WARDOGS has no class select screen. You buy your role at the vendor before each life, and the game levels whatever you used. That is simple to say and easy to get wrong, because six role tracks and an account-wide Wardog level are all filling at once, and only one of them unlocks the thing you actually want.
This guide is the map. It covers how XP is earned, the first unlocks on every track with their level and cost from our progression data, and the route through the first week that players who reached the high thirties in the beta converged on. Medic, Support and Recon have their own longer guides, linked from each section.
One caveat used to sit over all of it, and it is settled. The Closed Beta 02 ladder was condensed for a weekend; on 9 September Bulkhead published the launch ladder in its Season 1 changelog — the first official unlock table, which confirmed every level and cost the beta showed and moved seventeen of them. Every figure below is stamped to that build. Bulkhead has also said each season will carry a different XP curve and item order, so the ladder is a Season 1 ladder, not a permanent one.
How XP works: the item tells you which track it feeds
Every weapon, tool and vehicle in the shop pays XP to one track. Rifles and pistols pay Assault. Submachine guns pay Medic. Shotguns, machine guns and launchers pay Support. Sniper and marksman rifles pay Recon, and so does the bow. Trucks pay Driver and helicopters pay Pilot. Hover any tile and the label is there. It is the single most useful thing in the vendor.
Actions pay too, and this is where the fast routes come from. Healing and reviving pay Medic without a kill. Building a wall pays Support with every swing. Spotting a player through binoculars pays Recon. Delivering passengers alive pays Driver or Pilot, and you keep earning assists from what those passengers do next.
Everything you do also feeds the Wardog level, which gates the things no single role owns: medium armour and helmet at 30, heavy at 60, the pistols, the bigger backpacks, and in the beta the L2A6 tank at level 35 for a 500,000 dollar unlock. The Season 1 changelog moved it onto the Driver track at the same level, so it is a Driver gate now rather than a Wardog one.
Two rules about money before the routes. Reaching a level opens a tile; you then pay a one-off unlock cost, and after that the normal price every time you buy the item. The Dune Buggy is the game's own worked example: Driver 8, 25,000 dollars once, then 1,500 dollars a buggy. And the Hot Zone is not a flat cash doubler, whatever the beta chatter says. The loading screen is specific: it counts you as two players for the capture and pays bonus cash on teamplay actions. That bonus is why every fast route below runs through the zone rather than around it.
Two more rules come from Bulkhead's developers, on the Push to Talk podcast on 2 October. The end-of-match bonus is 40% of the XP for your role, and first place pays triple what third does, so every route below assumes you stay to the end. And the hot zone pays a streak: the longer you stay in without leaving, the more each tick pays, and leaving resets it. Why levelling is slow, from Bulkhead →
How to level up Medic: revive first, shoot second
Medic is the role that pays you to level it. The Field Resuscitator unlocks at Medic 2 for 10,000 dollars and costs 500 dollars each after that. In Closed Beta 02 a revive paid 1,000 dollars, which makes every resuscitator you use a small profit plus Medic XP. Run two.
The ladder from there: white smoke at 5, the Individual First Aid Kit at 9, the Defibrillator at 11 for 50,000 dollars, the Stim Pen at 14, the MP5 at 15 and the Medical Bag at 24. Submachine gun kills pay Medic too, and the AMP-9 has no gate at 900 dollars, so a medic who fights up close levels twice as fast as one who only heals.
Two habits from the beta are worth copying. Bandage teammates rather than yourself, because buddy aid pays and self-aid does not. And carry the free emergency resuscitator every life, because a medic who finds one on your body gets you up in seconds instead of thirty.
The full route, every unlock cost and what each tool does is in how to level up Medic in WARDOGS.
How to level up Support: build, and rush the RPG
Support is the track that gates every answer to a vehicle, so somebody in your squad needs it early. C4 arrives at Support 2 with the level alone, the RPG-7 at 5 for a 30,000 dollar unlock, the M249 at 15, the MAAWS at 20 and anti-tank mines at 25.
The fast route is not a shotgun. Players reached Support 34 over the beta weekend with a first match spent building: a Forward Operating Base costs 7,500 dollars, ships with a hammer, and pays XP and cash on every swing, with a larger payout when the structure completes. One match of that left a player nine points short of Support 7, and Support 8 is the Large Hammer, which is what emplacements need.
Once the RPG is yours, every vehicle it destroys pays Support as well, and launch week will not be short of vehicles driven badly. The full ladder with costs, the emplacement route and the mine economics are in how to level up Support in WARDOGS.
