Winter’s Wail | ZFRR Hub

Winter’s Wail is a perk of Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 Zombies. When an enemy lands a melee hit on the player, the perk sets off a frost explosion that freezes or slows the enemies nearby. It has been in the game since launch and exists in no other game of the series.

Overview

First appearanceVoyage of Despair, IX, Blood of the Dead and Classified, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, October 12, 2018

GamesBlack Ops 4

Cost4,000 points4,500 points in the Modifier slot

EffectA melee hit taken sets off a frost explosion that freezes or slows nearby enemies.

FamilyPerks of Black Ops 4 Zombies

UnlockLevel 30

Like every perk of Black Ops 4, Winter’s Wail has no machine of its own. Each player picks four perks before the game, in the Zombies Create-a-Class, and gives each one a slot: the Brew, Cola, Soda and Tonic machines on the Aether maps, the statues of Danu, Ra, Zeus and Odin on the Chaos maps. The perk placed on Tonic or Odin gains a second effect, its Modifier, once the player holds all four perks.

In the First Room

No First Room of Black Ops 4 has a fixed perk: an altar serves the perk the player placed on it in the loadout. The books of the eight maps of the site put a single altar in reach with the doors closed, so Winter’s Wail is in a First Room only when the player gave it that slot.

Map	Game	What the book of the map says
Voyage of Despair	Black Ops 4	Forecastle: the Danu altar, a green statue of the goddess by the railing, to the right of the spawn, is the only perk of the First Room. It serves the perk the player placed there in the loadout, at the price of that perk.
IX	Black Ops 4	Arena: no altar, the four stand at the top of the four towers. A First Room player has no perk at all, unless the seventh challenge of a banner gives one.

Five other books say that no altar or machine is in the First Room: Dead of the Night, Ancient Evil, Blood of the Dead, Classified and Tag der Toten. The book of Alpha Omega names no perk in its First Room. The records are on the ZFRR leaderboards.

Effect, game by game

Base effect

4,000 points. The in-game description gives a frost explosion on every melee hit taken, which freezes or slows the enemies nearby, and two stored charges.

The totem of the perk held in a player's hand, a screaming head carved in blue ice, Winter's Wail, Call of Duty Black Ops 4 Zombies

Modifier

4,500 points on Tonic or Odin. With all four perks in hand, each frost explosion leaves a slowing field around the player for a limited time, and the perk holds one more charge.

After its buff

According to Call of Duty Fandom, a later update raised the charges from two to three, and to four with the Modifier, cut the recharge between explosions from five minutes to one, and made a new round or a Max Ammo refill every charge. Since then the explosion only goes off when the player is critically injured, except on Realistic.

Where to find it

Black Ops 4: all eight maps, since the perk comes from the loadout. Winter’s Wail is a Perk Vapor on Voyage of Despair, IX, Dead of the Night and Ancient Evil, and a Perk-a-Cola on Blood of the Dead, Classified, Alpha Omega and Tag der Toten.

Call of Duty Fandom says Winter’s Wail works like Widow’s Wine. Among the other perks of Black Ops 4, Zombshell slows enemies too.

Trivia

In the game files the perk uses the internal name specialty_widowswine, which suggests it took the place of Widow’s Wine.