Perks

Here are the Call of Duty 4 perks and what they do. Check out our forums to discuss perks and their usefulness.

C4 X2
C4 is a perfect perk for objective game types such as Search and Destroy where you can set traps for your enemy, for faster paced games like Free For All, (Deathmatch) you can lead your target towards you and blow them up with well placed C4. Use your UAV for C4 kills.

Lay down the C4 and set it off whenever you deem necessary, big explosion will generate kills. Definitely a nice perk, C4 is dark colored and can really only be seen by the blinking light. So it's hard to see and is also remotely detonated. A lesser known trick: you don’t have to click the controller to detonate it. Press your reload button twice consecutively to set it off without the controller. Also, if a teammate has some claymores laid down, here’s a cool trick: put C4 next to their claymores, and when their claymores go off so will your C4, making a bigger explosion and possibly your C4 kill! This is great to put in the middle of a mob of people, wait till they’re right over it, and watch the corpses go flying. Also great for objective games: Put the C4 right beside the objective, and when someone is capturing or planting or whatever, set it off. Put it beside cars too for a bigger explosion radius! C4 is available by default.

Special Grenades X3
Gives the player two more of the special grenade of choice (Flash or Stun, no smoke. (Thanks to Grade Zero for the correction). In turn giving the player a maximum of 3 special grenades.

I don’t use special grenades much. Many however love special grenades, they render your opponent useless. Think about it: You start off, zero kills. You see an enemy. You chuck out a stun, it does some damage, they can’t turn around, line up for a headshot. Perform the same two more times, you have 3 headshots and a UAV, congratulations. This will work for any special grenade, except you’re not allowed to have three smokes (bummer…). The Special Grenade x3 is available by default.

RPG X2
Two rocket propelled grenades. This is great for taking down a helicopter obviously, but can also be used to clear a room of enemies. Just make sure you switch back to your primary weapon quickly!

When I first went prestige, I gave all of my classes RPG’s. If a chopper comes along, no worries. If you have a long range situation on your hands and you have an SMG, no worries. If someone’s hiding behind a wall, and your shotgun can’t penetrate it, no worries. If there’s a crowd of people and you just don’t have the ammo for all of them? No worries. A great perk, just don’t overuse it to the point where it’s all you use and people are calling you a noob. Also, look for cars! Makes a much bigger boom, easier to get kills that way. If someone is ducking behind a car, fire your RPG and laugh as their corpse goes flying in the air in the midst of twisted metal and broken glass. This is great for taking down choppers. If you don’t favor this class, but want to have an anti-chopper class, remember: The default demolitions class has an RPG in it, as well as sonic boom! So then you won’t have to give up your perk 1 for any of your custom classes. The RPG x2 perk is available by default.

Claymore X2
These are great as a sniper, or a camper. If you go inside a building, make sure you put a claymore near the door, so that if someone decides to come in and take you out, they will die. Also, always make sure you place it so that others cannot see the red laser as well, because you can shoot claymores and destroy them easily if you spot them. Another tip is always set up your claymore for maximum area of effect damage.

They are set off when someone crosses in front of the tracer lights. Tracer lights emit from the front of them, making them possible to spot by the enemy, but if they don’t see them or if they’re sprinting, they’re screwed over. I’d recommend this for campers only, as they disappear when you die and they are stationary. The enemy does have time to sprint past it and out of the blast range, but let’s say you’re camping on the stairs above. You will hear the click and the boom, look for a kill, then you can get to a corner of the room and be ready for them when they come in. Good placement is at the top of stairs or right behind walls, don’t put them in the entrance to the doorway as they are easy to spot. Grass is also a good place for them. Even try putting them beside cars sometime, the explosion radius greatly increases, there’s no chance of escaping from a car explosion as well as a claymore explosion. Claymore X 2 is available at level 23. (Thanks Grade Zero)

Frag X3
This has to be the most annoying perk out of all of them! With this, if you are experienced as a grenade thrower, you are guaranteed at least a kill every time you spawn. Just remember to save them for when you see a bunch of red dots on the UAV. Then chuck all 3, and watch your name light up on the scoreboard.

