Modern Warfare August stealth patch secretly nerfs Merc Foregrip

[jwplayer br5AuoVJ]The Call of Duty community has discovered that Merc Foregrip, one of Modern Warfare and Warzone’s most controversial attachments, has been secretly nerfed in an August stealth patch.

Back in July, it was exposed that the Merc Foregrip provided a hidden statistical upgrade to player movement of about 3.7 percent. Now, Call of Duty content creator, TrueGameData, has revealed that the earlier buff was not only reverted, but a subsequent nerf was added that reduces movement speed by 1 percent when it is attached.

For about a month, everyone started running Merc on all assault rifle classes because the 3.7-percent movement buff outpaced the advantages of most no-stock attachments, while also providing numerous benefits. Those benefits are most notably recoil control and hip-fire accuracy, the latter of which caused the attachment to be GA’d by Call of Duty League players.

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As the New York Subliners’ Tommy ‘ZooMaa’ Paparatto explained in his Dexerto column, Merc was banned because “it makes hipfire really overpowered.” That advantage still makes the attachment an ideal option for the MP5, but the new movement nerf is a whopping 4.7 percent reduction in movement speed, making it wholly undesirable for assault rifles. 

As TrueGameData explains upon testing the underbarrel attachments, this nerf brings it much closer to the Ranger Foregrip’s movement speed nerf, which is a 1.3-percent reduction. That means instead of having a hefty 5-percent advantage for movement over the Ranger, the Merc now only brings a 0.3-percent advantage.

Given the Ranger’s advantages when it comes to aiming stability, it can now be prioritized over the Merc for ranged assault rifles, which are much less dependent on hip-fire potency. And this follows TrueGameData’s conclusion, as he recounts that “the Merc is still probably the better option for SMG’s, just because it has that hip-fire spread benefit. But the Ranger, for sure, now is the way to go with a long-range gun.”

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Until the MP5 gets substantially nerfed, Merc will remain a top option across Modern Warfare multiplayer and Warzone as the attachment provides a 19-percent more hip-fire accuracy than any of the other underbarrel options. But with a new movement nerf, the AR meta is bound to start mixing up and, particularly in the battle royale, begin shifting more and more toward the Ranger.