Season Three has been pretty fantastic for Call of Duty: Warzone. Raven Software has taken a huge step forward with their transparency with the game, and it’s starting to show. Of course, it always sucks when your favorite weapon gets nerfed, but it doesn’t look like they decimated any of the guns too bad here. You can check out the full patch notes here from Raven Software. So let’s dive in.

Assault Rifles

CR-56 AMAX

  • Minimum Damage decreased from 32 to 31 (Warzone Only)

The King got knocked down a peg. Not a huge peg, but this, combined with the pretty high recoil, could keep this gun in check. It’s not like it was overtly broken before though. It was just really efficient at taking people out. So I wholeheartedly agree with this one. When a gun isn’t broken out of control (AUG, M16, MAC-10 from last season, these were broken), you don’t need to destroy it. So I’ll probably keep an AMAX loadout around, but it won’t take up like 3-4 slots it did for me for this start of the season.

FARA 83

  • Headshot Multiplier decreased from 1.5 to 1.35
  • Base ADS Move Speed decreased by 7%

This one wasn’t verging on the territory of the FFAR from last season, but it was close. This was basically an AR that you could run as an SMG. So this tampers down the movement speed a bit. You have to use it as an actual AR now, which isn’t a bad thing. The FARA could be an excellent rifle going forward in those medium to long ranges. Throw a SUSAT or a 3X scope on it and you might be golden. The fastest time to kill (TTK for short) was reduced, but you have a solid rate of fire and recoil with this one.

Shotguns

Ground Loot Streetsweeper

The Streetsweeper is no longer ground loot, so thank the lord. No more getting ass blasted by someone running into a room like Terry Crews from The Expendables.

Ground Loot Hauer 77

The Hauer 77 is now the shotgun for ground loot, so you still will destroy people up close. Just not as bad as with the Streetsweeper, and you have to hit all your shots.

Actual Streetsweeper

  • Base Hip Spread increased
  • Recoil increased slightly
  • ADS speed reduced slightly

The Streetsweeper had the potential to be a problem in Warzone. If you played Black Ops Cold War at all last season, you’d know the power of this gun. It was the secondary of choice for everyone who had it unlocked because it was just the best. With a high magazine size, rate of fire, and ability to clear rooms (refer to Terry Crews above), you had a shotgun that packed a major punch.

With these changes you lose some of that all around capability and it becomes a major close range weapon. You’ve gotta hit those shots now.

Submachine Guns

Bullfrog

  • Maximum Damage decreased from 34 to 32
  • Maximum Damage Range increased by 11%
  • Base Move Speed increased by 1%
  • Sprint Out Speed increased by 13%

This is one that’s not really a nerf or a buff in my mind. So you’re losing out on damage, but you’re gaining in damage range, move speed, and sprint speed. This is probably a change in regards to the other changes to Cold War attachments for other guns too. Now SMG’s will likely be the king of that second loadout slot, unless you want an AR for sniper support. The Bullfrog is still excellent at what it does in the SMG category though. So while your TTK is slower, you’re gaining in other aspects.

PPSh-41

  • Maximum Damage Range increased by 4%
  • Open Bolt Delay decreased by 80%

The PPSh-41 got a small damage range increase, but that open bolt delay was the real killer for this gun. It has an insane fire rate and a huge magazine. You can zoom around with it and take it to people in an aggressive way. This change makes that even more possible, so you can fire faster than ever before. This might not make the PPSh-41 king of the SMG’s, but it does make it more viable for your loadouts.

Attachments

Barrels

Combat Recon (Snipers)

  • Bullet Velocity multiplier increased by 12%
  • ADS Idle Sway multiplier decreased by 33.3%

I don’t use snipers very often, but this change really gives the Cold War snipers that extra oomph they need to compete with the Modern Warfare king, the Kar98k. They also tease adding an attachment for CW snipers. This doesn’t likely knock off the Kar98k as the top dog, but you can use that ZRG or Pelington for sure now.

Optics

Axial Arms 3X

This likely addresses the visual recoil issues that people were having with this scope, another great change to make it even more viable for those CW guns.

Stocks

Raider/KGB Skeletal Stock, SAS Combat/Spetsnaz Stock (AR, LMG, Shotgun, Sniper)

  • ADS Firing Speed multiplier decreased by 75%
  • ADS Move Speed multiplier decreased by 10%

Raider/KGB Skeletal Stock, SAS Combat/Spetsnaz Stock (SMG)

  • ADS Firing Speed multiplier decreased by 50%
  • ADS Move Speed multiplier decreased by 10%

Tactical Stock (AR, LMG, Shotgun, Sniper)

  • ADS Move Speed multiplier decreased by 75%

Tactical Stock (SMG)

  • ADS Move Speed multiplier decreased by 50%

Now that’s a lot to take in. What this means is that across the board, we got movement changes to all of the Cold War guns. They no longer have that immense advantage over their Modern Warfare cousins. This fixes that pesky problem of AR’s being used as SMG’s. Before, it meant that you had to have a damn good reason to run a MW AR or SMG over the CW guns, now, you have actual choices. A gun like the QBZ might be bad in regards to damage, but it’s got excellent mobility. For the right player, they can overcome that and zoom around the map like before.

These changes are all great for the health and diversity of the Warzone meta. They also mentioned how they’ll be taking passes at the MW guns that might be overlooked right now. So you could see some of those guns getting buffed to move into the meta. Obviously, there’s always going to be something that’s optimal, but right now, it seems like you could really use anything and succeed in the game.

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