MW3 Search and Destroy: Tips and hints

This guide will be for any new players to search and destroy. These tips will help you get a running start and hopefully create a fun experience for you in search and destroy!

Before we get started

Throughout this guide, I will be assuming that you have a basic knowledge of everything in MW3. If you need to learn anything about that, check out J3sTeR's guide on the basics: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=579703768

Rules of Search and Destroy

There are some main things you should know about search and destroy. Many players abbreviate 'Search and Destroy' to 'SnD', or 'S&D'. I will be abbreviating it through the rest of this guide.
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So what are the rules of search and destroy? There are 2 teams, 1 team defends while the other attacks. I will elaborate on each side later on in another section. Each round lasts 2:30, first team to win 4 rounds wins. Every 3 rounds, the teams swap sides (the defenders will attack and the attackers will defend). Each side can have up to 6 players, but 4 players are required on each side for the game to start.Your HUD is on and teamkilling is off. Unlike other gamemodes, you only get 1 life per round in SnD! This means you have to be extremely careful, if you die, you won't be able to respawn until the next round. Double check those corners, soldier!

Defending team

This section is all about defending in Snd.
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Defending in SnD is simple for the most part, you have 2 bombsites to defend (A and B). You either have to prevent the attackers from planting the bomb at the bombsites, or kill all of the attackers. Most defenders will camp one bomb site, or patrol an area. In this section I will tell you which is appropriate for the situation, and which one should be avoided at all costs. Your 3 main concerns should be:

-Don't let the other team plant
-Don't die
-If the other team plants, defusing is your #1 priority

Let's start on the first one - don't let the other team plant.

-When you spawn, you will ultimately be much closer to the bombsites than the attackers. This will give you an advantage to get into a spot to watch the bomb site, or patrol an area near a bomb site. Camping is more appropriate when the round first starts and most of your teammates are still alive. Patrolling is for when it's down to a you and 1-2 other teammates. There are exceptions for both though. Bomb camping is extremely useful and I will describe that below. Patrolling multiple entrances can be beneficial when the round starts, just be sure no one sneaks behind your lines! When you are camping a bomb site, make sure you are concealed well, otherwise attackers will notice you and kill you before you can get a bead on them.

The second point - not dying

-This part is simple, be sure if you are patrolling to double check your corners and not walk out into the open. If you do have to walk out in the open, try to sprint jump from cover to cover. Remember, you can be shot through crates, pillars, some walls, and even bomb crates! Another way to peek corners, albeit being frowned upon mostly by the community, is headglitching. This is where you hide behind something mostly solid with just your head peeking out from above. When you aim down your sight, you should be able to aim right over the ledge. Make sure when you reload, you are in cover. Getting caught mid-reload will get you killed!

The third point - Defusing

(Picture of a bomb case along with the bomb)

-There is only 1 bomb for the attackers to use, when they spawn, only one player can pick the bomb up. This player will look completely normal when you see them, but when you kill them, they will drop a small green case on the ground. This is the enemy bomb! A very good strategy is just to 'camp the bomb' which just means you will stay where the bomb is. The attackers can't plant unless they have the bomb. Place a claymore on a doorway near you and set up shop! They either have to come to you and get killed, or lose the round by not planting!

-When the bomb is planted, there is a 45 second timer on it. Plan your attack wisely - you only have so much time to defuse!

-It takes approximately 5.5 seconds to defuse the bomb - 0.5 seconds to open it and 5 seconds to defuse it.

-The bomb will make a sound similiar to a chain being dropped when you start defusing the bomb. The attackers can hear this when you start to defuse the bomb. Sometimes, they will hide and come out when they hear you defusing. Use this to your advantage! Start defusing the bomb, drop it and look around for any players. If none come out within a few seconds, defuse the bomb!

-Try to clear all of the attackers out before defusing the bomb, unless you know that they are far away from the bombsite.

Thats all for defending.

