Is the Striker 9 Really the Worst SMG in Modern Warfare III? (Best Setups)

[@xBDBRxKhaos]

That zig zag recoil makes hitting the 2 to 3 shots after the fourth shot more difficult. Making it tough to use in core modes

[@Kuriketto]

Makes you wonder if the devs also consider recoil plots when balancing weapons instead of just tweaking damage numbers. Having the zigzag start later might've helped the nerf not feel quite as impactful, assuming it just kept the same pre-nerf recoil.

[@SimonBlueBerry]

​@@Kurikettothey dont sledgehammer likes to have a single good ar and smg that is a jack of all trades and master of everything (i.e. good damage with moderate/fast fire rate standard or above average mag size, snappy handling and low/super predictable recoil) its been their way since og mw3 ww2 was the closest they got to making a healthy roster and even then the ppsh had both the best kill time and the highest mag size of the smgs

[@arreruk]

I used it for interstellar- all in hardcore. I couldn’t imagine using this in core.

[@MercesaOSRS]

Hi Ace, I think it would be really nice to see a summary of all the gun guides of all the guns in that specific category. Like assault rifles or smg's. And then you would show us what gun has the best time to kill, best range, best fire rate and recoil, etc. I think many other people would love to see this aswel. Keep up the good work!

[@bobdarrick2628]

Just rewatch the gun guides

[@bobdarrick2628]

Or use the in game stats

[@epicgamerzfail4575]

Man, after seeing the last few smg videos, it makes you wonder what SH is doing. Like whats the point of using any of these smgs? I suppose sh continues their trend of being the worse at balancing.

[@Aaronxxi]

The balance is good except the s9 tbh

[@reesemoore8542]

​@@AaronxxiOr the amr9 and my opinion the wasp/Uzi a handful of AR's kill faster point blank then those 3 smgs

[@christopherlozada6411]

I agree. AR do a better job at everything a smg can do. Especially when you can kit them anyway you want. Example i been killed by AR in cq when you do certain builds by their hip-fire due to the fact of AR need 3 shots instead of 5-7 In my opinion smg need like a 4-5 kill like really close (3m-5m) and better hipfire compared to AR. To be more precise around 200-250 time to kill in really close situations.

[@THEKING-ix6rw]

SMG’s are my favorite because they move faster have better ADS times so if I jump around the corner and pre-aim faster than the AR along with the fact the sprint out time is also faster allowing me to get shots off first and I can always get an SMG to be more accurate imo

[@MrKing-he3eo]

​​​​@@christopherlozada6411You're basically just asking for 100 hp. I'd say the smgs are fine the way they are besides the striker 9 and wsp 9. What I would do is slow down the ads on all ar's alongside making hipfire better on smgs like you mentioned. Striker 9 needs its damage nerf reverted and the wsp 9 needs its open bolt delay removed. Maybe slightly boost the fire rate of the amr because that's the only thing it could possibly get buffed on without it being broken. Tbh the swarm needs its first damage range removed. Even though it's short it still kills too fast compared to even the better smgs of this game. 220ms for a 150 health game is not good. What makes this worse is that the Fennec from MWll has the same fire rate but doesn't have that 5 shot kill range like the swarm does. Also ar's are already mainly 5-7 shot kills lol

[@LosFajcos]

This gun was absolutely horrific to level up.

[@Destroyerfield51]

Try zombies by completing contracts, a lot easier in that way.

[@blurred939]

@@Destroyerfield51 yeah I did borealis first and this gun wasn’t bad at all. Came over to MP and I’m like, what the fuck am I doing!?

[@Raven_Frame]

I typically level non-meta weapons in hard-core, or zombies.

[@davidanderson6706]

Right

[@bobdarrick2628]

It’s pretty good now

[@jeremiahtaylor1817]

The gun was cool for the first week or two of the game but then the devs started playing the arbitrary nerf game. They need to buff this gun and a couple other smgs, even the MWII ones. The Wsp-9, they need to get rid of the open bolt delay. I fail to see why it even needs to be a part of a call of duty game.

[@ChickenTeller]

Muh realism

[@orbitalzero8745]

Ironically it's not even realistic. Similar to the BO2 devs misunderstanding the IRL HAMR's cooling mechanism, a real-life open bolt delay is about 5x the speed of what it is in-game, so it should be closer to 8-9ms

[@Slenderneer]

@@orbitalzero8745 So, basically the open bolt delay is so small that it should not be brought into the equation for even 'realism' standards.

