Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Advanced Stats Guide

Can you trust the Stat Bars?

When navigating the world of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, the stat bars you encounter in the game's interface can often be misleading. These stat bars are designed to give players a general idea of an attachment’s impact on their weapon, but they often do not tell the complete story. For example, increasing the Damage Range may seem to directly increase the Damage stat, leading you to think that your weapon will deal more damage just because of greater range. However, the true mechanics are far more intricate and influenced by variables like Bullet Velocity.

Accuracy is another aspect often misrepresented by these bars. Rather than being strictly tied to your ability to hit the target, it's scaled with the zoom level of the optics you use, which impacts how stable your aim appears while firing. The stat bars make no distinction between the hidden bonuses some optics provide to aim stability, causing further potential for player confusion. This lack of detailed information is a significant limitation since knowing the exact impact of each attachment on your aiming stability would allow you to make more informed decisions.

Recoil Control also gets a misleading representation in these stat bars. Previous versions of Call of Duty, like Modern Warfare 2, included specific stats like Recoil Stabilization, which provided a noticeable difference in your weapon's kickback. However, Modern Warfare 3 has simplified this somewhat, leading to stat bars that don't fully reflect the recoil reduction capabilities of your attachments. For instance, a minor reduction in Recoil Stabilization could be far more beneficial to your gameplay than an equal reduction in generic Recoil Control, but this nuance is often lost in the provided visuals.

If you want to build a competitive weapon, it's crucial to consult the Advanced Stats panel where you can find more precise details. This panel often contains the granular data required to fine-tune your setup, providing insight into often ignored metrics that can be vital for optimal performance in multiplayer modes and beyond. Relying solely on the stat bars might give you a rough estimate, but for serious players aiming to get the most out of their loadouts, diving deeper into the Advanced Stats is essential.

Why do attachments show different values at different times?

When you notice that an attachment's stats seem to change unexpectedly, you're not alone. This inconsistency arises from how Call of Duty's game engine handles the complex interplay of pros and cons between multiple attachments. One primary reason for these differing values is the system of diminishing returns that the game employs to balance attachment benefits and penalties.

Attachments that affect Mobility and Handling stats, such as Aim Down Sight (ADS) speed or movement speed, exhibit diminishing returns. This means that the more you try to boost a particular stat by stacking similar attachments, the less effective each additional attachment becomes. For instance, if you add multiple attachments meant to increase ADS speed, the cumulative benefit decreases with every new attachment. This system prevents players from creating overpowered loadouts by penalizing extreme stat-stacking. That's why one attachment might show a -10% ADS speed penalty initially but decrease to -8.5% when you add other attachments. It’s the game's way of ensuring balance.

Interestingly, Sprint-to-Fire speed, which measures how quickly you can start firing after sprinting, does not follow this rule of diminishing returns. Instead, it compounds, which means stacking multiple Sprint-to-Fire speed attachments can result in a noticeably faster transition from sprint to shooting. This makes Sprint-to-Fire a unique stat worth focusing on separately.

On the other hand, stats like Range and Recoil Control stack additively. This means that benefits or penalties from multiple attachments are simply added together, without being subjected to diminishing returns. Thus, you can stack several attachments that improve Range or enhance Recoil Control to see a straightforward cumulative benefit. For instance, combining different attachments that each offer a 5% boost to range will result in a total increase of 15% if three such attachments are used.

Accuracy stats, including Hipfire Spread and Tactical Stance Spread, compound, providing greater benefits with each additional attachment. This means the more attachments you add that enhance Accuracy, the more each attachment will contribute to tightening your spread and improving overall performance.

To sum up, the variations you see in attachment values over time are due to the different methods Call of Duty employs to balance its gameplay. Diminishing returns keeps players from overly boosting certain stats, while additive stacking allows for consistent benefits to attributes like Range and Recoil Control. Understanding these mechanics can help you build more effective loadouts and avoid relying too heavily on a single stat category.

Range Category

The Range Category is home to two of the most misunderstood stats in the entirety of Call of Duty: Damage Range and Bullet Velocity. A contributing factor is that the Advanced Stats are frustratingly lacking in one extremely important detail: damage falloff ranges. We have access to Effective Damage Range, Minimum Damage Range, and Bullet Velocity.