Gives you 3 fragmentation grenades instead of the previous 1. If you are assaulting and you have reached the level to unlock this perk, and ammo isn’t a problem, this perk is great. You lost your first grenade? Don’t worry, you have two more. You want to randomly spam them and hope for a kill seeing as you find they have no purpose otherwise? You now have three more chances for that random kill, well done, mate. Probably not the best for a camping class, though. Look for cars and other explosives, they can increase your chance for a kill with their huge explosion radius. The Frag x3 perk is unlocked at level 41 - Colonel 1

Bandoiler
Gives you up to three times more ammo. My favorite perk 1. I am constantly running out of ammo with assault rifles and SMG’s, the other three weapon types don’t have that problem. The M4 is my favorite gun but it tends to be spray-friendly, so this perk fixes it right up. I would recommend this for SMG’s and Assault rifles only though, as snipers, shotguns, and LMG’s come with plenty at the start. The Bandolier perk is unlocked at Level 32, Captain 1.

Bomb Squad
Allows you to see enemy explosive devices with a skull icon above them. Underrated, not the best perk for most classes but for stealth it is golden. If you want no chance of being detected, this perk will save you. Plus maybe you’re walking past a building with explosives in it, that’s a key that there’s probably a sniper on the roof. Spray the wall, destroy the claymore, and have at that sniper. You earned your shot, take it.Unlocked at Level 14, Staff Sargeant 1

Stopping Power
Increases weapon damage to 140%, however no increase in wall penetration. This is a great perk to use together with accurate guns that don't do much damage.

For guns with low damage such as the M4 this is a great perk, eliminates juggernaut and to everyone who’s not using juggernaut it just does 40% more bullet damage. Does not increase surface penetration, by definition, but think about this. Let’s say a bullet does 40 damage normally, and after surface penetration does 30. With stopping power, it might do 60 damage normally, but after surface penetration it does 45 or so. So not by definition, but indirectly it increases surface penetration. Stopping Power is available by default.

Juggernaut
Increases your health, taking 75% of the damage from bullets and explosives that is to be originally dealt. If a soldier with Juggernaut is fired upon from a player using Stopping Power, the game calculates it as a perkless fight. Also if a person with Sonic Boom throws a grenade next to someone with Juggernaut, the person with Juggernaut will take regular explosive damage, instead of the increased explosive damage from the Sonic Boom user. This perk is great to use when you like to lay down some cover fire for your teammates. You can keep firing and take a few shots while your teammates get to where they need to go. How to tell if someone has Juggernaut - When you fire at someone and you see a red cross, it means they are using the juggernaut perk.Juggernaut is available by default.

Sleight of Hand
Allows reloads at 50% of the original reload time. This perk is great for machine gun users, since it takes a very long time to reload guns like the M60 or the M249 Saw. It is also great for anyone that likes to stay in the heat of battle and reload quickly without having to duck for cover, just to reload.

For pistols it looks like the clip just falls out of the gun and another is crammed in. Probably only a good choice for LMG’s and shotguns, as everything else can benefit more from a different perk 2 usually. Its main use is hardcore, when bullets are 1 or 2 hit kills perk 2 can be kind of useless, so why NOT reload faster? It’s a pretty good deal. Sleight of Hand is unlocked at Level 20, Master Sargeant 1

Double Tap
Increases your rate of fire to 135%. Put more rounds down range quicker with increased rate of fire on any weapon you have, including your pistol. This perk is ideal for indoor fighting as you do not have to compensate for recoil as much, and can just spray doorways and rooms extremely fast. Warning, although you do fire faster, you waste more ammo and are less accurate if you fire too fast, so you will have to watch the recoil even more with this perk.

Let’s say your gun fires 5 bullets a second, it will now fire 2 more a second (well really 1.75 more a second, but it rounds up to 2, if you want hardcore numbers it's 135% of the normal firing speed). Your clip is emptied faster, but will definitely take down enemies in short order. The epic battle between double tap and stopping power. Here’s how I see it: If you like to get more metal out there and your guns fire rate is bad, go double tap. If you want to make shots count and your fire rate is already decent, go stopping power. Double Tap is unlocked at Level 29, 1st Lieutenant 1

Overkill
Overkill allows the player to carry two primary weapons of their choice in the same loadout. The second primary weapon substitutes the pistol. Obviously this perk is great, twice the ammo, and two different guns to choose from. Pick one long range, and one short-medium range weapon and nobody will be able to stop you.

