Top 5 Classes for Hardcore in Infinite Warfare

Specialists

Before we get started with the classes, we should address specialist choices. Specialists are extremely powerful in Infinite Warfare, and can just as easily set you back as they can propel you to success. There are many options when it comes to specialists and their unique abilities, but there are two choices which clearly shine above all others in this aspect. These two specialists are Warfigher and Synaptic, and either can provide you with a distinct advantage for certain playstyles, an advantage that will pay dividends when it comes to destroying the enemy.

Now don’t get me wrong, neither specialist can replace pure skill, but they can definitely augment an already-existing skill to make you a truly unstoppable force. Lets take a look at the specialists and what to use on them.

Warfighter
Payload: Combat Focus
Trait: Resupply

Warfighter is a brilliant choice. Combat Focus will, when activated, provide double points for any actions taken during the duration of the ability, allowing you to quickly gain a wealth of points towards your next killstreak. Resupply works okay with most tactical grenades, but truly shines with Personal Radar. This little device shows the direction of nearby enemy players on a personal minimap for a brief amount of time, and Resupply allows the player to regain one lethal and one tactical grenade every time they kill someone with a non-explosive, killstreak, or payload weapon, providing they pick up the small resupply pack dropped by the dead enemy. This easily allows you to track players constantly throughout the map, always putting you one step ahead.

Synaptic
Payload: Rewind
Trait: Propulsion

There’s a reason Synaptic is so prevalent in public games, its because he’s darn good. Rewind gives you a second chance at engagements when it is available, providing you have the game sense to trigger the payload when things are looking sticky. Propulsion is truly an amazing trait to pick, allowing your advanced movement boost meter to refill extremely quickly, effectively allowing Synaptic to fly through parts of the map without ever touching the ground. Not only does this feel extremely cool, but having the high ground on opponents is a serious advantage, and Propulsion allows you to take that advantage every single time.

So with these two choices, you should pick one that you think would suit you best. Don’t be afraid to play around though, just because these specific loadouts are very powerful doesn’t mean something different won’t work for you. Now, onto the classes.

Please do note that, whilst these loadouts will include variants, some of them quite rare, the base weapons themselves are still extremely strong, and can replace the variant without any issue.

1: The Flatliner

Class setup:

Weapon: NV4 Flatline – ELO Sight, Extended Magazine, Quickdraw Stock
Lethal: None
Tactical: 1x Personal Radar
Perk 1: Ghost
Perk 2: Scavenger
Perk 3: Dead Silence

The NV4 is a truly scary gun, especially the Flatline variant. Whilst you’ve either got to be very lucky or rolling in salvage to attain this monster of a gun, boy is it worth it. The gun has an infinite damage range, meaning it will always hit max damage at any range, often meaning a one bullet kill from anywhere on the map. The base variant is still amazing, and whilst you could use the Rifled Barrel to extend the damage range, it really isn’t necessary. Extended Mags keeps you firing for longer, whilst Quickdraw and Stock give you extra manoeuvrability in combat situations.

Our tactical is of course, the god-tier Personal Radar. Hardcore leaves you devoid of your minimap, so having your own little personal one in your back pocket is a godsend in some of the tight spots you may find yourself in, and its perfect for knowing when spawns have flipped, or when some cheeky bugger is creeping up behind you.

The perks are quite simple. Ghost keeps you off the radar. UAVs are extremely prevalent in this game, and whilst nothing can hide you from the almighty Advanced UAV, regular UAVs won’t see a thing from you with this perk on. Scavenger stops you running out of ammo by letting you pick up ammo packs from dead enemies, the NV4 runs out of ammo quicker than you’d expect. Dead Silence is really a variable pick, you could instead use Gung Ho, which allows you to shoot from the hip whilst sprinting, but I think the security of no sound from your footsteps and jetpack is beyond useful. I’ve caught many people with their pants down (not literally) because I could hear them coming, Dead Silence may have just saved them.