Effective Damage Range is the guarantee that your weapon will deal its advertised damage up to that distance. Between the Effective Damage Range and Minimum Damage Range lie invisible falloff ranges that each constitute a reduction in damage. The farther you shoot, the less damage you deal. Minimum Damage Range is the point at which your weapon will stop losing damage over distance and deal a guaranteed amount of damage from that point on, no matter how far. Unfortunately, we don’t know where the falloffs are between the Effective and Minimum, nor do we even know how many. This especially stings because falloff ranges do not follow an easy, uniform equation, such as a guarantee of 2 additional falloff ranges between Effective and Minimum, and you lose 10 percent damage per falloff range. Nope! These values must be hand-tested, and in this vein, I would highly encourage you to seek out the videos published by TheXclusiveAce or TrueGameData to find dropoff ranges and damage values. Most of the community does not need my vouch to the quality of work these creators do, but if you are new and unaware of them, I can personally attest to the quality and accuracy of their testing methodologies and data collection.

Falloff ranges, and the amount of damage lost per range, are different per gun – and such is the quandary of not sharing this information in Advanced Stats. Knowing the falloff ranges can allow players to better inform themselves as to whether barrels are truly necessary (by knowing if the first falloff range loses damage but still has the same TTK, for example).

Optimal Damage Range for 6v6 Multiplayer
I can at least give you my opinion for what I personally believe to be the benchmark damage range for 6v6 Multiplayer: 35 meters for rifles. Modern Warfare 3 is generally a longer-range game than MW2 for example, so Damage Range is a significantly more important stat this year than it was last year. I personally believe that 35 is a perfect benchmark to reach, as it’s just 3 meters under an AR Longshot, 38 meters, and while Longshots aren’t exactly rare, I would say that long-range engagements are quite frequent on the MW3 maps. If you are ever curious to know a distance on-demand, simply ping the environment to see how far away it is. Keep pinging from sightlines to establish a general scale, and that should give you an idea of the average engagement range. Based on my playtime so far, having completed Interstellar and gotten a weathered feel for engagement ranges, I feel that 35 meters is an ideal benchmark to reach when considering Damage Range attachments. That being said…

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Most Damage Range Attachments are Not Worth Using
Before MW3, it was generally a really bad idea to use Damage Range attachments on SMGs, believe it or not. It may be an absolute shocker to claim that you shouldn’t use Damage Range attachments on the class that arguably needs it the most, but sometimes you simply have to examine the math and see what you’re really gaining, and at what cost. Be wary of Barrels that incur too much penalty for too little benefit – and if there’s one thing players love to do, it’s to blindly slap on the biggest +Range barrel, no matter how injurious it is to handling.

I’d like to share an example I wrote during MW2:

The Lachmann Sub’s first damage range is 0-8 meters, 150ms TTK, and the second damage range is 9-16 meters, 225ms TTK. 75ms TTK difference between the two ranges. If you add the FTAC-M Sub 12 inch barrel, 72ms ADS penalty, your ranges change to 0-10 meters, 150ms, and 11-19 meters, 225ms.

With this barrel, on any target from 0-8 and 11-16 meters, you are paying that 72ms ADS penalty for no TTK benefit. On targets in that “sweet spot” between 8-10 and 17-19 meters, you are making a pretty even exchange of losing 72ms ADS to gain 75ms TTK – but only in those “sweet spots”. This barrel could be considered effective for 4 total meters, makes a difference on targets 8-10 or 17-19 meters away, and ineffective for 13 total meters, makes no difference on targets anywhere between 0-8 and 11-6 meters.

While this example isn’t as relevant in MW3 as Sledgehammer has been much more generous and fair with attachment balancing, the idea stands: Especially when it comes to handling penalties, you need to conceptualize when a barrel is actually making a difference, and most importantly, how often the barrel is dead and not providing any benefit. XclusiveAce and TrueGameData can come in exceptionally clutch for answering this kind of question. The lesson learned here is that if you’re interested in Range-enhancing Barrels, consult Advanced Stats, and external resources, and consider penalties very carefully. You want to be looking for standout barrels, like the Second Line Mammoth Heavy Barrel on the MCW or the CDG T-25 Light Barrel on the DG-56. Both of these provide generous bonuses to Range, Movement Speed, and Strafe with only small costs to S2F, hipfire, and Tacstance. Not only do you have zero ADS penalty, the penalties you are incurring should essentially be without contest; If 99 percent of your engagements are ADS and only 1 percent might be Hipfire or Tacstance, then those are essentially unimportant stats that you should be glad to give away.

