Armor has gone through a fair few changes as of late, with Treyarch seemingly struggling to find the sweet spot. In the latest twist in the tail, Armor is getting a nerf.
Just last week Treyarch introduced the ability to repair your Armor to the game. To do this, players need to pick up Armor Plates—either from loot found throughout the map or from the bodies of fallen enemies—which can then be used (2 second use) to repair your damaged Armor. It’s a feature that Treyarch introduced as an attempt to make Armor last longer; previously, once Armor was damaged it was gone and you would have to find a new piece, but this change has allowed players to maintain their Armor for the course of a game.
The problem is just that – that players can now maintain their Armor for the course of a game. What you end up with is a large majority of players running around with full kits of Armor equipped, which effectively makes everybody a bullet sponge. To address this issue, Treyarch are increasing the time required to use an Armor Plate from 2 seconds to 3 seconds, and reducing the number of Armor Plates that you can stack from 10 down to 5. In short, it now takes longer to repair your Armor and you can’t carry as many resources to do it with.
Treyarch aren’t just focusing on the Armor repair system though, with changes also being introduced to durability. Level 2 and Level 3 Armor durability has been reduced to match the durability of Level 1 Armor, and Paladin damage against Armor has been slightly increased to reduce the number of shots needed to take down enemies wearing Level 3 Armor.
Ultimately, these changes mean that Armor is slightly less effective than it was before. I think that’s a good thing – there are few things as annoying as getting the jump on somebody who is fully kitted out in Armor only for them to kill you quickly even though you’ve peppered them with bullets. It’s important for Armor to be in the game—after all, Blackout is a game mode all about picking up valuable loot—but it’s important that it’s in a balanced place. Hopefully this update will get it to that place.
Speaking about the changes, Treyarch said:
“While we’re pleased to see Armor lasting through more than one gunfight with this redesign, we agreed that Level 2 and Level 3 Armor was a bit too durable. With the durability dialed back on these, players should be able to destroy their enemies’ Armor more frequently.
We’ve reduced how frequently Armor can be repaired by increasing the time required to repair Armor, which will be most noticeable in active gunfights. In a game where an extra second can make all the difference, this change gives aggressors more opportunities to close the distance on enemies as they repair their Armor more slowly than before.”
These changes are now live on all platforms, and there are also a few more bug fixes and stability improvements, all of which can be read about here.
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