A buffed perk in Vanguard renders the Glide Bomb useless

In the mid-season update of Call of Duty: Vanguard, the Glide Bomb killstreak was severely nerfed. This wasn’t a direct nerf, as it comes in the form of a perk being buffed. This perk is Fortified, which players thought was being buffed to deal with the constant fire damage seen on maps in Vanguard multiplayer. Sledgehammer Games buffed Fortified to allow players to live through fire damage and to perhaps limit the use of fire grenades.

However, this seems to have buffed Fortified in other ways as well. As many players have reported, Fortified now saves enemies from dying to a Glide Bomb when at full health. The Glide Bomb is a five killstreak that sees players controlling a giant missile from the sky that eventually lands on the ground. However, if players equip Fortified now, they can live through this encounter.

Glide Bomb nerfed in Vanguard

The nerf to the Glide Bomb was first discovered by professional players. When scrimmaging Hardpoint, pros run the Fortified perk in the first slot, since the grenade spam is so constant. However, they also run the Glide Bomb as one of their two killstreaks. It can be a useful tool to force enemies inside of buildings and stop them from pushing the Hardpoint.

Of course, when pros tried to kill enemies with the Glide Bomb following the mid-season update, they noticed they were only getting hitmarkers. Some tests were run and it seems that the Glide Bomb now only does 80 damage to players running Fortified.

80 based on our tests.

— John Prosper 💙 (@JPROSP8) January 12, 2022

That’s 80 damage out of 100. So, for a player to kill an enemy with a Glide Bomb, they need to have already received 20 points worth of damage. This effectively renders the Glide Bomb useless, as enemies now aren’t afraid of it as they may have been before. It’s unclear whether this was an intended change on the part of Sledgehammer Games, as this specific change wasn’t listed in the patch notes.

For now, though, it seems like the Glide Bomb might be used by far less players in Vanguard Season 1.