Learning to Remember Your Pistol: Battlefield 4

Muzzle flash of the M412 REX revolver in Battlefield 4

If you’re just beginning in the Battlefield series of games you’ve quickly realized there are a dozen main skills to master, and perhaps hundreds of lesser skills that still important.  It it’s difficult to impossible to work on even half of them at one time. So I’ve been working on concentrating on one or two during a match.  One of those skills I need to work on is really obvious, but you still need to consciously think about it in order to become a better player.  

The skill I am focusing on today is drawing my secondary weapon when needed.  I know it’s obvious, but when you are using a primary weapon 95% of the time it’s easy to forget the side arm in the beginning.  First off the main reasons to use a side arm are when your primary magazine is empty or very low and there are enemies in close proximity.   You need the side arm to take out these guys before they kill you.  Another reason to use the side arm is to take out unsuspecting players lying prone and vulnerable to attack.  This saves ammunition in the primary, and if you have a silenced pistol, you’ll stay off the mini-map.  The third main reason is you completely run out of ammo for the primary and need a means  defending yourself until you can pick up a weapon or find a support class to refill your supply.

So how do I go about concentrating on using a secondary weapon?  Well I’ve devised a few ways that will help, not every method will help everyone, but I hope you find one of these helps you.  

1. Play as a sniper with a bolt action.  If you do, you’ll quickly and instinctively start drawing your pistol anytime you head into a building or area with lots of cover where enemies can hide.  If you don’t you’ll be very unlikely to win many firefights in close quarters with a bolt action rifle.  I find this to be the best method for myself, and it seems to rub off when I play the other classes.  
2. Spend at least one match thinking about your side arm.   It sounds dumb, but just focusing on one aspect of gameplay in a match or series of matches will begin to stay with you and become second nature. Put a post-it note on your screen that says pistol.  
3. The next are sort of companions to #2.  As soon as you run out of ammo in your primary switch to your secondary, run through one magazine in it and switch back.  You could run a whole match with a pistol on a regular server, but you’ll be outgunned the whole time, especially if you are a novice, and you will find it very frustrating.

So there are a few tips, I hope you have found them helpful I know I have while I’m working my way up through the ranks in Battlefield 4.  Also remember if you never use your pistol you won’t unlock new pistols, or attachments that might better fit your play style. Not to mention you worked hard to complete those funky assignments so you could unlock the SW40, Unica, and Deagle.

The G18 pistol outfitted with a suppressor, a Battlefield 4 favorite pistol.