Guide

Do you have to level other classes to unlock recon gear in WARDOGS?

By George In The Meta · 5 Oct 2026 · updated 12 Oct 2026

Short answer: yes. Attachments sit in the class trees, not with the weapon, so the scope you want for a recon rifle can be locked behind Assault. On my Mosin Nagant, the CQ-2X prism scope needs Assault level 17. Vehicles work the same way, on their own Driver and Pilot trees.

Why is recon gear locked behind other classes?

WARDOGS locks recon gear behind other classes because each class tree unlocks attachments that fit more than one weapon. You want X scope on Y gun, but they're in different trees, so you go and level the other class to get it. It isn't just one combination: the better snipers and marksman rifles are the same.

Here's the optic row for my Mosin. The locks go Assault 12, Assault 17, Recon 18, Support 21 and Assault 22. Three of the five are Assault.

Does the cross-class grind make sense?

It doesn't really bother me, as long as the lock makes sense. The scope behind Assault is a scope that belongs on an assault rifle more than a marksman rifle, so I get why it's there.

It does mean an excessive amount of grind. This is me after about 150 hours, driving early on and recon ever since:

How do you level the other classes faster?

To level the other WARDOGS classes faster, stack things that farm points while you're doing something else. If I go in with a builder's hammer, I take the range finder too, so I'm getting spotting points in between building. Quirky combinations like that farm two trees at once when you're not really aiming for either.

Check the class icon in the bottom of each item, because that's what decides which class it levels. Every pistol is Assault. When I was running around with the hammer to level builder, I carried a fully automatic pistol, and it was levelling Assault the whole time. The drill levels Support rather than Driver, even though it only works on vehicles: I farm Support XP repairing my own truck with it. So look for mixes that level together and also make sense to use together.

Which levels unlock the vehicles?

Land vehicles are all on the Driver tree and helicopters are all on the Pilot tree. The SPH-2 artillery is the odd one out, locked behind your overall Wardog level.

On 5 October I was Driver 14, with the Humvee one level away. By 12 October I'd pushed it to Driver 19, so I'm now driving the armoured Ural Defender, which unlocks at Driver 18, and I'm one level off the Humvee with the M249.

Later that day I hit Driver 20, and found out the level isn't the end of it. Reaching Driver 20 only lets you unlock the Humvee [M249], for $125,000 cash. After that, each one costs $3,750 to buy. The same vendor shows the 5.56 armour-piercing ammo for its M249 as a separate $75,000 unlock.

What has BULKHEAD said about the grind?

On 3 October a recon player posted that you can't really "play how you want": he said a bigger magazine for the BMR, a recon weapon, needs Assault level 35. Joe Brammer, BULKHEAD's CEO, replied that the line was "play how you want to play", not "play with whatever you want to play with", and that he expects Season 2 players to be "more targeted and planned in their progression out of the gate."

When another player said grinding two classes into the 30s isn't made for people with jobs and families, Brammer answered: "We are working people with families… we are allies. We're not saying we got it right!"

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