Overview
I guide I made for the fastest possible way possible to prestige in zombies. I combines my own testing and strats with strats of the top speedrunners and high rounders.
Introduction
This guide came about because all the videos I could find relating to prestiging were either during double XP weekends(5 hour games would be 10 for the rest of us) or are absurdly long and outdated(7+ hours on shadows or campwalk camping). I thought to myself, “I can do WAAAAAAY faster and better then this.” This would lead to me testing and trying out different methods I thought of with an the first initial guide. After some feedback and more testing it eventually culminated in me making this guide. The guide will be going over the basics and strategies for pulling this off and things you will need before starting.
I Also made a video of me doing this strategy that I will be referencing a few times in this guide. Of note is that I was already master prestige at this point, but with some simple math I calculated that I need a little more than 25 levels to equal a regular full prestige. it takes around 54k xp for 1 level after level 35 in zombies and it takes 1375000. I also went over this slightly to give what will most likely be closer to an average time.
Theres a couple things to note for the video though:
1: I did this in 3 hours and 40 minutes INGAME, I paused multiple times, making the video around 1 hour longer then it needed to be.
2: I did this on PC, so my Field of View is much higher on console, as well as I have lower graphics settings since my CPU is not up to the task, especially with all the particle effects.
3: I started listening to music and/or podcasts after I got setup, so the video will have those mixed in to the audio.
Here is the youtube video, I will have it embedded throughout so need to open it in a new tab.
With all that out of the way lets start the guide!
Basic Requirements
1. The Revelations Map Pack:
I’m using revelations map for this so you kind of need it for this to work.
2. Be Good at the Game:
This strategy is not made to make this easy. It’s made for speed. I assume you can train WELL in small, tight spaces for this guide. I will also will not be going over things like shield parts, pap, etc.
3. Gobblegums:
Alchemical Antithesis: While you don’t need megas for this strategy, you practically need alchemical. If you play without alchemical there is a very real chance of running out of ammo.
4. Music/Podcasts:
This strategy can get boring at times, so having a podcast or music to listen too can keep you from zoning out and/or getting too bored.
Rounds 1-9
Round 1-2:
run towards the alter and start it. After finishing the alter process shoot zombies in the leg with an entire clip of mr6 then knife them. I suggest lining 2 up at a time to save ammo and maximize points. this also goes for round 2. Try to be fast whilst doing this.
Round 3-4:
buy the rk5 and shoot zombies with 1 burst then knife them. This is for max possible points and the XP you get from knifing.
Round 5:
stay in spawn at the start of round 5, if you’re lucky the parasites will spawn and you’ll get an easy 1000 extra XP from the time trial If you did the rounds 1-4 fast enough (round 5 under 5 min).
If you don’t get the parasite make a b-line to the bowie knife(its by the stage in kino) and start knifing. Don’t forget to buy quick revive before you leave so you don’t have to come back.
Round 6-9:
This is where you start opening the map and powering the altars. make sure you are constantly killing zombies during this time. I found that its much faster to finish a round off in one area then move onto another, start the ritual there then finish off the round. You should also only buy Jugg and quick revive.
Note:
if you’re low on points you can shoot the rk5 twice into the zombies before knifing them for extra points, be careful tho. I’ve downed myself tons of times from doing this, and its very easy to get cornered.
If you want an example its roughly 0:00:00-0:34:44 in the video (I had a long pause during round 8):
Round 10+ and Setup
round 10-16ish:
you need these 3 wonder weapons for this strategy to work:
Apothicon Servant
Thundergun
Ragnorok DG4’s
I find it usually takes me until around round 16-17 to get eveything I need. Also make sure you buy speed cola and widows wine. at round 10 you should have around 16k points so make sure you buy them both, especially widows.
once you have everything make sure you upgrade them(preferably at the same time). If you got the lil arnies upgrade those two. these can be quite helpful on parasite/fury rounds.
box strategies:
While hitting the box for the wonder weapons you should also be killing zombies. If you don’t have a wonder weapon yet then hold onto a good weapon(like the haymaker, drakon, or dingo) and use it to kill zombies and deal with any margwas that spawn. AIm for headshots too, some bonus XP headshots is nice.if you already have a wonder weapon then use that to kill zombies and constantly trade out your other weapon.
If the box moves then go to nacht and look up in the sky in the general direction of the islands. After you see the box light go through the portal to whatever island it’s on. Also. if it’s the firs time the box has moved then you should go through the giant apothican. Since you should have atleast 1 bullet weapon unlock pack a punch during this time.
In the next section I will be going over the training spot that makes this guide so fast.
