Prebrief

After you start to play Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare® III for the first time, and continue to learn the finer points of the game, you should expect two basic improvements to your knowledge and competence:

·      Your skills at using and firing an increasing variety of weapons.

·      Your ability to perform advanced tactics beyond just the basics.

Though we can’t promise you that you’ll become one of the world-class Call of Duty players after following this guide, we aim to provide you with all the tools you need to move effectively, fire your weaponry successfully, and provide context and information so you can perfect your Loadout creations that cater to your preferred style of gameplay.

Firing

Intel Card — Firing

Intel Card — Firing Stances

Firing — The Basics

When entering your first multiplayer match, the very first plan is knowing how to effectively move around, both generally and within a specific map, as you rush from your spawn point. For information on getting started in this arena, check out the Movement Guide. Then continue to read on about the three main ways you can fire your weapon:

Here are the basics of how to successfully use your Primary and Secondary weapons, which constitute part of your Loadout:

Firing from the hip (Hipfire) – The most inaccurate method of shooting of the three available methods, but if your target is at close range, it is fast (as you can fire almost instantly without the need to aim down sights), and the results can be very effective.

Aiming down sights (ADS) - The most accurate method of firing on your target, but the downside is the time it takes to pull your weapon up to your Operator’s eye-level in order to ADS. Another minor downside is the fact that much of your screen is taken up by your sight when you ADS which can obscure anything you might have seen in your peripheral vision while not in ADS.

Tac-Stance – New to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, Tac-Stance is an excellent middle ground between Hipfire and ADS. Also see the Movement Guide for how to toggle Tac-Stance on and off. If you want to pull your weapon up, but don’t need your sight or don’t quite have the time to look down the sight, Tac-Stance is perfect for these kinds of situations.

Once Tac-Stance is toggled on for a weapon, it will stay toggled until you toggle it back off or change loadouts. This is an important note because it means using Tac-Stance and increasing your knowledge on when to use it will increase your effectiveness against your opponents, greatly. For example, in a situation where you are taking fire from the enemy of unknown location; move out of danger then, while attempting to find safety you know that you’re still in the same stance. This means that if an unexpected enemy comes flying out of nowhere, you’ll be ready to fight back.

You can also toggle Tac-Stance as you transition into a slide. So, if you need to keep moving because it’s not safe to stop, try sliding and toggling to the stance that you want to be. This is a bit of an advanced maneuver, but it will come in handy if you practice it.

There are so many strengths to the new feature that is Tac-Stance. Important note, there is still an accuracy penalty to firing from Tac-Stance. It is more accurate than Hipfire, but less so than ADS. However, being able to toggle this feature on and off, even while sliding, you have even more capability of being able to use your skills at different ranges on an even deeper level.

Firing — Advanced Tactics

When you feel that you’re adept in the three main basic methods of firing a weapon, you should utilize any or all of the following advanced tactics, which add more incremental (but important) benefits to your gameplay.

Intel Card — Advanced Firing Tactics

Firing — Underwater Engagements

Operators who fire their weapons into, within, or out of water will find that the increased density will affect their projectile’s flight path.

In these scenarios, your weapon’s aim may need to be slightly off target, depending how deep you or the enemy is underwater. Increasing a weapon’s Bullet Velocity via attachments will dampen the water’s effects on the projectile’s speed, but only slightly.

When underwater, it may be a better idea to surface temporarily so that accurate fire or a well-timed equipment throw can take place, rather than working against the flow of a denser medium.

Audio Cues and Non-Visible Information

Intel Card — Audio Cues

Arguably the most important skill other than being able to shoot your weapon accurately, or in some cases even more important, is listening. Before loading into your first match, go to the Audio Settings and adjust the Master Volume so that it works best for your audio system. By default, the audio mix is set very well for any standard system, but it’s always best to double check them against yours. If you’re easily overwhelmed by too many sounds coming at you all at once, try turning down Dialogue Volume OR Effects Volume. Don’t turn them off, but turning one of them down can help you focus on the other. For those that are hearing impaired, there are a group of accessibility options that can help in the audio department, as well.

As mentioned, listening is very much a skill. Even if you can hear everything that is happening around your location in a match, it is not the same thing as listening to those sounds and using them to your advantage. Utilize the Bone Conduction Gear to gain an even bigger advantage toward using sound cues. Dampening combat noise goes a long way in gathering information that could favorably increase your Kill/Death/Assist ratio and help your team win.