Overrated, I don’t recommend it. The best ways to use it are with a single shot assault rifle (G3 or M14) or with a sniper rifle. For single shot assault rifles, use them to camp, but also overkill them with a great gun for close quarters (skorpion is godly for this) and you’re covered all around. You can also assault with the single shot gun, then run up to close quarters to engage the rest with your other weapon. Snipers tend to like to use this perk with something like the G36C with red dot, something that’s got decent range and good power, and others like to use a purely close range weapon such as an SMG. I personally feel stopping power is a bigger asset to snipers, though, so they can get one hit kills. Overkill is unlocked at Level 38, Lt. Colonel 1

UAV Jammer
Allows you not to be seen on the enemies UAV sweep after they get a 3 kill streak. You will still be able to be seen if you fire a weapon unsilenced, however. Great for stealth and hardcore, mainly. Most guns benefit the most from double tap or stopping power to kill faster, but some people think their gun kills fast enough, but they are always getting slayed on UAV. With hardcore and such fast kills, UAV jammer is great. You’re killing people fast enough, so why do you need a killing perk? If you wanna stay off their scans and catch them off-guard as they’re heading to the red dot on their radar this perk is wonderful. Also, to be super stealthy, this will keep you safe. Unlocked at Level 11, Sargeant 1

Sonic Boom
Increases the damage dealt by explosives to 125%. Applies to Grenades and C4 as well as the Grenade Launcher.

While it greatly increases explosive range, the maximum explosives you have is two, unless you use overkill with two grenade launcher weapons, but then you can’t use perk 2 and therefore can’t use this perk. Anyhow, so with two explosives, yes while it’s a much bigger explosion and you will have a greater chance to kill people, this will take away a perfectly good perk 2, and after your explosives are gone, you have to fight with your guns raw power. Of course it also applies to grenades too, but you don’t want to have to rely on them. Great perk for completing some of the explosive kill challenges, like killing two people with one RPG, etc. Applies for ALL explosives (except for things like car explosions.) Sonic Boom is available by default.

Extreme Conditioning
Allows for extended sprinting time. Sprint time increased 200%. Great for combining with a ninja class, running around and knifing people in the back.

A great perk if you find no other use for Perk 3, sometimes you just need to sprint for that little longer bit of time…but you can’t, and sometimes you die because of it. This perk will fix all of that right up! Especially good for stealth classes to sprint across streets fast so no one will see you. Available by default.

Steady Aim
My personal favorite perk 3, this gives some of those guns that just can’t quite do it at close quarters more than a chance. Makes hip-fire 35% more accurate, which is very, very helpful. It also indirectly makes long ranged fights easier from the hip. Range is how far your bullet can travel before it loses maximum damage and starts to decline in its damage, so if you fire out of range it will take more bullets to kill. But with steady aim, the fire will be more concentrated, so more bullets will hit the enemy target. This works well for assault classes, mainly. Thus SMG’s, Assault rifles, LMG’s, shotguns, and even mobile snipers are all legit. The great thing about steady aim is that it renews the greatness of hipfire. When looking down the sights, some of the screen gets covered up by the gun and the gun’s sights, and also it’s a TON harder to move. But with steady aim, you get full mobility with all of the firepower as before. Less accurate than aiming down sights? Yes, but it’s accurate enough for close quarters. Available by default. (Thanks to killer for the fix.)

Last Stand
Allows you to drop the ground and pull out a side arm if you are about to die. Very effective if you are quick. A person wont realize that they did not kill you and you can finish them off before they start firing again.

When you are gunned down, you pull out your pistol and get a chance at one last kill before you die. Will not occur if you get headshot sniped or something fatal like that. Causes many to twitch, but it may just get you that kill that you deserved. They gun you down, and start to reload/sprint off. But you’re still alive. You have your pistol out, you pop them before they can realize it and you get yourself one last kill before you pass on. Actually sometimes can benefit you, say you’re about to capture an objective and you get gunned into last stand, you can now protect that objective as people come along. It’s like being prone, but even though you can’t stand or move around, you have full turning mobility. If you want to exit last stand you can hold down a certain pre-set button, or after a certain amount of time you will die automatically. So why does it cause people to twitch? Say you get gunned down and they leave before you can shoot. Now their teammate comes up and gets an easy kill on you, and the person who originally gunned you down who deserves the kill has to deal with an assist. Not a bad choice of a perk, but there are better. It all depends on your preferences and your class type. For a camper this is stupid, you’re behind a wall, isolated and you get sniped, you’re not just sitting behind the wall with nothing to shoot at. Unlocked at Level 8, Corporal 2

Martyrdom
Automatically drop a grenade right as you die in hopes of killing any enemies around your body at the time of death. Very effective if used in close combat indoors. Enemies will not have time to react and run away from your grenade right after killing you.

