If you have been playing Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War multiplayer long enough, you have probably encountered a player just running around killing players with a knife.
This is a legitimate build and while it is not the best one out there, it is workable if you are good enough. There are numerous things that are mandatory to equip just for this to work.
The melee builds in the Call of Duty franchise risen in popularity because it is extremely exciting to play around with. This guide will show you the best melee knife setup in Call of Duty Cold War and teach you how it is supposed to be played.
Melee Class Setup
- Combat Knife
- Perk Greed Wildcard
- Stun Grenade or Stimshot
- Tomahawk
- Flak Jacket and Tactical Mask
- Quartermaster and Tracker
- Ninja and Ghost or Gung-Ho
These are all the mandatory things you need for the best melee class in Cold War. You can have any primary weapon you want but I would prefer something like a sniper or any long-range rifles you want to level up.
You can also choose to run close-range weapons since your perks already give you a significant mobility boost especially if you run Gung-Ho with Ninja.
This Cold War melee class revolves around the knife from the secondary weapon slot. While you can still have a primary you prefer to be equipped, you will most likely be running with the knife most of the time because that is the whole point of equipping it.
Unlocking and equipping the tomahawk is mandatory to make this the best melee loadout in Cold War. You unlock it at level 42 which is quite far but it is powerful. It gives you a one-shot equipment to work with and throw it like the throwing knife from the previous CoD titles. You need to be incredibly accurate because you only get one throw.
You can pick it up from the dead enemy to replenish your equipment charge so you need to be aware of that when running around. In times where you are chasing enemies from behind and you both are sprinting in the same direction, it is best to just throw the tomahawk instead of catching up to him.
The enemy will likely have teammates near him and it will be dangerous if you make a chase out of it. If you miss the tomahawk, you can throw a stun grenade if you have it equipped and catch up to the enemy.
The stimshot also works well if you are getting hit when you try to run to small and enclosed areas. You will have to swap out the Ghost perk or Ninja perk for the Gung-Ho perk. The Gung-Ho perk allows you to freely use stimshot while running around the map and getting hit.
It also reduces the time it takes to swap from your knife and your primary weapon while also decreasing fall damage. This is definitely a viable option to swap in.
Flak Jacket and Tactical Mask perks will increase your overall survivability. Quartermaster will help you regain your equipment back when you miss your tomahawk or even your stun grenades and stimshots.
The Tracker perk will help you look for easy targets and eliminate them from behind. Always make sure that there are no reinforcements from the back when going for kills in an open area.
Ninja is your bread and butter perk which increases your sprint speed while masking your footsteps slightly. This allows you to be faster than most of the players in the game and give you the ability to chase out enemies faster.
How to Play the Melee Class Setup
There are certain game modes in Black Ops Cold War multiplayer that make this build extremely hard to pull off such as Domination, Control, Hardpoint, and Search & Destroy.
Objectives and control points are just hard to get around because there will be more than one enemy most of the time at objectives. You can still try it out but try to be smarter and flank around the whole map first.
For example, you spawn at A in Domination, you can sprint towards the side and head for C. You can also choose to cut their reinforcement by flanking their side of B and just rotate again around the map instead of going back after getting a kill. Be as unpredictable as you can with your movements.
Tips and Tricks for the Melee Knife Setup
- No matter which platform you are playing on, using a headset to hear footsteps clearer will be almost mandatory for you. You can gauge how far enemies are when you are near their vicinity. It also helps your timing better when you are holding a corner. If you start hearing an enemy sprinting instead of walking, you can immediately go for the kill and head for safety right after.
- There are resupply crates all over the map where you can freely replenish your equipment. Even if you have your equipment up, you can still throw them randomly and just replenish if you are near one.
- Swap with your primary weapon if you need to. You might have been having too much fun with your fancy knife skills and forget that there are situations you need to shoot with a gun to win the match.
- Keep your allies close and your enemies closer. In certain situations, you might need to follow up on your allies to get a return frag. This only works if you are entering enclosed objectives like Checkmate’s plane in the middle.
- Tomahawks are retrievable so keep that in mind while playing.
- Avoid killstreaks when they are up, you are not running on the Cold-Blooded perk with this one so it will be easier said than done.
- Keep your eyes open for enemy snipers, they are easy targets and you just need to go around them because they are likely aiming at popular entry points on the map.
Conclusion
The melee knife class setup is definitely viable and you can even unlock the gold, diamond, and UM ultra camo finishes for the knife. The UM ultra camo is the sickest one but will also be the hardest one to unlock. You can definitely show it off as this build is extremely rare to see and to make it work.
