What VULTURE AID Actually Does in Black Ops 6 Zombies
You guys enjoyed my last two perk Deep Dive articles a BUNCH so I wanted to share my findings for Vulture Aid and deep testing here, as well. After extensive testing, here’s everything you need to know about Vulture Aid, its augments, how this perk works with Speed Cola's Supercharged Field Upgrade Augment, and whether the Suppressor or Carrion Luggage drops more salvage.
If you want to see the full video, my YouTube link is in my profile as well. This article is NOT going to go into depth as much as I did in the full video. In this article, I mostly want to provide overall data and comparisons versus in the video I go into much more detail about strategies, gameplay styles, base game data, and so on. Also, post in the comments any additional features that I didn't cover so other readers can also learn about your strategies and how to use them. That really helps the community. Thank you so much for support here and let's get into this article.
Understanding how perks and augments impact your gameplay can make all the difference, especially in Black Ops 6 Zombies with over 120 augments to customize your gameplay. A returning perk, Vulture Aid, is now a standout perk in BO6 Zombies, a feature focused on increasing loot drops, managing resources, and enabling specific gameplay strategies.
Watch the full video breakdown here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXOUNj8I7bI
Vulture Aid: What It Does
At its core, Vulture Aid increases loot drops for essence and ammo. Without it, only 10–11% of your zombie kills typically drop loot in some form (tacticals, lethals, armor, etc). With Vulture Aid, the drop rate doubles to about 20%. That’s an extra 10% bonus—but there’s more to it than just more drops. Additionally, essence and ammo drops disappear after about 10 seconds, which is significantly less time than regular loot.
Essence Boost
Let’s keep things straightforward: essence is the in-game currency that drives nearly everything. Without Vulture Aid, killing enemies nets about 125 essence per zombie on average. With the perk, this climbs to about 151 essence per enemy—a 20% boost.
But does this essence increase actually impact how soon you can Pack-a-Punch? Yes and No. Here's the data:
- Without Vulture Aid: PAP Level 1 - Round 7 | PAP Level 2 - Round 11 | PAP Level 3 - Round 16
- With Vulture Aid: PAP Level 1 - Round 7 | PAP Level 2 - Round 11 | PAP Level 3 - Round 16
This is tested by the amount of essence earned, minus required doors to PAP and then the PAP cost for each level if you bought no perks. Meaning that there is no evidence that Vulture Aid will drop enough essence to make a difference in the leveling. It may allow you to get out of spawn faster. But, it won't make much of a difference if you don't spawn in with a Perkaholic. Otherwise, you'll need to wait until you reach the Perk Machine on Citadelle or wait until round 25 on the launch maps for the Der Wunderfizz.
***After Post Edit: Explanation of more than Avg 115 Essence/Enemy and 125 Essence/Enemy: So, this is counting 2x Points. I took out Bonus points power ups because that's kind of optional, it doesn't make a huge difference in regular gameplay. However, in regular gameplay, everyone ALWAYS prioritizes grabbing 2x Points for kills and essence. So, I needed to make sure this was also in the testing. On my excel sheets in the video and on my Zombies Hub, you can see how often I used the 2x Points. That's why the essence amounts are higher than what's potential. I wanted to keep that number in reality to how people play. If you'd like to see that excel sheet, you can find it on the ZombiesInfoHub.com on the Round Info Data and the Vulture Aid Round Data.***
Ammo Drops
Ammo is critical, especially during the chaos of later rounds. Vulture Aid improves your chances of seeing ammo drops. Without the perk, only Elite enemies or Specials consistently drop ammo. With Vulture Aid, 1 in 11 zombies now drops ammo on average.
That ammo doesn’t refill your weapon entirely—instead, it provides roughly 30–33% of your mag size. Example:
- Non-PAP Weapons: 45-round mag refills about 15 rounds per ammo drop, exactly 0.33.
- PAP Weapons: 90-round mag refilled about 27 rounds per drop, exactly .3.
