This guide is for knifers and bladerunners.

Please don't use this knowledge to mess with people.

There's enough occasional-trollknifers, haymakers and RPG people out there.

If you're one of them, please leave.

If you genuinely want to learn how to knife, welcome fellow bladerunner.

The easiest way to get better at knifing is to practice a lot. :)

And who am I to tell you how to knife?
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All the screenshots you see are from my own games. And yes, all the weapons are golden.
What I'm saying is that I basically knife exclusively. I am not saying I know everything, but in this guide I will share my own experience with you.
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Knifing/Melee is a very special playstyle with its own rules. Because you have practically no range, you need finesse and smartness.
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The sniper is lying in his overwatch position.... Aiming down sights, at a target 150 meters away..... Then suddenly...... SLASH!!! A blade ends his streak!
A knifer snuck up on him and humiliated the silent assasin.
The shamed shooter hopes that his friends don't spot his humiliation in the killfeed and silently respawns...

In my opinion, getting knifed is the most humiliating thing that can happen to you in a shooter game.
It shows, that even though your gun has a Range of 150 meters, I can get to you and make you sit down with nothing more than a knife.

And because I find it so much fun, I created this guide to let you in on the party.

THIS IS THE KNIFERS GUIDE!

The Snipers have a saying: One shot, one kill.

We can do better!
This is my credo:


NO SHOT, 10 KILLS

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Since the last update, there are more melee weapons available in the game than before, when it was only the regular knife.

Now you can melee with Brass Knuckles, a Wrench and a Butterfly Knife!
Update: Newest addition for us melee people: A Crowbar and a giant Sword!
More on the sword see below!

You can get these items via Rare Supply Drops and a lot of luck. They are very rare indeed.

The melee weapons have all the same stats and controls, yet feel VERY differently.

I made a list below of those I own.
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The Fury Song
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Here she is, everybodys darling, and, in my opinion, the worst melee weapon in the game, the Fury's Song:
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Now let me tell you, it is such a prestigious weapon, everyone likes it. You can swing it like Ninja when you press the reload button and it looks very cool when you do it.
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Every time I get killed in the beginning of a game, the enemy picks up the sword and I see him running around with it. It happens literally every game.This never happened with other melee weapons, not in that frequency.
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So here she is up close:
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Notice the beautiful Prestige 1 Clantag!
That, and the gold camo, look very well on this weapon, no doubt about it.
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Now into the negatives and why I dislike this sword:
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First off, it is SLOW. Like REALLY slow. If I do not 'prefire' at least one to 1,5 meters in front of another Bladerunner, the standard level 40 knife gets me every time. It's ridiculous.
This sword has by far the slowest reaction time of all melee weapons. At least that's what I feel.
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Secondly, as I keep saying in this guide, a bladerunners greatest advantage is the awareness of his surroundings. Now when you're holding a timber, covering the right third of your screen, top to bottom, you're not very aware of anything there. You can see the problem in the above image (the first one), and let me tell you, this gets worse when you're running around with that toothpick. It swings around over the whole right third of your screen.

The third negative thing is the 'reload time' of the Fury's Song. By 'reload time' I mean the time it takes after a kill until you can kill again with it. It seems to be very long.
On the road to gold, I ran into several dozen situations where I was one hundred percent sure I would have survived them with any other melee weapon.
A typical scenario would be an encounter with two enemies. A simple thing, you just line 'em up and double slash them. Not with the fury song. That slow blade makes it almost impossible to go for a double, unless you stunned them before.
I ended up with Firebreak's Heatwave to go for that Chameleon Challenge, simply because I was getting frustrated with that butterknife.

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And yes, people might argue that this sword is the melee weapon for the 'skilled players' of the game, but I tell you right now, there are (as of march 2016) 6 melee weapons in the game, and all 5 other melee weapons handle perfectly normal, without any delay or something. ;)

So before you buy any supply drops because you want to play Ninja, pick up every sword you find ingame, until you made about 20 kills with it, and you'll see what I mean. If you still want it then, go for it.

But I admit it, it looks cool as hell! xD
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The Regular Knife

Beautifully made:
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A good, quick knife.
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The prestige Clantags look very nice on it.

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The Butterfly Knife

One of the rarest knifes in the game is the Butterfly Knife.

