Evidence suggests that Modern Warfare battle pass skins for the EBR-14 give the sniper rifle a damage buff in Warzone that doesn’t normally appear for the base weapon or free camos.
A comparison by Reddit user ‘ChickenYug’ shows how the gun performs differently depending on which skin is equipped for the EBR – with a couple of blueprints reportedly allowing the rifle to have a one-shot kill potential.
The weapon is a semi-automatic long-range rifle that is a popular choice for players looking to deal consistent pressure from far away. Though the rifle has great damage, it’s not the hardest hitting sniper in the game.
That conversation changes when equipping the rifle’s ‘Line Breaker’ skin which players can obtain after buying into and leveling up the Season 2 battle pass.
“This is pay to win – plain and simple,” ChickenYug said. “I have been absolutely tearing through games with this gun and have completed all the challenges as it is completely broken.”
Their comparison shows the rifle without the skin landing a point-blank shot to a nearby player’s head. While damaging, the shot left the player standing waiting to heal up for the next demonstration.
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Going over to a nearby hut to change weapons, the player equips the EBR-14 with the ‘Line Breaker’ skin as well as all the same attachments that the standard variant had.
The ensuing shot was way more potent than the one that came out of the previous attempt, immediately killing the experiment’s test subject.
Though they didn’t test it themselves, the user linked another instance where the EBR’s ‘Flesh Wound’ skin gives a similar buff.
Members of the CoD community are convinced this is simply a bug with the battle pass skins, as opposed to a blatant pay-to-win tactic from Activision.
“It’s in fact a bug,” user ‘Lucky_-1y’ argued. “There’s no attachments that increase the headshot damage for the EBR14, but still P2W, since it’s a paid version that gives you a huge advantage”
Regardless, the skins seem to be giving the weapon an unintended advantage in Warzone that the Infinity Ward devs might move quickly to fix.