Attacking team

This section is all about the attacking part of search and destroy.
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Attacking in SnD is harder than defending. Defenders will most likely be camping the bomb sites/vital chokepoints, and it's up to you to find them and delay them enough to plant or kill them. A good attacker will have to always be checking corners and common camping spots so they won't be killed while planting/your back is turned. Important objectives of attacking are mostly the opposite of defending, as they include:

-Planting the bomb at either A or B
-Not dying
-Protecting the bomb after it is planted

Lets start with not dying this time

Attackers are going to have a harder time not dying and getting kills on defenders, that's just the way it will be. Since attackers have to rush an objective, they will be dying constantly. Here are some tips that will lessen how often you die. Make sure you realize that you ARE going to die sometimes, this will just reduce the amount of times you do.

So first things first, never just sprint into a room blindly without checking your corners, unless you know exactly where the enemy is, or if your teammates are already in the room. Next, check common camping spots. There are a lot of small nooks and crannies that those defenders will just love to wait for you at. Make sure you aim down sight while going around corners, and sometimes if you know exactly where a specific camping spot is you can pre-aim there. If you are running into a room where there are multiple places they could be, try to find another way around. If you can't go around, throw a flash grenade or a stun grenade and sprint jump in to catch them off guard.

Next up - planting the bomb

So you shook off those pesky campers, what now? Your next move is to go into the bombsite and clear out anything from the enemy team. Claymores, bouncing betties, C4 and there might even be a guy lying in wait for you to plant then shoot you in the back. Once the bombsite is clear, go ahead and plant the bomb. The enemy team will get a notification that the bomb has been planted at bombsite X and they will start coming in.

Defending the planted bomb

Usually, when there are multiple people left, the best plan is to patrol the bombsite. Keep in mind, this doesn't mean running around like a chicken with its head cut off around the bomb! Keep it simple, aim down sight and check corners where they could be coming in, maybe plant a claymore in a hallway or even shoot an unsilenced weapon to lure your enemies to a spot and kill them. If it's just you and 1-2 players left on the enemy team, your best bet is to wait in an obscure spot and wait for them to defuse (it will make a chain-like sound when they start to defuse it) and when you hear them defusing, run out and kill him.

That's all on attacking.

Perks

In this section, I will be assuming you have at the very least a basic knowledge of all the perks in MW3, I will show you some of the more useful perks to use in search and destroy, and tell you the ones that are not so useful.
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This section is going to be split up into three different parts, 'Perks that are good to use in SnD', 'Perks that only help in certain situations' and 'Perks that are bad to use in SnD', and I will elaborate on why they are/are not.
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Perks that are good to use in SnD

Blue perks

-Sleight of Hand Pro
-Recon Pro

Red perks

-Assassin Pro
-Quickdraw Pro

Yellow/Green perks

-Sitrep pro
-Dead silence Pro
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Perks that only help in certain situations

Blue perks

-Extreme conditioning Pro
-Blind Eye Pro

Red perks

-Blast shield Pro
-Hardline Pro

Yellow/Green Perks

-Stalker Pro
-Steady aim Pro
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Perks that will not benefit you much in SnD

Blue Perks

-Scavenger Pro

Red Perks

-Overkill Pro

Yellow/Green perks

-Marksman Pro
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So the good perks - why are they good to use?

Sleight of Hand Pro will benefit you with 50% faster reloads and a 50% faster weapon switch time. If you have a pistol, you will insta-swap to the pistol.

Recon Pro will tag anyone you flash or hit with your weapon for 12 seconds, UNLESS they have dead silence, which cuts the tag time down to 6 seconds.

Assassin Pro will keep you off the radar from UAVs, portable radar, people using marksman, and it makes you immune from counter UAVs

Quickdraw Pro makes you aim down sight much faster than normal, so if someone unexpected jumps in front of you, you have a better chance of survival. It also makes you throw grenades much faster.