[@orbitalzero8745]

@@Slenderneer correct. It's a horrible balancing mechanism and I don't understand why it ever made it out of MW19

[@MrTWINARMAGEDDON]

@@orbitalzero8745MW2019 once again showing design choices that don’t make sense in a casual shooter

[@HPZ0NE]

It's crazy because, like you said, I thought this gun handled very well. It felt good to use, good to shoot with that seemingly non-existent recoil and good to play on maps that favor SMGs. But I kept seeing on your range chart that it was bad, on paper anyway. Saw it with this gun guide even. And I still can't seem to dislike this SMG.

[@raistlyn117_8]

Right there with you. I thought it felt balanced because of how accurate it is. Reminds me of the M13 in 2019 where it deals low damage but is laser accurate. Although the stats clearly show that it’s much weaker than we thought so not sure what to think lol. Regardless of how bad on paper it is at least we’re having fun with it

[@brawler5760]

@@raistlyn117_8Well fuck your fun and happiness, I don’t understand why you aren’t clamoring to have this thing’s TTK buffed. Or better yet, WHY THE FUCK DO YOU KEEP PLAYING THIS GAME?

[@saxboss1]

It’s the MCW of the SMGs. Super easy to use. Dead accurate, just not the best kill time

[@brawler5760]

@@saxboss1 … except the MCW has a much faster TTK than the Striker 9 does

[@SofaKingA]

Exactly. On paper this gun is sorta meh but I went to the range and it felt great. I took it in game and I can't stop doing really well with it, it just feels great to use.

[@thorntondrew]

I play hardcore modes almost exclusively. Leveling the Striker 9 and getting the camo challenges done in hardcore felt so punishing compared to the other guns. I kept having those revelatory moments and saying to my friends, “Man, it’s crazy how bad this gun is. It doesn’t make sense.” Thanks for putting in the work to at least make it make sense.

[@ProphetTLK]

You must suck to play HC only 😂😂

[@cent83]

I done the striker 9 camos in softcore, no problem, feels better than the striker 45 to me

[@FlippyMcGiantDad]

I think my main problem with it is the recoil jump. It's smooth to for a while, and yeah the horizontal kinda sucks, but I can deal with it. But compared to the regular Striker or the Rival, those guns recoil, but don't have the sight actually move that much away from the center of the screen. Like if you're watching, hold your mouse on the iron sight post during the recoil test at 2:12. It ends up jumping up so much the center point is in the solid part of the sight and not the point. The regular Striker has your view kick up but the irons stay within the center of the screen, same with the Rival.

[@kgeezy2]

Hey Ace i know you are still working on the gun guides for MW3 but somewhere down the line could we get a damage/ TTK for the MW2 weapons. So much has changed with a lot of them. Feel like we need a revisit.

[@Guest-iy3tc]

That’s why this gun felt this way. So many times the enemy would be 1 shot away

[@JM-qt5mg]

I played with it for the first time yesterday and it felt great to me 🫣lol dropped great numbers.

[@Guest-iy3tc]

@@JM-qt5mg im too used to the striker 45 at this point

[@redhawk644]

Nero said sbmm was lowered in the free to play weekend? Better call him out, don’t think he did enough research!

[@metalmac2347]

This thing is a laser beam, but I'm not sure why its damage got nerfed at any point. It was never that dominant, so it feels like an unnecessary nerf

[@InvntdXNEWROMAN]

I'm using this gun while doing the priceless camo grind and I think this feels like the best SMG I've used and it's recoil pattern leads to easy headshot kills.

[@smagliaro]

Leveling this gun up has honestly been a little demoralizing. I’m getting into pretty hard lobbies, and I’ve been having games where I’m just losing _every_ gunfight because it’s so weak. It’s also somehow still terrible in Hardcore. It feels like a punishment compared to other weapons.

[@speshuldead5688]

You always come through for the community. Always working hard to keep us up to date with everything COD. We salute!! Thank you so much for EVERYTHING that you do. You are the best of the best!!

