You've Been Using These Warzone Weapons All Wrong

Call of Duty: Warzone is the latest battle royale title to hit the gaming market, complete with the traditional Call of Duty flair that made the series popular. The game takes place in the fictional village of Verdansk — situated in the equally fictional country of Kastovia. Players need to parachute into the town and fight to the death amidst a swarm of opposing players and an encroaching poisonous cloud. 

Verdansk is littered with weapons that should be familiar to longtime Call of Duty fans. However, if you are new to the franchise, Warzone's weapons might throw you for a loop. Some feature attachments and modifications that completely change their properties, inviting approaches that aren't feasible in other battle royale titles. You might assume a pistol isn't as useful as a submachine gun ... until you discover how to transform a handgun into a pocket shotgun. 

Here's a quick and dirty breakdown of what you've been doing wrong in Call of Duty: Warzone and the weapon strategies that just might save your life.

C4 is the Call of Duty workhorse demolition tool. Attach it to any surface, wait for the right moment, and pull the detonation trigger to turn anything nearby — including players — into a fine powder. This tool is ideal for creating traps opponents haphazardly stumble into, but C4 can also redefine the term "demolition derby" when used properly.

Since C4 can stick to anything, certain players use it to booby trap vehicles. This strategy works one of two ways, each one equally viable. You can attach C4 to nearby vehicles, wait for unsuspecting victims to hop in, and then detonate the C4 to junk the jalopy and driver. Alternatively, you can affix C4 to a vehicle, drive around, careen towards opponents, jump out, and blow the C4 to wipe out the surrounding area. The math doesn't lie: C4 + vehicle = big kaboom.

However, the vehicle doesn't have to be manned to carry explosive payloads. Clever players have discovered they can attach C4 to drones, buzz opponents with them, and then pull the trigger to transform UAVs into delivery bots of death. Granted, this strategy requires top-notch communication, but it received the Infinity Ward art director's seal of approval.

If you want to devastate vehicles and squads of players, your best choice is the RPG. This bad boy can deliver a devastating explosion, but therein lies the rub. RPGs are infamously slow, and if you don't lead your target, you will probably miss. More importantly, after firing everyone within a five mile radius will know your location, and you might not have enough time to reload the RPG to deal with the aftermath. Unless, of course, you use the Amped perk.

When a player starts a new Warzone account, Amped is one of the first perks they unlock. And, as they progress, gamers earn other perks like Shrapnel and Battle Hardened. However, Amped is the most useful perk for RPG-happy players since it reduces the weapon's reload time, as well as the time you take to swap weapons. With Amped, players can unleash a near-constant barrage of explosions, as well as seamlessly change weapons to keep the carnage going.

Plus, anyone who wants more bang for their buck should find a munitions box. Run out of rockets quickly because you spammed RPGs with the Amped perk to devastate several squads? Retrieve a Munitions Box to replenish your ammo and repeat the process all over again. More rockets, more boom.

In Call of Duty: Warzone, players who stand still don't last long. As a result, most combatants use weapons with speedy projectiles to easily hit opponents. The Crossbow is not one of those weapons, but it is silent and deadly to make up for this weakness. One shot will down most opponents, but, to add insult to injury, certain bolts will turn enemies into victims of the "You are already dead" meme.

The Crossbow offers three kinds of bolts — four if you count vanilla bolts — two of which are explosive and thermite. As the names suggest, these bolts add a timed explosion and burning effect, respectively, to the already deadly metal shafts. Normally, if a player lodges a bolt into an opponent, they are almost guaranteed an insta-down. But, if the player's target still stands afterwards, the resulting explosion/thermite damage will probably finish them off.

You might ask, "What happens if someone downs an opponent before the explosive/thermite bolt's secondary effect?" When that happens, the resulting damage will serve as a double tap and kill them from a downed state, no extra ammo expenditure necessary. If your aim is true, the Crossbow's explosive and thermite bolts are the ultimate "set it and forget it" ammo.

Eventually, you will die in a battle royale. It happens to even the best players. However, Call of Duty: Warzone throws a King Kong-sized monkey wrench into the genre's standard formula with the Gulag. Instead of requiring players to revive their fallen comrades, Warzone lets combatants fight for a second shot at life in a grimy prison shower. 

Since everything is on the line, players are encouraged to play dirty, even receiving assistance from the peanut gallery. Whenever a Gulag fight starts, players who watch from the sidelines can throw rocks. Normally, these rocks do little damage, so don't expect to stone enemies to death. However, rocks momentarily stun anyone they hit, so one lucky shot can mean the difference between victory and defeat. 

Rocks also serve a far greater purpose since they can set off explosives. It doesn't matter whether a player lays down a Claymore or C4 because rocks create a massive explosion when they hit one of these traps. Any nearby combatant caught in the blast will lose the fight.

Claymores and Bouncing Betties are not for everyone. Some players prefer an on-the-run playstyle and stick to grenades. Plus, any Tom, Dick, or Harry with the Spotter perk can hack these mines and turn them against their owners. But, even if you start the match without Claymores or Bouncing Betties, you shouldn't leave unprimed ones unattended.