Perhaps now you can see why understanding the Advanced Stats to consider pros and cons carefully is the pathway to building excellent guns.

Damage Category

Understanding that different areas of the body have different damage multipliers, and that hitting an area of the body with a different damage profile even once can throw off your TTK is paramount to being less shocked when an enemy seems to take two-three-four-too-many bullets. It’s entirely possible to hit a limb just past a damage falloff range that results in a truly funky, unexpectedly long TTK. It can and does happen surprisingly frequently, especially with 150 HP TTK.

In my opinion, Call of Duty has made two logical additions in the name of realism that sound good on paper, but translate poorly to gameplay. One is audio occlusion, and the other is body multipliers. Having different damage values for the upper and lower torso, upper and lower arms, upper and lower legs, head, and neck, as we had in MW2, is quite simply insane and an enormous driver of skill-based damage claims by players who don’t know how the game works. So many heated reactions in-the-moment: “how did he take that much damage?!”.

On the topic of skill-based damage, in case you’re one of those people, when the conspiracy theory started to seriously gain traction a few years ago, you should know that between MW19, Cold War, and Vanguard, I had 750,000 kills in total and I can conclusively say, without the shadow of a doubt, that skill-based damage absolutely, positively, does not exist. I would like to think that if there were ever a qualified authority to confirm the existence of such a nefarious system, it should be me. And trust me, I would have noticed.

Soapboxing aside, thankfully MW3 has simplified damage profiles to a degree, splitting them into just four categories: head, upper torso, lower torso, and upper legs. Raven has demonstrated excellent clairvoyance by unifying all damage profiles in Warzone to either body or head, significantly increasing the consistency of TTK, and it would be amazing to see that change in Multiplayer as well. In Warzone, whether you’re shooting toes, fingers, armpits, or center mass, it’s the same shots to kill everywhere except the head. Body profiles are a very cool, advanced feature, but they simply don’t belong in a fast-paced arcade shooter like CoD.

Regardless, you can manually calculate for yourself how many shots to kill it will take and at what distance to kill an enemy, and this should be your basis for determining if you should be using Damage Range-enhancing attachments. You certainly should not be blindly slapping Range attachments on. Characters in MW3 MP have 150 HP, so if your example Striker Upper Torso damage is 39, you know that it will take 4 shots to the upper torso to score a kill. However, you can also extrapolate how shot placement is important via the other damage categories. Upper Torso damage is 39, but Lower Torso damage is 36. How might this throw off your TTK? Well, calculate 39 plus 39 plus 39 plus 36. Is that number still at or above 150? Spoiler: Yes, it’s 153. That tells you that you can hit 3 Upper Torso and 1 Lower Torso and still get a 4-bullet kill. In fact, you can even do two and two: 2 Upper Torso 39 and 2 Lower Torso 36 is a perfect 150. The Striker actually extends that 36 damage from the Lower Torso down to the Upper Legs, so you know that you will actually have a 4-shot kill anywhere in the body within the range prescribed.

Keep in mind that the Upper Legs is the absolute minimum damage you can deal, so just consider that stat to be anything beneath the waist.

Bullet Velocity: The Single Most Misunderstood Stat in Call of Duty

Bullet velocity is one of the most misunderstood stats in Call of Duty, but it’s critical to grasp for improving your gameplay. Many players believe that bullet velocity can drastically alter hit registration, make your shots "hit different," or give a tangible advantage in gunfights. However, these beliefs are rooted more in hearsay than reality. Bullet velocity influences how quickly your shots reach a target over a distance. For 6v6 Multiplayer, the necessity of high bullet velocity is often overstated.

