"Naming such an ineffective weapon after an animal noted for its teeth seems somewhat misleading."
— Marlton Johnson, when receiving the SMR on Die Rise and comparing it to buzzards
If you think you can survive with these peashooters in a game as intense as Call of Duty: Zombies, you couldn't be any more mistaken...
Weapons
- In general, a good chunk of starter weapons become this, at least until BO4 and Cold War pulled them out of the heap, due to the fact that the zombies gain more health as time goes on, and the weapons themselves become relatively weaker as a result.
- The SMR, a far cry from its fully-automatic version in multiplayer, makes the starting handguns look amazing. Even ignoring that semi-auto weapons are already at a disadvantage against zombie hordes, it has low reserve capacity* , it has a slow reload, it's surprisingly weak for a battle rifle, and worst of all it has a glitch that makes aiming down the sights exactly the same as hip firing, giving it almost nonexistent accuracy. Even more absurdly, said accuracy bug was never even patched during the lifetime of Black Ops II.
- However, after an update, the SMR FINALLY started to redeem itself in its Pack-a-Punched form, which gained improved accuracy.
- FN FAL from both Black Ops games is a nice weapon during early waves and could be considered a better version of M14, but upon being Pack-a-Punched it quickly suffers a Power-Up Letdown not just because of damage, but because of a much-maligned burst-fire mode which can't be switched off, meaning that the fire rate against the hordes will be downright abysmal.
- Bolt-action rifles, sniper or not, usually tend to be looked down upon by a majority of players with some notable exceptions. The most notorious examples include:
- The Springfield, a weapon so weak that it's unable to one-shot a zombie in the chest on round one. On its own, that's inexcusable, but even worse is that the model has misaligned iron sights, requiring you to aim slightly to the left of what you want to shoot, otherwise you'll miss. Worse, you can get it from the Mystery Box on some maps from World at War, wasting 950 points for a pathetic joke of a weapon.
- On that note, the Kar98k and the Arisaka (which is found only on Shi No Numa). The only three things they have over the Springfield are that they can be bought off the wall on most WaW maps for 200 points, they can one-shot zombies in the chest until round 3, and their sights are modeled correctly. Other than that, they're just as pathetic. Kar98k in particular appears on Der Riese and can be Pack-a-Punched. Go ahead, try it. It'll totally be worthy of the name "Armageddon".
- The scoped version of the Kar98k is more powerful and has a good scope attachment, but it reloads bullet by bullet (rather than by inserting a clip at once), and given that you have deal with huge hordes of the undead, it does not help much. While this gun could have a lot of potential if used on maps with open space, it had the misfortune of being available only on Nacht der Untoten, where most of action eventually comes down to close quarters combat, something this gun is completely outclassed by other weapons, such as Thompson or Double-Barrel shotgun.
- The Essex Model 07 from Black Ops IIII. While not quite as useless as the Kar98k from WaW, it has no attachments outside of camos (a trait shared with other map specific weapons such as the M1927 and the Hitchcock M9, but those guns are very powerful to make up for that), a low firing rate, and damage that's acceptable for the early rounds but tapers off too quickly. Its upgraded version has a 30 round magazine but relatively low damage boosts and painfully low fire rate despite no longer having to be cycled and gaining an automatic fire mode.
- Even the semi-automatic sniper rifles from the early Black Ops games are not completely flak-proof, as the Barrett M82A1 can demonstrate. It has a very low ammo reserve (even the upgraded version has 49 shots which may not even be enough to put down a wave of fast zombies in the later rounds) and an absurdly high recoil, making shooting it quite a chore and making it inferior to DSR, another sniper rifle which can do anything Barrett does, but much better.
- Back in World at War and right until Der Riese, the starting pistol M1911 was pretty bad, existing solely for accumulating points early on. At least you do not need to pay any points for it... except, when playing on Shi No Numa, you could get it from the Mystery Box instead of, say, PPSH-41 or the Wunderwaffe DG-2. The creators themselves realized how underwhelming M1911 was, and from Der Riese and onward, it can be Pack-a-Punched into becoming a very good weapon, even gaining a dual wield in games starting from Black Ops.
