Call of Duty is taking aim at two of the most popular weapons in Warzone 2 with a small update ahead of the Season 4 release date and battle royale fans aren’t going to be happy about it. In an effort to keep the Warzone 2 meta balanced and – we imagine – continue to try and improve Warzone 2 until it’s one of the best competitive FPS games out there, both the ISO Hemlock and Cronen Squall have been hit with nerfs.
Yes, we’re sorry to say that you’re probably going to have to make some changes to your best Warzone 2 ISO Hemlock loadout and your current Warzone 2 Cronen Squall build; both weapons, which dominate Al Mazrah at the moment, are going to be weaker going forwards.
In the latest set of patch notes, it has been revealed that the ISO Hemlock will now deal reduced damage to armor using all 5.56 ammunition types – only in Warzone 2. Similarly, the Cronen Squall battle rifle will also have a “reduced maximum damage per shot against armor” – also a change only affecting Warzone 2.
However, in both Warzone 2 and Modern Warfare 2, the Cronen Squall will see it’s overall damage range and headshot multiplier reduced with a small reduction in rate of fire joining an increase to recoil when using this weapon’s semi-automatic firing mode.
Looking at data aggregator WZRanked, the Cronen Squall is used by 18% of players in Warzone 2 right now. In close second, the ISO Hemlock is used by 15.2% of players. Only the Lachmann Sub and the MCPR-300 are used by more than 10% of players. So, we could see these changes have a huge impact on the meta going forward. Thankfully, the new Timthetatman and NICKMERCS store bundles don’t include any weapon blueprints involving these guns – so, your COD Points won’t be wasted. You can check the trailer for those out below:
With new Warzone 2 map Vondel reportedly arriving in Season 4, and theories that it could be an urban-focused Resurgence map based on Amsterdam’s Vondelpark, this change will force players to look elsewhere for the best Warzone 2 guns. However, with players also still suffering from a “pathetic” sniper rifle bug in-game, we could see a more noticeable shift to close-quarters combat and SMGs in the future.