The Riot Shield acts as one of the melee weapons in Modern Warfare 2. When in the hands of the player, they are virtually invincible from the front, allowing the user to reduce the distance between themselves and the enemy. Although this may not seem like a viable option as players can’t damage their enemy from distance, once they are within arms reach of the enemy they can melee them while continuing to cover themselves from the front making it effective on small maps like Shipment. Before the nerf, players could kill enemies in just two hits.

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The usability of the Riot Shield has been decreased in player’s loadout in Modern Warfare 2 but has definitely put it into a much more balanced postilion in the meta. The first major change comes with the reduced movement speed. This will make it harder for players to reduce the distance to the enemy. Although this isn’t a huge change, it will give the enemy more time to react. The user will also have to melee 3 times instead of 2 to eliminate the enemy. Finally, there are also a few animation improvements, making the visuals more accurate and increasing the switch time between the shield and knife.

This also has a major effect on the progression of both Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2.0 in the form of camo challenges and meta changes. For those going for the Polyatomic and Platinum camos, buffs and nerfs can make this easier or more difficult depending on the situation. For example, if players haven’t completed the camo challenges for the Riot Shield, they may find it slightly harder to do so now with these nerfs applied to the weapon. However, there may be another weapon that has received a buff that will make the camo challenges slightly easier.

These updates are excellent for the health of Warzone 2 and Modern Warfare 2. The next large patch will come in the form of Season 2 bringing a range of new content to the game. That is a little while away so we’ll have to wait and see how the current balancing and meta evolve over the next few weeks.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.

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Source: Raven Software