Best Maelstrom loadout in Black Ops 6

The Season 1 Reloaded update is live in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, introducing a bunch of merry content into multiplayer and Zombies. Aside from the holiday-themed events and cosmetics, players can also unlock some new rewards, including the Maelstrom shotgun. The Maelstrom is a full-automatic shotgun in Black Ops 6 that has quite a powerful loadout of attachments.

Of course, full-auto shotguns can be finicky in any Call of Duty multiplayer, so you need to ensure you're using the correct attachments. To see our loadout for the Maelstrom in Black Ops 6, keep reading the guide below.

We have already covered the unlock process for the Maelstrom in a previous guide, but we'll hit the highlights again. The Maelstrom is unlocked through the new Merry Mayhem event in Black Ops 6, which requires you to earn over 600,000 XP to unlock all of its rewards. The final reward is the Maelstrom shotgun, so you have to fully complete the event to unlock the weapon. This event ends on Dec. 19 in Season 1 Reloaded.

The alternative way to unlock the Maelstrom is by purchasing the Bad Manners bundle in the store. Bad Manners costs 1,800 COD Points and unlocks the "Party Etiquette" blueprint for the Maelstrom, permanently giving you the weapon in multiplayer and Zombies.

Now that you have the Maelstrom unlocked, it's time to equip the strongest loadout for it in multiplayer. Below, we'll show you two loadouts for the shotgun, one without the Gunfighter wildcard and one with it:

And here's the loadout with Gunfighter equipped, which gives you an extra three attachments:

The loadout we've gone with focuses on hip-firing with the Maelstrom. While you can go with attachments that make it easier to aim down sights, we think the Maelstrom is best-used from the hip, where you can get shots off quicker and take advantage of its high fire rate.

That high fire rate has also been boosted by using the Rapid Fire attachment. Damage range has been increased as well with the Reinforced Barrel. All the other attachments improve hip-fire stats, making you more accurate when firing without lifting the shotgun up.

Finally, if you want to complete your loadout, you'll need to equip the rest of your class items. This includes selecting a secondary weapon, lethal and tactical equipment, and a full set of perks plus a wildcard.

Secondary Weapon

Equipment

Perks

Wildcard

And with that, your loadout for the Maelstrom shotgun is now complete in Black Ops 6. The shotgun doesn't tend to excel at medium ranges, but on a map like Stakeout, you can completely annihilate enemy teams.

Make sure to also check out our guides on how to unlock the AMR Mod 4 and the Cleaver, two other weapons releasing in Season 1 Reloaded.

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