The fastest way to rank up guns in Modern Warfare 2

When it comes to the fastest way to rank up guns in Modern Warfare 2, there are a few different methods you can employ to rank up the dozens of weapons available.

MW2 is about as robust an offering of weapon progression that the series has ever seen. The weapon platform and Gunsmith systems are exciting and chock full of things for players to grind for on each of the game’s dozens of weapons.

To compete with the best, you need the best weapons and best attachments, and those are acquired through leveling each of the game’s guns and their platforms to their max rank. You need a lot of weapon XP to do that, so the grind is going to be severe for the foreseeable future.

Not only that, but CoD releases new weapons every few weeks in the game, so players are eager to rank them up as fast as possible to rack up kills with the new hotness across all of the game’s modes.

Here’s the quickest way to level up your weapons in MW2.

Fastest way to level up guns in MW2

There are a few good methods to rank up guns quickly in MW2, including Invasion mode, Decoy Grenades, and playing DMZ. Here are the details.

Invasion mode XP farm in MW2

The best XP grind is found by way of combining a weapon XP token with the Invasion mode in MW2. You can rank up weapons easily simply by getting lots of kills with them, and the most kills are found in Invasion. Invasion features 20-vs-20 on the game’s large-scale maps, so there are more players to be found than in normal playlists.

But Invasion also features enemy AI combatants that can be killed and farmed for XP as well. Dozens of AI enemies run around the field of battle and killing them will reward one point, while killing enemy players rewards five points. The first team to reach the winning threshold of points wins the game.

Farming enemy AI along with human-controlled players is the best way to get weapon XP in MW2’s earliest hours. Combine it with a double weapon XP token that can be procured in a variety of ways (Vault Edition, Mountain Dew bottles, etc.) to maximize your XP gains and level up weapons quickly.

If Invasion isn’t your thing, whatever small-scale playlist is currently active is also a great way to farm XP. This can be maps like Shoot House, Shipment, or anything where the maps are small, thus offering more engagements and kills.

Decoy grenade weapon XP farm in MW2

Another method involves using decoy grenades. The tactical gives XP for each time an enemy is killed in the basic vicinity of a decoy grenade making noise. This might seem cheesy, but it works, because you get weapon XP every time.

The best way to farm this method is to play a mode like Kill Confirmed, using the Extra Tactical perk with decoy grenades. You will spawn with three of them. Throw them in the general area where people are fighting and you will earn XP each time an enemy dies, so you don’t even need to get kills to be earning XP.

When done correctly, you will see “Decoy Distraction” pop up and you will earn XP each time. It’s an easy way to level up anything, and it’s magnified when using Double Weapon XP tokens, so make sure to stock up on them and level up lightning-quick.

This can be done in any game mode, really, so it can’t hurt to equip a Decoy Grenade on any of your classes that are built specifically for leveling up weapons in MW2.

DMZ weapon XP leveling

In the same way Invasion is useful for ranking up weapons, DMZ also features several AI enemies and rewards some pretty serious XP for completing objectives, killing enemies, and finishing contracts in the extraction-based mode.

You can use a specific weapon in DMZ by insuring it in your loadout, but you will lose access to it for a few hours if you are unable to extract, so keep that in mind while playing.

Basically, anything you do while using a gun in DMZ will reward you XP, so pick up items, sell them at buy stations, kill enemies, and complete various objectives to earn a lot of XP. Just make sure to survive the game and extract successfully.