- The Olympia from the first two Black Ops games fares little better than its multiplayer version. It is essentially a nerfed variant of the double-barrel shotgun from World at War - it is available right at the start of the game on most maps and costs pretty cheap - but its damage is much lower than expected from an average shotgun. Even if you do upgrade it, the constant need to reload the thing after only two shots still makes this weapon impractical unless you use Speed Cola on it. Even the incendiary ammo bonus is nothing more than a purely cosmetic effect that does not really increase damage much. That said, it will kill the Hellhounds with a single shot in the head regardless of how late you are in the game and deals much more damage with Double Tap Root Beer 2.0 in Black Ops II, but the two-shell capacity still remains the key point of why this gun is avoided most of the time.
- Black Ops has the PM63. Its insane fire rate and hilariously small magazine (20 bullets) will force you to visit the wall you bought it from just to refill its ammo. During later rounds, it becomes pretty much a complete joke, with the damage being so low you will be better off surviving with any other SMG. The Pack-a-Punched version is somehow even worse: it allows you to dual wield them and increases the mag size to 25 for each gun... in exchange for outright abysmal accuracy, unfathomably high rate of fire and mediocre damage.
- All Zombies maps from World at War and their remastered versions from the first Black Ops (actually, those only of Nacht der Untoten and Verruckt) have the BAR. Mediocre damage, slow rate of fire, 20-round magazine, sluggish reload speed and also an outrageous price of 1800 points. Somehow it fares even poorer on Verruckt where it costs 2500 points and comes with a bipod... that can't even be used.
- Most explosive weapons qualify, especially on maps without PhD Flopper, but particularly the Panzerschrek, the China Lake and War Machine from World at War, Black Ops and Black Ops II respectively. Case in point:
- The Panzerschrek has to be reloaded after each shot, has a high risk of self-damage from the explosion radius and is also too heavy for its user to outrun the zombies. The Pack-a-Punched version allows the user to fire three rockets at once and reloads quickly, but its weight and risk of dying from the splash damage still remain its main disadvantages.
- The China Lake is not only pump-action, but it also has a stupidly-long pause between shots (which can be speed up by reload cancelling) and a mag size of just two shots, but at least its grenades explode on impact. The Pack-a-Punched version still does not remedy the pump-action nature and mag capacity problems.
- The War Machine is the opposite - it has a decent mag size for an explosive weapon that it can empty pretty quickly, but the grenades bounce around for a few seconds before exploding and deal incredibly weak damage on their own. It does gain impact explosives when Pack-a-Punched and overall becomes more effective, but considering in BOII, PhD can only be obtained through either the perma-perk system on Buried or Der Wunderfizz on Origins, it still remains a hit or miss weapon on all other maps.
- Even the only definite advantage all three weapons have (the potential to create crawlers) isn’t much of a redeeming factor when you take into account that you get two grenades every round anyway and there’s usually a spot where you can get them (or in certain maps in Black Ops, semtex or claymore mines) for cheap.
- Speaking of Grenades, EMP Grenades. Taking up the Monkey Bomb's slot, their function is to cause zombies to be stopped for some time, unless the player runs or shoots, - something the Monkey Bombs do better anyway - with the side effect of disabling any Perk Machines (and thus the perks you bought) for a long time. Their only real use is to screw over enemy players in Grief mode, other than fighting Avogadro in co-op, and outside of that are useless bordering on harmful.
- The Welling suffers from pretty much the same problems as the Essex Model 07; no attachments, no power, and no reason to use it the second you unlock the Strife and beyond, all of which CAN take attachments, including the powerful Operator Mods. Also the Welling's ammo pool was cut in half compared to previous starter pistols, unless you have Bandoleer Bandit.
