Call of Duty: Modern Warfare classes guide: the best classes for multiplayer

Looking some of the best Call of Duty: Modern Warfare classes to use in multiplayer? Modern Warfare classes have been stripped back a great deal from the Create-a-Class system that was present in last year’s Black Ops 4, with no Specialist abilities to consider and a very simple selection of perks. However, new additions like the Gunsmith, Field Upgrades, and stricter perk categories ensure players who crave crafting the strongest builds have plenty of depth to explore.

Perhaps the biggest difference in how COD: Modern Warfare 2019 handles classes is in how it deals with attachments. All weapon attachments are handled through a part of the loadout screen called Gunsmith, which boasts more attachments than any previous Call of Duty and is a lot more generous when it comes to how many different attachments you can equip to a single weapons, with some attachments drastically altering how a gun behaves and looks.

In this guide we’ll break down exactly how Call of Duty: Modern Warfare classes work in the 2019 COD and detail some of the best Modern Warfare classes around right now.

Overview

You can alter the following features when creating Call of Duty: Modern Warfare classes:

Your Killstreaks and Field Upgrades apply to all your Call of Duty: Modern Warfare classes, while weapons, attachments, perks, and equipment makes up each of your custom loadouts.

Primary weapon

Pick one of several categories of primary weapons, which range from shotguns to sniper rifles. If you choose the Overkill perk then you can carry a second primary weapon in place of your secondary weapon. To alter attachments you go to the Gunsmith screen, which allows you to equip five attachments of your choice.

Secondary weapon

There are two categories of secondary weapons: handguns and launchers. To alter attachments you go to the Gunsmith screen, which allows you to equip five attachments of your choice.

Perk

You can equip three different perks to your class, one from each of the three perk trees. Each slot is relatively varied in scope and there are a few synergies that run across them. In total there are 16 perks.

Lethal

There are eight pieces of lethal equipment spanning every type of grenade imaginable. Interestingly, there are also some anti-tank pieces of equipment like the Proximity Mine. Just pick one for your class.

Tactical

Likewise, you can pick from eight different pieces of Tactical equipment to choose from. The Heartbeat Sensor and Stim are curious additions to this category, while the Snapshot Grenade appears to function like a recon Bouncing Betty.

Gunsmith

With Gunsmith you are allowed a great deal more freedom when it comes to tweaking your favourite weapon in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Every primary and secondary weapon can be equipped with up to five attachments from seven different attachment categories that change depending on which weapon you’re looking at.

For example, you can remove your assault rifle’s stock to increase your speed, add a 5mW Laser to improve your hip fire accuracy, change to a short barrel for faster movement speed and ADS speed, adopt the Pistol Grip – Rubber for faster sprint to fire speed, and attach a CQB Grip for improved horizontal recoil control. All of this will turn your AR into a spray-and-pray monstrosity that’s hyper-mobile, but awful at long-range.

Finally, there are weapon perks for some guns that take the place of one of your attachment slots. These perks range from faster reloads with Sleight of Hand to more bullet pen if you pick FMJ.

Killstreaks

There are 17 killstreaks to choose from with the lowest being a personal UAV for 3 kills and the highest being a suit of Juggernaut armour for 15 kills. There are plenty of familiar kill rewards and, as ever, you can pick three for your class. These choices are not locked to a particular loadout.

Field Upgrades

This is a curious new feature. Field Upgrades are effectively additional pieces of equipment, except they recharge over the course of a match at different recharge rates. You can pick one from a selection of five and like killstreaks your choice isn’t locked to a particular loadout.

Best Call of Duty: Modern Warfare classes

Rush

This is one of the best Call of Duty: Modern Warfare classes for close-quarters combat, but you’ll need to think on your feet when it comes to traversing open ground. The 725 double-barrel shotgun is obscenely powerful and will one-shot enemies in close-quarters, in order to move around the map as fast as possible – and to cross large open areas – it’s best to take the combat knife as a secondary as it’s the most mobile weapon in the game. The Combat Knife is also a one-hit kill weapon up close, so if you do bump into someone you can easily take them out.

The rush class is best for game modes where K/D isn’t too important, but can be used to great effect in Search and Destroy and Cyber Attack so you can reach the objectives as soon as possible.

To compliment this class we’ve outfitted the 725 with any attachments that make it more mobile, except Sawed-off as it limits your range too much. The rush class carries molotov cocktails as these are great for quickly blocking off pathways, obscuring vision, and killing clusters of enemies instantly. Smoke grenades can be handy for larger maps, while stuns and flashes are a solid alternative for room-clearing.

There are two ways to build perks around this build. The first is to set up as a stealth class – in which case you may want to equip the monolithic suppressor to your 725 for even more range – and bring Ghost and Cold-Blooded along to help you out. Alternatively, you can equip Double Time to move around the map faster.

Quickscoper

The 725 appears again in this class (it’s an exceptional shotgun) which equips you with an answer for long and short ranges, not to mention medium if you can land your hits. The primary weapon in this class is the Kar98k marksman rifle, a relic sniper rifle that fans of the series will remember from CoD games set during the Second World War. This rifle can kill with a single shot to the chest all the way to extremely long ranges, but unlike sniper rifles you can scope in pretty quickly with the Kar98k, making it a great quickscoping rifle.

You’ll want to progress enough to get the Aim-Op Reflex Sight and the first barrel attachment, as these both help increase your damage range (otherwise you’ll get a lot of hit markers going up against enemy snipers).

The great thing about this class is that it can be adapted to fit any situation. The Kar98k will handle long and medium ranges if you’re good enough with it, while the 725 can be used to storm buildings, rush foes, and lock down objectives. Because of that flexibility it’s also up to you what perks and equipment you want to bring. We opt for aggressive perks like Battle Hardened and Hardline, plus Semtex and stuns.

Assault

This is a standard assault class designed to deal with infantry and killstreaks. The main weapon is the M4A1, easily the strongest primary weapon in the game and more than capable of shredding foes at all ranges you’re likely to encounter in core multiplayer, while you can take any rocket launcher of your choice as a secondary to clear out UAVs and peskier enemy killstreaks.

The best setup we currently have for the M4A1 focuses on aiming stability and recoil buffs to ensure that every single one of this AR’s devastating shots lands – and it’s already pretty darn accurate. This setup includes the Muzzle Brake, M16 Stock, a decent holographic sight, Granulated Grip Tape, and Commando Foregrip.

As for perks, we find that the best options are Hardline, Double Time or Scavenger, and Battle Hardened. If you take Scavenger then make sure to bring a Field Upgrade that’s not Munitions Box. Finally, bring some aggressive lethal and tactical – our default is the Semtex and stuns.

And those are all the class mechanics you need to know about in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2019. It’s too early to tell what the most powerful class setups will be, but there’s certainly a lot of scope for customisation.