If want to see what I did the timestamps for my box hitting are 0:34:44-0:50:50 and 0:54:13 to full setup.
Verruckt Training Guide
The Verruckt Training Spot:
The reason this guide is so fast is because of the training spot it uses(and why widows is basically mandatory). you will be training in verruckt part of the map. It’s by the stairs to the left once the enter the teleporter to veruckt.
Now the cool thing about this spot is that zombies will only spawn from the two windows close to you with an occasional keeper or fury spawning down lower and coming up the stairs. As long as you don’t go past the broken down wall behind you (it’s pretty obvious to tell ingame) or past the electric trap it will be like this for the whole game.
Avoid Game Crashes:
Don’t shoot the thundergun into the zombies spawns. Not much to it but it WILL crash your game, especially past rounds 40. Nothing very complicated but the likelyhood you’ll crash the game is very very high if you do this.
Dealing With Panzers and Margwas:
first; margwas and panzer will basically spawn right the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ middle of the training spot so you should always start the the round close to the corners watching the middle incase anything spawns. Trust m,e I’ve been downed plenty of times from a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ panzer spawning infront of me and not noticing until I’m on fire and downed.
The best way to deal with these guys is to hold them off in the training area for as long as you feel comfortable. If it backs you up to far from the training spot make a mad dash backwards and take the roundabout way to the Verruckt courtyard to kill it.
sidenotes(saving ammo with bosses):
You only need to use 1 thundergun blast on a panzer and can use the rest of your shield blasts to kill it(2-3) by spamming it. You can do the same with the margwa given that it’s mouth is open.
margwa distractions: if a margwa spawns at rounds below 70( and given you have enough ammo) you can shoot the apothican to serve as a distraction and to take of zombies sneaking up on you while dealing with the margwa. I use this in my timestamp below:
if you want a video reference on how dealt with them here you go:
panzer-1:41:40-1:41:52
margwa-1:56:14-1:46:40
Apothican and Max Ammos:
a great way to speed things up and effectively use a max ammo is to shoot the apothican into the zombies spawns for some free fast kills. This should also be used when activating Alchemical. If you want a reference here is some timestamps for an example
Using the Ragnorok-DG4s:
you should use these basically as soon as it charges. What you do is place them down around 1 player width from the front wall and inner window. This is somewhat hard to explain so here is timestamps of me doing this:
1:42:54-1:43:16
if its a little to chaotic then you should slam them down instead, alternating between the two windows like this:
4:30:57-4:31:15
sidenote: start watching your widows wine grenades when you get into the higher rounds(70+). up into the high 70s and onward you might need to train with the thundergun, something which widows can make easier and safer.
Verruckt Rounds Sub 50
The first 50 rounds in verruckt( especially before round 30) plays noticeably different then after 50. This is due to the increased spawn rate in the later rounds.
Rounds Below 30:
for rounds below 30 you should just be using the squid gun. Since you get ammo rounds every 10 rounds or so theres no reason to worry about ammo here. if you start getting low then switch between the squid gun and the gravity spikes. you can also start shooting the squid gun close to the window inside of spawn for an ammo drop.
Rounds 30 to 50:
After round 30 you should have both the wonder weapons upgraded. The strat is simply to shoot into the the window with the apothican and then switch off to the to the ragnarok and place them down. Once they run out shoot the apothican into the window and pick the the dg4s and rinse and repeat.
here’s a example of what exactly I did.
1:31:30-1:31:51
Gobblegum and Drop Cycles
So there’s a cycle to what gobblegums and drops you get. This isn’t super important but it can make your game much easier as well as potentially faster.
The Basic Cycle:
so out of the 5 gobblegums and the 5-7 drops(more on that later) you HAVE to get one of each. this means that if you’ve already gotten a ammo drop or alchemical you’re not going to get one until you go through all the other drops/gobblegums. this also mean you can very reliably know when you get a max ammo and alchemical. Im going to cover each cycle more in detail below
Also the you will know the cycle resets when you get a drop you’ve gotten already.
The Gobblegum Cycle:
so you have to go through each gobblegum before your cycle resets. This is important if you’re trying to get alchemical. Why? because if you get it first hit then you’re going to have to hit the machine 4 more times for just the chance to get the gobblegum again.
here’s a video explaining it if you want a visual:
The Drop Cycle:
So everything above applies to the drop cycle. But there is some more variables to take into consideration. First is that you only get 4 drops per round. This is important because after you get 4 drops in a round and you didn’t get a max then your s*%&$ outta luck until next round.
