MW3 Improvement #12 Lethal and Tactical Equipment

OK, It's time for another addition of MW3 Improvements. Last week we did all of the secondary weapons and today we're doing lethal and tactical equipments. So, without further ado...

Lethal Equipment:

1.) Frag Grenades- These are one of the first two lethal equipments given to you and in my opinion, they are the best to use. Why? Because you have more control over them. This grenade has a little under a 4 second timer as soon as you pull it out. It takes a little over a second for it to leave your hand. It is a hard grenade, unlik the sticky and as such you can bounce it around doorways, off walls, through nooks and crannies etc to get guys you wouldn't normally have a chance at killing without exposing yourself and decreasing your ability to stay alive. An example of the way I like to use them is if I'm on one side of a doorway and I know an enemy is on the other side of the doorway camping it out waiting for me to come charging at him, I'll pull out my Frag, cook (I'll talk about this later) the grenade a bit and bounce it off the doorjam to his side of the door. Bye bye, buddy! Great thing is there's nothing he could do about it. OK, so you heard me mention cooking the grenade. Sometimes you want the grenade to go off as soon as it hits where you want it to go instead of just rolling around and having the 3 second timer go off. You do this by holding the grenade in your hand for 1, 2 or even 5, I mean 3 seconds, but never after 5, I mean 3. And easy way to time this os to watch your reticle when you have the grenade out in your hand. The reticle on your screen will begin pulsating in and out. Each one of these pulses is indicative of one second passing. So, just use that as an indicator of when you need to get rid of the grenade. So all this should tell you one thing. This weapon has versatility. And as I've told you before, I like versatility.

2.) Semtex Grenade- The Semtex grenade is a different animal than the frag. There is no cooking this weapon and no bouncing it off walls. This thing sticks to whatever it touches and stays there. Once it has stuck itself to whatever it has hit, the timer on it, which is about 2 seconds, begins. While I'm not a big fan of it, some people swear by it. I think this is because it is a throw and forget weapon. Generally the timer is quick enough to get a kill if you get it close enough to someone, but I like the ability to lesson the amount of warning someone has with the Frags and leave them with only 1 second. The one benefit of this weapon is it is a 1 hit kill on shield guys. Soit has that going for it.

3.) Throwing Knife- This is the silent, reusable killer. It takes some getting used to, but many people are very good with this 1 hit weapon. There are some tricks to know when using this thing though. It bounces off the ground, so aim low and you'll improve your odds of getting a kill. When you getthat kill, just run up to the body and grab your knife out of him and voila, you have retrieved your knife for later use. This is the only reuseable equipment, which is fitting because the thing is so hard to use in the first place. Stay away from it unless you're an uber god. Hell, I don't even use it.

4.) Bouncing Betty- This is a stationary equipment that pops up and sprays an amount of damage equivalent of a grenade at center mass level. This is one of two "stationary" equipments that can be thrown. Not only can you use this in a set position, but you can toss it at an opponent and have it activate right on top of them. A nice perk of the thing...But there's a catch... This weapon spread does not go down. These things are fairly easy to dodge (I rarely get killed by them anymore). All you need to do is go prone as fast as you can as soon as you hear the binnnggg sound it makes as it goes off. The explosion will go off above you and you'll be fine. Some tips for placing these things. Keep them outdoors. Inside they tend not to do as well because someone can cross a doorway, set them off, and still have time to run around a corner and live. Put them outside in crossways that have two or three paths intersecting there. As an example: A good place to put one would be on the map Resistance behind the magazine/candy shop where the pathways form a T shape. Stick it in the middle of the flat part and you might steal a kill or two with one blast there. All in all, I don't care for these things. I prefer the last two equipments over it anyday.

5.) Claymore- This is a stationary equipment that shoots its explosive off in a 40* directional manner. It is really good for guarding doorways, HQs, dom points and so on. This is the preferred equipment for hardcore players. There are some tips to remember when using this. When placing it, you want to hide the red lines from sight as much as possible. This means when you place it next to a doorway, you need to move it back so those red lines don't protrude into the doorway. That's a dead giveaway a claymore is there, and every time I see that I end up shooting it out of my way. Another tip is to angle it facing in just a tad. This is so the blast area can be maximized and your opponent has less time to try and run past it. I like these things and run with them exclusively in hardcore games.

6.) C4- This is the most powerful explosive equipment. The blast radius is larger and more powerful than either of the grenades or a betty. many people believe for this to be useful they have to place them on an area and wait for someone to run into it. Not so. They can be used like mini-grenades. They can't be thrown as far, but the only limit on how quick they explode is how quick you can activate them. Take the semtex for instance. No matter how you throw it, the timer will never be less than 2 seconds. The C4 can be as quick as a quarter of a second. This makes it impossible for your enemy to get away from it. Some tips on using it...toss it over walls (like in hardhat)...throw it on dom points with people gathering on them...if you want to wait for someone, place it on the ceiling or a wall (9 times out of 10 no one looks there) and then blast them. This equipment can be fun, and I know many people swear by them. They're good, probably the seconds best IMO, but I still like my frags over everything else. Versatility my friends. Versatility.