- Moving over to Wonder Weapons, we have the Winter's Howl from Black Ops, which does indeed freeze zombies - after spending a few seconds progressively slowing them down. And from there, it takes a while for them to shatter, though the process can be sped up by firing on them with other guns. Not only is it underwhelming, but it only appears on "Five" and the remastered Verruckt, two maps so difficult, you'd be forgiven for expecting a powerful Wonder Weapon to help even the odds. Indeed, the BO3 version of Verruckt replaces the Winter's Howl with the Wunderwaffe DG-2 as the level's Wonder Weapon. It's slightly better in Classified, the trade-off being that you need to complete most of the map and a small easter egg just to get it now.
- The V-R11 is one of the most underwhelming Wonder Weapons of the series, mostly for the Artificial Stupidity of a zombie turned human can achieve. There's even a chance where the human AI, whose sole purpose is to lure the horde of zombies away from you, will sometimes either run towards you or just stand there. And you have to use it for the Easter Egg too, no matter if you are playing solo or in a party. Its only saving grace, however, is the fact that it can give your teammates invincibility and also calm George down...for about 15 seconds. Its Pack-a-Punched form is marginally better since it allows you to grant your teammates a temporary version of Insta-Kill in addition to invisibility, and also take George Romero out of action entirely for a whole round or two if he is in the water at the moment, but in solo it remains just as useless.
- The Jet Gun from TranZit is also a Wonder Weapon that is hated by players, maybe even moreso than the V-R11. This is because it sucks zombies towards you (and they can hit you once they are close enough), greatly slows you down, and will explode if it overheats. It's supposed to compensate for this in two ways. First, it will instantly kill any zombies it sucks through its turbine and second, it doesn't require any ammunition, instead needing to cooldown. However, these still don't redeem it for four reasons; 1) you are constantly being chased by hordes of zombies, and all of them can take swings at you, 2) it heats it insanely quickly, 3) its cooldown, from the red zone on the gauge, can take 1 minute and 40 seconds to fully cooldown, and 4) it will only cool down while you're holding it out without firing it, meaning you're stuck running around with a heavy weapon that you can't use whilst being chased by zombies. The task of building it is incredibly tedious, too - go to a certain location, pick up a part, go to the town, place the part on a crafting table, rinse and repeat. And did we mention you need it for the Easter Egg? And that it can become lost forever if the bus runs over any of its parts? Oh, and lest we forget that not only does it take up the Buildables slot (which would later be occupied by the Zombie Shield in future maps), nor can it be Pack-a-Punched, but it doesn't even give you any fucking points for using it!!
- Rather unfortunately, the Wunderwaffe DG-2 from The Giant in Black Ops III. The lighting now chains slower than usual, making wiping entire hordes much slower. This is bad in a game like this. Thankfully, this was fixed in a later update, bringing the DG-2 back to grace.
- Speaking of the Wunderwaffe DG-2, back in World at War its Pack-a-Punched version (and its usual version too) had one of the worst side effects - if the player who had this Wonder Weapon and Juggernog got hit with splash damage from firing point blank at the zombie, they would lose the Juggernog perk and would never be able to properly buy it again unless revived (this was even worse in solo, where Quick Revive did not work at all). The game itself wouldn't show that though - the icon would not go anywhere, lulling the player into a false sense of security, only for them to go down in one or two hits because they no longer had Juggernog. This bug has never been fixed in the game itself, though it's only exclusive to World at War, and only pops up on Der Riese. Thankfully, in the subsequent games where Der Riese is remastered in, the Wunderwaffe DG-2 does not cause the loss of Juggernog when firing too close to an enemy.
- While not as bad as the other Wonder Weapons on this list, the Wunderwaffe DG-Scharfschütze is rather disliked due to its rather lazy design (being a reskin of Prophet's Tempest Specialist Weapon with DG-2-esque parts attached to it) and firmly in the camp of Difficult, but Awesome compared to the other Wonder Weapons, requiring headshots to unleash its full potential. This wouldn't be under this trope had it been the only Wonder Weapon on the map, but unfortunately it shares the role with the fan-favorite Thundergun and its newly debuted, longer-ranged counterpart, the Tundragun.