Sitrep Pro magnifies enemy footsteps by 4 times the normal amount. It also reduces how much you hear your teammates footsteps, your own footsteps, and it cancels out dead silence. Keep in mind, enemy players and your teammates can still hear your footsteps, but you cannot

Dead silence Pro will completely mute your footsteps to anyone that is not using Sitrep Pro, and it will cut how long Recon Pro tags you in half.
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The perks that only benefit you in certain situations

Extreme conditioning Pro doubles your sprint time and you will climb obstacles faster. This can prove useful to get to a certain spot, but once you get there it will lose its advantage.

Blind eye Pro will increase the amount of damage you do to killstreaks and unmanned killstreaks cannot kill you. It will also remove the red box that surrounds you when an enemy is in a manned killstreak such as a predator missile. This is beneficial, but a lot of the time the enemy will not have predators/reapers. If they do though, it only lasts 1 round and you can always just take cover in a building

Blast shield Pro reduces the amount of damage you take from explosives and will lessen the effect of stuns and flashes on you. While it is useful againt C4, frags and flash grenades, you are much more vulnerable to portable radars and UAVs, making it a good rushing perk but not a good defending perk.

Hardline Pro reduces the amount of kills it takes to get a killstreak by 1. It also counts 2 assists as a kill towards your killstreak. While it is useful for getting UAVs and predators, you lose immunity to UAVs, incoming C4 and tacticals will kill you easily, and you won't have a faster aim down sight time.

Stalker Pro increases your aim down sight speed which is incredibly useful for LMGs and ARs. It also dramatically increases how long it takes for an enemy claymore to explode after it is triggered. While this is effective, you lose some of the element of sound. Your footsteps are not muted, and enemies will able to hear you more easily

Steady aim Pro tightens your hipfire spread and speeds your transition from sprinting to weapon ready stance. While this is extremely useful for rushers, shotgunners and akimbo weapons, people will be able to hear you sprinting around.
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Perks that barely ever benefit you

Scavenger Pro gives you full ammo capacity when you spawn, plus the ability to pick more ammo up from dead bodies. Ammo is reset after each round, so gathering ammo after having full ammo just doesn't benefit you much at all.

Overkill Pro gives you the ability to have two primaries with attachments and proficiencies. While it may seem awesome to have a sniper and a shotgun as your backup, it's just as easy to find a gun on the ground to replace your pistol or secondary.

Marksman Pro will make enemies' names show up red farther on the map. It also increases your hold breath time to steady thermals or sniper scopes. Being able to see the red tag on enemies super far away may seem useful, but keep in mind a lot of people will be using assassin pro, which blocks this effect.
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So keeping in mind these descriptions, you should normally go with the good perks, occasionally swapping out a perk or 2 for those that help you only in certain situations. Under normal conditions, the last perks should only be used rarely.

We're all finished!

If you've read through all of that information, congrats! If you skimmed over most of it, your loss! Let me know if you have any feedback/opinions on this in the comments

More pictures will be coming soon.

[Stoli]

As a defender, you don't have to kill anyone at all. You just have to not die and not let the enemy plant or just defuse the bomb if they do.

[Traitor]

mw3 is not a game of skill

[Cyanide]

Stealth perks (Blind Eye, Assassin, Dead Silence) and Awareness perks like Sitrep (pro), Recon and other of course are one of the most tricky and juicy part of SnD at all. It also makes it completely different from CSGO and more stuff liek that.

[Chuggy370]

The hardest bit of Search and Destroy is finding a lobby...

[Noble]

I'm sure someone new to SnD would love to run around wallbanging at first.. as I have said in the guide, you use those perks if you have a specific need for them, such as having a smg as your 2nd gun, or wallbanging.

[LayndR]

Please just remove the perks / class parts. Your "Perks that barely ever benefit you" are just straight up bullshit, atleast overkill and scavenger. I use those two the most in my classes for snd. Scavenger for those who like to wallbang like me, overkill for those who like to be mobile with their sniper rifle. Just please, remove them. You are giving false info to the noobs...

[Noble]

This is for people that are new to search and destroy. I'm pointing out perks that will most likely help you a lot compared to the ones that won't help you as much.