So I decided to see how quickly I could prestige in Call of Duty : Black Ops, and although it started pretty well, I had one heck of a dip on my second evening. So could I get back on schedule to prestige in 24 hours of game time – effectively given my schedule, roughly once a week? That would mean I’d finally finish the 15th prestige by the start of October, in time to put down Call of Duty and pick up Battlefield 3.
So my third evening session racked up 10 games of Headquarters, in a little over 3 hours of actual gametime, but about 5 hours of sitting around in lobbies and waiting for matchmaking to work before kicking me out when the host quit.
So Game 22 of the series saw me at Level 20 – 2 levels behind the schedule I’d hoped to maintain until at least level 35 or 40. And by Game 31, a much better evening overall saw me at Level 28. So I despite playing much better overall, and getting some great kill counts, I still couldn’t get it back on track, showing how important it is to play well on the early levels when you’re trying to prestige – if you can play well with the M16 and the MP5, that helps immensely!
Not much in the way of insights – I now have access to Slight of Hand Pro, which is an essential perk in most cases, and pretty much Ghost Pro (Just wish the Strela was available earlier to knock down more enemy aircraft before level 30). After that, it’s the trio of Perk 3 choices – Ninja, Hacker and Marathon (which is probably not worth 15 Capture The Flag captures in terms of time spent for XP gained, sadly).
It’s also noticeable that the Famas and AK74u both seem to have been nerfed some what since the early days of the game – although I much, much prefer the Famas to the M16 due to the fact it allows me to be a little more innaccurate, it suffers hugely from ammo shortages, and making it less deadly has meant the balance is a little less than ideal – therefore I’m now switching everything over to the Galil – worse close up, but allowing me to take people down from a longer distance more effectively, and use a suppressor without turning an assault rifle into a waterpistol.
The one major change in the way I play has been to focus more on grenade kills by cooking them before throwing – it’s something I always knew I should practice, but given the fact you can have 3 or 4 players crowded around in a Headquarters, it’s an element which is now essential, even if I’ve come close to grenading myself on a few occasions with a misplaced throw.
Still I haven’t managed to fail in as epic a fashion as this yet:
So I’ve made it to Level 28 pretty quickly – that’s over halfway in about 12 hours or so of total gametime. But it gets harder from here on in to maintain that pace, meaning I either need to radically up my game, or hope that some of the Lifetime achievements pay out damn soon!
Okay, so you inspired me to go prestige again, and i’ll probably do it again and again and again now, ugh! It just sucks that now that i have all my favourite perks to pro i am going to have to face losing them again!
I hadn’t ever used sleight of hand before, the reloading thing sounded lame but PRO makes all the difference – so thanks for the heads up the other night. I’m now at lvl 39 P2, can’t believe I played for so long at P1 50, I just thought, I’ll do it once and call it quits. Now, yup, got the bug.
Some of my fave setups:
Dual Wield HS10 – lightweight pro – sleight of hand pro – marathon
Dual Mag AUG – Flak pro – sleight of hand pro – ninja pro
PSG1 variable – Flak pro – scout – ninja pro
Although i have crafted a super stealth sniping option:
PSG1 variable + suppresor – ghost pro – warlord – ninja pro With a tactical insetion thrown in for fun.
What are your fave combos?
PLUS i had this convo with Jezzzy today: FAMAS or AUG? I am a converted AUG man myself.
PS – i am a prestiging faster?
Not sure you’re prestiging faster – you’ve probably played again since I was last online as I’ve been away from the Xbox for a few days. When we were playing in the evening above, I think you levelled up 1 or 2 levels behind what I managed?
Flak Jacket Pro is pretty useful – especially in something like Headquarters with so many grenades. I’d be tempted to try a Flak Jacket Pro and Tactical Mask combo – I can imagine clearing up quite a lot of people coming towards the HQ that way.
And why on earth are you using Dual Mag on the Aug, if you’re also using Slight of Hand Pro? That’s just odd.
So my combos:
Galil + Suppressor – Ghost Pro, Slight of Hand Pro, Hacker Pro.
Galil + Suppressor – Ghost Pro, Slight of Hand Pro, Ninja Pro
Famas + Suppressor – Light Weight, Slight of Hand Pro, Marathon.
And occasionally for a change:
Galil or Famas with Extended Mags – Hardline Pro, Hardened Pro and Hacker Pro.
And my guilty secret is I’ll quite often start a match with a load-out with Hardline Pro on, working on the theory I’ve got until someone gets 3 kills before the spy planes start arriving. By which time, hopefully I’m on the way to a better Killstreak, and with Hardline Pro, I can either get onto a Care Package and then change it if it’s something fairly harmless, or possibly get to the Napalm or even Attack Helicopter stages before I get nailed.
I can’t believe you like the HS10 Dual Wield…. the only Shotguns I’ve ever really enjoyed were the Olympia just for pure comedy, and a Silenced SPAS for actually killing people.
And I really never, ever snipe. I only really use Assault Rifles, Submachine Guns, and occasionally the Stoner LMG as it’s so close to an Assault Rifle anyway.
i am pretty ill with the ole sniper rifle these days. It’s only good for some levels though, especially if you know where people are going to be heading. You can also load up on decoys, toss em out and take aim. This only really works on things like Team Deathmatch when people aren’t concentrating on an objective.
HS10 dual wield is awesome, i just like belting round the levels shooting peeps at close range, quite handy in something like headquarters when you are in tight spot, several enemies rushing in and you just need to spray bullets. It’s only worth using when you have marathon on.
Aside form that one game I did pretty well last night on Headquarters with you Guys, Dan. It helped that we weren’t playing with random strangers, but if I carry on playing with you guys I think I might actually get my first ever prestige!
Yeah, some good games. And it’s definitely helpful to play with the same people, particularly in objective-based games, because you overcome the fear of talking and co-ordinating a little bit, which really does make all the difference.
There was a particularly weird and great example at the end of the night, when Rick and I found ourselves in a game of Headquarters which was just 2 on 2 the entire time. The fact that we’ve played together since MW2 meant that we didn’t actually need to talk that much, because I know pretty much what he’ll do in a situation, and he knows the same for me (Basically he’ll find somewhere good to cover and get the kills, and I’ll rush in like a suicidal iditiot and occasionally get away with it!).
Happy to have you last night, and do add some of the other guys…
They scare me – they’re too good.
It’s just practice, honest…