I’ll comment on my experience getting Dark Matter. I got it a bit before I hit 6th prestige. I play on console, so my experiences might not apply to PC. My biggest tip for getting headshots is to play Touch Football except for snipers, where I recommended playing
Chaos Moshpit Nuk3town 24/7. Most of the guns in this game feel okay, neither strong nor weak. In other words, it’s a Treyarch game.
Assault Rifles
KN-44 – 505 Kills – 2.12 K/D – 22% Accuracy - I have mixed feelings about this gun. Its major weakness is its recoil, but outside of that It is a great gun. I probably needed to treat it more like an SMG than an AR, but I do plan on using the weapon.
XR-2 – 365 Kills – 2.27 K/D – 27% Accuracy - This gun is great when I am accurate, and bad when I am not. It struggles in short range because of the burst delay, but it is a solid gun.
HVK-30 – 429 Kills – 2.08 K/D – 22% Accuracy - Initially, I liked the gun, but after using it for a while I started to dislike it. I seem to have problems past close range due to the recoil. At close range it’s not bad, but I think the KN-44 is the better close-range AR.
ICR-1 – 429 Kills – 2.19 K/D – 26% Accuracy - I really wanted to like this gun, but the slow RoF and low damage cause me to lose more gunfights than I am comfortable with. It’s a good gun, but not a great gun.
Man-O-War – 698 Kills – 2.71 K/D – 23% Accuracy - This is my favorite Auto-AR. Low RoF, somewhat low recoil, and high damage make this weapon a monster in the right hands. It suits my playstyle well, and will defiantly be on a permanent class (barring any changes).
Sheiva – 443 Kills – 2.43 K/D – 31% Accuracy - I am sucker for semi-auto ARs, even when they are not that strong. The Sheiva has good damage and good range, but a terrible RoF. I liked using the weapon, as the 1 HS kill with High Caliber was very fun. I probably won’t be using it that much because of the RoF, but if that gets changed it could be my favorite gun in the game.
M8A7 – 696 Kills – 3.21 K/D – 32% Accuracy - I used this gun with the buffed RoF, and have not used it since the nerf, so that will bias my experience. When it was buffed, it was the best weapon in the game for me. I could challenge anyone at nearly any range and come out on top. The one-burst range on this weapon is insane and it can easily follow up with a second burst if needed. This was one of the few weapons I got all the Headshot in Core with.
SMGsKuda – 804 Kills – 2.28 K/D – 26% Accuracy - I haven’t made up my mind on the Kuda. Sometimes it feels like an amazing weapon, something a MP5 from a previous game. Other games it feels like an average, uninteresting SMG. I will be using this gun more now to figure out which one it is.
VMP – 624 Kills – 2.68 K/D – 23% Accuracy - This smg is REALLY good. It shreds people up close and the recoil is just enough to allow some midrange kills. I used it after the nerf and my only though was: It used to be better? One of my top guns easily.
Weevil – 398 K/D – 2.74 K/D – 20% Accuracy - I found this gun to be good, but uninteresting. It’s a strong weapon, but it didn’t really give me a reason to use it again. I see complaints about it being unpowered, but I am not so sure. It has my highest K/D of any SMG, and of any full auto in general.
Vesper – 409 Kills – 1.68 K/D – 21% Accuracy - This is the supposed “God Gun” of the game, and it was underwhelming to me. It dominates close range 1 on 1s, but beyond that it is weak. I especially dislike how often I need to reload. Even with extended mags I could only expect to get 2 kills per mag. I haven’t used it since the nerf, and I’m not sure I want to.
Pharo – 528 Kills – 2.29 K/D – 25% Accuracy - I really wanted to use and love this weapon. The Chicom from BO2 is one of my all-time favorite weapons. unfortunately, my experience with this weapon was nowhere close to that. The recoil of the burst makes it very inconsistent, and I thus I had to use a grip, on a burst weapon. However, I will give the weapon another try, and I hope I can change my opinion of it.
Razorback – 470 Kills – 2.3 K/D – 24% Accuracy - The strength of this gun is the low recoil, but just like the ICR the TTK is so slow that I feel like I lose too often with this gun. Even after it was buffed it still felt a bit too weak to be a top gun. It might be for the best, as if it was better it could dominate the game like it did the beta, or how other low-recoils smgs have dominated previous games. It’s not terrible, but it’s not good either.
