Hey there Gears fans -

We're excited to launch the next phase of our Competitive Beta with the arrival of 2.7! These changes build on the steps taken in 2.6 to make Secondary Weapons more impactful, and improving the viability of a number of weapons in your Escalation strategies. Here’s the full list of specific changes that ONLY apply to Competitive 2.7, with items marked in Red denoting changes introduced from 2.6:

competitive 2.7 beta changes

Boltok

• Headshot kills and executions have been disabled
• Weapon damage reduced by 5%
• Active Reload damage increased by 20%
• Active Reload Rate Of Fire increased by 24%
• Active cooldown time increased by 27%

Dropshot

• Active Reload Availability Time: 6 seconds (was 10)
• Active Reload Cooldown Time: 14 seconds (was 10)
• Ammo on Pickup: 4 (was 3)

With these new changes, choosing when to active reload your Dropshot is more impactful - with less time to hold the active charge, you need to situationally use actives rather than having an extended period of time to wait for the right opportunity. However, the time between each available active remains at 20 seconds.

Enforcer

• Active Reload location has been moved further into the reload animation
• Magazine rounds: 40 (was 30)
• Headshot damage: 125% (was 105%)

Incendiary Grenades

• Incendiary Grenades can now only be spawned on the center line

Markza

• Active Reload Damage increased by 7%
• Headshot Damage reduced by 29%
• Magazine rounds: 7 (was 6)
  Note: This change is currently not reflected in the UI, and will be fixed for final Competitive Tuning deployment after the Beta
• Headshot gibs and executions have been re-enabled

With these changes, 3 headshots with the Markza will now kill an opponent with or without active reloads. With active reload, 2 headshots will kill an opponent who has taken any damage whatsoever, improving the lethality of the Markza when used to support teamfights.

Overkill

• Ammo on Pickup: 12 (was 16)
• Maximum Effective Range Increased by 66.6%
• Short Range increased by 50%
• Medium Range increased by 100%
• Long Range increased by 100%
• Escalation: The Overkill can now be placed as a secondary or centerline weapon