Modern Warfare 4 perk tier list: best perks for every slot

Tactical Sprint is a perk now. Blood Rush carries it, so if you’ve been combing the movement settings for it, you can stop. You pay for the speed with a perk slot and that’s the end of it.

There are 18 perks at launch, six per slot, and a class takes one from each. A tier list that lines all 18 up in a single row is a bit daft when Ghost and Quick Fix can never share a class. So you get one overall ranking below, then each slot on its own, because that’s the choice the Create-A-Class screen puts in front of you.

How the perk slots work

Three slots, one perk in each, six options per slot. Every class you build is three small decisions, and some of the good options take a while to turn up. Quick Fix and Blood Rush are there from the start. Ghost needs level 24, and levelling up faster is the only way to hurry that along.

Perks moved about between the beta and launch. If you’re copying a class from a beta video, check which slot each perk is in before you trust it. These are multiplayer perks only, and DMZ has Operator traits instead.

Modern Warfare 4 perk tier list

S tier is what I’d put on nearly every class. A tier is excellent and only loses out when something better is sitting in the same slot. B is for particular jobs, C is niche, and D is Lethal Reach. The number after each perk is its slot.

Best Perk 1 in Modern Warfare 4

Ghost is the best perk in the game and I’d run it on every class if level 24 weren’t in the way. Heartbeat Sensors, Portable Radars and UAVs all skip right past you, and the enemy team’s callouts can’t mark you either. It’s bloody hard to hunt someone you can’t see, and it lets you walk up behind people who think the map is empty. The launch patch raised UAV health from 100 to 150, so they’re harder to shoot down and hang around longer, which makes Ghost better still.

Quick Fix starts your health regenerating the moment you get a kill or capture or hold an objective. On Hardpoint that’s close to constant, because you’re standing on the hill trading shots for the whole rotation. It’s there from the start, so it carries you up to Ghost, and plenty of players never feel the need to swap it out.

Resupply refills your equipment over time, adds one to its maximum and charges your Field Upgrade quicker. The launch patch brought the first refill forward, which helps, but you still have to live long enough to collect it.

High Alert pulses your vision when an enemy you can’t see spots you. A warning is all it gives you, and Ghost and Quick Fix both do more with the slot. Anyone on Cold-Blooded doesn’t set it off at all.

Overkill lets you carry two primaries, say a long gun backed up by an SMG for when someone gets inside your sightline. It works. It also costs you Ghost or Quick Fix, and I’d rather have either.

Kill Chain gives you half streak points for the kills your killstreaks get. It only starts paying once one of your streaks is already out getting kills, which makes it a gamble that suits someone who’s good at streaks and nobody else.

Best Perk 2 in Modern Warfare 4

Ninja makes your footsteps a lot quieter and shortens the distance they carry. Headphones are half of Call of Duty, and I’d rather be the one nobody hears. SMG players, shotgunners, flankers and anyone in Search and Destroy get the most out of it, because quiet rounds punish noise hardest.

Blood Rush is the Tactical Sprint perk. You get a burst of speed that runs on your stamina, kills refill that stamina, and since the launch patch the sprint button triggers it automatically unless you switch that off in the advanced movement settings. It gets you onto objectives sooner, makes flanks arrive in time and keeps a hot run of kills moving. It sits under Ninja because quiet feet help on every life and a sprint only helps on the lives you can use it.

Fast Hands speeds up reloads, weapon swaps and equipment use. You won’t notice it working and you’ll notice it quick when it’s gone. Guns with small mags gain the most, and a long reload animation is exactly the sort of thing that ends lives.

Bomb Squad takes the sting out of explosives that don’t come from killstreaks, resets a live grenade’s fuse when you pick it up and makes you immune to knockdown. On a Domination flag with both teams lobbing frags it’s brilliant. On a map where nobody throws anything it does nothing, and that’s why it stays in B.

Hardline knocks one kill off the cost of every killstreak. That’s worth a slot if you build your class around streaks and a waste if you don’t. Perk 2 is crowded with options that help from the first life of a match, so Hardline sits where it does.

Birdseye zooms the minimap out, and the pings from UAVs and radars come with a direction as well as a position. It’s good for anyone who reads the minimap and has a teammate running UAVs. If you don’t read it, you’ve got a bigger minimap that you ignore.

Best Perk 3 in Modern Warfare 4

Battle Hardened cuts down what enemy Tacticals do to you, and the launch patch made it stronger, so the bulk of what a Flash, a Concussion or a Screamer Mine does gets shrugged off. Getting flashed or shocked is normally a free kill for whoever threw it, and this gives you a chance. When I don’t know what the lobby is running, this is the one.

Cold-Blooded hides you from thermal optics, spotter scopes, Recon Drones, Snapshot Grenades, High Alert and the AI targeting on things like Seeker Drones and Wheelsons. That’s a long list, and it all goes to waste when the enemy isn’t running any of it. Against a lobby that is, nothing else in the slot comes close.

Scavenger makes enemies drop an ammo cache when they die (launcher ammo isn’t included). It suits sniper rifles, LMGs and streak classes that live a long time, and it’s dead weight for anyone who dies before the magazine runs dry.

Tracker puts a footprint trail behind enemies and shows where they died, while keeping your kills off their screens. It’s handy for hunting down the flanker who keeps picking off your team. None of it helps you win a gunfight.

Combat Grid lets you see enemy gadgets, vehicles and killstreaks through walls, and lights your teammates up too. You spot Claymores before you step on them and find the Trophy System tucked behind thin cover. It’s an information perk in a slot full of perks that keep you alive, and that’s why it sits in C.

Lethal Reach throws equipment further, draws a trajectory line and turns a weapon bash into your proper melee attack. It’s the weakest perk in the game. The other five in the slot all do more for you unless your whole class is built around throwing things.

Best perk combinations in Modern Warfare 4

These are the classes I’d build. Swap the slot 1 and 2 picks for each other’s alternatives as the lobby demands.

• Default: Quick Fix or Ghost, Ninja or Blood Rush, and Battle Hardened. It works in every mode and it’s where I’d start.
• Hold the hill: Quick Fix, Bomb Squad and Battle Hardened. Built for Hardpoint and Domination, where grenades and Tacticals fly the whole time.
• Invisible: Ghost, Ninja and Cold-Blooded. UAVs, footsteps and thermals all get covered, and it’s a lovely class with one of the best SMGs.
• Rush: Quick Fix, Blood Rush and Battle Hardened. Rotate fast, keep the pressure on and don’t get stopped by a Flash.
• Streaks: Kill Chain, Hardline and Scavenger. Greedy, and rewarding if you’re someone who gets streaks.

Until Ghost unlocks, Quick Fix and Blood Rush are the two good ones you’ve already got.