Treyarch has nerfed Zero, the new specialist released for Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 just last week.
Zero hit the PlayStation 4 first, as per Sony’s marketing deal with Activision, and immediately players fired back with an onslaught of negative feedback with some players considering her the most overpowered specialist thus far in Black Ops 4.
Yesterday, Zero hit the PC and Xbox One versions of the game in nerfed form (she’s also now nerfed on PS4). The problem had to do with Zero’s hacking ability, the Ice Pick. It lets Zero hack into any enemy scorestreak and take control of it, which no other character can do or counter. It means a player who has earned no streaks can take control of, for example, the deadly Sniper Nest or the Attack Chopper.
Treyarch said on Reddit
“As with all new features in Black Ops 4, we’ve been paying close attention to how Zero plays into the overall Multiplayer experience and have tuned some of her abilities accordingly,”
This update increases the time it takes to earn Ice Pick, her specialist ability that allows her to hack the entire opposing team, potentially taking control of numerous scorestreaks at once, scrambling player HUDs, turning all of all current scorestreaks, deployed equipment on other team. Oh, and the enemy can’t heal while Ice Pick is active.
And while this balancing adjustment does provide a counter to overpowered scorestreaks like Sniper’s Nest and Attack Chopper, it’s not just a counter. It takes control of all these and turns them on the opposing team. This latest balancing adjustment adds varying increases to the time it takes her to hack scorestreaks including Torque’s Barricade, and prevents her hacks from freezing enemy healing cooldowns (maybe the most nerf-worthy aspect of Zero.)
Here are the full patch notes for the Zero nerf:
- Increased amount of time it takes to earn the Ice Pick.
- Increased time required to hack UAV, Care Package, and Counter UAV.
- Greatly increased time required to hack Sentry, Drone Squad, Sniper’s Nest, Mantis, Thresher, Attack Chopper, and Gunship.
- Increased time required to hack Torque’s Barricade.
- Hacking an enemy no longer prevents their healing cooldown.
- Hacking an enemy Assault Pack now causes it to expire.
This does seem to be just the balancing that Zero needed. This is the first balance measure that Treyarch has implemented and we remain grateful for their continued attention to balancing the multiplayer as well as the other attention they have given to the game as a whole.
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