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Let’s break it down scientifically: If your velocity is 500 meters per second, that translates to your bullets covering 50 meters in one-tenth of a second. This simple math applies universally—600m/s for 60 meters in one-tenth of a second, and so forth. For typical gunfights within standard multiplayer engagement ranges, this means bullet velocity isn't likely to be a decisive factor. For example, striking a target 100 meters away at 1000m/s occurs in 0.1 seconds. Increasing this to 1400m/s saves only 0.0286 seconds, an imperceptible difference in a real-world scenario.

The claim that higher bullet velocity wins more gunfights doesn't hold much water. The dominant factors in a gunfight are usually damage range, shot placement, fire rate, and recoil control—not the milliseconds saved by a slightly faster bullet.

Understanding how to lead moving targets can help you decide whether you actually need increased bullet velocity. For instance, to hit a horizontally sprinting target 50 meters away while using bullets traveling at 500m/s, you do not need to lead the target—just justify your aim slightly in the direction they are moving. Even with tactical sprint speeds of around 7m/s, the difference only requires minimal adjustment in aiming.

For the average 6v6 player, focusing on bullet velocity can often be unnecessary. Pros in the Call of Duty League might benefit from these minuscule advantages on LAN settings, but for most players, other stats such as recoil control or handling render more practical improvements to combat effectiveness.

Recoil Control

Recoil Control is comprised of three categories, each measured in degrees – Recoil Gun Kick, Horizontal Recoil, and Vertical Recoil. These three stats stack additively, so you get the full weight of attachments and are free to stack all 5 attachments towards Recoil Control without diminishing returns. However, Recoil Control can arguably be comprised of a fourth category – the hidden stat, Firing Aim Stability. More on that soon.

There are two truths necessary to understand about recoil control: Vertical recoil can be humanly compensated for; horizontal recoil cannot.

To state the obvious, vertical recoil kicks upward. Vertical recoil is predictable, and thus it can be proactively countered and humanly compensated for. You should build the automatic muscle memory of “pulling down” every time you fire a weapon, no matter what weapon, no matter how much recoil. Effective recoil control in Call of Duty literally is as simple as pulling down every time you fire – but it’s only half the of the equation. The other half is the unpredictable.

Horizontal recoil is the degree to which your recoil uncontrollably strays to the sides, and while weapons in MW3 will consistently follow a general path, the exact time they decide to start straying to the side is random and unpredictable. As such, Horizontal recoil cannot be humanly compensated for. If you decide to compensate too early, you overcorrect and knock yourself off-target. If you compensate too late, you’re already off-target. So how can horizontal recoil be solved?

Effective weapon-building focuses on what we can control, and that is of course vertical recoil. When putting a weapon together, your focus should be on removing horizontal recoil as much as possible – even if that involves adding extra vertical recoil. By mitigating horizontal recoil, you reduce the shakiness and drift that occurs from sustained firing and focus that recoil into a largely vertical, predictable plot – which means you have to spend less time correcting centering and can simply rely on your muscle memory of “pulling down” to do the work for you. You should be looking for ace attachments like the Bruen Heavy Support Grip.

An interesting facet worth mentioning is that reducing vertical recoil has the byproduct of reducing horizontal recoil, because a shot that moves less upward recenters quicker and thus, has less space to move sideways – so even if you’re only reducing vertical recoil, you are also very slightly reducing horizontal recoil.

Recoil Gun Kick is what I believe “Recoil Smoothness” was supposed to be in MW2; Recoil Gun Kick reduces the gaps between shots and lightly ‘tames’ the recoil plot, making it more consistent and less prone to sudden deviations.

Horizontal Recoil also smooths the curviness of the plot, but also reduces the horizontal distance between shots, stabilizing the plot and making it more vertical and consistent. Shots will ‘branch out’ less and be less zig-zaggy.

Vertical Recoil simply slows muzzle rise and reduces the speed at which your recoil climbs upward, which has the byproduct of slightly reducing horizontal recoil.

