Welcome back to Part II of the Battlefield Bad Company 2 Multiplayer Strategy Guide! I’ve got plenty of additional tips, tactics and advice to dispense that will hopefully improve your playing ability and make you a role-model for society, or at least a deadly teammate. If you somehow managed to bypass Part I, then you can find it right here.

I have also written an article titled When Bad Players Ruin Great Games, which is all about the dumb things players do in Bad Company 2 that ruin the experience for everyone else. You will hopefully find some useful information there and if not, you’ll at least know you’re not alone in feeling very frustrated with players who don’t quite grasp the Battlefield concept.

Okay, enough intro, let’s get down to business.

Playing the Medic

The Medic can make all the difference between you team losing or winning, assuming the person playing a medic knows what he or she is doing.

Your Role: You are a support class so you should play as one, which means not leading a charge into an enemy base, as your death will be of no benefit to anyone except the other team. Instead, stay behind you squad or teammates, dropping medkits in locations where your squaddies or teammates are currently staging a battle. You’ll accrue a ton of points for healing injured players if you’re placing your medkits in a useful, accessible location. Always drop a medit in a defensive location, like within a building that houses an objective, because you know fighting will be taking place sooner or later.

The Effective Medic: By trailing your squaddies or teammates, you can easily spot who needs healing and drop a medkit to alleviate their pain and suffering. More importantly, when a fellow player goes down for the count, the medic can fly into action and revive the fallen soldier with the Defibrillator. If you’re dead, you’re of no help or use…so don’t die by being overly aggressive.

Help Bring Down Helicopters: The Medic is typically outfitted with a machine-gun, capable of firing a ton of sustained rounds for extended periods of time. This makes the Medic an especially effective class at bringing down helicopters. You’ll need to master the art of leading your target, which means you should be firing your gun slightly ahead of the target’s flight-direction. You’ll know you’re hitting the copter when your crosshair briefly flashes with an X symbol.

A Word on Reviving: Medics are great and all but they can also be a major pain-in-the-ass. I speak specifically of the Chronic Reviver. This is the medic who revives you in the middle of a battle while all hell is breaking loose, only to watch you die again with seconds. Then he revives you again. You die again. Repeat this process over and over.

While this may be great for the medic, who is racking up points for every revive, this is extremely annoying for the poor bastard who has no choice in the matter. So please, for the love of all that is Holy, make sure your immediate area is relatively safe before reviving a fallen player. At the very least, lay down some cover fire after a revive so your disoriented zombies have a few seconds to get acclimated.

The Medic’s Weakness: A lot of people complain that the Medic is overpowered. Of course, a lot of people complain that every class is overpowered and it’s always the class they seldom play. However, the Medic does have one glaring weakness whose impact is felt on the battlefield even though it isn’t obvious: they are powerless against tanks. When a tank comes rolling up, the Medic can only stand there and lob a futile grenade.

Mortar Strike

The Mortar Strike is a Recon ability and can be quite punishing when used effectively. It can be used for a variety of situations, like softening up an enemy position, inflicting damage on tanks and vehicles, and removing roof-mounted weapon emplacements.

There is one additional use that is quite effective, though I seldom see it used, which is too bad. When playing Rush mode and your team has successfully begun the bomb-timer, wait a few second and call in a mortar strike on the location of the crate. When timed properly, this will kill any and all enemy combatants attempting to stop the bomb-timer. This is a great way to secure an objective and, if nothing else, buys your team some valuable time.

Mortar Strike Versus Tanks: The effectiveness of a Mortar Strike on an enemy tank has everything to do with the skill/awareness of the tank driver. A Mortar Strike really doesn’t do much damage unless the tank is sitting still. In that case, a Mortar Strike can easily destroy the tank. On the other hand, a driver with half a brain should be moving the tank out of the impact zone, suffering a ¼ of the damage usually inflicted.