Cold War Zombies Melee Upgrades

Keep getting clobbered by zombies fifty-fifty when you've chugged downwardly a Juggernog? Desire to make your best zombies loadout even stronger? Need to continue reviving your puny teammate? Well Aetherium Crystals may exist the solution all of the above in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold State of war zombies.

Aetherium Crystals are a new currency in the Call of Duty zombies mode and give players a gamble to upgrade their weapons, ammo mods, perks, and field upgrades to requite them more of an advantage confronting the hordes. Thanks to an update to the upgrade organisation in Flavor Two, each course of weapon, ammo mag, perk, and field upgrade has five stages to upgrade to.

Season Two also introduced ii new types of Aetherium Crystals – Refined and Flawless – which are used to upgrade your gear to tiers four and five, respectively. To fully max everything you possibly can out right now in Blackness Ops Cold War zombies, you will need 168 Raw Aetherium Crystals, 112 Refined Aetherium Crystals, and 140 Flawless Crystals. This is the maximum amount yous can earn of each type, so once you hit that limit, you'll stop earning them in-game.

Aetherium Crystals aren't easy to come up by though, and getting them – particularly the new high-rarity ones – can be tough. So how do you earn them, what upgrades are there, and if you lot oasis't got the time to grind and earn all of them, where should you invest your Aetherium Crystals?

How to go Aetherium Crystals in Black Ops Cold War Zombies

Here nosotros're going to go through how to earn each type of Aetherium Crystal, and how they're used to upgrade your loadout.

Raw Aetherium Crystals

There are currently three ways to earn regular Aetherium Crystals in Black Ops Cold War zombies.

The first is to complete milestone rounds during a zombies run on Die Maschine and Firebase Z. These milestone rounds are every 5 rounds from round x onwards. The amount of crystals you earn for each milestone round does vary, and so here'due south a chart showing y'all how many y'all're expected to get at the finish of each milestone round.

Aetherium Crystals	Completed milestone rounds
1	x, fifteen, 20, 25
2	thirty, 35
3	xl, 45
iv	50, 55
5	60, 65
six	seventy, 75
7	eighty, 85
8	90, 95
9	100, then every five rounds after

Notation that the amount tin can sometimes fluctuate from the figures shown in the nautical chart in a higher place and there are instances of players getting one extra or one less crystal than expected when completing a milestone round. It is not currently clear why these discrepancies happen.

The crystals as well stack as you go through a zombies run, so if you attain round 21 for example, you would have earned three crystals in full for hit milestones at 10, 15, and twenty.

The 2d method is through exfils, which allow you to end your zombies run past jumping aboard a chopper and leaving the undead backside.

Similarly to milestone rounds, you volition be awarded a certain amount of crystals depending on which circular you lot exfil on. For example, a round 31 exfil should honor you lot two crystals, as you have passed the round thirty milestone. Still, exfil crystal drop rates take been found to be a bit more than random and can sometimes drop far below what you lot expect.

Related:Black Ops Cold War split up-screen setup guide

Another method to earn crystals is through completing the Die Maschine easter egg. However, this is very time consuming, and so isn't an efficient way to grind for crystals.

Finally, raw Aetherium Crystals volition also drop for each round you complete in the new Outbreak zombies mode, which was added in Flavour Ii. Nosotros have more on how many you can earn further downwards this guide.

Refined Aetherium Crystals and Flawless Aetherium Crystals

Upgrading a slice of gear in Black Ops Common cold State of war zombies to Tier 4 volition prepare you dorsum four Refined crystals, and upgrading to Tier v will cost v Flawless crystals. So how do you go them?

Refined and Flawless crystals can drop at high rounds in existing zombies maps Die Maschine and Firebase Z, merely we're still to get the official drop rates but notwithstanding.

However, along with the Raw crystals, Refined and Flawless Aetherium Crystals will also drop at the end of loftier rounds of Outbreak. We're seeing slight variations in drop rates from our playthroughs, simply you can encounter our findings below.