For those that haven't been able to get it yet, here are a few screenshots of mine in action.
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They changed up the Prestige tags, and on the Butterfly Knife, the Prestige-Tag is now on the blade. A bit of an odd choice putting it on the blade actually. But it looks fine.



The Thing about the butterfly is this: It's blade is VERY skinny, and I dislike that.
The old legacy knife feels way bigger and looks more powerful.
Animations are good on the Butterfly and it looks VERY cool once you get the Gold Camo, because the whole knife turns golden basically, not like the legacy knife where the grip stayed black. But the blade itself could REALLY use a little more gold though, only half of it is covered.
The old blade was way shinier.
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The Brass Knuckles
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These actually look a bit too big for my taste. They are kind of bulky I think.


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They sound a bit like the wrench when you hit someone with them.
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Another thing I don't really like is that the Prestige emblem is barely visible. Because you hold the knuckles in such an angle that it's hard to see the emblem. It gets even worse with the ne, redesigned orange-yellowish Prestige emblems.
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That is the looks however. They are VERY fast! Compared to the Fury's Song, they're beast! They cover up the bottom of your screen, not the sides, which makes them the best choice for the knifer's awareness. And they drop an enemy in an instant. At the moment, I prefer these over all other melee weapons, and yes, I do have the Fury's Song (see above). Trust me, the Brass Knuckles are better in many ways.
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One thousand kills exactly =) And beautiful new prestige tags on the weapons. Stunning!
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The Wrench

Here's the caveman's club, the swinger, the Wrench! =)

I have taken a few pics of mine, it's golden now:
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As you notice on the pictures above, the new Prestige-Clantags are way more visible than the old ones. The top Picture shows the new Prestige Tags the lower picture shows the old one. And boy, what an improvement! You finally cna see the killcount without inspecting the weapon! :)

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This is - to my surprise - one of my favourite weapons in the game!
Here's why: It feels SO MIGHTY WHEN YOU WIELD IT! And yes, this sounds silly.
But I played the butterfly (which is smaller than the regular knife) several hours to get the Gold Camo, and then I started playing the Wrench.
And boy did that make a difference!



Suddenly, you hold that huge piece of metal in your hand, and it feels like a baseball bat! There's no more slicing sound like the knife does, there's just a damped, deep "DONK" when you drop somebody. And There's no more stabbing animation like the knife has, it looks more like you play baseball with the enemy. In fact, the Wrench is the fastest killing melee weapon in the game, according to some stats I found on Youtube. Don't quote me on this though, it was Youtube.




I REALLY LIKE THE WRENCH! You feel like a caveman when you wield it, there's no finesse in it, it's just that raw, powerful tool you absolutely mash people with.



That being said, I make a prediction here, today is the 19. of December 2015.

Here it is:

They will, in some future update, include something like a Hammer. A 'Thors Hammer' of some sort, some big, heavy hammer. Let's see if I'm right. =)

Now kind of weapon you use is entirely up to you, and they work all the same and have the same stats.

With that said, let's get into it!

This might seem obvious to you. How do you knife? Well you get close and push the knife button. There is MUCH more to this than it initially seems!



I'll break it down into sections, depending on your situation:

The Panic Knife

The most common knife kill. You run around a corner and slash somebody. Simple, fast, but not always clean, as they often fire off a few shots, alerting their buddies.

All that counts here are reflexes. You can push the knife button when you're still about one meter away and run directly at the enemy, it will still register.

The Backstabber

An easy kill. And more importantly: THE CLEANEST KILL!
By that I mean, that your opponent most likely DOESN'T FIRE OFF A SHOT, alerting his teammates.

When you perform a backstabber kill, you stay mostly undetected.

So the backstabber is the way to go whenever you can!

The front knife

From the easiest to the hardest - the frontal knife.

If you attack someone with a gun from the front with only a knife, you pretty much lost the fight.

There are two ways of winning, and I'll explain both of them here:

1. The slider

This is the way to go, if your opponent is between 3-8 meters away.

You slide in the direction of your opponent, but NOT directly at him, making his aim easier.

So you slide in the direction of your enemy, but about 1-1.5 meter to the left or right of him.

If he wants to kill you, he has to aim down and sideways, instead of just down when you go directly at him.

When you're in range, turn toward him and slash the guy - done.