Some of the major audio cues to listen for are footsteps, gunshots, and enemy players placing equipment. Gunshots are the most obvious sound in Call of Duty, followed by footsteps, and then equipment placing.

Starting with gunshots, they may be obvious to the ear when you’re hearing them, but what’s important about listening is being able to tell which direction they’re coming from and, paired with some visual elements, being able tell what they’re shooting. For example, if you hear some shooting and it sounds like they’re shooting toward you from the other side of your cover, take a quick look at your peripherals and see if there are bullet holes in front or around you. With the information you gather in these couple of seconds, you can tell whether moving forward is a good idea and not into their line of fire. Otherwise, making the decision to retreat and find another route is likely the more survivable option.

Footsteps, a sound that can be a player’s greatest tool to leveling up their skill in Call of Duty. Experienced players will often tell you that the minimap is the most important tool in your arsenal, which is why they will often recommend that new players equip a UAV as one of their killstreaks. The UAV scans the map and will ping enemy players on the minimap with a red dot. However, one of the biggest problems that new players run into is relying so much on looking at the minimap, they often forget to look at what’s right in front of them. So, how do you use the most useful tool on your HUD without getting too distracted? You use footstep audio to clue you in on whether you need to be looking at your minimap or not. This isn’t a tip that can be used 100% of the time, but it is something to practice so that the habit of staring too long at the minimap isn’t the cause of a K/D/A you are unhappy with.

Finally, players placing equipment; namely claymores, deployable cover, inflatable decoys, and the like. They all make sounds and they’re not the easiest thing in the game to hear, but listening for them as you round corners or as you set up and wait for enemies to come swinging through a doorway will clue you in on an enemy that’s operating dangerously close. A prime example of when it is important to listen for equipment is when you’re chasing an enemy into an objective like a hardpoint. Especially if you hit them a few times and they’re hurt, they will know you’re coming in right behind them, so the best tactic for them is to set up a claymore as soon as they’re out of your crosshairs. It doesn’t mean you will hear it, especially if there is some distance, but if you do hear that claymore being placed you know that you’ll need to destroy it before entering the objective. Listening to cues like this, or using defensive Loadout items, will increase your odds-on winning fights because the enemy’s advantage will be taken away from them.

Strafing and Circle-Strafing

Very simply, strafing is when you move your Operator left and right without dramatically changing where you’re aiming. Not so simply, knowing when to strafe is a bit more advanced. Strafing is slower than your forward movement, but it gives an advantage toward you not being such an easy target. Your main purpose for strafing is to become a difficult target while shooting at your opponent. Secondarily, strafing can give you a new angle on what you’re shooting at while keeping your weapon trained on the target. Keep in mind that when you’re moving, in any direction, you are suffering a slight accuracy penalty. So, if your target hasn’t spotted you yet, don’t strafe until they do indeed see you. But when they do, start strafing.

Strafing across doorways or small openings is often the best strategy while clearing an area. It allows you to continue covering that area with your weapon ready to shoot at any enemy you spot, while also making it harder for someone else to hit you. For a more advanced tactic to strafing, try strafing left and right in a non-uniform fashion to become an even harder target to hit and don’t forget to use Tac-Stance when you can.

Then, there is something called circle-strafing. Circle-strafing is a similar concept to strafing, the only difference is that you do it while centering your crosshairs on a specific point and moving in the shape of an arc or semi-circle. The point you’re focused on could be an enemy, it could be a doorway, or a specific area where you’re pretty sure an enemy is about to pop into view. For example, if you spot an enemy dipping into cover, you can circle-strafe the spot you think they’re going to pop out of so that you are not waiting for them. This strategy also uses aggression to attack while at the same time not acting recklessly.

Pre-aiming and leading shots

Pre-aiming, the art of seeming like you know exactly where the enemy is going to be before they’re actually there. You may not actually know that the enemy is going to be in the position you’re aiming, but the better you get, and the more your instincts are honed the more often you will be correct in this prediction. A good player hits their target, a great player predicts where their target is going to be and then hits their target.

Pre-aiming is an advanced skill that comes in clutch for almost every first-person shooter on the market, but because of the high-octane action of Call of Duty®, pre-aiming is essential when ascending to the top of the scoreboard. Remember to use audio queues and UAVs to know where to pre-aim, especially if your opponent close to your position.