This bonus applies equally across most weapons, where non-PAP and PAP weapons get either .33 or .3, interchangeably and not always in that order. Sometimes the PAP weapon receives .3 and vice versa.
Clearing Up Misconceptions About Drop Mechanics
Some players believe Vulture Aid reduces other essential drops, like armor or tactical items. That’s simply not the case. Vulture Aid stacks its bonuses on top of base drop rates, meaning items like armor, lethals, and tacticals remain unaffected by the perk.
Here’s an example: If your base drop percentages per enemy until round 23 are Tacticals at 3.56%, Lethals at 4.52%, and Armor at 7.49%, adding Vulture Aid still guarantees standard percentages of drops per enemy remain intact-actually they increase in percentage. At Round 23 with Vulture Aid, I was able to see Tacticals at 3.55% , Lethals at 7.88%, and Armor at 10.11%. Ammo and essence appear more frequently, but they’re additions rather than replacements.
To add, sometimes there are variations between matches. When I notice a variance of 5-6%, I retest. Though I saw more drop percentage in the second example above with Vulture Aid, it does not mean that Vulture Aid is the reason for those additional drop percentages. It's just the variance of enemies and drop chances. To be clear, Vulture Aid's Base Perk does not affect the drop rates of any other items than essence and ammo.
Vulture Aid in Mid and Late Game
The essence and increased drops you gain early on might be small, but the perk shines as you transition into middle rounds (10–25).
From the data collected, you can see a bigger spike in essence drops after round 8 when loot differences between perk users and non-perk users become noticeable.
While the perk’s relevance levels off in higher rounds (40+), combining effective augments with careful build planning lets you extract maximum value across overall gameplay.
Testing Augment Mechanics
Vulture Aid works hand-in-hand with specific augments, enhancing everything from auto-looting to ammo recovery. In testing, each augment was evaluated for ease of use, stats, and its potential to match different playstyles. Let’s take a closer look at the easier to explain augments first and then we'll get into the more complex ones.
Condor's Reach
This augment extends your loot pickup radius to 3.5 meters compared to the default range, which requires you to stand directly over loot. If you encounter a heavily packed zombie horde and can’t move in closely, this saves you from losing valuable pickups.
Key Benefits
- Supports automatic looting, even through walls or barriers.
- Ensures fewer missed drops, avoiding risks mid-round.
If resource management feels like a struggle in intense rounds, Condor Reach makes looting significantly easier.
Parting Gift
Parting Gift boosts ammo replenish amount specifically for Wonder Weapons. Normally, a Ray Gun recovers 2 rounds per drop, but with this augment equipped, that jumps to 16 rounds per drop—a massive improvement.
However, Parting Gift remains disappointing when used with weapons like the Jet Gun or the Swords. When playing, I didn't notice any effects for those two WW. Ammo drops don’t recharge ultimates, which limits its broader utility. I wasted all of my Wonderbar! Gobblegums trying to pull the Beamsmasher from the Mystery Box and only got the Ray Gun. And testing already took so much that building the WW was a hassle for me. So, let me know please how this augment affects the Beamsmasher in the comments. THANKS!
This augment excels in high-round runs, keeping your Ray Gun ready to fire.
Picky Eater
This augment is exciting. Whatever equipment you currently have equipped (e.g., Molotovs or shock sticks), Vulture Aid increases how frequently zombies drop those specific items.
- Without Picky Eater:
- 1 Molotov drop every 200 Zombies
- 1 Shock Stick drop every 395 Zombies
- With Picky Eater:
- 1 Molotov drop every 39 Zombies
- 1 Shock Stick drop every 32 Zombies
That’s a 5x increase (500%) in drop rates.
Does It Replace Other Drops?
No. Like ammo and essence bonuses, this stacks on top of normal drop rates. For equipment-heavy gameplay styles, Picky Eater is a must-pick for high rounds since frequent equipment drops can improve zombies crowd control strategies.