2: Trench Warfare

Class Setup:

Weapon: Trencher Gamma – Reflex/ELO Sight, Extended Magazine, Quickdraw
Lethal: None
Tactical: 1x Personal Radar
Perk 1: Ghost & Dexterity
Perk 2: Scavenger
Perk 3: Dead Silence

The Trencher is a great gun. Taking inspiration from the Japanese Type 100 amongst other guns, this SMG boasts manageable recoil and respectable damage with the tradeoff of a long reload time and an average magazine size. The Reflex/ELO Sight will augment the awful iron sights, the Extended Magazine removes the weakness of the gun’s poxy 32 bullet magazine size, and Quickdraw allows you to snap your aim onto enemies faster than they can say “Isn’t that gun from World War 2?”. The Gamma variant allows you reduced idle sway and the possibility of nuking the enemy should you get a 25 killstreak with the gun, but this does not mean in any way that the base model isn’t good. This gun is extremely good, regardless of variant.

The Personal Radar is of course, the Personal Radar. I won’t cover the same ground over and over again, its just a great tactical.

Ghost of course keeps us off the radar whilst UAVs are up, and Dexterity helps to speed up that god awful base reload time, though the reload is still troublesome in a tight pinch. Scavenger keeps you topped up, the Trencher actually has quite a low ammo count in reserve, and you’d be surprised how easy those rounds are to burn through in the heat of battle. Finally Dead Silence, again this can be swapped out for Gung Ho, its all really personal preference if you’re not running a Silencer.

3: The Titan’s Fury

Class Setup:

Weapon: Titan Reconnoiter – ELO Sight, Quickdraw, Fusion Mag, Stock
Lethal: None
Tactical: 1x Personal Radar
Perk 1: Ghost
Perk 2: Scavenger
Perk 3: Gung Ho

What is there to say about the Titan that hasn’t already been said. This amalgamation of metal is truly a death-bringer in every sense of the term, ripping your opponent limb from limb with minimal effort. Boasting a 100 round magazine, amazing damage and respectable rate of fire, this gun is nothing to be toyed with. The Reconnoiter variant is one of the more accessible ones, being of a Rare quality, but this doesn’t mean it isn’t just as good as anything above or below it in quality. Whilst it can mark damaged enemies on the minimap, a feature only useful very occasionally in Hardcore, its extended damage range means this weapon will one shot kill for quite a distance, and will two shot kill at the most extreme ranges, though the recoil may make this task a tad troublesome occasionally. ELO serves to improve the gun’s base optic, Quickdraw allows you to improve the base gun’s atrocious aim down sight time, the Fusion Mag allows you to slowly regenrate bullets inside your magazine when you’re not firing it, something which will keep you in-stock for every engagement. Finally Stock of course improves your ADS movement, allowing you to bypass the awful ADS speed that the Titan, along with all other LMGs have. Again, the base variant is nothing to shake your head at. The Titan is known for being an absolute powerhouse, do not underestimate it. 

Ghost keeps you off the radar of course, though you could swap this for Dexterity, seeing as you may occasionally need to manually reload the gun, though this is really up to preference. I would recommend staying with Ghost, or perhaps taking Blind Eye to avoid auto-targetting killstreaks. Scavenger is more of a clutch perk here incase you really need it for your reserve ammo, though this could easily be swapped out or even just removed in favour of something different. The choice of Gung Ho here is quite important. Whilst Dead Silence is a great perk, LMGs take a long time to pull up to ADS from sprinting, and having the ability to just spray your enemy down from sprinting rather than going through the rigmarole of ADS is a godsend.