The important part about pre-aiming is knowing where to aim as an enemy reveals themself. Additionally, aiming at a target which is either not there yet, or on the move, also requires a bit of leading as you fire on the target. A good rule of thumb is that if you’re playing on a multiplayer 6v6 map, there won’t be significant enough bullet travel to worry about leading your target, but bullet velocity builds can make a difference when firing at players from distance. Additionally, while playing Ground War or Call of Duty: Warzone, you always want to lead your shot because if you don’t you will miss.

Targeting Operator Body Parts (Headshots)

When firing your weapon, the primary purpose is to simply hit your target. Most of the time, if you’re making contact with your opponent, there’s a good chance you’ll eliminate them. However, there are bonus multipliers to the damage you do when hitting different parts of the body. The important part to focus on is the head of the enemy Operator.

Headshots provide such a bonus to damaging your opponent that it may surprise you how fast you can eliminate enemy players by hitting them in the head. With most weapons, headshots are not a one-hit kill but it will require far fewer rounds to the head than it would to the body. If you’re able to hit a mixture of head and body, that’s good too. The caveat to headshots is that the head hitbox on all Operators is the smallest hitbox available. Being able to fire and hit the head of your target is difficult, but practicing doing so will increase your success-rate, noticeably.

One of the easiest tricks to practice, which in turn will help you with landing headshots, is to constantly be aiming at head-height even when there is no enemy visible. There’s no better way to prepare to hit headshots than already be aiming at the proper height. As you traverse each of the 6v6 multiplayer maps, practice looking for landmarks or identifying architectural marks on walls and objects that can help you line up the correct sightlines allowing you to target headshots more effectively.

Taking Cover

Cover is one of the most available defenses to all players no matter their loadout. Especially because of the ability to slide and dive, being aware of where the closest cover is, at all times, one way to be playing defense when playing Call of Duty. Time to Kill, or TTK, is balanced in a way in the game so that unless the player shooting at you hits you with extremely high accuracy, you have a chance to escape to a close piece of soft or hard cover. Likely, you won’t have a ton of time to escape an enemy who is already firing effectively at you, but in the many cases where you can get away, use cover as protection while you reset and prepare for them to push in front of your crosshairs, giving you a fighting chance.

When you’re not getting shot at, it’s generally a good practice to always have something covering your back. Teammates are normally a great option to cover your back, but it’s unlikely that this will always be an option. When holding an angle or covering an objective, try placing yourself in a position where your field of view is the only area of your Operator’s view that is not obscured by an object. Deployable cover is a great way to make cover where there is none, or building a barricade in War mode is useful when you are normally exposed.

Mounting

Mounting is a feature in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare® III that enables you to physically mount your weapon on a surface. Players who love to run and gun likely won’t use this feature too often, but for those that love setting traps for their opponents mounting can be a key strategy. While mounting, recoil is virtually non-existent, and your accuracy shoots up tremendously. Mount your weapon only when you are purposely setting up for a strategy. Mounting in an intensely mobile engagement will likely be your demise.

There are some drawbacks to mounting your weapon but as long as you’re aware of them, it’s pretty easy to avoid being held back by these negatives. As you may be able to guess, mounting your weapon to a wall or object locks you into place. In order to unmount, all you need to do is move your Operator, release the ADS button, or click the unmount button/key again. You’re also locked into a small turning arc, which means setting up on the appropriate location is important.

When mounting be sure to protect your back. Either have something obscuring your Operator from behind or setup some equipment, like a Claymore or Proximity Mine. The best situations to use the mounting feature are most often when you are utilizing teamwork with your teammates. Because your mobility is greatly hindered, having someone watching your back is a great way to combat this drawback. Core Multiplayer maps like Favela and Terminal have great sightlines that work very well for mounting and holding powerful angles.

Drop Shotting (with/without Slide)

Diving and going prone are the primary methods for drop shotting and even though both methods end up in the same position, you would use them for different situations. Diving can only be accomplished while your Operator is in a sprint or Tac Sprint. The distance in which you sprint does not matter, so if you wish to dive, simply engage in a sprint and as soon as you know that you’re sprinting, hold the ‘crouch’ button while using a controller or tap the ‘prone’ button on PC. Remember that when you dive, you will suffer a noticeable accuracy penalty so hitting your target can be difficult, but diving makes it more difficult for the enemy to hit you. The alternative is standing or walking and changing your stance directly to prone with the same button combination. Dropping straight to prone without diving makes you a slightly easier target to hit for experienced players, but still more difficult than just standing in place. You will still suffer an accuracy penalty, but it is a lesser one.