How to level up Recon: spot before you snipe
Recon has the worst starting weapon in the game and the best starting tool. The Scout Rifle TD costs 1,100 dollars, is a break-action, and in the beta would not drop an unhelmeted player with one headshot. Binoculars cost 75 dollars, need no level, and pay Recon XP for every player or vehicle you mark, plus cash when a teammate kills what you marked.
So the route is: binoculars in slot three, whatever rifle you like in your hands, and mark everything until Recon 5. That is the SKS for a 25,000 dollar unlock, a semi-automatic that carries you to 10, which is the Mosin Nagant. The Monocular at Recon 2 makes the spotting faster, and the Rangefinder at 8 gives you distances.
From 10 the track is snipers and their glass: SVD at 12, Compound Bow at 17, SV98 at 19, Claymore at 22, ghillie armour and helmet at 24, MK22 at 25 and the AMR 50 at 35 for 200,000 dollars. Details and the damage figures that decide which to buy are in how to level up Recon in WARDOGS.
How to level up Assault: the free rifle does it
Assault is the track that levels itself. Your faction's recruit rifle costs nothing, every kill with it pays Assault, and the early attachment tree lives here: a muzzle brake at 2, another at 5, the foregrip at 11 and the first prism scope at 12.
The rifles come at AK74 3 for 10,000 dollars, Galil 10 for 35,000, M4 20 for 100,000 and FAL 35 for 200,000. The three gates we recorded first-hand in the alpha, Galil 10, M4 20 and FAL 35, match the beta ladder level for level, which is part of why we trust the rest of it.
The right advice for a frontline player is simple: do not try to level Assault. Play the free rifle, and it happens.
How to level up Driver and Pilot: be the taxi
Both tracks pay for transport. Driving distance pays a little; delivering teammates into the Control Zone pays more; and you keep earning assists from what your passengers do after they get out. Pallets of supplies delivered to a FOB pay in a lump, though which track that lump lands on has not been confirmed since Season 1 — the logistics guide has what is known.
Driver starts with two gateless vehicles, the Bobcat at 500 dollars and the Kodiak at 2,500. The Ural at Driver 3 carries two pallets for a 35,000 dollar unlock, the Kodiak M249 at 6 is the first gun, the Dune Buggy at 8 is the fast one for 25,000, the Kodiak Pickup at 10 carries six for 35,000 and 3,000 a spawn, and the Humvee at 15 is the first armour. From there it runs through the Ural Defender at 18, its M249 at 25 and the Humvee minigun at 30, and ends at 35 with the L2A6 — the heavy tank moved onto this track at launch.
Pilot starts with the MH-6 transport at 6,250 dollars and no gate. Armed Little Birds come at Pilot 4 for a 50,000 dollar unlock, the Z20 Lakota at 10 for 35,000 dollars, rockets at 20 and the Havoc at 35 for a 500,000 dollar unlock and 18,000 dollars a spawn. Everything before 10 is where the money is; a first-match pilot in the beta could finish on 95,000 dollars profit and Pilot 8. The cost of learning is real: a crash or a team kill charges the pilot 1,500 dollars per player. The flight model itself is covered in how to fly helicopters in WARDOGS.
A first-week route that levels four tracks at once
Players who spent the beta weekend levelling landed on the same order, and it agrees with the data.
- Matches one and two: free rifle, binoculars, bandages. Kills feed Assault, spotting feeds Recon, bandaging teammates feeds Medic, and all of it feeds the Wardog level toward light armour.
- Push Support to 5. A shotgun or, better, one match of building at a FOB. The RPG is the reason; nothing else in the first week answers a Kodiak with a gun on it.
- Push Medic to 11. Resuscitators and SMG kills. The Defibrillator is the last thing you need before you can keep a squad alive through a Hot Zone fight.
- Keep the binoculars every life until Recon 10 and the Mosin, or 5 and the SKS if you want to shoot sooner.
- Drive or fly whenever your squad deploys. Somebody has to, and the Driver and Pilot levels only move when it is you.
Then buy toward what you want. Tank drivers will need Driver levels at Early Access, not Wardog. Builders need Support 7. Snipers need Recon 10 and a scope at 11. And nobody needs to be level 100 in anything: on the beta ladder every role stops handing out unlocks at 50, and the highest gate on the whole tree is a backpack at Wardog 150. Every level and cost is on /progression/, and the builds people are actually running are on the loadout hub.