The slider is THE go-to move for a frontal attack.

It has to be one fluid motion:

Running - sliding - turning - slashing and immediately back to running


2. The evasion

If you get spotted at a range bigger than 8 meters, you're screwed.

The only thing you can try is evading your opponents shots. And you do so however you can. Sliding, jumping and finding cover as fast as you can.

If you know your enemy has bad aim, you can also attack him this way. Slide, wallrun and jump towards him, go left and right, basically do anything that throws his aim off.

If you have a good enemy, you're screwed in this situation, period.

But if his aim is bad, or if he's far enough away, you might still make it.

The Jump-Slider

This move is a very good mix of the Jumping Knife and the Slider:

When you jump in the air and you see an enemy close by, turn in his direction and press the slide button mid-air! As soon as you land, you will immediately be sliding on the floor, towards your enemy!

This is a great move, because it's hard to hit fast targets, like jumping or sliding ones.

Just hit the slide-button mid-air in a game and you'll see what I mean. You'll love it.

The Slide-Jumper

This is the exact opposite from the move I described above. It's a little trick that worked great on Advanced Warfare, and still wokrs on Black Ops 3.

Slide over Ledges and hit the Jump-Button mid-air, and you'll dash over the map in incredible speed!

Jumping carries you far, but it's not fast.
Sliding is fast but doesn't bring you very far.

So you run to a ledge, any ledge high enough (3 Meters and more), and you hit slide right before the edge so you slide over it. Your thrust meter goes down a bit doing so. Now mid-air you hit the jump-button, until your thrust-meter is empty.

You will have the speed of a slide and the range of a jump, it's an epic move!


The stunned knife

Use your stun grenades! Before you enter a room, throw a stunner in there. If you see an opponent running away from you out in the open field, you can still get him. Just stun him first and then go after him.
Just make sure you get back to safety afterwards



The Jump Knife

We naturally don't look up in the air. We concentrate on corners and covers.

The jump knife is a knife kill where you jump up in the air and try to land as close as possible to your opponent to stab him.

While it might feel cool doing a jump knife kill, it is also very noticable for other players.

Do it, if you descend from buildings etc. but try to avoid it on an open map where you'll be seen from everyone when you pop up in the sky.

The Group Slash

Knifing more than one enemy is hard. But there is a way to do it:

If you run in a group of opponents, there are different ways to go about it.

Personally, I take with me whoever I can and die the knifers death.

For those situations, I have the Gravity Spikes equipped most of the time.

I start out knifing the first, maybe the second guy, and then gravity-spike the rest of them.

That being said, if an knifer runs into a group of only semi-good players, he's basically screwed.

The bait

The go-to gamemode for a knifer is Kill Confirmed (reasons see below), and there are dogtags to collect.

A very valuable strategy, if a dogtag is placed in your favor and you know there's enemies around, is: leave it there! Just wait for the unsuspecting enemy to collect it, and knife him down while he is totally focused on getting those 100 points.

I have done this several times, and it is great fun, because of the tactical aspect.

Where is the knifers realm? Where do you have to be to have an advantage over a gun, when only using a knife?

The answer is simple: In the closest, tightest corners and hallways you can find!

As a knifer, you have one advantage over gun-players, and that is the element of surprise . You can kill in one slash, and you can do it very, very fast.

SO ALWAYS STICK TO THE BUILDINGS AND NEVER GO OUTSIDE WHERE YOU CAN BE SEEN FROM 50 METERS! (Spawning is excluded from that rule. You have to run over open planes to get to a house, obviously)


Should you camp or should you rush? The answer is: Both!

Place a few tripmines at the entrance of the building, rush the other entrances! Make a building yours!

Show yourself in the doorway to lure your enemies in.

You basically run around all the time as a knifer, always looking for a quick corner-panic knife.

THIS IS YOUR GREAT STRENGH! USE IT!

PLAY KILL CONFIRMED.

That simple. :)

If you get a Knife Kill, you collect the tag automatically due to the close proximity of the enemy.

That's a 150 points right there, compared to the 100 points you'll get in a TDM for the same accomplishment.

Kill confirmed works this way:

- Kill: 50 Points
- Collect Dogtag: 100 Points

Because killing and collecting is THE SAME THING for a knifer, I make 150 points per kill, compared to the SAME EFFORT I'd have in a TDM (making only 100 Points per kill).