[@kingdeedee]

I saw this video title and was shocked man, I just maxed this thing and I love using it. It just felt great in my hands in both sweaty and more casual lobbies, I cant explain it

[@lsj8917]

Ikr I feel like I slayed with this thing😂

[@kingdeedee]

@@lsj8917 glad I’m not alone here. I had some of my best games with it since the game came out. I never used it pre-nerf though so now I’m curious what I could have done with it back then

[@codymoreno7981]

I really appreciate and commend you for the amount of time and work you must put into these videos Thank you Ace

[@Stevep726]

Would really appreciate you covering the shadow ban issue again. A lot of players are still stuck in the never ending loop by getting spam reported.

[@briancruz3941]

Has anyone had an issue with the armory unlock not working for the Striker 9 or Taq eradicator? I did the 3 daily challenges, but it still shows up as locked?

[@S7Cameron]

This is weird cos i love tbis smg and it feels really good to me. I constantly out gun everyone

[@SofaKingA]

Same, I love this gun!

[@shadowtitan8545]

This weapon is definitely not fun to go up against the rival 9 with, but I had no issues with performance at long range.

[@buzZzerIgames-cx7nw]

Hi Ace, thanks as always for your great videos. One question, do you actually have an tier list? I wonder which are currently the strongest weapons.

[@TheXclusiveAce]

My top 10 guns video is actually coming later today!

[@Romoredux]

Wonder if SMG's still need "balancing pass" b/c of Warzone and the changes to the 150 HP along with other factors?

[@lesiegelad]

Man if they're gonna make a pea shooter gun they could've at least made it like the Scorpion from Blops1. Awful at any range other than up close, but had zero recoil. Was super fun even though it took forever to get kills. It was a niche weapon that actually had a place for itself in the smg category.

[@cherrycola4476]

Will you he doing the M16?

[@umaRFTW]

I think you might be wrong in your calc here. 857 RPM with a 6 shot kill has a time to kill of 420ms. A 5 shot kill is 350ms. However, you stated that a 6 shot kill is 350ms and a 5 shot kill is 280ms. Can you clarify?

[@TheXclusiveAce]

Common mistake. The ttk formula subtracts one of the shots to kill since the timer starts the moment the first shot is fired

[@stephenwelsch4728]

I don't know I may be that 1 weirdo but I love this gun! I do wish they would bring it back to the 5 shot but I do like the gun alot still.

[@jisaakm]

Me too! Haha I literally thought it was the best one

[@andreivaldez2929]

I think a nice compromise would be giving it the 5 shot if all shots are upper torso shots: would reward you for using it accurately up close and would punish you for missing shots, make it a "skill cannon" type of gun.

[@VetBodGaming]

That recoil plot is the most frustrating thing about this gun, you can't get rid of it. On top of being insanely week it's also just awful to control because of that dumb recoil

[@TyxDemon]

I’m gonna be honest, I’m gonna miss how horrible it was, if you wanted to challenge yourself this gun would’ve been the one to use to see how well you would do with getting kills, but I do love the new buff

[@toxicdragon323]

I'm starting to wonder if AI is what's deciding what weapons to nerf and is actually making the weapon changes...

[@Pr0digyZRX]

I knew I should have finished the striker 9 camos before going to level up anything else lol

[@StriderCZ]

Definite felt the terrible state of this gun when I was grinding the last couple of levels out to do the zombies camo challenges

[@jackryan444]

I’m glad I’m gonna be done with gold on this one tonight… probably never again.

[@mikkelmarcussen2668]

MTZ-762 next plz

[@FEWGEE1]

Advanced stats in the gunsmith are now bugged and show completely incorrect percentage values.

[@des8301]

This gun was a nightmare to level up

[@mikejones4322]

Need to increase the accuracy or something. Need to buff it again.

[@Ecko31Gaming2.0]

PLEASE CAN YOU EVALUATE THE LONGBOW! 🙏💜 it's a "sniper" and is so weak it shouldn't even be in the category of snipers it's so trash...

[@blackomega34]

It's a better Lockwood, nothing wrong with it.

[@Slickjc1]

Rough time using both Strikers. But better than the WSPs 🤬

[@davidashurov5255]

The longshots for this gun for forged in HC were beyond idiotic. I managed to get in a slow HC rust domination lobby and some idiot refused to leave the very top of the building so i just camped him and got most of those longshots but it was still pure aids

[@HighOctn]

Dude I noticed this while leveling it up, it’s horrendous

[@JSterling812]

The recoil on this gun just makes it unusable for me. I have no clue what they were thinking with most of the SMGs in this game.

