Warzone players demand sniper buffs as they’re “useless” after Season 4 update

Warzone players are well and truly divided over the position of sniper rifles in Call of Duty’s battle royale, as Season 3 nerfs were exacerbated by Season 4 changes that, to many, made the long-range weapons even weaker. 

Sniper rifles were not in a contentious position in Warzone until Season 3 dropped. That update considerably nerfed some of the long-dominant snipers – namely the Kar98k and Swiss K31.

They, along with other snipers, saw their one-shot ability curtailed to a major degree, paving the way for heavier and slower snipers like the HDR to rise in popularity.

Many thought Season 4 would readjust the weapon class slightly and move towards the old meta but, when it released on June 22, there was nothing of note for sniper rifles, even though a host of ARs were buffed. The result is players feeling that snipers are being neglected even more, and many are now voicing their concerns.

In a July 2 Reddit post, player ‘ibabyXD’ called for major buffs from Raven, attaching a video to show a number of problems with snipers. In it, snipers fail to knock enemies at a number of ranges, sometimes even failing to get through their armor.

They also complained that sniper range being so heavily nerfed makes them akin to shotguns and emphasized that, for some snipers, it can take up to three shots to down a fully armored enemy.

• Read More: Warzone players claim TTK has become “ridiculous” following Season 4 update

The OP commented: “Snipers are meant to shoot from a distance. They aren’t shotguns. That’s the literal definition of SNIPING. No they didn’t nerf “broken Snipers”, they nerfed ALL Snipers/Marksman even 1% unused ones… The Kar98k dominated loadouts since 2020 yet it still was less nerfed than some other snipers did.”

Plenty of players echoed the sentiment and called for a prompt buff from Raven. “Making 90% of the sniper rifles in the game utterly useless is not great game design,” said one.

Others, though, were less convinced. One player replied, arguing that the sniper nerf makes countering unseen enemies more balanced: “You can still one hit kill with a sniper, but it’s harder now. It’s not a bug that needs fixing. It’s the intentional design working exactly as it’s supposed to. You say this isn’t a solution to lowering instant death on Caldera… They literally made it harder to get an insta death on Caldera.”

With players split, the ball is truly in Raven’s court as to how to progress with the fan-favorite weapon class.