What good is the “Support” class in Battlefield 3? How to play it effectively

battlefield-3

Assault can heal and revive teammates. Recon has a sniper-rifle. Engineer can repair vehicles, and gets a rocket-launcher and proximity mines. But Support, from what little I've played it, seems to just have extra ammo, which is not nearly as useful as every other class's specials.

What special things does Support do? How do you effectively play as Support?

Best Answer

The view of the classes you present in the question is way to simplistic.

Support

  • Provides ammo. This is especially critical on big open maps with lot of armor. Most people play engineers using up their rockets really quickly;
  • Having LMG with 3.4x + bipod, can provide accurate suppression fire at mid distance (upcoming patch is going to improve that);
  • On rush maps can effectively suppress enemies preventing them from getting anywhere near m-coms. That can be done either with LMG + extended mags or with mortar (later is going to be nerfed in upcoming patch - 4.8s reload instead of 3.5s);
  • Can run up to tanks and destroy them with C4, this is especially effective between buildings.

And BTW you say just "Recon has a sniper-rifle", which is big understatement.

Recon

  • Can set spawn point, which is quite important on rush (well placed, can allow whole squad to spawn within defenders' base time after time);
  • Can set SOFLAM, which greatly increases effectiveness of Javelins, also allows Javelins to shoot down aircraft;
  • Can use MAV to spot enemies far behind their lines. Then Support can pick them out with mortar.
  • Can set T-UGS near m-com, allowing defenders to react before attackers get chance to arm it.
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