It’s the age-old question: What good is an amazing kill-to-death ratio in Call of Duty if you lose the game? At the same time, you’ve got to flex on the lobby with your supreme gunplay—so which is most important?
Modern Warfare 3 players were split over the two metrics as discussion was sparked in an April 14 thread on the MW3 subreddit. One player questioned the point of getting kills if you can’t close out your matches. “Every time people rant (or more rarely, brag) about the game, they cite their K/D ratio. No one really seems to cite the W/L ratio,” they wrote. While many players favored the win-loss ratio being a true stat to judge a player’s skill, others supported the kill-to-death ratio simply because the main factor an individual can control.
“I can be the best player in the world but if the rest of my team is awful then we will probably lose the match, but how many people I kill and how many times I die is all on me,” one user replied. Another argued that many players can boost their K/D by simply camping a corner, which has little effect when it comes to team-based game modes like Domination or Hardpoint—but they also said a supreme individual performance can turn the tide of a deadlock. “A single player can absolutely have an effect on a match too, playing for the win will indirectly or directly give you said advantages,” they added.
While many prefer having fun over any stat, many argue that no one should care about their K/D or W/L given the current state of matchmaking, which is slamming players with differing skill levels together and leaving many hoping for the best. Most CoD players aim to maintain their K/D ratio over two, with many pros and content creators going well past the five mark.
You can check your records for every game mode in MW3, Warzone, and MW2 by launching CoD‘s menu and clicking on Stats. Numbers available depend on the game mode: For multiplayer in MW3, you can check your time played, games played, K/D ratio, and win/loss ratio.
These stats can also depend on your ability to identify the meta, and like any other seasonal update, new guns can help you bounce back if you’re in a rut. The upcoming Season Three Reloaded update is sure to change the game up slightly, so you’ll need to be ready to adapt to any changes the devs make to the meta.
K/D and W/L aside, the most important stat in CoD is how much fun you’re having—and no stat screen can show that.