- The Tundragun itself is considered vastly inferior to the Thundergun thanks to huge splash damage its user can deal to self, as well as having a randomized damage pattern. It can be put to a good use, but you won't have much of a clue on how to do that. note
- In Black Ops: Cold War, the new tier system means almost any weapon can shine if upgraded enough. Emphasis on almost any.
- The M79 is regarded as the biggest Joke Weapon in the game currently; very poor damage, both initially and scaling off upgrades, such that a fully-upgraded and decked out M79 stops being effective at around round 30. Annoyingly, despite its awful damage making it bad at both clearing crowds AND damaging heavies, it somehow deals a consistent 75 self-damage if the player is anywhere near the same postal code as the blast, and without Juggernog will self-down in two ill-placed shots. This makes it easily one of the weakest and worst guns available - and to make it worse, to get the camo unlocks for it (and thus, the coveted Dark Aether camo) requires both large numbers of One-Hit Polykill AND a sizeable amount of heavy kills. While both can be cheesed, they are some of the most irritating unlocks to get in the game, period.
- Sniper Rifles are not in a good place. Their non-headshot damage is subpar for how slow and awkward they are, their speed, recoil, hip-fire accuracy, and reload are all abysmal (as always), but their main selling point, the high penetration for easy One-Hit Polykill, has been nerfed into oblivion - the M82 would be lucky to take down three zombies with a single penetrating headshot, on top of keeping most of its downsides from Black Ops II. ZRG is even worse since its Pack-a-Punched version loses penetration instead of improving it. As a result, they are rarely used outside of grinding camo unlocks...though the larger, more open spaces of Outbreak may win them a new home. The Swiss K31 is the only decent one of the bunch, behaving rather similarly to the Locus of Black Ops III... not by any means great, but also far from the worst choice.
- The M60 has similar issues to the Sniper Rifles - slow, inaccurate, heavy, and awkward, in exchange for above-average damage and high penetration. Here, however, not only is its damage only slightly better than the other LMG's, it's also seen weakened penetrative capability - worse here because it can, on average, typically hit two zombies per shot, making its traditional role as the "Horde lawnmower" obsolete. As a result, it's also largely ignored outside of grinding.
- The first post-launch shotgun, the Streetsweeper, breaks the two existing Shotguns' streaks of being the game's Infinity -1 Sword by virtue of being simply far too weak. Its ostensible advantage of a high fire rate and automatic trigger is wasted on its abysmally-low damage per shot, a tediously slow reload without Speed Cola or Pack-a-Punch, and it pales in both the crowd-clearing capability of the Gallo and the heavy-chunking power of the Hauer. Ultimately, it simply can't compete with most other weapons, and thus is relegated to grind-fodder. However, after a couple of patches, it's safe to say the weapon is now Rescued from the Scrappy Heap and is now a viable competitor to the Gallo and the Hauer in terms of crowd-clearing abilities.
Power-Ups
- If they can be considered weapons, some GobbleGums from Black Ops III are underwhelming.
- Impatient. It allows someone who bleeds out to respawn at the end of a round rather than at the start of the next. While on paper this sounds great, spawning you in when no other zombies are spawning; the spawn logic itself is abysmal. It places you near an ally, who will more than likely be running around with a horde of undead following them. Spawn into the train of zombies, and watch the quickest down ever occur. And even if that weren't a problem, you could just use Arms Grace to get your weapons back, or Coagulant to avoid bleeding out in the first place.
- Licensed Contractor, not as much for the GobbleGum itself as for the power-up it gives upon activation. It spawns in a Carpenter power-up, which rebuilds all of the barriers. This does indeed do its job of holding the zombies back...for about five seconds. Players learned back in the WaW days that keeping the barriers in check is a waste of time other than for getting points, so what's the need for Carpenter in general, let alone this GobbleGum? And to make it worse, there's a worse version of this already pointless Gum called Board Games, which lets you instantly rebuild barriers...for fewer points.
- And then we have Now You See Me, which, when triggered, commands all of the zombies to go after you and you alone. Completely pointless in solo for obvious reasons, and in co-op, serves no purpose next to In Plain Sight, which does the opposite effect of making all zombies ignore you.
- Return to the main YMMV page here.
