Modern Warfare 4 weapon prestige: how it works, what resets and the Pyroclast camos

You never have to prestige a gun, and the only reason to do it is the Pyroclast camo set. Nothing else in the game hands those out, so if you want them, this is the route. Everything else about it is a cost, which makes the real question how big that cost is.

It’s smaller than it sounds. The Apex Attachment and any blueprint parts survive, and so does every bit of cosmetic progress. What you lose is the standard attachments on that one gun, plus the shortcut that let you level it quickly the first time.

How to prestige a weapon in MW4

You need a gun at its max level, and that number is different for every weapon. The M4 and the HAN 86 top out at 72, the KG-7 Vulcan at 75 and the SANG 9mm pistol at 38, so check the Progression tab on yours. Weapon prestige has been in the game since launch, so there’s no Season 1 wait.

1. Open Create-a-Class. Edit a class that holds the maxed gun.
2. Select the weapon. Go to its Progression tab.
3. Go right to the last tile. The Weapon Prestige tile sits after the final attachment.
4. Press Prestige Weapon. Confirm, and the gun resets.

If you don’t want to give anything up yet, don’t press it. A maxed gun stays maxed for as long as you like.

Weapon prestige option missing

Two things stop the button showing up or working. The gun has to be at its own max level, so a gun at 70 when its cap is 72 won’t offer it. And you can’t prestige while you’re searching for a match, so cancel the queue first and then try again from the menus.

What resets when you prestige a weapon

Your other guns don’t notice any of this. Anything you unlocked through a shared attachment stays unlocked on them, which is why I’d keep a second gun from the same class maxed while the prestiged one rebuilds. The Apex Attachments are the part most people worry about, and they stay. They don’t take one of your five attachment slots either.

How many times can you prestige a weapon

Once per gun. After that, level it to max again and it moves into Weapon Prestige Master by itself. The level doesn’t reset this time, nothing relocks, and levels keep coming for as long as you keep using the gun. Prestige Master is where the last two camos live.

MW4 weapon prestige camos

They’re four stages of the same camo, and you can see them under Gunsmith, Appearance, Camo and Weapon Progression. Pyroclast costs you nothing beyond pressing the button. Terminus means levelling the whole gun a second time. Scatter and Cascade are a long grind after that, so I’d only chase them on a gun I like using.

Should you prestige your weapons

Prestige a gun you’d use anyway. If you’re deciding which ones, start with whatever is sitting high on the weapon tier list, because you’ll be playing it for a long time.

Don’t prestige the one gun your class depends on. For a while it has no attachments beyond the Apex one, and it unlocks them one level at a time without the shared shortcut. Have a second gun ready to carry the class, and bring the prestiged one back in once it has its recoil control and magazine again.

If your build depends on one attachment you haven’t unlocked on another gun, that’s another reason to wait. You’ll need to level back to it, and that can take a while.

How to level weapons faster for prestige

Weapon XP comes from kills and objective points with that gun in your hands, in Multiplayer and DMZ at launch. There’s no trick to it. A Double Weapon XP token doubles gun XP, while a plain Double XP token does nothing for your guns, so check which one you’re activating. The level-up guide has the full token list. I’d save the Weapon ones for the long Prestige Master stretch.

Weapon prestige vs player prestige

They share a name and nothing else. Player prestige is the soldier rank system with its Classic and Regular tracks, and it works off your account level. Weapon prestige is per gun and runs off weapon XP.

That’s the lot. Press the button on a gun you like and keep a spare in the class while it rebuilds.