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There are six World War Z classes to chose from in its co-op campaign. That's six characters with thirty levels of tracked progression and a host of fancy perks on offer in each tree. If you’re playing with a group of friends, it’s good to pick a few different classes so you can synchronise properly.
World War Z Weapon Upgrades | World War Z update patch notes
In our World War Z class guide, we’re going to run through each character in the game and show you where their specialities lie. This should clear things up and point towards which one you’re going to want to play if you’re a newcomer, or give you some more insight into which classes are the most fun to focus on based on your current preferred play style.
Gunslinger
The first and best World War Z class for beginners, the gunslinger is what you should default to when you’re starting out in World War Z to get a feel for the controls. This class is mainly focused on giving you tons of ammo and a shoot first, ask questions later attitude towards zombie slaying. The starting perk offers up a frag grenade, a compact SMG and a helpful bump in accuracy and recoil reduction.
As you rise through the ranks you’ll get access to skills that let you mitigate friendly fire, increase your reload speed and bolster your ammo capacity. The final perk in the tree is War Face, which gives your team a 50% firearm damage boost when you kill 25 zombies in rapid succession. If you don’t want to worry about ammo, this is the class for you.
Hellraiser
The hellraiser is a crowd control class that offers destructive chaos in place of the all-around style of gameplay as seen in the gunslinger class. Hellraisers specialise in explosives and start with C4, a shotgun and an MGL, which is code for extremely powerful grenade launcher. If you like watching hordes of zombies combust into viscera, you’re going to love the hellraiser.
As well as improving the range and power of your explosives as you rank up, the hellraiser also offers team buffs like a reduction in explosive and fire damage for the whole squad. You can also pick up a means to increase your damage when fighting special zombies, which becomes very useful when you’re playing on higher difficulties.
The final perk in the tree is Technician, which further increases the number of zombies your C4, claymore and grenade launcher weapons can kill by 25%.
Medic
The medic is akin to your standard healer class as seen in any other progression-based RPG. Medics start out with a stim pistol, a compact SMG and a medkit. It’s not a completely selfless act though, as using a medkit on your friends will also recoup 25% of your own health. Climbing the medic tree will result in an increased set of stim charges, an increase in time before your friends bleed out and restorative ammo skills that fill up your SMG rounds when you manage to pull off deadly headshots.
Other skills let you apply medkits faster and help you offer more health to your teammates, which can be crucial when you’re at the whim of a giant swarm. This is a great class to play if you want to help the team but also be a force of nature in battle with the multiple SMG upgrades available. The final skill in the tree is Doctor’s Bag, which further increases the healing capabilities of medkits for you and your team by 10%.
Fixer
The fixer is a supply class that can also double as a wonderful pursuit for keen snipers. Fixers start out with a supply bag and a scout rifle and are good fun for flexible players who want to try lots of different gameplay branches. Fixers increase ammo capacity for their team members by 10% as standard, with a lot of interesting equipment unlocked as they rank up.
Masking grenades offer temporary health boosts when thrown, and can be upgraded to offer ammo restoring capabilities too. Other upgrades in the tree include heavy weapon and supply bag ammo capacity upgrades, personal health buffs and even means to improve the penetration and power of semi-automatic rifles.
As you can see, the fixer is very adaptable and good for player’s who want to try the most interesting parts of each class in one flexible specialisation. The final skill in the tree is Corporate Power Nap, an incredibly useful upgrade that makes it so your unequipped weapon automatically reloads every 10 seconds. This tracks for everybody in your team and is a godsend when the going gets tough, as there’s usually no time to stop and reload when you’re fighting for your life.
Slasher
The slasher is easily the most wildcard class of the pack, as it’s mostly focused around melee abilities. Now, naturally, avoiding guns in a game where you’re fighting hordes of zombies is going to make things a little bit more difficult, but that doesn’t mean playing as a slasher isn’t fun.
Your starting ability offers a stun gun, a compact SMG and the ability to strike two targets with your machete when you melee zombies. The whole skill tree is centred around improving the number of times you can strike without becoming tired and the number of zombies you can push or puncture when you strike.
Later in the tree, you can unlock massive heavy weapons to start with like the chainsaw and rocket launcher, which each deal more damage when you’re playing as the slasher. Playing as a slasher is easily one of the most fun ways to diversify the typical gameplay of World War Z, especially if you’re starting to get tired of the gunplay.
Level up to receive less damage from enemies and increased speed so you can zip around play arena’s carving through the zombie horde. Certainly not for the faint of heart, the Slasher is the best class for adrenaline junkies. The final skill in the tree is Blade Master, which ensures that your melee attacks hit one more target, turning you into an area of effect demon in the middle of an angry horde.
Exterminator
The exterminator is a class mostly concerned with fire damage. Exterminators start out with a shotgun and a set of molotovs and do increased damage to swarms of zombies. Much like the hellraiser class, exterminators are brilliant at crowd control and are very hard to pin down. One of their abilities lets them rise up when swarmed, and others heavily reduce the amount of fire damage you receive. If you’re a pyromaniac, this is the class for you.
Fire isn’t quite as satisfying as stone cold explosions in World War Z, but it’s still very fun to play this tanky class. Some of the later abilities bolster mortar and machinegun stations when you’re trying to defend a point, as well as reducing fire and explosive damage dealt to you and your team. Exterminators are very useful within a team composition for these reasons, especially if you notice you’re struggling during objectives.
Quite late in the tree, you’ll also get access to the ghost ability that allows you to receive a masking effect if you’re the last one left out of your team. Again, you can see how exterminators can really save a team in crisis, whilst still being good fiery fun in their own right. Their final ability is called Daredevil which increases your weapon damage and melee strike capacity when there are more than 30 zombies in your section. Think of it like a berserk mode where you can quickly dispatch of the competition.