[@TheAngelwaqar]

Absolutely fantastic review. Thanks for sharing your builds! :)

[@RagnaRebellion]

Could you do a review of the psuedo smg thats the renetti conversion kit? I cant make that gun competitive at all. Did they nerf it from the beta?

[@firekeeperenthusiast]

I’ll never understand why smgs don’t naturally have really tight hipfire. They’re made for close quarters it makes sense to have acccurate hipfire

[@blainereinsma2423]

They should have just made it so it required upper torso shots to get a 5 shot kill

[@MuscledRMH]

Weapon balancing has never been a strong part of SHGames' games. I really hope they buff SMGs to make them actually compete with other rifles. Shotguns are also very bad in the current state

[@grrman]

Should have brought up the stockless hip fire build for it. It's fast and pretty reliable from my experience

[@Hjortur95]

that build is simply better on striker 45

[@grrman]

@@Hjortur95 wait, I might have gotten those two mix up then, oops

[@Weekenday]

You owe BT an apology

[@LordAngelus]

Cope

[@the_lifeoftimbo]

The Striker has really good handling at the expense of damage

[@yhzh2002]

It's a really poor tradeoff. The rival-9 has slightly better handling and slightly worse tac sprint speed base, but it kills a crazy 86ms faster up close and maintains better ttks at all ranges. The removal of the striker-9s 5 shot kill was just ridiculous when the rival-9 can kill in 5 shots and shoots faster.

[@TaylorMoore42]

These videos are always packed full of good info. But I have one request: Can you start including all the other guns in that category on the hits to kill range chart for hardcore too?

[@ludi489]

I assumed you hadn’t uploaded gun guide in a while because you couldn’t get gameplay for this peashooter.

[@UrAJok3r]

2 days is a while? Damn that's wild.

[@ludi489]

@@UrAJok3rfor some reason it felt like way longer. May be thinking of the gap between the ram7 and the previous one

[@RMZ2fiddy333]

Is it weird or am I the only one who enjoys using this gun

[@Billeh556]

I find great success with this gun being ultra aggressive and using my movement and 🧠 to make plays. I sure love shitting on kids using meta MCW and Rival 9’s and me using this gun

[@lynxeyedgaming]

This is one of the weapons I wońt play anymore

[@PostAtariGeneration]

don't really understand why starting guns in nearly every category are so bad, devs want ppl to give up on game after first hour or two?

[@Tool-rl1tc]

Man it's like having a longer time to kill to kill makes weapon balance harder especially with more guns

[@frazfrazfrazfraz]

In fairness, the balance issues become pretty obvious with some time. Cold war could have been really balanced if it had two years of support instead of one, and they listened to and observed the more experienced players with things like the Tec9, crossbow, and sniper rifles They just have to nail balance in only 9 months (before being rushed to the next project) while also focusing on fixing bugs and adding new content and like 10 very different game modes (gunfight, warzone, zombies, ground war, and whatever wacky stuff they want to add), and it seems like simply too much to do in that time

[@patricbromii1178]

This striker 9 is based on surprisingly the LWRC SMG-45 (striker 45) from Modern Warfare 2019

[@andreivaldez2929]

The gun irl comes in both a .45 ACP and 9mm Luger flavor.

[@No_Sunlight]

It’s has great mobility, then the striker does

[@TacoBoyJr]

Dude I absolutely destroy people in SnD with this gun.

[@bradenmchenry995]

Hopefully you do a video on the hamr lmg soon. I absolutely hate how long the delay is to get the fast fire rate burst again

[@WaltzActual]

Low recoil smg ment to melt with headshots, would run it basically to melt people off of headglitches, build it around minimizing horizontal variation.

[@FlowKom]

or you run the MCW with literaly one attachment for ads/movement speed

[@WaltzActual]

@@FlowKom still gotta run it for challenges might as well focus strengths.

[@jeremel689]

This gun is so bad, that you'd have a better chance to kill someone in game with a rusty blunted knife

[@arberberisha8260]

Grinding campos with this gun really made me rethink whether im a decent cod player or not

[@Lostlife656]

I cant recall ever getting an ad before his vids

[@thedeeprot]

🔥🔥🔥🔥

[@krysixx-5535]

It's so weird that this is the case but like I think I slay with this weapon really gross

[@megagrunty1090]

If you put the right attachments it actually goes hard. Makes it have zero recoil. I use it in search all the time and do pretty good where people are typically running Rival 9s and MCWs.

