August 11th saw a new patch come to Modern Warfare and Warzone, and with it four weapons were given brand new balance updates – either through buffs, nerfs, or both. While Infinity Ward did warn us that there would be some adjustments made to weapons, they never told us which weapons they would be or what changes we could expect until the patch went live. We now know all four weapons that have been altered, plus which benefited from the patch and which have suffered.
Four guns in both the traditional Modern Warfare multiplayer and Warzone modes were impacted by the patch: the FAL, Holger-26, Bruen MK9, and M91. The official patch notes vaguely mentioned that they saw “increases” or “reductions” to specific statistics, leaving the community to experiment and break down exactly how these weapons have changed.
FAL Changes
The FAL is the only assault rifle to get any changes in the August 11th patch. This was a strong semi-automatic weapon that the patch notes said would be getting higher headshot damage, but reduced close range damage. The actual findings show that the damage this gun can do at close ranges has seen a sharp decline. While the FAL previously could do 69 damage at ranges under 20 meters, it can now only do 49.
Although this does make the FAL less viable at medium to close ranges, unless you’re nailing headshots, that was never really where it was meant to be used anyway. This should maintain this weapon as a good choice as a medium ranged rifle, but not one that can overpower anything meant for close range.
Holger-26 Changes
Perhaps in an attempt to make LMGs more appealing to those who find their heft not worth the decreased movement speed, the Holger-26 saw some nice buffs in this patch. According to the patch notes, this gun would be getting faster ADS and higher maximum potential damage range. However, compared to the FAL, these changes are much less significant. The ADS speed was dropped by only 8%, the maximum damage range was raised by 12% to 1,900 meters, and the max range for the gun was increased by just 6%.
Without any changes to recoil, the increased damage and ranges probably won’t make this gun more appealing for long range encounters as much as Infinity Ward might hope.
Bruen MK9 Changes
Another LMG to get rebalanced with this patch, the Bruen MK9 has actually gotten worse. Just as the patch notes indicated, the range was dropped, but now we know just how severely. Previously the gun could hit maximum damage at up to 1,650 meters, which has now been cut by 36% to just 1,050 meters. After these changes, if you were a Bruen fan you may want to consider dropping it for the buffed Holger-26.
M91 Changes
Finally the last LMG the notes indicated would be getting buffed is the M91. The developers said the gun would see an increase to ADS speed and close range damage, which has been proven to be true, but not without some nasty nerfs we weren’t told about.
First up, you can now ADS with the M91 7% faster than before, but the close quarters damage wasn’t given as big of a boost. The total maximum damage only went up one point, from 31 to 32, but at the major cost of total range. This was dropped by a massive 600 meters, making this gun far less effective at range then before. Again, LMGs are not typical choices for long-range encounters, but only making them worse isn’t the way to incentivize players to start picking them up more often.
