[GameSpot] - Call Of Duty's Upcoming Season 5 Could Shake Up Warzone's Perk Meta

[343iBot]

Call of Duty's Season 5 arrives on August 12, and today's roadmap intel reveals Warzone's update might finally shake up the perk meta. The new season is expected to bring new points of interest to Verdansk, a Red Door in-game event, and all-new Warzone-exclusive perks.

Currently, Warzone only utilizes Modern Warfare's perk selection, despite this year's Cold War integration. Warzone's current slate of perks are dominated by a select few: E.O.D., Ghost, Overkill, and Amped. However, Season 5 is set to introduce Combat Scout and Tempered, which could make a player's perk decisions a little bit harder.

With Combat Scout, players will receive a burst of in-field intel, as damaging an enemy briefly highlights that opponent in bright orange and automatically pings them. Activision's wording suggests that this orange highlight will only be visible to the player who activated the ping, as the description suggests the perk is stronger if the player can "communicate effectively to their squadmates." Regardless, it would be really useful to see the highlighted positioning of the player you've just peppered up but couldn't kill.

The second new perk will be Tempered, which provides more reinforced armor plates. Only two of these heavier plates are needed for a player to be "fully armored" compared to the standard three. Meaning, Tempered allows each plate to absorb 75 points of damage instead of the standard 50, but a player will only be able to wear two plates instead of three. So, basically, you get the same amount of armor, but you have one less plate to worry about.

Re-plating after a gunfight is obviously something that leaves you vulnerable, but you can plate up quickly enough that I'm not sure if this tradeoff will be worth the sacrifice, as Activision did mention this perk will come at the sacrifice of the second perk slot, which is the coveted perk Ghost/Overkill slot. Players either run Ghost to stay off the radar, or Overkill to carry a second primary weapon, and I think the benefits of both of these outweigh the usefulness of the upcoming Tempered perk.

Activision did not mention which perk slot will be used by Combat Scout, and I highly doubt they'd introduce two perks and stack them both in the second perk slot. Combat Scout could make the most waves here, but it will be interesting to see where this perk is placed. The intel it provides could be more beneficial to players than the currently used Double Time or E.O.D. first perk selections, but I'm not sure how many players would sacrifice their third perk slot. Currently, Amped is the most used and sensible choice for the third perk slot, as it provides faster weapon swap and rocket launcher reload speed. It's a very noticeable difference in weapon swap time if you're not running this perk.

Surprisingly, the Season 5 intel didn't mention changes to the High Alert perk. Raven Software previously teased these two new Warzone-exclusive perks would be coming, but also announced High Alert would be updated to counter the Dead Silent field upgrade. Maybe that will still arrive sometime later in the season.

It will be interesting to see how much these new additions will affect the perk meta with Season 5's arrival. And we'll update our best perks guide, if any of these new additions dethrone Warzone's current perk champions.

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