Warzone’s Feb. 16 update nerfs battle royale’s most popular weapon

It’s not every day you see a Warzone update solely dedicated to nerfing one weapon, but the TAQ Evolvere recently became the battle royale’s most popular weapon and dominated both short and long-range gunfights.

Raven Software buffed the TAQ Evolvere in season two by increasing the LMG’s maximum and minimum damage and adding new near-to-mid damage and range values to prevent any significant damage drop-off in longer-ranged gunfights. A few days later, the CoD devs dropped a minor update and made the weapon even stronger by increasing movement speed and target flinch.

Both buffs may have gone too far, though. According to stats site Warzone Ranked, the TAQ Evolvere currently leads all weapons with a 31 percent pick rate. In comparison, the next most popular weapon came in at 14 percent. As a result, the devs decided to readjust and knock the TAQ Evolvere back down a peg on Feb. 16.

TAQ Evolvere Warzone nerfs, explained

The most recent TAQ Evolvere nerf is interesting as the weapon balancing changes only impact two attachments rather than the weapon itself. 7.62 Ammunition had its max damage reduced from 45 to 40, max damage range reduced from 40 to 36 meters, and near to mid damage range reduced from 53 to 49. Additionally, the ammo-type damage multipliers were reduced across the board.

Next up, the 100 and 200 round 556 Belts of 5.56 Ammunition got hit hard. Both attachments had their max damage values and range reduced slightly. On the bright side, vertical recoil was reduced by 40 percent, but extra nerfs to damage multipliers and reduced ADS movement speed benefits will be noticeable.

Warzone content creator JGOD wasted no time and jumped in the firing range to test out the new changes. “Long Range build has more Recoil (Still Low, just not Zero),” JGOD said. “Damage adjusted, making 556 Tac Stance Build Kill slower, closer to 560ms TTK instead of under 500ms.”

There will still be plenty of TAQ Evolvere users on Al Mazrah and in Resurgence matches, but don’t expect the LMG to pack that same punch it did before today’s update.