I'd recommend this gamemode (or Domination, but NOT as a knifer ;) ) if you want to rank up fast.

Kill Confirmed is the go-to gamemode for any knifer.

If you like the Paintjob of the Blade, you can search it. I published it under the name "Blood Blade".

1. So as a true Bladerunner you obviously ONLY use a knife ;)

2. I run the concussion nades to slow enemies down running in front of me and to make rooms safe that I enter

Now the perks are very simple: I use any and all perks that make me as invisible as possible.

A sniper WANTS to be a ghost, but he often carries a long-range sniper rifle and a short range pistol.

A knifer doesn't have those privileges. He has to BECOME a ghost.

3. Ghost Perk is a huge help, as it hides you from enemy UAV's

4. Sixth Sense is kind of a help *sometimes* because it works at VERY low range. It shows the direction of enemies on your HUD, if they are within 5-8 meters range. For knifing it's OK, don't use it if you have guns equpped.
In fact Flat Jacket might make more sense here depending on your playstyle.
I use this perk as kind of a 'last chance', because sometines you realize when someone is sneaking up on you thanks to this, but it's really 50/50 that it works.

5. Hard Wired is an absolute MUST! It makes you IMMUNE to:

- Counter UAV (Huge help!)
- Power Core
- EMP Grenade
- Smoke Screen

It won't trigger:

- Trip mines (Huge help!)
- Shock Charges (Huge help!)
- C4 Alarm

and it also reduces your imprint against:

- Enemy Tracker
- Sixth sense Perk

And all of that IN ONE PERK

6. Cold Blooded hides you from thermal optics and gound-based AI scorestreaks. Because I really have trouble taking out Wraiths and Sentries with only my blade. ;p This perk can be switched with Tracker, which shows enemies footsteps, but like Sixth Sense, within SUCH a low range, that you'll probarbly hear them by yourself.

7. The last perk is obviously Blast Surpressor, hiding your Exo-Jumps from the minimap. This can be switched with Dead Silence once you're alt level 50.





What is unusual about this loadout?

It has no lethals in it. Why not? Well, if you think about it: How many times did you REALLY get a kill using a lethal? A perk helps you every second of the game, a lethal is between one and three kills (if you're lucky) per game.
If you want to camp, you can secure doors with tripmines, but apart from that, lethals are not really useful.

And yes, as a knifer the obvious choice seems to be the combat axe. And I encourage you to try it out!
But really, I found it so hard to get a decent amount of kills out of it, compared to giving up 3 slots for 2 axes, I switched it against perks, perks, perks! Because no matter the shape you're in, if you're playing at your A-Game or if you have a bad day - a perk ALWAYS helps!

So here's a little selection of loadouts I frequently use.

The first one I find most useful, and respectively the bottom ones are the least useful ones (to me).

Blade Stealth Loadout 1



This is the loadout I play almost exclusively. It has everything you need:

- Stealth Perks (Ghost, Cold Blooded and Hard Wired)
- Resistance Perks (Flat Jacket and Tactical Mask)
- One non-lethal nade to slow people down
- One tripmine for a free kill or to secure a door

Blade Stealth Loadout 2



Same thing, ghost got replaced by Blast Supressor to keep you off the minimap when boost jumping.

Blade Streak Loadout



This is the one to go for if you want to level up fast, especially on a double XP Weekend!

Ante Up and Overclock make it easy to go on a knife-only scorestreak.
Overclock gets your specialist weapon faster, Ante Up gives you a bonus to your scorestreak. Both of them added together, you'll do just fine.

I suggest you go for low scorestreaks (See section 'The Scorestreaks') so you'll be able to call them once or more in every match. Especially on Double-XP, this helps a ton levelling up.

Mind you, this is a rank-up loadout, not a knifer-loadout for regular bladerunning!

This loadout doesn't hide you from anything really, if not for Hardwired.


Blade Balanced Loadout




Cold blooded is gone, replaced by sixth sense. Not the best loadout here, but if you like sixth sense, this is yours.

Blade Axe Loadout



No melee loadout guide is complete without the mandatory axes. I find it so hard to hit something with them, I rarely use it.

As a Bladerunner, you play fast and you die fast. A knife only 10-kill-streak is doable, but very rare.

