So... I played for about 2 hours tonight. I mucked about between the classes to see how they panned out. Which ones were still useful, which ones you may as well not even pick up.
For starters I had some very mediocre rounds with my once-trusted and mighty MG36 LMG. 2 rounds where I struggled to break even in the KD department. Then switched to medic, and surprise surprise, I am once again God of the 'field.
Before the patch, (IMO and only IMO) the classes were fairly even. Medics were great killing machines. But I felt support players were that bit stronger again. The engy's were great but only for closer in fighting. And snipers had their place but werent ever going to be as good in a shoot out as say a medic for example.
(So, in a break down of effectiveness):
Support - 30 %
Medic - 28 %
Engy - 25 %
Sniper - 17 %
But now after the patch things have dramatically changed. 1 class outshines all the others and the rest play catch up:
Medic 35 %
Engy 30 %
Sniper 20 %
Support 20 %
I was left feeling as if the Medics were the unbeatable titans of the earth. If you were a medic, you lived. If you were another class coming up against them... you died. Engy's felt as if they were that little bit stronger, but probably only because they were now being put in comparison with the much,
much weaker support class.
Snipers similarly were that little bit stronger when compared to the the LMG users struggling along in support hell. And thats the fact of the matter. The support class was maybe 5% OP before the patch. (But medics were pretty strong too). Even an engy gun could match them if you were a half skilled player. NOW however, for their crime of being slightly better rated than the competition, the support class has been relegated to the bottom of the ladder. Nerfed to the point that I often found the various LMG's unusable/unplayable when up against any other class of soldier.
And naturally when you take so much effectiveness out of one class, it has to go somewhere else. You'd like to think that it might be split evenly between the remaining other classes. But thats not what I found. The medic whores were the great winners from this patch, and not much love was shown for anyone else. The assault rifles are now the supreme killing machines of BF3. The weapon of choice for noobs and vets alike. And as more and more players realise this, it will skew the game even further towards a 1 horse race. People will simply log in, select "medic" and play 'til they quit. Done and done.
Sure maybe Ive over simplified - there will always be the odd engy and sniper die hard, but support players will pop up less and less, unless they come in with an "all-kits" weapon and hope that it can overcome the new OP king of BF3 - the medic with his assault rifle.
Check out my score card. (I got disconnected - naturally - so you'll have to scroll down for my stats).
Overall, I had a KD of 31:11. But the break down of that was more telling. I went 7:5 as support with my LMG. And maybe you'll say "thats not too bad!" But before the patch, I'd normally get 3 times that KD when things were going right. And to prove my point, I then switched to the medic class, (after being hammered by nothing else but in my 5 deaths) and equipped myself with an M16A3. Straight away I went 24:6. Didnt change tactics or feel I was getting luckier or anything like that. Just ran at them, point and clicked - same as before. As support I got taken to the cleaners. As medic, I almost got the ace pin - certainly the most kills on my side at least.
Pretty revealing in my opinion.