OK, now we're on to Tactical Equipment

Tactical Equipment:

1.) Flash Grenades- These things blind your enemies and are best used in small rooms. They have a timer on them of about 2.5-3 seconds that starts as soon as they leave your hand. So be aware of that when you toss them. You can also bounce these things around doorways like frags. These things are alright, but are not my favorite. You'll see why when I talk about the next one.

2.) Concussion Grenades- These are my second favorite tactical equipments. They are perfect for inside use, outside use and thrown at long distance. That's right, long distance. These things don't have a timer on them. They go off when they hit the ground. As such you can launch them clear across a map to slow an enemy advance right at the beginning of a game. Priceless. A tip for launching these and any other grenade, lethal or tactical, take a running jump and throw them while you are in the air. You'll add about 20 feet to your toss. In valuable information to know when using these puppies.

3.) Srambler- This is an OK equipment. I've used it in the past, but I admit they're only useful in limited situations. First of all, you can sit inside the radius of the scrambling effect. That's just asking for someone to come and kill you. Generally speaking people get scrambled and they tend to know and be on guard for someone sneaking around the joint. The best way t use this is to place it in a corner, get a long distance away from it, and kill the suckers who come and try to find the fictional guy hiding in the scrambled area. I find this to be useful in some dom games (is actually good on dome) and a few CTF games. Anything else, you can use it , but be aware the practicalty of it lessons. A tip for this...If you find a user controlled air streak like a predator is in the air, lay this down at your feet and you'll disappear off his targeting radar. Use it for this if you feel like running blind eye is a waste.

4.) EMP Grenades- This is probably, no wait, it is, the worst tactical equipment. It has a shorter fuse than a flash grenade and a smaller blast radius than both flash and concussion grenades. This means you have to be absolutely perfect when tossing these things. Not only that, but EMP'in an enemy might not be worth it. I don't generally run scopes or sit-rep, so EMP'in me is pretty much worthless. It won't affect me in the least. In addition to these lousy stats, you only get one of these crap jobs, instead of the two you get with the flash or concussion ones. Just do this if you want the exp points and then forget it. It just isn't worth it.

5.) Smoke Grenades- This is pretty much as it sounds. Toss it and get some smoke. You only get one of these, so make it count. I can not stress this enough...DO NOT THROW SMOKE ON YOUR OWN POSITION! All it does is blinds you. You want to blind your enemy, so pick an avenue of attack they might use, toss it there, and wait for them to come charging through it and blow 'em away. In dom games you might toss it on your position, but even that should be a rarity. Also, don't use smoke if you aren't running asassin pro. Just because they can't see your physical body, doesn't mean your name won't appear if they aim down the sights and sweep the smoked out area. That's what you should be doing to them instead. Sweep your sights through the smoke and look for THEIR names.

6.) Trophy System- This can be a thing of beauty at times. Not only is it essential for Headquarters, Dom and Demo games, it is great for TDM and other gametypes as well. Essentially what this thing does is stops two enemy explosive things from popping off at your position. This goes for flashes, concussions, grenades of either type, predators, reapers and C-130 cannon blasts (the C-130 machine gun fire can still kill you though). There is nothing quite as satisfying as seeing some guy waste a predator missle on you. I've even been in a game where our whole team (all 6 of us) sat underneath a trophy system, gave the guy an inviting target, and screwed him with the trophy system. That was beautiful. There are two ways to use this thing. Put it down on an area you're trying to cap, or hold onto it for when a predator shows up. As soon as you see the red bloom on your radar, place that puppy on the ground and let the hilarity ensue. Love these things.

7.) Tactical Insertion- These things are invaluable in CTF, Sabotage and Demolition matches. The tac inserts are placed down so the next time you die, you'll spawn where they were put down. In games where there is no respawn timer you can immediately respawn on them, but in other games, like CTF and Sabotage, you'll have to be a bit more clever in where you put them. In CTF games, it is often best, if you are a runner class, to place your tac insert behind their flag. This way, when you die, 10 seconds later, you'll respawn behind their base ready to grab the flag once again. Two guys on one team doing this in tandem can wreck another team's defense and can win a CTF game in quick order. In sabotage, you need to place your tac inserts outside of your spawn in about the middle of the map. This is so the timmies who try and spawn kill guys in this gametype won't be able to lock you in. This thing is useful, but it is really speacialized. I personally don't run with it except on one class (CTF class). That's not to say they aren't good, it's just that there are better, more versatile options out there.

8.) Portable Radar- This is my personal favorite. I suggest everyone use a prestige token to grab this after they've grabbed dead silence and the MP7. These things are useful in every gametype except hard core gametypes. They are really useful in Search & Destroy. So much so that I've seen whole teams run with these things and essentially had a permenant UAV on the map. Since guys generally don't run assassin pro in S&D (not enough UAV killstreaks to warrant using assassin pro), almost every player on the enemy team shows up on the map. Not only that, but your teammates can see the results of the radar as well. You can use this in every other game type to good effect as well. It works better on smaller maps because there is less of an area to cover, but it's still good on larger maps as well if you place it in high traffic areas. I love this thing, and ever since I unlocked it, I've been running with it almost exclusively on almost every class.

So there you have it folks. Episode 12 is done. Next time we'll go over assault killstreaks. What are the best ones to use and is there any special way to set them up?

Once again, any questions, leave them in the comment section and I'll answer them in this blog or in the comment section.