Use low scorestreaks. I have this simple rule:

A scorestreak should NOT be a huge reward you reach every 3rd round, but something you reach frequently to really help you and your team.

So here are the scorestreaks I recommend:

- The UAV
- The Carepackage
- The Counter UAV

The UAV's purpose is clear I think. Especially to a knifer who needs to be more aware of the battlefield than someone with a gun.

The Carepackage is your RNG-Lottery-Scorestreak. You can get lucky or not, but it is your possibility to gain something better than your knifing ability might get you.

The Counter UAV is pretty much the same like the UAV, it keeps the points flowing and helps your team out.

Why is the HC-XD not recommended? Simple: while you're using it, you're a sitting duck. And it only gets you one kill 90% of the time. How many times have I blown someone up, only to find out the enemy has found me in the meantime and dropped me.

I found Ruin and his Gravity Spikes proved very useful. Knifers always get close and personal, and when you run in a cluster of enemies around the corner, this is your last resort.
This is the specialist I always play knifing.
Ruins Overdrive ability is very useful for those close corner fights, as you can cut corners very fast and surprise people.

I also play the Flamethrower ability, simply because it's VERY hard on open maps to keep a good KD as a knifer. So with the flamethrower you get free kills, because it's ridiculously OP, and keep your frustration down. :)

I tested spectre for a while, finding him pretty much useless. Just mentioning him because he seems to be the obvious choice for a knifer. He's not. If you have only a knfe equipped, his one ability is USELESS. And the invisible thing isn't that good, so forget him. If you want to be invisible, check out the loadout section. ;)

Nomad wiht the Hive Gun is EXCELLENT for camping a whole house, locking all doors with the Nano Drones. But if you want knifekills it doesn't help.

Seraph has combat focus. If you are REALLY good knifing, you get your UAV AND COUNTER UAV, and call them in, and THEN use your combat focus. You'll drown in points. I always do that with my gun gameplays, but knifing it's a lot harder and therefor not useful.

So the last Ability I can imagine you think is useful for a knifer is Glitch. And I did use it for a few hours. But here is the Problem: Glitch saves you by pulling you 'back in time' when you come around a corner, facing 3 enemies.
Here's the thing though: This is a defensive ability and you will NOT GAIN ANYTHING from it.
That's why I switched to Ruin with the Gravity spikes. With those, you can save this cluster-situation sometines, really gaining something instead of just running away.

Let me start this one off with a quote from Edgar Allan Poe:

Gaily bedight,
A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.





The good news is that the knife has no attachments.

So the challenges you have to fulfill are mostly "Get X number of knifekills".

There is no "use 5 attachments and get 20 kills" challenges for the knife.

That means you fulfill 90 percent of the challenges in normal bladerunning.

There are only two challenges though that might require you to change your playstyle:

Battle Camo

Here, you have to kill an enemy with the knife (and nothing else!), then pick up his weapon and kill him again with his own weapon. So you have to stay alive after killing him until you get him again with his own gun.

Tips:

Use good guns. What I mean by that: If you kill somebody with a sniper rifle, and you're not good at sniping, leave it there. Chances are you get killed pretty quick if you're not familiar with that type of gun.

I knifed people until I got an SMG or an Assault Rifle, preferably with a RDS on it.

After that, it's mostly luck. You just mow through people with that gun until you hit the right one.

You can camp, but i wouldn't recommend it.

Instead: LEARN THE SPAWNS! If you manage to kill someone and take his weapon, you should have a general Idea where he spawns and start walking in that direction.
Chances are, you're gonna get him.

In case you are lazy like me and don't want to learn that stuff: Check your minimap.

So if I drop someone and pick up his weapon, the first thing I do is checking the minimap.
If I see that all my teammates are in one half of the map, chances are pretty good that the opponents spawn somewhere in the other half. This is the direction I walk in, hoping to drop the right dude.

So in short:

- Pick the right gun
- Know where the enemy respawns
- Don't get killed

If you do it long enough you'll get it done. It takes more luck than skill really.

Chameleon Camo

This is the hardest one by far.
You will have to get five consecutive kills without dying five times. Basically you have to collect five knife-only bloodthirsty medals.