Outbreak Aetherium Crystal Rewards

At the finish of each completed circular of Outbreak, y'all will receive some Aetherium Crystals. The college the circular, the more than of each type yous volition get.

This isn't an exact science, and after comparing our drop rates with that of zombies streamers, the corporeality of crystals you become can vary. Still, below is a table showing the crude formula, based on gameplay from 'NoahJ456'.

Outbreak round completed	Raw	Refined	Flawless
Round 1	1	–	–
Circular 2	1	1	–
Round iii	1	ane	one
Round 4	ane	1	1
Round 5	2	1	1
Circular 6	two	2	1
Round 7	2	two	two
Round 8	three	two	2
Round 9	4	3	2
Round ten (and each circular after)	4	3	2

How do I spend Aetherium Crystals in Black Ops Common cold War zombies?

Aetherium Crystals can be used to upgrade everything in your best zombies loadout in Common cold War. To see what upgrades yous tin spend your crystals on, get to the loadout tab in the zombies lobby menu, so to skills, and then to i of the four categories of upgrades: weapon classes, field upgrades, perks, or ammo mods.

Each upgradeable item or grade has five upgrade tiers. The below table shows how many of each crystal you need to upgrade a piece of gear to each tier.

Tier	Aetherium Crystals needed
i	1 Raw Aetherium Crystal
2	2 Raw Aetherium Crystals
3	3 Raw Aetherium Crystals
four	4 Refined Aetherium Crystals
5	5 Flawless Aetherium Crystals

To fully upgrade everything in Black Ops Cold State of war Zombies right now, you lot will need 168 Raw, 112 Refined, and 140 Flawless crystals.

All-time Aetherium Crystals weapon form upgrades

Each class of weapon in Blackness Ops Cold State of war can be upgraded using Aetherium Crystals to aid you in zombies runs.

Most of the upgrades are quite similar, ranging from damage increases to unlocking extra attachment slots for some classes of weapon. If you're looking to make the best Cold War zombies weapons even better, we recommend investing crystals into the shotgun, melee, and assail rifle classes first.

Note that like in multiplayer, weapon classes volition unlock and be available for upgrades at certain player levels. The terminal weapon form, melee, is unlocked at level 50.

Best Aetherium Crystals field upgrade upgrades

As well as tweaking your guns, you tin can also upgrade the six zombies-specific field upgrades in Blackness Ops Cold State of war: Frenzied Guard, Frost Blast, Energy Mine, Aether Shroud, Healing Aura, and Ring of Fire.

While many of the weapon course upgrades were quite similar across the lath, Aetherium Crystals can be used to radically change your field upgrades in a number of ways. For those looking to go on long, high-round runs, we recommend maxing out either Aether Shroud for getting out of tricky spots, or Ring of Fire to assist take down the tanky bosses.

Best Aetherium Crystals perk upgrades

The seven currently bachelor perks in Black Ops Cold War zombies can all exist upgraded to be even more useful with your Aetherium Crystals.

While every perk has its uses, the upgrades on offering for Juggernog and Stamin-Up are ones you lot should definitely pay shut attention to.

A fully upgraded Juggernog volition see your max health increase past 100 and will allow you to pick up more armour when you detect information technology as ground loot. Meanwhile, a maxed out Stamin-Up tin can allow yous to sprint for a pretty much unlimited time, all while using your weapons or field upgrades.

Aetherium Crystals ammo mod upgrades

Ammo mods can exist super useful in Black Ops Common cold War zombies to requite your favourite weapon an actress kick. Using Aetherium Crystals, you can make their effects even more than powerful past upgrading them.

The specific upgrades are fairly cocky-explanatory – they essentially make the benefit of having the ammo modern far stronger or concluding for a longer menstruation of time.

If you have a favourite get-to ammo modern, you lot should definitely spend some crystals in making it much stronger. However, if you lot're low on crystals, you should definitely invest them in upgrading weapon classes, perks, and field upgrades first in our apprehensive opinion.

That'due south all on Aetherium Crystals for now. While they tin can be hard to come by, grinding Outbreak in Season Two is definitely the way forrard to requite your gear a real boost.