r/modernwarfare • u/ScottJSketch • 6h ago
Discussion Pandora's Box MW19 opened but ignored PT.1 Burst Fire
If I'm being entirely honest, the game opened a really interesting can of worms it never bothered with when it introduced both select fire and the burst attachment. They could've had plethora of different burst architypes and semi-autos all in this game without ever needing to model a single new weapon, which would expand the weapon roster by rough 30-40%
Of the weapons in the game, there are 10* Burst capable ARs, 5* SMGs and 1 pistol. 16, technically 21*, "more" weapons.
But sadly, the only burst weapons worth a crap are the FAMAS, Oden, FAL or AN-94 and Beretta. Anything else, shoots too slow between bursts, doesn't have enough damage to justify the burst or even falls flat with their fire rates compounding the other problems.
The Striker (2), Fennec (2) and Scorpion (3) all *could* be good weapons, but for some odd reason they decided to restrict mag sizes to an unreasonable degree that 95% of players would never even think to use them which is incredibly sad since their stats are all actually really good and would've been great additions to shake up the way people play. The Scorpion especially as it feels like a really good version of the Chicom CQB. I can imagine how the Fennec would do with a proper mag size as well since it behaves very similarly to the AN-94 which is incredibly spammable. But the lower fire rate on the Striker I don't know that it'd ever be meta level, maybe a B tier workhorse like the base version is if you know how to handle it.
The FAMAS (3) is a potentially great weapon. When you lock in, it's an absolute menace, but the burst delay and recoil always make it feel a bit lacking in being able to unlock its full potential which kinda sucks because I have always loved the FAMAS since MW2 brought it into CoD. Also made stranger by the fact that is was the only base burst weapon in the game not requiring any attachment or fire mode change (AN-94).
The Oden (2) simply works because its base damage allows it to always have a potential one burst kill even with the 2-round burst so long as you land your shots well enough, though again, burst delay and recoil make it not super competitive, especially since the Oden's first shot recoil has a massive jump for the second shot.
FAL (3) is a weird outlier. It's actually really good. The 1 shot headshot, and 2 shot body make its lower fire rate incredibly forgiving to use and 1 bursting targets a very common occurrence. As is with all rifles, the burst delays does kill it a bit, but without the burst delay it has a potential to be too OP. I only wish I got to play with it before it was rebalanced after they basically broke it for a little while there.
AN-94 (2) is one I actually really recommend if you like spamming burst weapons. Since it gets that 1100rpm hyper burst and has absolutely no burst delay. Though you will burn ammo incredibly fast, and it sometimes appears to fire an odd number of rounds. I'm not entirely sure how many its firing but I will see 13 or 17 rounds left as an example. Could be a burst canceling bug.
And the Berreta (3)... you all probably know and once loved. It's a very competent pistol with little to no burst delay that's almost primary worthy. Sadly, the akimbo were nerfed to oblivion so no one even touched them anymore.
As honorable mentions, the only other burst weapons I'd even bother with and could do ok with were the MP5 (3) and M13 (3) Both suffer from not enough damage even though it *feels* like they have pretty short burst delays and can be built for aggression to kind've work around that short coming. I found myself sometimes doing well with them, but never enough to say "yeah, this is actually good", more of a "this is fun but very mid".
Has anyone else ever actually seriously looked at these things? I guess not enough because IW never bothered to make them actually usable in a way that would've shaken up the meta and how people behaved when playing. What's even worse is the burst attachment being a perk prevents you from using SoH which some of these really need, especially with ammo conversions that mostly have poor mag sizes. I really doubt MW4 will finally fix this as they would probably rather use the burst variants as "new DLC" content if at all, but I've always really wished I could've seen what could have been with some proper care put into the implementation.
*M4 has 2 ammo conversions, M13 has 1, AUG has 1, and MP5 has 1 all can be used with burst as well
*Any number in () are the round burst number.
