As I noted in my Battlefield V Review. A lot of new systems and changes to the series will require players to adapt to new tactics and playstyles in V. Rather than sit and hope that the player base can learn and adjust, I thought I’d do my part to try and nudge you in the right direction. This Battlefield V guide won’t help you with your aim, but it may make your teammates like you more… or at least hate you a little bit less…
Battlefield V Guide Lesson 1: DEFEND!
So, this is primarily a tip for conquest due to the complete freedom you have in how and where you choose to put yourself. Look I get it, we all have the attention spans of a goldfish now, but this is important. When you capture a point in conquest, don’t immediately sprint away to the next flag. You need to do two things first.
Number one. Look at the bar in the middle of the screen. If it isn’t completely blue, if it has even a single spec of red in it, an enemy is hiding somewhere in the capture zone. Flush them out and kill them. If you don’t and everyone sprints away, the enemy will capture that flag uncontested.
Number two. Open your map up and consider the situation. How many flags do you have? Which ones are captured and where are they? You don’t need every flag to win, just a majority. If you have a majority, consider defending a point instead, especially if your current flag is near other red flags or the enemy’s main spawn. That means that any moment your own point is going to come under attack. Stay put, fortify up and enjoy the free kills and loads of points as you cut down the approaching enemy line.
Believe it or not, if you defend in the right spots you will see as much action and gain more points than if you just ran off to get gunned down in a ditch. I’m not saying sit on a point at the very back of the map where there is no action. But defend the points that are coming under attack or are about too. Oh, and if you fortify a point up and leave it completely unguarded so a single soldier can take it. Congratulations, you just handed a fort to the enemy for free. Don’t do that, your team will hate you and so will I.
Battlefield V Guide Lesson 2: TANKS FOR THE HELP
Despite the fact that panzerfausts are a bit overpowered right now. Tanks are still effective in the right hands and can break stalemates. When working alongside infantry they are incredibly powerful, but only when used correctly.
First of all, do not drive straight into a point where you can be easily flanked and blown up with dynamite. UNLESS, you have a dedicated squamate or two sticking to your sides to cover you (which is a great tactic by the way, especially for supports who can help repair) Instead, hang back a bit and keep friendly infantry between you and the enemy. Rack up kills by blowing up the enemy line from behind the comfortable fleshy wall of your own men and woman. Support them by suppressing enemies with machine gun fire and take out armored threats.
For the love of everything, go down with the ship. If you are driving a tank and are about to be blown up, just die, seriously. Your death and five second respawn time aren’t worth the chance of handing the enemy a free tank when they jump in and repair it. I’ve seen it happen numerous times and I myself have commandeered many abandoned enemy tanks. Don’t do it, your team will hate you, and so will I.
Battlefield V Guide Lesson 3: THE PLANE GAME
Without 3D spotting, pilots are effectively blind to ground targets. Without help, any strafing or bombing run is an educated guess at best or a random one at worst. Planes, and especially bombers can devastate ground forces, they just need a bit of assistance. You can help without really going out of your way to do so. The easiest way is to simply mark areas for pilots in your squad to bomb. It’s more helpful if you are communicating via mic, but some pilots will get the idea just by seeing the mark.
Secondly as a recon, if you have the spotting scope, use it. You should be anyway as its one of the most powerful tools in the game. If you are only sitting at the edge of the map sniping the entire game, your team already hates you. And so, do I.
In any case, pilots can see those marked with the scope and this allows them to strike precisely. Furthermore, if you have a bomber in your squad, consider joining them as a gunner. Bombers cannot evade fighters at all. They are reliant on tail gunners and allied fighters to stay alive. If you are piloting a fighter, your number one priority is to keep other fighters off the bombers. Everything else is secondary. The “go down with the ship rule” does not apply to aircraft. Enemies aren’t going to be able to hijack your burning pile of wreckage so feel free to bail.
However, under no circumstances should you use a plane as a taxi, where you spawn in one, fly over a point and just bail out with no intention of actually using the plane. Forget the hate, if you do this, throw out your game systems and find a new hobby.
Battlefield V Guide Lesson 4: SLOW THE EFF DOWN
Take cover, sprint between cover, check corners and stay aware. The time to kill in this game is pretty low. If you get caught mid-sprint or in the open, you are dead and looking at the respawn screen. You will get more kills by taking your time than sprinting to your own death with every life, getting a random kill here or there. Keep an eye on your mini-map for nearby enemies and always look for opportunities.
If you are being shot at, don’t try to turn and shoot. Unless they are directly in front of you, you won’t win. Dive for cover and reassess your options, don’t peek out of where they saw you go. Find another angle. THINK, THINK, THINK. That’s the most important piece of information you can use to adapt to the game. This isn’t a mindless shooter, it’s not something you want to play to numbly veg out after a long day. It is intense and engaging. If you aren’t thinking, you are dead, looking at the respawn screen and your team hates you.
Battlefield V Guide lesson 5: KNOW YOUR ROLE
Each of the game’s classes is capable of going pew pew until an enemy dies. But it isn’t only their weapons and gadgets that vary, but also the tactics they need to employ.
