Call of Duty: Warzone drops a second, stronger nerf on the dominant DMR 14

warzone dmr 14 nerf — (Image credit: Activision)

For the past month, a single gun has dominated every Call of Duty: Warzone match. The DMR 14, a weapon carried over from Black Ops - Cold War, quickly caught fire after releasing in Warzone thanks to its easily-managed recoil, forgiving damage range, and high fire rate. A patch last week aimed at lowering its popularity proved ineffective, but Raven Software is deploying a second DMR 14 nerf today.

Here's everything that's coming in today's DMR-focused update, including a few changes to burst pistols and a fix for the latest infinite stim glitch:

Bullet penetration reduced from sniper to AR
Damage falloff ranges decreased: 55 damage before / 48 damage after 750 units (down 70% from 2500 units)
Recoil increased: Increased moderately for second and third bullet and increased slightly for subsequent bullets
Locational damage multipliers adjusted: Headshot now does less than 100 damage after 750 units, lower torso reduced from 1.1 to 1.01 (~8%)
Front Grip: Vertical recoil reduction removed, horizontal recoil reduction increased from 20% to 30%
Field Agent Foregrip: Vertical recoil reduction decreased from 35% to 25%, horizontal recoil reduction increased from 35% to 30%

Type 63

Bullet penetration reduced from sniper to AR
Damage falloff ranges decreased: 60 damage before / 45 damage after 900 units (down 55% from 2000 units)
Front Grip: Vertical recoil reduction removed, horizontal recoil reduction increased from 20% to 30%
Spetsnaz Ergonomic Grip: Vertical recoil reduction decreased from 45% to 30%, horizontal recoil reduction decreased from 45% to 40%

Burst pistol (Diamatti)

Max damage reduced from 45 to 40 (~11%)
Akimbo: All location damage multipliers set to 1

Infinite stim glitch

Player no longer gets infinite tactical equipment (Stim) when dropping their weapons while cooking a grenade

Challenges

Seasonal Challenges fixed to appear/track as intended

Blueprints

Gallantry (MAC 10): All stats updated to match base Mac-10

Today's patch takes a more drastic stand against the DMR 14 (and the Type 63 marksman rifle, by extension). Basically, Raven is shifting its stats closer to an assault rifle and further from a sniper rifle.

A harsher damage dropoff will certainly lower its kill potential at long distances, but the bigger deal here is the recoil nerf. With the field agent foregrip no longer lowering its vertical recoil, equipping a long-range scope carries bigger risks. What today's nerf doesn't address is more fundamental stats like damage and fire rate.

As long as you're at a medium range, the DMR should feel more-or-less the same as it has with a noticeable increase to recoil. Maybe this nerf will have the intended effect of encouraging more weapon variety across Verdansk. In case you missed it, Nvidia announced yesterday that Warzone will receive DLSS support soon, a boon to PC players running an RTX card.

Morgan has been writing for PC Gamer since 2018, first as a freelancer and currently as a staff writer. He has also appeared on Polygon, Kotaku, Fanbyte, and PCGamesN. Before freelancing, he spent most of high school and all of college writing at small gaming sites that didn't pay him. He's very happy to have a real job now. Morgan is a beat writer following the latest and greatest shooters and the communities that play them. He also writes general news, reviews, features, the occasional guide, and bad jokes in Slack. Twist his arm, and he'll even write about a boring strategy game. Please don't, though.