ShotgunsI am going to start off by saying that I do not like any of the shotguns in this game. I don’t like that with some of them a point-blank shot is not enough to kill. It’s a little ridiculous. They made the camo challenge headshots … for shotguns. That alone gives an indication of the strength of the guns.
KRM-262 – 230 Kills – 1.45 K/D – 97% Accuracy - It’s a fairly weak pump shotgun. Not much to say. Probably won’t use it again.
205 Brecci – 337 Kills – 2.19 K/D – 110% Accuracy (?) - It’s an okay weapon, but I was never able to gun down more than one person in front of me at a time. It has a weak shot with a decent fire-rate, so I recommend trying to surprise enemies with it rather than running at them.
Haymaker 12 – 297 Kills – 1.73 K/D – 148% Accuracy () - This shotgun is okay, but again very weak. Interestingly I got the most hate mail while using this weapon, even though it’s not that good.
Argus – 265 Kills – 1.39 K/D – 125% Accuracy (??) - Similar story with the Pharo. I was really hoping this would like the KSG from BO2. The hip-fire is much better, but the ADS is much worse. The one-shot range of this gun is pitiful compared to the KSG. It feels very inconsistent and weak. I doubt I will return to this weapon.
LMGsBRM – 291 Kills – 2.12 K/D – 18% Accuracy - This seems to be a slightly above-average LMG. Somewhat high damage and somewhat low RoF make this everything I expected it to be. Nothing more, nothing less.
Dingo – 304 Kills – 2.45 K/D – 19% Accuracy - This seemed to be an average lmg. I had no trouble using the LMG, but there wasn’t anything special about it. Probably won’t use it again.
Gorgon – 459 Kills – 2.24 K/D – 23% Accuracy - A fully-auto 2 shot ranged weapon is very impressive. It’s a very powerful gun at locking down a certain area of the map, but it is very weak outside of that. It slow RoF makes accuracy very important, and the low mag count and slow reloads make it a bad aggressive weapon. It’s a cool idea, but its not the most competitive weapon
48 Dredge – 523 Kills – 2.15 K/D – 24% Accuracy - This gun is very powerful and is probably the best LMG. Fairly consistent weapon. I was surprised how strong a burst-fire LMG is.
SnipersNote: I play on console where these weapons have little to no aim assist. I suspect that these weapons are much stronger on PC because there is no aim assist in the first place.
Drakon – 266 Kills – 1.94% K/D – 23% Accuracy - A very strong weapon, only held back by its aiming. I would suspect that it is one of the strongest weapons on PC because it lacks this limitation. It has high damage, a high rate of fire, and a high magazine capacity. What more do you need?
Locus – 301 Kills – 1.88 K/D – 48% Accuracy - This seemed to be an average bolt sniper, not much to say.
P-06 – 258 Kills – 2.87 K/D – 27% Accuracy - A burst fire sniper was a very weird concept, but I actually found the P-06 to be my favorite sniper. No hitmarkers. This will be my default sniper for sure.
SVG-100 – 220 Kills – 1.76 K/D – 45% Accuracy - I dislike this weapon very much. It has a cool rechambering animation, but nothing beyond that. The RoF on this weapon is abysmal and it gets as many hitmarkers as the Locus. Why use this weapon when you can use the Locus or the P-06?
SecondariesMR6 – 425 Kills – 2.59 K/D – 30% Accuracy - The only pistol I like in this game. Good damage, good RoF, and good clip size make it a solid backup weapon.
RK5 – 373 Kills – 1.81 K/D – 40% Accuracy - I see this gun compared to the B23R from BO2, but it is much weaker than that. I don’t think I will ever use this weapon again.
L-Car 9 – 279 Kills – 1.81 K/D – 19% Accuracy - Similar story to the RK5. Incredibly weak pistol, and I needed to reload nearly every kill. This was, without a doubt, my most difficult weapon to get gold. Terrible weapon.
XM-53 - 17 Kills - Not much to say. Destroy streaks, then destroy more streaks. Easy.
Blackcell – 3 Kills (!) - See XM-53.
Combat Knife – 262 Kills – 1.94 K/D (!) - I thought this weapon would be very difficult to get gold. It actually turned out to be fairly easy. I played Kill Confirmed and played the maps smart to get close and stab enemies. This gun has almost no lunge, and does not move faster than normal speed. The way to compensate for this is to slide. Slide, slide, slide. It gets you to them quicker and makes you more difficult to hit. I will never use this weapon again.
You are my bro, bro.