Sidenote: I saw various Youtube videos where some people explained how to get gold on a SMG or assault rifle, and they said "well, these bloodthirsty medals are pretty hard to get". I couldn't stop myself from laughing, because compared to doing it with a knife, doing it with a SMG is a breeze.

So how do you do it? There are two ways, the honorable one, and the inglorious one.

The honorable way

Get good at knifing! A good knifer gets one of those medals in every game. Be fast, be quick, be quiet and become a ghost.

It's that simple. This is the way I did it, and this is the way everybody should do it.

You want to distinguish yourself from others with a gold camo, so put some work into it. =)

The inglorious way

This is the dishonorable way of doing it, and I don't like it.

- Switch to the Nomad Specialist with the HIVE ability
- Put the Sixth Sense Perk on
- Put double Tripmines on
- Find a room with only two doors in a zone with reasonable traffic
- Use ONE mine at the door where you don't expect the enemy
- Camp the other door with your knife until Sixth Sense goes off
- Assasinate the unsuspecting player when he comes in
- Check the section "camping spots" for good spots

If an enemy comes in the other way, he'll hit your tripmine. Immediately put the second one there. When you're out of mines, put nanoswarms there.

You won't get all five kills this way. I suggest you get 2-3 kills the right way, and only then switch to this method. If you camp one room for the entire match, everybody notices eventually.

Go out there, and if you struggle with that fifth kill, use the dishonorable method to get it, if you must.

That being said, I suggest you take the honorable path.

We are bladerunners.

We trade range, thermal optics and huge magazines for a weapon that is 10'000 years old.

Honor the old ones by playing fair.

So for all knife-camping you have to put the Sixth Sense perk on! You can camp in more ridiculous spots and notice people through walls wiht that perk, so it is absolutely crucial that you have it equipped.

Also, bring at least one tripmine to secure your back. This is just as crucial!

Hunted

I have never seen someone use this spot on hunted, and it's an epic spot because it's in a high traffic area!

Go inside this house:



Find the well inside:



Jump inside the water and swim to the left corner:



There you go. It seems so obvious, but I SWEAR people won't notice you. If they come in form the outside (basically looking at you), they are focused on the stairwell and on the room to your left. This one is my best spot and you'll love it when you have tried it.

Redwood

There are two spots on Redwood, facing each other.

Inside this bunker:


Go through the door:


Place your tripmine here:


And camp the door you came in.


The other spot is on the opposite side of the middle of the map, facing the first spot.

Go inside the open window of the building:


Place your tripmine here:


Camp the stairs leading to your room:

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Stronghold


Inside this house:



Go here and enter the room on the right:



And drop your mine nxt to the door you just entered:



Camp the window:



Jump on the little furniture to get even closer:



If you have two mines, you can seal the other window, too.

This hallway:



To the left you drop a present:



If you trap the windows, place the mine half a meter or more away from the ledge, so they can't be seen from below. These are high traffic areas, if you stay alive long enough, kills are guaranteed.


Fringe


This house:



That room is a two door room. Place the mine on the door NOT facing the train. There's less traffic coming from there:


Camp the door facing the train:



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Combine


This house:



Through the hallway to the room on the right:



Place a mine at the door you entered:



Camp the window:




That's it for camping spots. Like I said, I don't encourage this playstyle.

If you made it to here, I want to thank you for investing your time.

I hope you learned something valuable.

I see you on the battlefield.

The guide is finished here, but there are some things I thought I might add, because they are of general interest.

The following Topics are not related to learning how to knife, but more about the gereral topic of knifegame.

Here is a funny episode I had when I was going for Gold on the Brass Knuckles. The knuckles are my most recent melee-unlock. I had also unlocked the Ghost Gear on my Ruin Specialist and equipped it.

Usually I go with the standard Camo until I have Gold. To spice things up a little, I thought this time I equip every single camo I unlock on the way to gold.

And at some Point I had the camo called 'Burnt' equipped, with the Ghost Gear at the same time.

Now Gold is very beautiful, but I really really like the purple style of the maching gear with the melee weapons It reminds me of the 'Royal' gear in the last COD.
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We bladerunners are cooler than the gunnery anyways, why not be more stylish, too? ;p

So you heard the complaints, you saw the chat-feeds "OMG KNIFING IS SO OP!!"

So what is the issue here?

When you knife somebody, you may or may not have noticed, that your character 'locks on' to the enemies character.

