Black Ops 7 and Warzone patch nerfs several OP guns into the ground

Less than a week on from the launch of Season 1 Reloaded for Black Ops 7 and Warzone, Treyarch has already rolled out a balancing patch to pull some weapons in check.

While the balancing of Season 1 Reloaded seemed ok for the most part, there were a few weapons that were proving a little too strong compared to the rest of the field. As a result, Treyarch has quickly pulled them back in line, which should result in a more balanced playing field in both Black Ops 7 and Warzone.

The biggest offender to get readjusted is the Maddox RFB, which has seen a huge reduction in its effective damage range. While the assault rifle could previously deal 28 damage up to 19m, that’s now been reined in to 12.7m.

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In the patch notes, Treyarch explains its reasoning for this huge nerf to the Maddox RFB: “The Maddox RFB has been very strong because of its quick TTK in close quarters and controllable recoil that lets it stretch its effectiveness out to long ranges. We’d like to keep the close-range damage high, as that was core to the weapon’s identity in Black Ops 4.”

As a result, the weapon remains a bit of a beast up close, but you might want to swap it out for something a little more versatile when playing at longer ranges.

Another assault rifle to get its midrange damage nerfed is the M15 Mod 0, which has seen its effective range dropped from 38.1m to 30.5m. This means it now takes an extra bullet to kill at medium ranges, pushing players to go for critical headshots more often.

It’s not all doom and gloom, though. Other weapons like the AK-12 have actually seen quite significant buffs that make them more viable than before the patch.

This assault rifle has seen all of its movement penalties removed with both its aim down sight and sprint to fire time halved. The slow-firing assault rifle now rewards those with laser accuracy much more, especially for those who manage to line-up their headshots.

Elsewhere, the Sturmwolf 45 SMG has seen a huge buff to its headshot potential with the damage multiplier increasing from 1.2x to 1.26x. Both the vertical and horizontal recoil penalties also saw significant reductions, making it much more of a laser at medium ranges.

Black Ops 7 players can find the rest of the patch notes in full over on the Call of Duty blog.