Appeal for each class

[badzmaru]

For me, the most useless ITEM is the smoke gernade. WTH? is that! What, you see an incoming tank, pop a smoke, then run and hide? Totally useless item in BF2. And best of all...you get one canister.....greaat. For class wise, I would say sniper. I guess i'm not too patient to wait for that 'perfect' shot.

[Eddy01741]

Getting rushed by an m203, true, theres not a whole lot you can do about that. But can any other kit? Obviously against another assault it would be "who fires first", and possibly an engineer with a pump-shotgun. But what you're stating here isn't a specific disadvantage to Anti-Tank, but rather the general combat advantage the assault kit has over everyone else.



While you may get this impression by the apparent slowness of the rockets, fact is anybody who has used the Anti-Tank extensively knows that the rockets are one of, if not the best long-range weapon in the game. In a situation where a sniper on a hill has seen me and I have seen him, there has never been a situation where I have not killed him, and I bet quite a few other Anti-Tank players can make this claim too, or at least state that they are rarely killed by snipers. Theres are times where it is close (he headshots me right as the rocket slams into him). Even though you may find that hard to believe, I'll explain why.

At long range, anyone using a gun who wants to fight at that range must stay still. That does not apply to the Anti-Tank. You can be running around, zig-zagging everywhere, and the rocket will still head to where you are aiming. During this time you are very hard to hit, obviously, and gives the rocket time to travel to the target. Then, right before the rocket hits, you immediatly stop and crouch/prone, and take the last split-second to fix your aim directly on the target, so that the rocket hits them dead on.

Secondly, one of the main reasons it's great at long range is that you do not have to take careful aim. Anyone using a gun must be sure that the target is in the center of their crosshair when they fire, especially in the case of the sniper. With the rocket, even the most half-assed shot can still be compensated for by aiming at the target afterwords.

Finally, if you have a good memory, you can kill the target from complete safety, because you can still guide the rocket through a wall. This means you can pop out from behind a wall, fire a poorly aimed, but fast rocket, take a look at where the enemy is, and proceed to aim at the target through the wall. No doubt that this is easier said than done, but with practice its pretty easy, and a lot easier than trying to snipe a target running around like crazy like the enemy would have to do. A lot of people imagine an AT attempting to fight long-range as a clumsy, slowly-firing and moving attack. But in reality, it works out to be a fast paced fluid series of actions that get easier the more you do them.

All of this may sound hard to believe, but in practice what I have said is more effective than it sounds. If more people took the time to try out Anti-Tank, they would know this too, rather than switching to it and firing at the most armored parts of a tank and thinking "wow this kit sucks", and letting that be their belief as long as they play.

I'm not saying that AT is a bad class. In fact AT is the most versatile class if you use it right. No class is inherently better than others, it's just that people are inherently better with that class. I mean, i'm not the best ATer, but i know people who are. I just prefer Spec Ops because i like it, and if duty calls for AT, i play AT. But i'm just saying, the rocket is not the most effective weapon at long range, why, because it travels too slow, and the splash damage is too low for a missile (i agree, more splash damage is needed, much more important than giving spec ops points for destroying enemy commander assets) and it doesn't have a very good medium range weapon, the rocket is too slow once again, the pistol is too weak and doesn't fire fast enough, the SMG is weak, and accuracy is horrible. But at close range the SMG owns anything but the GL, or shotty. If you get the jump on somebody (you know where they are, but they don't know where are) then you shoot a guided missile, and no doubt they will die. AT is a good class, in fact all classes are good if you use them right.

[Matt_Flex]

medic or assault for me.

[big_sammy_b]

i LOVE support, theres nothing better than getting 'stuck in' to the enemy at close quarters and letting them have it with your SAW :)

[glaeken]

Nice AT debate :p I use this class a lot and find it great. My method is to play it like I am a vehicle sniper. Find a nice high spot over looking a flag and then defend that flag from vehicles. It works great like this.

Most of those who I see using the class that don't seem to do very well with it tend to try and use it from far too close a distance which is just not the way to use it.

Remember If you can see a vehicle you can hit it with the anti-tank class. At long ranges due to the way view distances work in BF2 you will be able to see the vehicle but the vehicle won't be able to see you.

As a class it is also not always about killing but softening up a vehicle so that next team mate it runs into has an easier time of it. So basically even if I see a full health tank and only have one rocket left I still go for him with it.