Call of Duty has added field upgrades in recent years to add further customization headaches. Field upgrades can bring someone’s scorestreak careening to a halt or assist your team. We’re going to detail the field upgrades in Black Ops Cold War, highlight the best ones, and offer advice on how to use them.
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Whereas a great gun can pummel your opponents full of holes, field upgrades can open up holes in their defense. The importance of these useful pieces of tech should not be underestimated as they can be devastating.
Treyarch have offered a varying selection of field upgrades with each having a specific use in battle. Whether it’s damaging their team, or just simply reinforcing your team, these will surely help you in combat.
Black Ops Cold War field upgrades
Field upgrades are items that you will physically have to use yourself. Through a combination of L1 + R1, or LB + RB, you’ll manually activate the item and it will face a period of cooldown before reuse. Some of these will reach their full potential in different given situations, so it’s best to get an idea first.
You can only select one of the field upgrades, so choose wisely.
Proximity Mine
Description: Throwable mine, explodes shortly after one enemy runs or drives over it. Can be avoided by crouching. Destroys any vehicle that runs over it.
Recharge Time: 2:00
Best Use: A great item that would be at home in any mode. An easy way to get a kill or two during a game and could be a good tactic to place these around flags where vehicles can get to. Definitely 50/50 on its effectiveness in S&D though. With the mode offering limited lives, crouching and being stealthy is a lot more common, so consider this. Generous recharge time too.
Field Mic
Description: Deploys a recording device that highlights enmity sounds on your mini-map.
Recharge Time: 3:15
Best Use: The second-longest recharge time for a reason. Unless enemies have perks or Jammer to counteract this, then this is a gold mine. It will grant you pretty consistent access to enemy locations. However, it’s probably best avoided in game modes where there is a lot of people as you’ll encounter enough of them anyway.
Trophy System
Description: Destroys thrown enemy equipment and launcher missiles within 10 meters.
Recharge Time: 1:20
Best Use: This is a very scenario-specific item really. Best for S&D, defending flags, and snipers. It’s mainly suitable for people that will require less movement than usual, for sniping or defending a spot. Won’t be used by many, hence its short cooldown time.
Level Unlocked: 15
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SAM Turret
Description: Launches missiles at enemy air scorestreaks and player-piloted helicopters.
Recharge Time: 3:45
Best Use: In our mind, this is the best piece of field equipment. It takes so long to cooldown because it’s so useful. So often are players just wasting precious seconds shooting down a killstreak and revealing themselves on the minimap. Whereas this can speed up the process immeasurably and save time, and ammo, in the process.
Level Unlocked: 18
Gas Mine
Description: Proximity activated trap that expels a large cloud of harmful gas. Enemies inside are damaged and disoriented.
Recharge Time: 2:00
Best Use: The gas mine offers healthy coverage of its lethal gas. Once again, this feels at home in a defending situation as the gas can flood the area surrounding a bomb or a flag, impeding the other team in the process.
Level Unlocked: 24
Jammer
Description: Creates an electronic disruption field, disabling enemy Field Upgrades, and degrading enemy minimap information.
Recharge Time: 2:30
Best Use: A potential secret weapon if used correctly. If your team has solid communication, then the Jammer’s use could be endless. It can disable all of the above field upgrades, meaning no one will be interrupting scorestreaks, deploying gas mines, or highlighting your position on the minimap. It’s ‘Level 36’ unlock is indicative of the weapon’s use and many positives.
Level Unlocked: 36
Field upgrades ranked
After summarising our thoughts on each piece of equipment, we can now finally reveal our favorites. Every single field upgrade does have some kind of use and all are viable options. Here is our assigned rankings.
- SAM Turret
- Jammer
- Field Mic
- Proximity Mine
- Gas Mine
- Trophy System
In the end, the SAM Turret’s ability to decimate scorestreaks is too good to turn down. Given how much a Chopper Gunner can annihilate a team, if several people throw these down, then it protects you well.
That is all of the Black Ops Cold War field upgrades. Hopefully, this should give you a great idea of how to approach the Black Ops Cold War multiplayer.