As mentioned in other threads, I think BF1 has by far the best class balance out of BF3,4 and 1. However I still get a niggling feeling whenever playing scout or support on infantry only maps that I could be doing better as a medic. This is never due to medic's primary weapons, decent though they are. It is due to the heal/ revive combo which manages to nullify so much enemy damage. It also generally makes other medic gadget choices redundant, thus hurting the class as a whole. It also makes for unsatisfying gameplay. This has been the case for several entries now.

BF3 was obviously plagued by M16 wielding bunny hopping medic blobs that were virtually unstoppable.

BF4 at least vaguely tried to weaken them by putting cooldowns on the paddles and making players charge it up to get a 100% revive

BF1 inexplicably ditched this in favor of continuous instant 100% revives and an almost endless "man-down" time.

It seems to me they could balance the medic out by implementeing one or more simple changes to the gadgets.

1. make healing and revives mutually exclusive. So now a player can't have the best of both worlds. This is rather extreme though.

2. Remove the ability to heal yourself. That way the medic is actually a class designed to support teammates instead of an anti-infantry powerhouse that can casually heal through mortar barrages and explosions without batting an eye.

3. Reduce "man-down" time significantly to prevent medics reviving entire squads after every engagment and make them act more urgently.

4. Make the 1-revive limit last your whole life, not just a short cooldown.

5. Tie ticket loss to player deaths, not respawns, so reviving allies in the middle of combat only for them to be insantly killed actually carries a downside. This would also mean that while teams that medic blob are still effective at rolling over flags, they are heavily penalized for doing so recklessly. This would also make other classes more attractive in modes like team deathmatch.

Now I'm not recommending all of these be added together, I'm more just looking for a solution to the same tired medic-centric meta that Battlefield keeps developing. Anyone else feel this way?

The suppression idea is great. I just think it would need to be clearly signposted, like maybe put a cross through the revive symbol on the medic's screen, otherwise people might just get confused and think the gadget is broken, making for unsatisfying gameplay.

I also agree that it may just be that many other gadgets are too weak to compete. I think scout really got it the worst in this entry. I still find it bizarre that trip mines aren't guaranteed kills. Considering in BF4 support could have 3 claymores and was able to endlessly resupply himself with more and they were 1hk almost 100% of the time, and even then they still couldn't really compete with heals/ paddles. Now scout has 2, they do bugger all to anyone who runs over them and he can't get more without a support around. They're also kinda wasted on a long range class. IMO they were always most useful when aggressively capping/ backcapping flags as they could e planted at obvious entrances to the flag to prevent defenders getting the drop on me. All scout can really use them for is securing his sniper position.

So maybe some gadgets just need buffing. I still think it would be easier to just tone down the healing and reviving gadgets rather than trying to buff anything else. We all know how much BF players whine when things like mines and mortars become "OP".