Fetid Upgr-aid
This augment uses gas clouds that generate on zombie death to recharge your field upgrade. Every gas cloud lasts 15 seconds and refills all field upgrades by approx 1% per second. Over the span of a full round these gases can charge your field upgrade to different amounts, depending on the amount of gas pops and enemies, allowing frequent activations depending on your strategy. What are those base stats with this augment?
If you'd like to see how I tested this, it's very intriguing and would be the most confusing to type and for you to read. Watch this portion of the video, this link takes you straight to this explanation.
Long deep dive test short:
I took how many ticks of charging, in this case 12 ticks, I made a digital segment and made a circle around the field upgrade charge circle. Then, counted how many segments of 12 ticks were in a full charge of a field upgrade.
- Recharge Test 1: 12 Ticks x 8 Segments = 96 Ticks to Full
- Recharge Test 2: 14 Ticks x 8 Segments = 112 Ticks to Full
How does it stack with Speed Cola’s Field Upgrade augment? Does it boost how much the kills are worth, as well?
It works great with them both! It significantly lowers the time to fill because it fills at the same time while shooting. I believe having the Speed Cola augment, Supercharged, on doesn’t make it less kills to fill. I believe that each tick or kill just takes up more surface area around the circle. This is because without speed cola, with this augment, just does 15 ticks and that space is the same. However, when you add this augment, the tick looks to take more space. Which means that it works with speed cola.
Below, you can see the amount of maximum gas pops per round with just the Augment (Left) and the Augment with Speed Cola's Supercharged Augment (Right). Adding Speed Cola enhances the individual tick charge amount to 1.25% Charge per Tick, making the requirement to fill your Field Upgrade (regardless of the upgrade) around 80-88 ticks per Charge. The below graphic is assuming that you stand in the gas the and get the maximum 15 seconds of ticks. You cannot pop multiple gases at a time, so there is a stall in between the next gas popping. Because of this stall, you're likely not to get all of the pops max per round unless you're saving some zombies until after the gas ends, but that is not a practical strategy because you'll risk getting hit.
In each round, if you are getting multiple pops, you can add to your charge refill rate by simply getting kills. The above referenced photo allows you to see exactly how many additional kills you need to get during the round in order to see how to fill your field upgrade.
Is this worth it in higher rounds?
DEFINITELY NOT, by itself, it pops often, but not often enough to make a difference in the amount of field upgrades that you get. You risk getting hit so much. The only thing it’s good for is the earlier rounds in order to get an early start on your Field Upgrade. If you’re playing on Citadelle, you won’t get the perk until Round 8ish, so by then, your augment will need to be used for other reasons. If you’re on the two launch maps, you won’t use this at all because you can only get it from Der Wunderfizz.
Other results:
- Field Upgrades, equipment, WW, and anything can proc the gas effect.
- Might need to get 20-22 kills before getting next pop and there is a short time stall before next pop can happen.
Smell of Death
Smell of Death utilizes gas to create a shielding aura that makes zombies ignore you for 5 seconds. This 5-second concealment window lets you reload and max plate up without being swarmed. It’s more situational but highly useful in moments of chaos where regrouping matters most. This effect happens for every 40 enemies at 2.5% Pop Chance, meaning for every 200 Enemies, 5 will proc the effect.
Other Results
- Is this worth it in higher rounds?
- It is if you can see it.
- Is this better than Smoke grenades?
- Doesn’t last longer than Smokes, but is more effective because it can distract enemies in the immediate area
- Do zombies disperse if they're in that area?
- All enemies, including main quest bosses, completely ignore you and instantly sprint away
- How to make it better?
- Change the gas color, it is not as thick as the Fetid Upgr-Aid gas. It looks JUST like the Parasite gas that lingers.
- The screen indication is great but the gas itself is bad, great that it is so forgiving though, that you can be even a little close to the gas and it'll shroud you.
Comparing Fetid Upgr-Aid and Smell of Death
Two notable augments, Fetid Upgr-Aid and Smell of Death, stand out for their utility around field upgrade mechanics or defensive strategies. Here's how they differ:
Which Works Better?