Second is that you can effectivily remove potential drops. How? well first is that firesales only drop when the box moves (this guide isnt going to high enougb rounds to even consider trying for perfect box) the other one is that carpenter wont spawn if there is only 2 active zombie spawns. this means that if you’ve already gotten a carpenter you shouldn’t get another one until you step out of the training area, thus changing the spawns.
Verruckt Round 50+
Rounds 50-70s:
Basically keep repeating what you were doing in the start of the 30s and 40s. use apothican and dg4s. The real difference is you need to start watching your ammo and keeping track of the drop cycle.
you should have an alchemical for backup but using parasyte rounds and drop cycle you shouldn’t need it until later, if at all.
Rounds 70+:
This is where you need to really start watching your ammo. Make sure you start keeping track of your drop cycle. as in the previous rounds you will be doing the exact same thing as before, alternate dg4s and apothican. If you run out of ammo and you don’t want to use the alchemical you have(because its been 9 rounds since parasytes and next round there coming) then use the thundergun, just don’t shoot it into the windows as this can easily cause your game to crash.
Rounds 96+ for Prestige Masters:
If your prestiging then go until you get to max level, which will be about round 94, +/- a round depending on how your game is going. If you want to keep going because your prestige master I would recommend stopping around 130. Why? Well because ammo starts to become a serious problem and you have to start using the thundergun much more. Training and killing with the thundergun is noticably slower then camping with the apothican and dg4s. After around round 130 it will be faster to restart then to keep going.
Strategies Related to XP Gain
Death Machine Headshots:
In bo3 the death machine damage scales with the zombies health, making it useful on any round. This means that you can use for headshots! The best method I found is line yourself up with the two windows and aiming in the upper corner of the door. This is difficult to accurately convey through text so I recommend you go to the timestamps in the video and watch what I did before trying.
timestamp:
1:14:31-1:15:01
After sometime in the late 40s this strategy doesn’t work anymore. the zombies spawn to fast and have to much health for the death machine to effectively headshot them. instead what you can do is back up into far end corner and go for headshots there. it’s slower but safer. You can keep doing this to round 70, at which point the death machine doesn’t have enough DPS for this to happen.
Time Trials:
Theres 2 potential time trials you can consistenly get.
First is round 5 in 5 minutes. This really depends on whether or not you get parasites on round 5. While not much the extra 1000 XP is nice.
The second time trial you can get is round 20 in under 32 minutes. As long as your box luck isn’t the absolute worst ever then this is easy. This trial is actually important, because you an extra 10,000 XP. Thats right, and extra 10,000XP or 200 regular kills. This is a super sweet XP bonus and easily cuts off 2 minutes from your overall time.
I know there are other trials but I could never consistently get them. This was mainly due to the fact that I spent a large amount of the game hitting the box for the wonder weapons, rather than actively trying to speed through the low rounds.
Max Ammos and using Alchemical:
When a max ammo drops or you’re using a Alchemical you can shoot into/by the spawns for a faster time. The best places to shoot are into the first window against the wall and at the corner of the building by the stairs.
Timestamp: 1:04:04
Specs and Notes
Computer Specs:
64bit Windows 7 prof
CPU:i5-4590 3.30GHz
GPU: GeForce GTX 960
keyboard: Razor Deathstalker expert
mouse: Logitech g502
recorded with shadowplay
Other Notes:
I’ve actually been thinking about making a followup guide for a while for a while now. I started sometime in April of 2017 with tons of unsuccessful attempts and a rough guide idea. after a month of games and some theory crafting I planned and pulled off my first succesfull attempt at this. But I ended up burning myself out and gave up on the guide for a while. After about 3 months away from bo3 zombies I ended up randomly decided to finish the first guide. After posting to reddit and getting a suprising amount of upvotes and good feedback I decided I would improve the guide even more. It took me less then a month to make a better strat, another month to get a good run and ANOTHER month of on and off editing leading to me taking a couple hours to finally finish it on Sept 19th
I first got the idea for this guide by watching high rounds for revelations. Now the strategies are a little different, mainly being shooting the apothican into the window. I think if I tried this again and pap the apothican and did this up until the 70s I could probably shave off another 30 minutes from the time. But I have other things I want to do and I’m burnt out on revelations; maybe in the future but not now.
I was also wondering if anyone wanted me to make a similar guide for shadows since it’s the map that everyone has.
Changelog:
Jul 22, 2017: 1.0
guide first made
Jul 22, 2017:1.1
added spec info
small grammatic corrections
added WW ammo section
Aug 8, 2017: 2.0
literally to many things to list. Pretty much a rework of the whole guide.
Sept 19, 2017: 2.1
Privatized old guide and reposted it so more people will see the better version.
Also finished any unfinished or rough parts of the guide I had leftover.