An example:

A opponent is standing 30° to my left. I stab him. The hit registers. During the stabbing animation my character turns 30°and when the animation is finished, I am looking in a different direction than before, just by hitting the melee button.

This stands out very hard when someone is above you (e.g. evading your attack by jumping).
You look straight ahead, hit the knife button and suddenly, before you know what happened, your character looks up in the air, because he 'locked on' the enemy who was jumping away when he got stabbed.

And for the normal player, the gunner who occasionally uses a knife, I agree, this is OP, because he gets a free kill even if he's not really having the enemy in his sights.

For me, as a 100% knife person, this is actually horrible and I want it patched out. Because yes, I stab jumping people too, and may have had benefited from that error. But far more times, this flaw got me killed.

Let me explain:

As a good bladerunner, you can go against more than one enemy. You even try to do so, to gain double and triple kill medals.

Here is the thing: When I cut a corner, and there are 3 enemies, I slide at the middle one or the one in the rear and get him first. Why? So the others have to readjust their aim. Then I stab the second one and Gravity-Spike the rest or I spike directly after the first kill. Doesn't really matter.

So here's the thing: I sneak up on three opponents. I line them up so I can get most or all of them.
The dude I want to get first sees me and jumps away.
I click my knife button, my character 'locks on' and by the end of the animation I'm looking up in the sky, getting shot by the two dudes that are left.

In the beginning you will not notice this, you'll just be glad to get a knifekill. But once you hit a certian level, this is a gamebreaker. Because all they have to do to throw you off your game, is the most natural reaction anyways, and that is to evade you.

So my whole point here is the following: Yes, knifing has a problem in BO3, and it needs to get fixed.

But my personal opinion is not that knifing is OP, in fact I get a disadvantage from this 'lock on'.

But for the occasional knifer, running the blade as a secondary or something, I agree, it is OP.

What I'm trying to say is that everybody has a disadvantage here.

- The gunner who gets killed that shouldn't have been killed.
- The good knifer who is handicapped by this 'lock on' thing, making his character movements unpredictable
- The kids who think this feature is cool and try to collect 'easy kills' actually won't get better at their game

So I guess to make a long story short, I, as a 100% knife person, hope this gets patched just as much, if not more, than the multiple gunmen I have seen complain about this ingame.

Should you prestige your character? Well, that depends. If you get bored with the game, because you have everything unlocked and want a new challenge, then yes, prestige!

If you think that little Icon shows something about your skill and how good you are, then do not prestige and read on.

Prestiging in COD represents one, and one thing only: The time you played the game.

There is no skill involved in prestiging.

What do I mean by that? Because there is no skill involved, even the worst player prestiges eventually, given enough time.

The good player prestiges faster of course, but the accomplishment is the same.

Let me give you an example: Assuming there is no auto-kick for inactive players.

So you join a lobby, get in a game and then your mouse and keyboard would break because you spilled your drink over it.

You cannot move, because your input devices are broken. You also can't leave the party, for the same reason.

So your game is running, day in and day out, and your character doesn't do anything.

Eventually you hit a prestige just by accumulating round-winning bonuses, even tough your team carried you 100%.

That's what I mean by 'There is NO skil involved by prestiging'. ;p
So if you want something to show off your skill with, go for the calling cards and assignments.

Now THERE is serious skill (and sometimes luck) involved to unlock them!

Even now, like 6 weeks in the game I rarely see master calling cards, because they're really hard to get, some almost unreachable for an unskilled player.

I know, complaining about prestiging is a controversial one, that's why I put it under Misc and it has nothing to do with knifing. ;p

Speaking of which: The second prestige in BO3 I consider the honest knifers prestige. Because you unlock the blade at Level 40, the first 'Round' I consider a dishonest one, as you probarbly shoot your way to the knife. I know I did, punching was too much of a grind. xD

So basically the way from 1st to 2nd prestige is my honest prestige. All levels knife-only.

Give it a shot, and you'll be an excellent knifer. ;)

Another tip about prestiging that helps me a ton: Turn off the prestige Icons ingame. They distract a lot.

Go to Options --> Graphics --> Game, and there under 'Player Name Indicator' switch to 'Abbreviated'.

You will only see red or blue player names, and no distracting little pictograms - in game that is.
You'll still see them little pictures in the lobby.