG36 may also be usable.
Ammo Box
Pay attention for team-mates screaming for one, but always drop one down whenever you have a chance if anyone is near you just incase. Similarly take a small detour to drop it down in a group of your guys and get some easy points. See a guy camped up with a sniper rifle/LMG as you run by drop a box on them and move on. You can only have one ammo box active at any one time, so don’t drop it on yourself for an extra magazine you don’t yet need if you have one better placed already.
C4 (Plus advanced tactics for win great victory)
Push button, make things go boom. See demo man for main uses. Place it in places where you know enemies like to hide when they capture a flag on Conquest and as soon as they start taking your flag give it a few moments or so for them to get in to a position and detonate your C4. Being chased by enemies into a building? No problem! Drop a line of C4 as you run and wait for them before push button, make them go boom! Got some annoying enemies defending a building? See that wall they’re not looking at as they watch the door? You guessed it, make wall go boom! Better yet make entire building go boom! If you don’t kill them they’ll still have no idea what’s happening. Got trouble defending an MCOM when either your team or theirs plants the charge? Place C4 around MCOM, make them go boom! Lost a base and running back to your next MCOM set to defend? Run a busy route you know the enemy is going to use, wait for enemy to use, push button and... You know the rest. C4 can be used very cleverly, and you can place 6 down at once for maximum effectiveness. Disappears after death.
Claymores
Try not to place them in obvious view, behind doorways not in them facing slightly away from the door for maximum blast radius (so it’s not exploding half of its charge in to the wall). Remember clever players can sneak past them by crouching so don’t rely on them, placing 2 in close proximity can catch people off guard who avoid the first not expecting another immediately around the next corner. Maximum 2 can be deployed. Disappears after death (annoyingly).
Mortar
Remember you have smoke rounds if you hit change weapon, these can be more useful then the explosive rounds as you have infinite ammo unlike the assaults M320 smoke so you can cover a large area in smoke to really mess with entrenched enemies or shield your own troops from danger. Normal rounds are better for suppressing then killing, they can kill but don’t often as to not reward lazy players just looking for easy rewards. Not much use on open maps other than for smoke rounds, great for spamming chokepoints on other maps, try not to stay in one place to long as mortars are easily found and you’re defenceless whilst using it and people like to hunt for the easy kill and to stop you annoying them after you suppress them a hundred times in their favourite location.
Key Tips:
- Once again at any time a player may be shouting at your for ammo using the in game voice overs, just as with assault try not to ignore these people as it’s incredibly annoying when you have no ammo and a support player ignores you as you jump in their face screaming for ammo quite literally. Most common crime committed by support players is ignorance.
- Time your reloads when using belt fed LMGs, the reload is very long and the last thing you need is to be caught off guard. Reload when you’re sure nothing is going on and get behind cover whilst you do it, even if only for another 30-40 rounds, similarly don’t burn ammo needlessly so when an enemy squad comes around you have plenty of ammo to send their way.
- C4 make things go boom, advanced guided car bomb with team-mates driving the vehicle for you who can tell you via headset when to detonate. They don’t need to jump out unless friendly fire is on (hardcore), they will be completely unaffected by your C4 other than a massive shockwave.