Another version of drop shotting is shooting while sliding. Now in MWIII, shooting while sliding is a more viable method of drop shotting. In many cases, as long the weapon you have equipped allows it, while your operator is in a full slide you will fire your weapon from Tac-Stance. Additionally, there is a Boots Perk that can be added to your Loadout that allows full ADS while sliding. Drop shotting into a slide is a tactic worth practicing, especially while using SMGs and shotguns. Being able to slide while getting shot at and hitting your target is a high skill tactic that can really improve any players performance.

Quick Scoping

Quick scoping is defined not only by using ADS to look down your scope, but also firing at a very specific point in the ADS animation. Quick scoping is a strategy that involves using a high-powered rifle, preferably a sniper rifle. What makes this a strategy, that has become a staple in the Call of Duty franchise, an advanced tactic is due to how difficult it is for newer players.

Quick scoping sounds simple, and with a bit of practice it can feel that way, but learning the timing will require some reps. There is a specific point after you hit the ADS button/trigger/key that will shift a weapon from having a large accuracy spread to an almost perfect accuracy point. The key to knowing how early you can fire your weapon for this near perfect accuracy is by keeping your eye on the crosshairs in the middle of your screen. As you run around in-game, you’ll notice your crosshairs bloom in and out. Moving and hipfiring grants you the largest accuracy penalty, whereas full ADS and standing still grants you the highest accuracy that your current weapon can achieve. So, utilizing a Sniper Rifle class weapon, which has the highest damage per single shot other than Launchers is the main method of quick scoping.

Practice quick scoping by equipping a sniper rifle you feel comfortable with and attempting to eliminate enemy operators while not letting your rifle fully ADS. Equipping sights that do not have as much zoom as your standard sniper rifle scope, like a red dot, or a 4x sight like the HZ Clear Dot 4x Integrated Laser Optic will give you an even quicker scoping speed. But remember, equipping different sights to change the speed at which your operator aims down their sights can mess with your muscle memory and how you’ve timed the moment at which you are effectively quick scoping your targets. This tactic is highly effective when mastered, however mastering it is quite difficult.

Weapon Range

Every weapon in the game other than melee weapons will accomplish the job of eliminating your target at any range, however it is important to understand the effective weapon range of each weapon class and sometimes the weapon specifically. Generally, if you follow the basic break down of weapon class ranges described in the Weapons and Loadouts Guide, you will be the most efficient you can be in any given engagement.

Just because certain weapons may perform better at a specific range than others, this only means that, with the support of the Gunsmith, you can modify a weapon to perform a little better at its non-standard range. Not all weapons are able to be modified to a dramatically different effective range, but here are some attachments and Aftermarket Parts that you can quickly reference and swap to support your effectiveness as you complete challenges and win matches:

Assault Rifles

Aftermarket Parts

JAK Raven Kit (MCW — AR)

Versatile and modular, this .300 conversion of the MCW can be adopted to hit hard in nearly every combat scenario. This Kit is unlockable in the first weekly challenge post-launch.

JAK Heretic Carbine Kit (MTZ-762 — BR)

This powerful, 7.62 AR was crafted to deliver exceptional damage with moderate recoil.

Battle Rifles

Submachine Guns

Aftermarket Parts

Broodmother .45 Kit (WSP-9 — SMG)

A high-damage conversion kit that rides the line between SMG and AR with hard-hitting .45 Auto rounds.

Shotguns

Light Machine Guns

Aftermarket Parts

JAK Annihilator Bullpup Kit (Pulemyot 762 — LMG)

A modified, bullpup LMG that provides superior maneuverability while still delivering heavy and consistent fire.

Marksman Rifles

Sniper Rifles

Pistols

Aftermarket Parts

XRP IP-V2 Conversion Barrel (COR-45 — Handgun)

This carbine conversion kit for the COR-45 allows for optics and underbarrel attachments. It also introduces binary fire which effectively double the fire rate.

JAK Ferocity Carbine Kit (Renetti — Handgun)

This heavy carbine kit converts the Renetti pistol into a compact and maneuverable SMG. Allows for optics, stock, and underbarrel attachments.

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