Forgotten Cold War Assault Rifle meta again following Warzone Season 5 Reloaded buffs & nerfs

Warzone’s final major update is here with Season 5 Reloaded, bringing a ton of weapon balancing changes. As the Warzone meta has shifted, one Cold War Assault Rifle has become a top-tier choice once again.

Warzone’s final major update is here, with all of the buffs and nerfs shifting the meta ahead of Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2’s arrival. Raven haven’t just nerfed the top end of the pack in Season 5 Reloaded, they’ve also buffed some of the lesser-used weapons.

YouTuber and Warzone expert WhosImmortal has broken down how each of these significant balancing changes has affected the Season 5 Reloaded meta, placing a forgotten Cold War Assault Rifle into the top meta category.

The Assault Rifle category received a ton of changes in Season 5 Reloaded, with fan-favorite weapons such as Modern Warfare’s AMAX and the M4A1 getting buffed and Vanguard’s Automaton and ITRA Burst getting nerfed.

WhosImmortal brought up one forgotten Cold War Assault Rifle that’s returned to the meta — the QBZ-83. The QBZ was a top-tier choice in Warzone all the way back in Cold War Season 4 but the meta changed and it was forgotten.

“The QBZ I’ve been back and forth with for a while because it’s always had a very consistent TTK (time to kill) and for a while, I had it in the top meta category because it’s so similar to the XM4 which is a top-tier gun,” said WhosImmortal, explaining that it dropped down because the XM4 felt more reliable as new buffs and nerfs arrived.

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The QBZ was buffed in Season 5 Reloaded though, with both its headshot and neck damage multipliers increased, rewarding accurate players with a blisteringly fast TTK. Now, he’s moved the QBZ back into the meta alongside the XM4, saying that “these two weapons are so similar in so many ways.”

The QBZ-83 has great TTK while the XM4 is a little bit easier to control, meaning that “when it comes down to it, those two are right there with one another.”

With the QBZ-83 getting placed into the top meta category, he dropped the FARA 83 down. Despite its high damage, “its mobility and its ADS and its reload are so slow,” he explained. “I’d want to be choosing the Vargo, the XM4, the QBZ over that.”

Image Credit: Activision