Warzone 2 players slam “pathetic” sniper rifles after Season 3 Reloaded nerf

Ryan Lemay
alejandro sniping in cod warzone 2

One-shot sniping in Warzone 2 suffered a major blow in Season 3 Reloaded, as explosive ammunition saw a substantial nerf to its bullet velocity.

Infinity Ward nerfed the bullet velocity of sniper rifle explosive ammunition as part of the Season 3 Reloaded update. The developers didn’t provide specific numbers, so TheXclusiveAce tested every weapon nerf himself.

He discovered that the bullet velocity for the FJX Imperium decreased from 468 meters per second to 355, which is about a 25% reduction. This reduction applied to every sniper rifle in the game.

You need to equip explosive ammunition to make a sniper one-shot kill enemies, so some community members argued that the nerf made it too difficult to use snipers in Season 3 Reloaded.

Is one-shot sniping still good in Warzone 2?

Bullet velocity refers to the speed at which the barrel leaves the barrel of the weapon, and if it’s slower, that makes it harder to hit enemies further away because the bullet will drop faster.

A 25% reduction in bullet velocity is much more noticeable on a long-range weapon like a sniper rifle than a close-range weapon like an SMG, and the reduced projectile speed has made it much more difficult for players to land shots on moving targets.

On top of that, a WZ2 player posted a video on Reddit of an MCPR-300 struggling to hit an enemy even though the crosshair appeared to be lined up perfectly with their head.

One player responded: “The bullet drop is awful, and to top it off, the hits don’t register quite often, and it’s a one-shot kill only for headshots. I Stopped using it and switched to high-velocity rounds instead.”

Explosive ammunition already reduces bullet velocity by a whopping 40%, so players have started swapping out their ammunition types in an effort to find something that can replace explosive rounds and give them that much sought-after one-shot potential without the bullet velocity drawbacks.

But some community members aren’t ready to make the change. “The problem with high velocity is that you can’t make plays with it. One shot headshot is just too important for Ranked Play.”

Although players haven’t yet reached a consensus on an alternative, Warzone 2 community members collectively slammed explosive ammunition after the most recent nerf.

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About The Author

Ryan is a former games writer for Dexerto. Ryan graduated from Ithaca College in 2021 with a sports media degree and a journalism minor. He gained experience as a writer for the Morning Times newspaper before joining Dexerto as a games writer. He mainly writes about first-person shooters, including Call of Duty and Battlefield, but he is also a big FIFA fan.