Season 4 Reloaded has seen a massive overhaul to Call of Duty: Warzone's balance, with sweeping changes to the time-to-kill of a vast array of weapons, as well as a number of changes to the map, the addition of a new game mode, and several new Killstreaks. Players are already finding unique ways to utilize the newly added Sentry Turret in Warzone, and now that the balance changes for weapons are starting to become more apparent, a meta is forming around the new, overall lower, time-to-kill of assault rifles.
Maximizing your performance in Call of Duty: Warzone is often a case of slowly learning the meta of a new patch by playing around with a bunch of different loadouts and weapons to discern which will work best at various ranges. While this can be a long process for many, with the help of Call of Duty content creators like JGOD, players can see the meta broken down quickly. In JGOD's latest video, he focuses on the new long-ranged meta in Season 4 of the battle royale.
Breaking this down in his latest video, Warzone YouTuber JGOD has given his thoughts on the evolving meta and how the new TTK has shifted the balance of assault rifles in Season 4. One of the more notable changes this patch is the Milano's fall from grace, with severe nerfs to the weapon making it far less viable in the new meta. With the overall lower TTK of weapons in Season 4, LMGs like the Bruen and PKM could be decent close or mid-range options for players according to JGOD, while the MG82 is still a bit too slow to be viable, despite its extremely fast kill-time.
In terms of Assault Rifles, JGOD's series of spreadsheets indicate that the Krig 6, FARA 83, and the C58 are looking to be strong contenders for best-in-class, with the C58 requiring some attention to its recoil and the utilization of a 3x instead of a 4x being recommended to better handle the weapon. The GRAU is still a strong weapon, with its ease-of-use constantly making it a great option for low-skill and high-skill players alike.
Other Modern Warfare weapons such as the M4A1 and CR-56 AMAX are also strong according to JGOD, with both having a decent time-to-kill compared to other ARs. The XM4 might be a solid pick for high skilled players who can control it, with the QBZ being in a similar place with its strange recoil pattern, but neither are likely to be meta for average players looking for the quickest TTK.
However, the AMAX does require the player to hit their headshots, with two headshots needed for a low enough TTK to be competitive with the other ARs in the list. Weapons like the M13 and Call of Duty: Cold War's Ak47 need the same level of control to keep their TTK down, but are looking more viable than ever in Warzone Season 4. JGOD did compare his assessment with WZ Ranked, which gathers Warzone statistics, and his picks seemed to match the most-used weapons on the list, with the Krig 6 sitting at the top and the FARA83, Grau, and C58 sitting just below the ever-present Kar98k on WZ's list. Overall, JGOD considers Season 4 to be a more "open meta," where more weapons are viable.
Call of Duty: Warzone is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X