Sonic Prestigeboom, Part 4: More Perks

Updated with some more thoughts on Extreme Conditioning and a second perk loadout suggestion. Also check out the comments for a discussion about Marksman.

So, since I laid a lot of the groundwork for this post in the last installment, I'll cut right to the chase. After the jump, that is.

• We already talked about Sleight of Hand/Quickdraw/Stalker, but I want to emphasize how great this is for clawing your way out of the early levels quickly. Even if you won't be getting 750 kills until level 30, the challenges along the way will help a lot by getting you some basic gear.

• Here's one I'm particularly fond of because of the pistol synergy: Scavenger, Hardline, Steady Aim, and Specialist. If you don't feel comfortable rocking pistols, you can substitute an SMG like the PP90, but the reason I like them is that akimbo pistols use ammo super fast, but you can carry a ton of magazines and they also reload pretty quickly. That means that once you get Scavenger Pro and it becomes harder to pick up backpacks (since you start with full ammo and have to reload at least once before you can grab more), you won't pass up nearly as many backpacks. That said, if you aren't done with Stalker or you've already gotten all the backpacks and are just working on Hoarding Ammo kills, there's no reason you can't use a different gun. I use the Hardline/Specialist combo since you get a Hardline killstreak reward with the first kill of every life, and I rarely get more than 3 kills with pistols before getting killed anyway. That means assault streaks aren't useful, and Specialist gives you streak rewards way faster than Support.

• If Scavenger is taking you a while, another option is Scavenger, Hardline + Specialist or Assassin, and Dead Silence. Use pistols, SMGs, or a shotgun like the AA-12 or Striker and you'll have a lot of opportunities to get close range kills and stock up on ammo. If you're done with Scavenger, throw on extended mags and use Sleight of Hand or (ugh) Extreme Conditioning instead.

I also want  to go back to the Marksman gimmick a bit; I was playing around with it today, and it seemed like it was not working with the Red Dot sight, but did work with the ACOG scope. I think the reason for this is that the game counts ACOG scopes as, well, scopes (e.g. getting most scoped kills with a MK14). Not a huge deal, since you can get ACOG scopes on just about everything you'd want to aim down sights with, but I did think it was worth mentioning that it appears to only work with scopes.

Also, let's revisit Extreme Conditioning. While going for the 10,000 point challenges is futile, it's a good perk on its own merits and getting it pro is worth 9,000 like anything else. It also has a pretty easy Pro challenge; just mantle stuff and you get free points. This ties in well with Dead Silence's Pro challenge, which is to jump off of ledges and live. So, what you do is find a stairway with a railing (e.g. the small sniper house on Fallen), run up the stairs (Extreme Conditioning!), mantle the railing (Parkour!) and jump off the ledge (Featherweight!). Well, wait, I hear you thinking. While running around like an idiot, I'm just going to get shot. Not if you play Infection! Get your specialist bonuses and boost multiple perks that way while you're not infected, and if you get killed, just go level up Extreme Conditioning and Featherweight! It's a pretty good way to blow off some steam if campers in TDM are driving you up a wall.

Got any good builds of your own? Let us know in the comments!