New Specialist score earn rates after Black Ops 4 April 9 update

Albert Petrosyan

The latest update for Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 introduced a major change to how Specialists work in competitive modes, and now the new official score earn rates have been confirmed. 

[ad name=”article1″]

Changes made to Specialist cooldowns

On April 9, developers Treyarch implemented a change in both League Play and the official CWL ruleset which now allows each Specialist’s main Weapon or Ability to be unlocked by score only.

Previously, the cooldown for each Specialist was charged up by both score and time spent alive in a match, but continuous negative feedback from the competitive community compelled Treyarch to balance things out. 

TreyarchPlayers can only unlock their Specialist’s Weapon or Ability based on their score in League Play and CWL matches.
[ad name=”article2″]

New Specialist score earn rates

As a result of this massive change, the earn rates for each Specialist’s main Weapon or Ability were also modified, seeing as how earning them in-game is now solely dependent on score.

Tony Flame, one of the game designers at Treyarch, revealed that them main Weapon/Ability of the Ruin, Battery, Zero, Crash, and Prophet Specialists would be fully charged up at 1700 score.

Firebreak’s Purifier will be unlocked at 2200 score, the Seraph’s Annihilator at 2400, and the Recon’s Vision Pulse at a whopping 2550. 

TreyarchAfter this update, the Recon’s Vision Pulse will be the most difficult Specialist Weapon/Ability to unlock.
[ad name=”article3″]

Below, you can find the new score earn rates for each of the Specialists, along with the time it takes for their Equipment to unlock. It’s important to note that this update has not affected Equipment charge rates, which continue to be based on time only.

Keep in mind that all of these score requirements can be decreased by using the Equipment Charge gear, although its exact effect on teach of these new rates has not been determined yet. The stats for the Equipment Charge below are going off of the effect it had prior to this update. 

Battery

War Machine: 1700 Score (EC: 1200)

Cluster – 1:00 (EC: 50 seconds)

Crash

TAK 5: 1700 Score (EC: 1175)

Assault Pack: 1:45 (EC: 1:15)

Firebreak

Purifier: 2200 Score (EC: 1575)

Reactive Core: 1:50 (EC: 1:25)

Prophet

Tempest: 1700 Score (EC: 1300)

Seeker: 1:45 (EC: 1:00)

Recon

Vision Pulse: 2550 Score (EC: 1950)

Sensor Dart: 1:45 (EC: 1:00)

Ruin

Grav Slam: 1700 Score (EC: 1350)

Grapple Gun: 0:15 (EC: 0:10)

Seraph

Annihilator: 2400 Score (EC: 2000)

Tac-Deploy: 1:40 (EC: 1:10)

Zero

Ice Pick: 1700 (EC: 1100)

EMP Disruptor: 1:15 (EC: 0:50)

What does this mean for Search and Destroy?

As powerful as each Specialist’s main Weapon or Ability is, they all have the potential to be game-changing, especially in Search and Destroy.

By making these new score earn rates universal for all competitive game modes, the effect of these Weapons and Abilities in S&D is mitigated, as players will sometimes simply not be able to get them in time, especially the more powerful ones. 

This seems to be exactly what Treyarch had in mind in implementing this change, and it looks as though the majority of the competitive CoD community approves of this change in the SnD meta. 

Related Topics

About The Author

Albert is a former esports and gaming writer, focused particularly on Call of Duty and content creators. Spending over three years at Dexerto, Albert eventually now works with streamer NICKMERCS and the MFAM group. You can find Albert @AlbertoRavioli on Twitter.