Say you kill an opponent who drops unused Claymores or Bouncing Betties. You could ignore them, loot the corpse, and be on your way. But, in Warzone, any kill — even unintentional ones — brings survivors one step closer to victory. To this end, players are better off picking up the dropped mines and hiding them under loot on the ground, retrieving their old equipment, and then leaving. This useful (and nasty) trick essentially booby traps a loot pile. 

Opponents might assume they discovered a life-saving stash of goodies, but instead they will receive an explosion to the face. Loot tends to give players tunnel vision and render them oblivious to nearby dangers, including Claymores and Bouncing Betties. Maybe setting down a plundered mine will ultimately result in a waste of time, or maybe it will kill an opponent who let their greed get the better of them. You never know until you try.

SMGs are the ultimate spray and pray weapon. What SMGs lack in damage and range is made up for in player mobility and fire rate. The AUG is one of Call of Duty: Warzone's better SMGs when it uses normal ammo, but it transforms into a whole different beast when it fires alternative ammunition.

The AUG is the only SMG in Warzone that can utilize 5.56 ammo. The AUG provides all the normal player mobility of an SMG while it spews 5.56 bullets, but it does so with the range and power of an assault rifle. Plus, players can add a Drum Magazine for double ammo capacity and sustained fire goodness, albeit at the cost of some maneuverability, but the advantage is worth the tradeoff.

With 5.5 ammo, AUG wielders can float like a butterfly and sting like a falling redwood tree.

At first glance, the Overkill perk is a no-brainer. Why carry one primary and one secondary weapon when you can march across the battlefield with two primary weapons? Depending on your playstyle, that might seem like the ideal perk, but if you love shotguns, you're actually better off converting the .357 Magnum into one and saving the perk slot for a different skill.

Normally, the .357 Magnum is a brute of a sidearm with good distance. With some modification, players can transform the firearm into a pocket shotgun. Snake Shot ammo, which is unique to the .357, fires pellets that pepper opponents with hot lead, much like a shotgun. This makes the .357 deadly at ranges that surpass most shotguns (although the Magnum is still dangerous at point blank range).

You can unlock the Akimbo perk for all handguns in Warzone, which lets players channel their inner William B.J. Blazkowicz to dual-wield pistols. If one .357 Magnum with Snake Shot is akin to a shotgun, imagine the double devastation you can wreak by firing two at once. In most cases, you can't aim down sights while using Akimbo, but with dual .357s kitted out with Snake Shot, you can shoot in an opponent's general direction and will still probably hit them. Happy blasting.

In battle royales, the best defense is a good offense. Better to kill your opponent before they see you. Riot Shields aren't exactly known for their lethality. Sure, they deflect bullets and grenades almost as effectively as Superman, but the only way to kill an opponent with a Riot Shield in Warzone is to bash them upside the head. However, if you only use the shield as a blunt tool, you're not thinking outside the box.

The shield will deflect bullets and grenades aimed at it, whether it is wielded on the front or stored on a players' back. With this in mind, players are free to play defensively with a Riot Shield and, say, the Overkill perk. Pair the shield with another primary weapon and go to town, free from fear that a sniper will use your spine for target practice.

The Riot Shield's utility doesn't end there, though, since you can check the heartbeat monitor from the safety of the shield. Of course, opponents can always flank you and aim for your unprotected love handles. Then again, if the Riot Shield defended your sides as well, it would be completely unbalanced.

Frag Grenades are a popular choice in Call of Duty: Warzone. Grab the explosive, pull the pin, and toss it around a corner for a satisfying kaboom. However, for all its usefulness, the grenade's timer is its primary drawback. One Frag Grenade can transform a vehicle into a smoldering pile of slag, but odds are good someone trying to run you down will turn you into roadkill before the grenade pops.

C4, however, doesn't have the same limitation. While C4 creates devastating traps that players can activate at any time, it makes for an even better insta-grenade. As soon as you toss out a lump of C4, it's ready to explode. Throw the explosive, immediately double tap whatever key you use to blow it up, and it will immediately detonate. 

Want to get the drop on enemies faster than grenades and blow up pursuing vehicles? C4 can do it all. Granted, players are not immune to their own C4 blasts, but if you have to choose between being run over by an ATV and taking homicidal maniacs with you, C4 is the way to go.

Not every Call of Duty: Warzone player has Robin Hood levels of accuracy. Some gamers prefer frantic, twitch-based playing and coat the battlefield in bullets. You hit your target 100% of the time if you claim everything is your target. Other players have mastered the art of the skill shot: one bullet, one hit. The fewer bullets they use, the better, and these players prefer ammo that lands like rocket-propelled freight trains.

The Call of Duty franchise's most reliable assault rifle is the M4A1 since it can melt through enemies, but .458 SOCOM rounds turn the weapon into a makeshift sniper rifle. Granted, SOCOM rounds are limited to 10 bullets per clip, but the damage payoff is worth it. With the rounds, the M4A1 fires far faster than sniper rifles but is still effective at long distances, so even if players miss a few shots, they won't need a full clip to kill armored opponents.

Admittedly, SOCOM rounds aren't for everyone and have a nasty learning curve, but anyone who plans on playing Warzone solo will come to rely on these bullets more than teammates.