Guest post by ReaperRy // March 19th, 2012
First things first. Anyone who read the title and thought,”Hey, this guy’s gonna give me some tips on boosting? Awesome!”, then you are sorely mistaken. This is for those of you that want to do it legit.
A quick look at my Elite page will show you I am in no way “1337”, but when it comes to CoD, I’ve put in enough hours to know a thing or two. So I’m here to give you the good word on how to boost the XP you earn per game.
Some of these might seem pretty damn obvious to the more experienced of you reading this. If you’re relatively new to the game however, then heed my words young Padawan, for I will show you the way…of the force…of duty, or something like that…
Challenges
Challenges are your friend. There’s over 2000 of them in MW3, all with juicy XP bonuses waiting for you upon completion. Make your way through as many of these as possible, especially the Basic Training and Operations challenges. These are relatively easy and while they don’t give a massive reward, every little helps. An addition to MW3 was the introduction of the Daily and Weekly challenges. These can give you a total of 36,000XP per week. Again this isn’t that much compared to what’s needed in the later levels, but just after prestiging these can prove to be rather helpful. Be sure to take on the ones that are easy for you to do and wouldn’t make you stray too far from your normal play styles.
Weapon challenges are something everyone is familiar with. It’s always satisfying to see the 10,000XP Marksman challenges pop up after your 1000th kill with that particular gun. Once you have prestiged for the first time, you open up the Veteran weapon challenges. These are identical to the Marksman challenges, yielding the same XP and they are achieved at the same amount of kills. This means that after your first prestige, the first time you earn 1000 kills with a weapon, you will get 20,000XP. 10,000XP for the Marksman challenge and 10,000XP for the Veteran challenge. Keep this in mind when building your classes, try to change up the guns you are using to maximise that XP. There are challenges available for every attachment and these will not only count towards your overall XP, but also towards your gun level as well. Make sure you cycle through all the attachments available for that weapon. It doesn’t take many kills to complete them and for weapons like the shotguns, that extra XP will help you reach the Holy Grail that is the Damage proficiency (oooooo, ahhhhh….). Secondary weapons are another gold mine of XP. The maximum level for a secondary is 10, but you still the 10,000XP for maxing the weapon level the same as you would for a primary. Cycling through the secondaries will earn you massive amounts of XP (especially Machine Pistols, as getting kills with these is a walk in the park).
One last tip. When you are at level 80 and about to prestige, be sure not to complete any Prestige or Veteran challenges. Many of these keep the same tally after prestiging, so completing them at this point (when you can’t earn any more XP) would be a waste.
Perks
With the exception of Blind Eye and Sitrep, the perk challenges aren’t too much of a hassle to complete. Most of them only require you get kills while using them, so be sure to cycle through them all. Scavenger (which doesn’t require kills specifically) is easy, just be sure to run over any of the blue ammo packs you see on the floor, even if you don’t need them. For Blast Shield and Recon, head over to Dropzone, more easy XP for you there. Some perks can be combined to reap more benefits than just XP, such as Hardline Pro and Recon (I touched on this in my previous article, so go check it out). After earning their Pro versions, use them to take on their own challenges.
Pointstreaks
The Assault Package is all about the kills and while a high kill-count does translate into more XP, there are easier ways to get those precious points. I’ll start by covering the Support Package.
The Support Package has its benefits. It does get abused in many game modes, every time I see an EMP in Free-For-All, I die a little inside (That’s a bit of an exaggeration, but so what? Sue me). But when it comes to gaining heaps of XP, the Support Package has its uses. Equip the following;[/left]
- UAV
- Ballistic Vests
- Recon Drone
The Specialist Package is probably the best route for gaining XP. After you get eight kills (seven with Hardline), you have the Specialist Bonus which will net you another 100XP for every 2nd kill you get. Along the way to your eight kills, everytime you earn a selected perk you will get another 100XP bonus. As if the Specialist Package couldn’t get any better, it also allows you to work on multiple perk challenges at once, as well as completing challenges for earning perks a certain number of times. So to sum up, the main highlights of the Specialist Package are:
- Specialist bonuses within your kill streaks
- Specialist challenges for earning perks
- Progressing through multiple perk challenges simultaneously
- UAV
- Care Package
- Predator Missile
Playlists/Game Types
There are many different games to play, each with its own pro’s and con’s. The game type you play can make a huge difference to your average score per minute, but it also depends on how confident you are in your own skill level. So with that being said, let’s first take a look at the game types bursting with XP…
Search and Destroy (cue thunder sound effects…). Now as I mentioned before, your confidence in your own abilities should be a deciding factor in the game you play. I’m not saying that you’ve got to be an “MLG Pro, 1337 Mothafucka” to do well in Search, but the kills are limited and you only get one life per round. So fuck it up and you’re gonna be sat with your thumb up your ass watching everyone else rape face (yep, that’s the image I wanted you to get). Search and Destroy boasts some huge XP portions, like, John Goodman size portions. All XP bonuses are x10 compared to Domination. So a kill nets you 500XP, a headshot will bag you 1000XP and taking down a chopper will have you laughing all the way to the bank with 3000XP.
FFA is one of my favourite game modes in Call of Duty. The score limit allows you to get a lot of kills, provided you are posting up in the top three. I jump in there when I want to level up a gun as fast as possible, as I’ve found that an average player can excel in FFA. But be sure to choose a “run and gun” setup, as many people use this tactic and you will get left behind on the scoreboard if you’re trying to snipe down the range.
I am a big fan of Kill Confirmed. I love that game, there’s XP lying about all over the shop. Even if you aren’t murdering fools left, right and centre, there’s still a part for you to play that will boost your XP. That part is The Tagman. You can pair up with a friend and go for the Spotter/Slayer combo (pop over to my Kill Confirmed guide which goes into more depth about these roles). Equip anything that will give you an edge when it comes to speed and run around picking up tags. Whoever got the kill will still get the XP themselves, so there’s no thievery going on here. If you were playing in a full party, confirming each others kills can effectively double the amount of XP you receive as a group.
Ground War! What is it good for?! Absolutely nothi… Actually, it is good for something. XP, that’s what. Ground War boasts 9 vs. 9 games of TDM, Kill Confirmed and Domination. More enemies means more kills, more air support to take down, more delicious XP, ripe for the taking…
I don’t want to go into the other games too much. Demolition and Capture the Flag can be great for XP if everyone’s on the same page when it comes to making the game last as long as possible. But if you, like me, enjoy playing the fucking objective, then these games won’t usually last long enough to reap substantial XP.
So there we have it. Keep these tips in mind when you’re building your classes and choosing your games. Before you know it you’ll be 10th Prestige. Women will go weak at the knees when you tell them the true extent of your sheer awesomeness….
Because that’s what women like, right? Guys who own at videogames? Anyone..?