4: Raining Lead

Class Setup:

Weapon: VPR – Irascible – ELO Sight, Quickdraw, Extended Magazine
Lethal: None
Tactical: You guessed it, 1x Personal Radar
Perk 1: Ghost & Blind Eye
Perk 2: Scavenger
Perk 3: Dead Silence

Ooh boy, the VPR sure is fun. You remember the good old Vesper from Black Ops 3? That thing fired so fast it was hard to process it in your brain. Now imagine that in Infinite Warfare, but this gun fires TWO DAMN BULLETS AT ONCE. Now you see why this gun is on this list. The VPR is a solid pick for one of the most powerful SMGs in this entire game, and for good reason, it is a true powerhouse. The ELO Sight will augment the iron sights of the VPR into something a bit more manageable, but this isn’t really necessary if you can manage. Quickdraw improves the already fast ADS time of the VPR into an almost instant transition. Extended Magazine is quite important here. With such a fast rate of fire, the VPR will often deplete its entire 30 round magazine in just a second or two, so having 60 or so rounds at your disposal per magazine really does improve one of the undeniable weaknesses of this weapon. The Irascible variant offers an improved hip fire spread whilst sliding, and a full magazine refill for every double kill. This trait is amazingly useful in Hardcore where people die in a couple of bullets, but it isn’t to say the base variant isn’t any good, the VPR is amazing.

I chose Ghost and Blind Eye for a reason with this setup. Its always a good idea to have at least one class with Blind Eye on, because there will always be someone using a Vulture, Micro Turret, Sentry Gun or something else that will lock onto you with laser accuracy and turn your dreams of calling in a T.H.O.R to dust. Ghost is insanely useful of course, but Blind Eye is invaluable to have on at least one class. The VPR dumps ammo downrange like its a clearance sale, so you’ll need Scavenger to keep yourself restocked. Dead Silence of course allows you to stay silent whilst you’re flanking the enemy, though Gung Ho is also a good option here. The VPR has pretty good base hipfire and whilst it does pull up to ADS from sprinting fast, sometimes its just easier to run straight through your enemies blasting from the hip.

5: This Mule Kicks

Class Setup:

Weapon: OSA – Reflex/ELO, Foregrip, Quickdraw, Extended Magazine
Lethal: None
Tactical: 1x Personal Radar
Perk 1: Ghost
Perk 2: Scavenger
Perk 3: Dead Silence

Ah the OSA. Returning from Call of Duty: Ghosts, this powerhouse of a gun brings something special to every gunfight, with the downside of the gun kicking like a damn mule. I initially didn’t think the OSA was worth using, but after you learn to control the recoil, this quickly becomes one of the best guns in the entire game. Unlocked at Level 55, this gun is a classic weapon and has no variants, but boasts insane damage and rate of fire, along with an under-barrel single-use grenade launcher, which whilst very situational, can be used to good effect. The best part of the OSA is, when you have mastered the recoil, you can very easily make the recoil climb straight to the head of the enemy and stay there, ensuring your opponent’s face is left indistinguishable from cottage cheese.

The Reflex/ELO sight is pretty important. The OSA’s iron sights are fairly obstructive, and you’ll want to get rid of them as soon as possible. The Foregrip is near essential, the kick on this gun is so high that the help the foregrip will give you is truly a godsend. Quickdraw of course allows you to snap onto targets faster, increasing your reaction time and giving you the edge in engagements. Finally Extended Magazine simply offers you more bullets in the mag, allowing you to deal out even more death before you finally need to reload.

Ghost is Ghost, its great, though Blind Eye is also a good choice, and Dexterity can counteract the OSA’s slightly slow reload time if you’re finding it an issue. Scavenger is also quite important, the OSA can run out of ammunition fairly quickly and you’re unlikely to see many other people using it, so you can forget picking ammo up off the floor. Finally Dead Silence, always a good choice but easily replaceable by Gung Ho just to give you that little edge in unexpected, close quarter engagements.

And there you have it, our Top 5 Classes for Hardcore in Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. Do you agree with our list? What weapon do you think is a hidden gem? Let us know in the comments below, but in the mean time, get to Hardcore! You have opponents to crush.