Tip 1: Make the most of all your weapons  Tip 2: Antitank rockets aren't just for tanks  Tip 3: Quick tips for Battlefield 2

Submitted by: Matthew Rorie Author, GameSpot's Game Guide to Battlefield 2  Learn more about Matthew

Although each kit in Battlefield 2 certainly has its own particular role to play, you may find that some are more flexible than they appear at first glance. While we have an entire tip coming up for the uses of the antitank weapon, we'll go over a few of our other favorite kits in this section. The medic kit First up is the medic kit. Medics are quite popular in squad combat due to the fact that they can heal other players and even revive them from the dead. But they also happen to pack a weapon that's similar in power to those of the assault class from the same side, albeit slightly weaker.

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For instance, Marine medics get the same M16 that the Marine assault class does, minus the grenade launcher. Because the assault weapons are usually quite powerful in their own right, medics can often make excellent base defenders--especially when attempting to hold flags that have to be taken by infantry, such as the central flag on the Sharqi Peninsula. Simply drop a few med packs in a well-concealed area, hunker down, and wait for enemies to come to you. If you remain concealed, you should be able to kill any individual soldiers that come to take your flag; if you take damage, then just roll over one of your med kits to heal yourself again.

On the other hand, if you prefer to be a true lone wolf and fire away at people while not defending or advancing toward a flag, the same tactic can be used when you're hiding in some dark corner of the map where no one would expect a player to be sitting. The assault rifles given to medics and assault players aren't quite sniper rifles, but they're accurate over medium range. They're especially precise if you hit the 3 key to switch from automatic or burst mode to single-shot mode. (You'll notice a 1 appear in the lower-right corner of the screen underneath your ammo count when you're in single-shot mode.)

A medic with steady aim can pop unsuspecting enemies before they know where the attack is coming from, and lying down on top of a med pack heals the medic as he takes damage. The main drawback to this is that you'll run out of ammo quickly, and it can be difficult to convince a support trooper to resupply you or to ask your commander to drop a supply pack if you're not contributing to the team effort.

Fry foes with a defibrillator
Also note that, if you're in a tight spot as a medic, you can actually use your defibrillator paddles as offensive weapons. If you can get close to an opposing soldier and "attack" him with the paddles, you'll get an instant kill, and your victim will be the laughingstock of the server.

The problem with medics
If the medics get the power of the assault-class weapon and the ability to heal themselves to boot, you may be wondering why anyone would play as an assault class. Well, there is the matter of body armor, for one thing, which cuts down on the damage you take when shot in the chest.

The default assault-class weapons also come with a powerful add-on in the form of a grenade launcher. On smaller, infantry-intensive maps, such as Sharqi Peninsula and Strike at Karkand, the grenade launcher lets you rack up the kills, but it does require practice to use it properly.

Tips for effective grenade launching
The grenade launcher, as you might imagine, does damage in an area around its impact point. Although the damage decreases rapidly the farther away from the impact point you get, if you manage to land your grenade within a few feet of an opposing player, you'll usually be rewarded with an instant kill.

There are a few ways to increase your effectiveness with this weapon. Beyond practice, which is always valuable, try using it in single-player mode, and practice finding the proper distance against bots.

First off, whenever possible, try firing the grenade launcher from a higher elevation than your target. Since the grenades travel with a pronounced arc, it can be quite difficult to angle them correctly when firing at someone on the same elevation as yourself; the process is a bit more forgiving when you can fire downward at them.

You can also get good results by firing at any obstacles that happen to be near a target and letting the splash damage kill them; if someone's running past a wall, for instance, aiming a few feet up the wall is generally going to be an easier shot than attempting to lead them and aiming at their feet. It's quite easy to undershoot in this situation, so go for the surer shot.

If at all possible, though, it pays to just get close to your enemy before launching a grenade, or else let them come to you. Because the kill radius of the explosion is relatively small, you can blast people at close range without taking too much damage yourself so long as you're not firing at someone within melee range. This is most useful when defending a flag, as you know the basic radius within which defenders have to be to convert the flag. If you can find a spot overlooking the flag, then you'll be able to chuck grenades at anyone who enters the radius. If you wait a bit, most people attempting to capture a flag will actually lie down, giving you a bit of a larger target to aim at, since the grenade will come in at an angle.