The recent RPG nerf in Call of Duty: Warzone is actually a buff
RPGs continue to be a menace in Call of Duty: Warzone even after this week's supposed nerf.
One of the biggest changes in this week's Call of Duty: Warzone 1.21 patch has been a nerf to RPGs. The RPG has always been lethal in Modern Warfare multiplayer, but that was just a fraction of how utterly broken it was in Warzone.
Put simply, RPGs are more effective than any weapon. Unlike most weapons, you don't actually need to see your enemy to hit them with an RPG. As it stands, the number of rockets each player can carry in Warzone means that you can effectively use RPGs as player-detecting devices, firing one off into the window of a building where you suspect someone might be camping. Their fast fire rate and reload speed also ensure you can spam them at the first sign of trouble.
Like the Snakeshot before them, RPGs needed a massive nerf. This week's patch was supposed to bring us that, but this may not actually be the case.
TheXclusiveAce, a Call of Duty YouTuber who made a career out of analysing weapon statistics and testing/exploring areas not properly covered in-game, decided to test the new - supposedly less powerful - RPG to see whether it's less effective now in Warzone.
According to his findings, the only thing the patch nerfed was the RPG's damage radius, which has very slightly dropped from ten to nine meters. The maximum damage on non-direct hits, which is what most RPG hits are, got a massive buff to its damage potential, 150 to a whopping 250. This effectively means you can down a fully-armoured enemy by firing an RPG in their general direction.
Another area that got buffed has been the minimum damage on non-direct hits, going to 50 up from 30. As TheXclusiveAce notes, launchers seem to have gotten a full rework sometime in late April. Because these changes were never officially communicated, we may never how or exactly when.
If you've been following Modern Warfare since launch, you may remember that this isn't actually the first time Infinity Ward rolled out a nerf that turned out to be a buff. Shortly after launch, the 725 shotgun - the pain-in-the-ass of that period - itself got a nerf that made it more effective.