The grenade goes off 2.5 seconds after your death and when it spawns. It spawns on top of your dead body. For close quarters this perk is great and will earn you tons of kills, pointless at long range but at short range it’s great. Pisses many off, myself included, but it’s just a part of the game. You have to deal with it. Cheap, yes, as it requires no skill whatsoever. If you don’t care about cheap and just want kills, this is a great perk. But again, don’t use it for a camping class, as you will die and your corpse will explode in a mess of ashes which just makes you look dumb. Use it for perhaps an SMG or shotgun class, you know, close quarters situations. Martyrdom is unlocked at Level 17, Gunnery Sargeant 1

Deep Impact
Normally, a machine gun has the power shoot through wooden floors, plaster walls, and even some fairly thick stone walls, but a weapon like an M4 does not. Or not as much. Use this perk to be able to shoot through walls with any weapon. Using this perk I advise shooting at walls and seeing if you get a white crosshair pop up indicating you hit someone, if it does, keep firing at the wall and you will kill the enemy without ever even seeing them. Note: Deep Impact does not add to bullet damage, it only lessens the damage penalty of a bullet that goes through a wall or other barrier.

Another great perk, I love this one for camp sniping. If there’s people hiding from you behind walls, then they’re screwed, there’s no place to hide. Great for any class really, you don’t have to worry about turning that corner and being at the mercy of the people camping around it. Especially great for LMG’s, spray a wall and watch the kill count go up, up, up. This perk is available by default.

Iron Lungs
Increases the time a sniper can hold their breath while zoomed, to 8 heartbeats (200%) in-game. This should be every snipers favorite perk. (as oposed to the default 4 heartbeats).

Can only use for sniping, and even at that can only use when you are using the normal scope, as with the ACOG you don’t have to hold your breath. Normally you can hold your breath for four heartbeats, but with this perk you can hold for 8. I tend to find Deep Penetration more helpful than this perk. Usually this perk is only good if say, someone ducks behind a wall right before you shoot, so you stay steadied until they pop back out again. But with deep penetration you could just shoot straight through the wall. I don’t find this perk helpful in many situations, if I’m waiting for someone I just hold the scope close to around where they disappeared and I hold my breath for 3 heartbeats, let go, then hold again, let go…if you hold it for all 4 he spazzes out and you can’t hold again for like 10 seconds. Not advised by me, but many find it helpful, so if your personal preference suits it, then go right ahead. Unlocked at Level 26, 2nd Lieutenant 1

Dead Silence
Makes you silent when you move. Perfect for stealth, but only in tactical or small games. For instance, let’s say you’re in a cage match. You don’t want them to camp for you and wait until they hear your footsteps and own you, so you just creep up behind them and get a free knife/headshot/challenge, and woohoo! So in small games its helpful, but also in tactical games like search and destroy. There’s not much action in this game type, so people are listening for sounds. But in big games like team deathmatch with respawns it’s mass slaughter and no one is listening for your footsteps unless they are camping at the top of a flight of stairs or something, in which this perk would benefit you less often than another Perk 3. Unlocked at Level 44, Brigadier General 1

Eavesdrop
Allows you to overhear the enemy's voice chat within a 30 meter radius.

Pointless, don’t use it. The only thing good about it is that it only lets you hear nearby enemies speak, so you would know if someone is nearby. But that would only be if they were speaking, what if they didn’t have a mike, or it was turned off, or they just weren’t talking at the moment? Plus you would never hear anything important over their voice chat, it’s not like too many people plot out their entire attack plans over the chat. It’s ever so pointless, never use it except for fun perhaps. Unlocked at Level 35, Major 1

BakeR 15:37, 9 August 2009 (UTC)