The Medic is pretty good all arounder but is best at close ranges. Don’t waste ammo or draw attention by trying to pick off distant enemies and instead support your team. Throw out health packs like they are candy, they are never not in demand. The Medics ability to quickly revive, and revive those outside of a squad is likely the most important moment to moment action that wins matches. You should never be the first into a dangerous combat zone, let others lead and follow after, picking off stragglers and flankers. Don’t just mindlessly revive though otherwise, you are just going to die beside them.
Try and kill the attackers that killed your teammate first or throw down smoke. Your allies should be attempting to suppress the enemies and cover you in any case, they don’t always, but that’s the kind of thing this guide is trying to change. Medics are vulnerable to tanks, but that doesn’t make you helpless. When a tank shows up, cover your Assaults. They can’t react to infantry when handling the Panzerfaust and tend to get tunnel vision when dealing with a tank. You don’t usually have to kill enemies, firing bursts are enough to make them hit the floor and buy your tank killer a couple seconds to act.
If you use the smoke rifles, consider covering them with that, putting it between potential enemies and your Assault buddies.
The Supports are the best defenders in the game and when set up on a fortification can cut down multiple enemies within seconds as their guns are very accurate on a bipod. When playing Support, you should be defending points more than attacking them, but you can be useful when attacking with teammates as well.
Ammo bags are also candy so give them out freely and when defending build fortifications as you do it the quickest. But the Support has a couple of valuable jobs on the offensive as well. Firstly, you are the king of protecting Medics trying to revive. Supports suppress enemies the fastest with a high rate of fire and large magazines. Since the time to kill is so short, a few bullets will make players dive for cover or hit the ground almost immediately, and if they don’t, they die. So, unload in the direction of enemies to cover Medics.
Supports can repair tanks, so running alongside a tank and using it for cover is very effective. You can keep it repaired and gun down those pesky Assaults. Oftentimes Assaults run in or around a tank while holding dynamite or panzerfausts, so they can’t react to your gunfire quick enough and are easy kills.
Assaults are generally frontline breakers but can be made to be effective at most ranges, they are very versatile. However, they are always good at killing both infantry and tanks. They are not a support role at all so you can focus all of your energy on murder. Just remember your other teammates rely on you when the enemy armor shows up. Most of them don’t have a lot of options. So, count on them to cover you while you deal the threat. Try to hit tanks in the sides or rear and aim for parts such as the tracks and turret. That way, even if you don’t get the kill, you impair it and cause it to have trouble killing your team.
Like the Assault, the Recon is also great at killing infantry on both offense and defense. But they really they are more of a support role and a very important one at that. There are two important ways to play a Recon. A supporting sniper, and a front lines scout. A supporting sniper stays out of the main fight and spots foes with the spotting scope or snipe threats. However, I can’t stress the difference between a support sniper and a normal sniper enough. The latter is hated, the former is loved.
For most of the series, snipers have hung back as far as possible and have mostly focused on having the greatest k/d ever. Nobody likes these types of players. They don’t help the team and they don’t win matches because they just kill whatever they can find whether or not the kill was relevant. A support sniper, however, watches over their team like a guardian angel packing a high-powered rifle. She is the team’s overbearing mother, and may God help anyone who dares mess with her children.
A support sniper is away from the main fight, but near where their squad or allies are attacking or defending. They aren’t picking off enemies 3 miles away that may not be relevant. They spot with their spotting scope and pick off direct threats to their team, particularly other snipers. Even without the spotting scope, a Recon in a vantage point makes them ideal for marking areas for their squad. If a group runs into a nearby building where you can’t snipe them, you can mark the exact building for your squad. Never underestimate how powerful knowledge is in this game.
A frontline scout is in the thick of it with their team, planting spawn beacons and using flares to keep their team aware of nearby enemies. They roll without scopes and become a mid-range menace, able to take out enemies that medics can’t reach and that supports have suppressed. Don’t use spawn beacons as a way to respawn at a sniper spot ten miles away from the fight. Your team will hate you, and so will I.
Other small tips and tricks
Hey, see that enemy anti-air gun emplacement firing at something in the skies? He is firing at your bomber’s you nincompoop, go and stop them!
You can tow around gun emplacements with vehicles, this is very useful to get extra firepower in hot zones or to deal with aircraft.
The field gun emplacements are super strong against tanks. Use them whenever possible and keep an eye out enemies on field guns targeting your tanks.
You should always be following a squad leaders orders, it gives you more points, keeps your squad together and lets the squad leader call in special vehicles and rocket strikes. If they are an incompetent leader, change squads.
Squad leaders, remember how important defense is. Make sure to give defending orders when applicable. If a random repeatedly jams the request order call out when you pick an objective to defend. Boot them from the squad.
Do not underestimate the usefulness of the special call-in vehicles such as the Crocodile. They are powerful when used right (see the above sections on tanks) everybody loves the rocket strikes, but points not spent by the end of a match are wasted. Don’t be afraid to call them in.
Hopefully, some people find this Battlefield V guide helpful. I hope to see you out there!