The Hidden Stat: Firing Aim Stability

It's an enormous shame that we are unable to see Firing Aim Stability in the Advanced Stats, considering how incredibly powerful of a stat it is. Firing Aim Stability is the degree to which your sight randomly sways up, down, left, or right while firing, and directly influences visual recoil. If you have poor FAS, it will appear that your weapon has a ton of horizontal recoil and extra visual shake, which might be profoundly untrue as it's simply bobbing around too much when firing. In a sense, FAS can be considered a form of light recoil control, even though it's disingenuous to refer to it as recoil control because it doesn't actually influence the amount of recoil a weapon has. In Modern Warfare 2, Aiming Idle Sway was active whether your gun was idle or firing, betraying its name. In MW3, SHG has smartly decoupled Aiming Idle Sway and Firing Aim Stability, meaning that we now appropriately have two different stability measures for two different weapon states.

I cannot emphasize the importance of this stat enough. Adding FAS directly increases the consistency of your weapon and greatly helps you stay on target. I would highly advise against any attachments that reduce FAS. Aiming Idle Stability, also appearing as Aiming Stability, is never a stat worth investing in as it simply never helps during a gunfight. Even for snipers, it is completely fine to send your Aiming Idle Stability into the dirt because snipers have a built-in mechanic for negating Aiming Idle Stability.

Disclaimer: This is only a logical conclusion and not currently proven to be true. I am stating this because from a logical perspective, I really doubt SHG would decouple them and make them distinct from each other if this were not the case because a gun cannot be considered idle if it was firing. The fact that SHG specifically decoupled and distinguished these properties leads me to logically conclude that one is active while the other isn't.

I performed tests on this exact theory and tested eight different combinations that isolate Aiming Idle Sway, Aiming Stability, Firing Aim Stability, the inverse of all three, a control set, and a Marksman Glove set, taking care to control all variables as constant and removing stick drift. I analyzed my own test results as inconclusive, patterns were not able to be identified, and a determination was not able to be made. I sent the test results to TheXclusiveAce and TrueGameData, both replied similarly. Ace specifically wants to perform testing and analysis in-house but wasn't able to make a determination based on my test results. We essentially are all in agreement that the test results are inconclusive, which does not help to understand Aiming Idle Sway, Aiming Stability, and Firing Aim Stability. This could be an error in the way I performed the tests, but I don't believe that's the case; I think we just need a much larger sample size and possibly the assistance of AI image processing to truly understand what's going on.

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What is known to be true is that Firing Aim Stability has a very tangible, pronounced effect on your recoil spreads and is confirmed to be a positive stat to invest in.

Accuracy

Accuracy in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 encompasses a few key stats: Hipfire Spread Min and Max, Tactical Stance Spread, and Flinch Resistance. These are the foundational elements that players need to understand to optimize their gun builds for consistency and precision.

All About Hipfire: Hipfire performance can make or break close-range engagements. When considering hipfire, it's essential to recognize that these stats compound. As you add more attachments that enhance hipfire accuracy, the overall benefit increases significantly. Hipfire Spread Min refers to the tightness of your reticle when you're standing still, dictating how concentrated your opening burst will be. On the other hand, Hipfire Spread Max restricts how much the reticle can expand during sustained fire, ensuring a tighter overall spread and better hit probability. While both are vital, Hipfire Spread Max tends to hold more weight in long battles because it controls the eventual spread when spraying.

Apart from these, you should also be aware of Hipfire Recoil Control, Hipfire Accuracy, and Hipfire Spread that aren't directly shown in the Advanced Stats Pane. Proper Hipfire Recoil Control helps mitigate the aim kick that occurs during hipfire, while Hipfire Accuracy ensures bullets tend to hit closer to the center of the reticle by reducing the randomness of spread. Stacking these attributes can dramatically improve your hipfire reliability, especially when combined with attachments offering formidable benefits per slot.

All About TacStance: Understanding Tactical Stance Spread is also crucial. TacStance allows a midpoint between ADS and hipfire, balancing speed and accuracy. However, a notable characteristic is that muzzle rise in TacStance can outpace the reticle, causing bullets to land higher than where you're aiming, particularly under sustained fire. This behavior is more pronounced with attachments that heavily penalize Recoil Control, such as No Stock attachments. To counteract this, adding Recoil Control attachments can minimize this rise, keeping shots on target more effectively. Additionally, TacStance Spread follows a compounding rule, amplifying the benefits with each added attachment. Achieving a tighted TacStance reticle enhances your capacity to stay precise during those mid-range close encounters.