Fetid Upgr-Aid is perfect for extending field upgrade uptime, especially in combination with perks like Speed Cola.
Smell of Death offers better mid-combat options for tight situations by completely removing enemy aggression during its active duration.
Both serve different purposes, but if you run a high-round survival strategy, Fetid Upgr-Aid generally wins out due to it's ability to be an aggressive augment and kill enemies, which is the most important goal to high rounding.
Overall, you can see that on average, you get the same amount of uses from both augments per round as the rounds increase. Though the Fetid Upgr-aid gas pops twice as often, you don't care about the field upgrade gas pops, you care about how many Field Upgrades uses you get out of those gases, which is why this is based on uses per round.
Carrion Luggage
Carrion Luggage increases the chance for critical hits to drop extra scrap by 29%, adding more opportunities for Rarity upgrades early on.
There is no current critical kill to salvage drop rate, however, if you compare the amount of salvage received while killing enemies and just getting crits, then that amount is 21%. So, this augment boosts your salvage drop rate by a bonus of almost 10%. This augment is works even with killing armored zombies, vermin, parasites, specials, and elites. And stacks with the current drop rates of the base perk instead of acting as a replacement.
Carrion Luggage Augment vs. Suppressor
The suppressor attachment is a great way to enhance the salvage drop rate to any weapon which allows it to be equipped. By contrast, the Suppressor depends on enemy kill counts instead of headshots. So which is better?
If you rely on crit kills, have a high crit kill ratio, and/or precision weapons, Carrion Luggage consistently drops more scrap early. However, for higher rounds when crit kill potential drops as zombies hordes grow denser, Suppressor outperforms by rewarding bulk kills with steady salvage increments.
Ideal Strategy
Consider stacking both the augment and the Suppressor, if possible. Early round salvage is vital for upgrades, while Suppressor handles efficiency in later stages when consistent resources are harder to come by. However, if you're looking to save an attachment slot, Carrion Luggage will save that slot for you. Conversely, if you're looking to save this Minor augment for Picky Eater (More Equipment drops), then the Suppressor will allow for it. But combined, they both stack! SO, have fun!
Final Thoughts
Vulture Aid isn’t just a loot perk—it’s a game-changer for resource management, proper upgrades, and survival strategy. Combined with the right augments, it amplifies your ability to control the field and adapt as rounds progress. From doubling ammo drops to unlocking clever midgame tactics with Picky Eater and beyond, this perk thrives under strategic builds.
Best Vulture Aid Augments For Your Loadout
Based on testing, here’s what you should prioritize:
Top Augments
- Picky Eater (Minor): Extremely useful for fun, especially high round gameplay, and Equipment-heavy fun without the concern of running out of equipment.
- Fetid Upgr-Aid (Major): Perfect for recharging Field Upgrades for those high rounds, as well. MUST use with Speed Cola's Supercharged Augment to get maximum effectiveness.
Runner Ups
- Carrion Luggage (Minor): Only helps when you're able to get a high Critical Kill Ratio. Otherwise, use the Suppressor Attachment, if available.
- Smell of Death (Major): Not being able to see the gas severely limits your ability to max out the usage of this augment. This perk only shines when you NEED a breather to reload and plate, otherwise, it's not as useful.
Limited Use Cases
- Condor's Reach (Minor): This is a decent augment to use in case resource management feels like a struggle in intense rounds. My advice, learn how to train zombies and wrap back around to get your loot.
- Parting Gift (Major): This is mostly useful for the RayGun (or Beamsmasher, if you use that, let me know) to save essence so you don't need to buy ammo, which is costly.
So, which augment fits your playstyle? Are you more about survival consistency or experimental builds? Drop your feedback in the comments and let us all know! If you’re looking for deep testing on other perks or mechanics, check out the playlist linked or explore our Jugger-Nog breakdown next. Let me know what questions and hypotheses you'd like me to test for Jug. Thanks for your support and for reading! Check out the Zombies Information Hub at ZombiesInfoHub.com for complete weapon, perk, stats, and upgrade guides.