Flinch Resistance: Another vital component of accuracy in MW3 is Flinch Resistance. Thankfully, the impact of flinch has been toned down compared to previous titles. While Flinch Resistance can be an essential stat for maintaining aim during duels, it plays a less critical role than it used to, except for snipers who rely heavily on steady sights. Flinch is measured in Newtons and a slight resistance cut won't dramatically affect your performance in most scenarios, allowing you to prioritize other accuracy-enhancing stats more.

By mastering these aspects and understanding how they interact, you can build weapons that offer supreme accuracy, giving you a consistent advantage in all engagements.

Handling

In the fast-paced, high-stakes world of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, understanding how to optimize your weapon's handling can be the deciding factor between victory and defeat. Handling essentially refers to how swiftly and efficiently you can manage various aspects of your weapon, such as how quickly you can aim down sights (ADS), transition from sprinting to firing, reload your weapon, and the swiftness with which you can swap between different weapons.

Aim Down Sight Speed and Sprint to Fire Speed are two commonly discussed elements. ADS speed dictates how quickly you can bring your weapon to the ready position when you aim, which is crucial in allowing you to engage enemies swiftly, especially in fast, close-quarters combat. Sprint to Fire Speed, on the other hand, determines how quickly your character can start firing after sprinting. This is especially significant given the dynamic and rapid movement typically required in matches. Balancing these two elements can be intricate since enhancing one might come at the expense of the other. Consulting stats from reliable resources like TheXclusiveAce can provide a clearer picture of how different attachments impact these speeds.

Reload Quickness and Empty Reload Quickness are also vital to consider in the heat of battle. The former measures the time it takes to reload when you still have rounds in the magazine, while the latter measures how long it takes to reload after completely emptying your magazine. Being caught mid-reload can make you vulnerable, so attachments that offer faster reload speeds can offer a significant tactical advantage. Swap Speed refers to how quickly you can change from one weapon to another, and in tight situations, being able to switch to a secondary weapon quickly can save your life.

The nuanced differences in handling effect within Modern Warfare 3 highlight the importance of considering the specific needs of your play style and the engagements you expect. Building a setup that allows for quick reactions can make a substantial difference, especially in reflex-dependent encounters typical of Call of Duty. Understanding and optimizing your weapon handling, therefore, is not just about speed but about creating a versatile and responsive setup tailored to the fluid demands of the battlefield.

Mobility

The Mobility category is comprised of base Movement Speed, Crouch Movement Speed, Sprint Speed, Tactical Sprint Speed, and ADS Movement Speed. Each of these measures suffer from diminishing returns, meaning that the more attachments you add to increase mobility, the less each attachment actually gives you.

Movement Speed is your base walking movement speed. You can guess what Crouch Movement Speed does, and there is no realistic reason to focus on increasing this stat. Sprint Speed and Tactical Sprint Speed are equally as apparent, but ADS Movement Speed is a very important stat you should know about.

ADS Movement Speed is an incredibly useful stat that is effective in both close and long-range encounters. Close or far, strafing faster gives you the chance to dodge your opponent’s shots, pure and simple. For controller players, ADS Movement Speed is a highly-desirable stat because of its relationship with Aim Assist Rotation; the faster you strafe, the stronger that Aim Assist Rotation kicks in for you – which will quite literally win gunfights by itself.

When considering mobility-enhancing attachments, it’s critical to balance them with other necessary attributes such as handling and recoil control. Oftentimes, dedicated mobility attachments come with penalties to other vital stats; trading off too much handling or accuracy for speed may handicap your ability to effectively engage enemies.

Ultimately, mobility should be tailored to personal playstyle. If you prefer a run-and-gun approach, investing in Sprint Speed and Tactical Sprint Speed might be worthwhile. If you favor more methodical, precise engagements, ADS Movement Speed will be more beneficial.

In conclusion, while enhancing mobility can significantly improve your performance, it's essential to strike a balance that complements your overall strategy in the game. Understanding how different attachments interact and knowing when and where to use them can make a substantial difference in your efficiency and survivability in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.

Useful Links

TheXclusiveAce YouTube Channel

TrueGameData


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