[@andreivaldez2929]

Bro, every gun with "the right attachments" has zero recoil. If you have 2 guns like that then the one with a better TTK will usually win out if both players are about equally good.

[@DarksydePhilip]

No gun has "zero recoil". Also this gun sucks. It needs the 5 shot kill back asap!

[@noblesix8549]

​@@andreivaldez2929the striker 9 has something no other gun has tho and that is absolutely 0 reticle bounce making it the lowest recoil smg in the game

[@colin7231]

It’s pretty funny hearing Ace just straight up saying a gun sucks in a particular department instead of “not the best” or “unfortunately it’s not great”.

[@thaB00gym4n]

Leveling up this gun in my sbmm lobbies is a nightmare, been getting out gunned so often i was starting to think that my internet connection was trash, when most of your lobby is using top tier guns u have to make peace with going 7-16 as your KD all the damn time lol

[@BaronVonPwn]

Lol woo gotta use it to unlock lasers

[@buwisitka5107]

I just started playing the free trial and used this gun, played pretty good with it lmao. Guess I have to switch

[@blackomega34]

You don't, in fact, have to switch if you like the gun.

[@fuzzbuzzin2101]

Favorite feeling SMG, hate that it’s not great as far as TTK goes

[@ztp1]

I genuinely don't understand the hate this gun gets, it slaps everytime I use it

[@senit2374]

I still don’t understand why they nerfed this and the Famas

[@aintpace]

😂 iono about yall i’ve been melting in warzone with this tho

[@hamza-chaudhry]

2:16 It looks like a Christmas tree 🎄

[@HelloSidneyPrescott]

The Striker 9 is one of my favorites in KillConfirmed

[@damianmartin15]

muzzle xten razor comp and ftac sp10agngle grip greatly removes the zip zag for an accuracy build

[@cs4968]

To be honest when I used it on kill confirmed matchups I did pretty good with this gun. Won’t touch it now that I’ve maxed it out.

[@JustinTheSpider]

I use the striker 9 last night, and I was having a blast

[@nathancarroll5859]

Hey ace just wondering what is the best SMG in your opinion? because they all seem kinda bad 😅 Cheers mate

[@TheNickJames]

First time I’ve ever heard Ace say, “This gun sucks…” and I don’t know why that was so funny to me. I guess it’s because you’re usually like, “This gun is outclassed by almost every SMG in this game, in terms of damage.”

[@jaweel6205]

I knew I wasn’t crazy. I was full on sweating with this gun with a crazy build but no matter what I’d put a full mag into every enemy then get two tapped

[@ginjaninja6963]

I saved this for the last gun to level up. It is complete garbage. Can't kill anyone with it smh

[@EbonySeraphim]

All I know the Forged camo grind for this gun sucked. Trying to long shot kill was insanely difficult because everyone moves before the 9 shots you need or whatever to land. Even 2 headshots won’t kill at long shot range.

[@DarksydePhilip]

I had to camp on hardcore and get my longshots. It was horrible.

[@cuteasxtreme]

I remember seeing a bunch of videos about how good this gun is coming out *just* after it got nerfed. I hope people fell for it 😝

[@andreivaldez2929]

The nerf was really harsh. Idk if Ace suggested this but I thought that maybe they should give it a 5 shot kill if you land all 5 shots in the upper torso, or something. Just throw it a bone, SHG lol.

[@cuteasxtreme]

@@andreivaldez2929 they shouldn’t have nerfed it

[@lukewray980]

I swear down I used this during the trial and cooked 😂😂 I thought it was one of the best guns in the game cos of my limited time

[@cent83]

Lol im more successful with the striker 9 then i am with the striker 45.

[@arreruk]

After completing Interstellar I can guarantee that I’ll never use this nightmare SMG again! I thought I was going to have a stroke doing the challenges for this bad boy lol

[@jeffreyjohn9265]

I have noticed after the nerf with this weapon I can’t even get elims when I get the jump on other players….ttk feels to slow to even for some reason lose to lmgs up close now it’s jus not it got me anymore

[@Lordmadara.]

They over nerf it sucks sooo bad

[@brooksfriess3139]

Tldr they should have stopped programming after the striker. Not sure what metric they are using but it would be better to have fewer guns that were materially different rather than many guns that are either terrible or are the same.

[@MrShitfire]

Its weird seeing so many people dislike this gun. I really haven't had any issues with it.

[@amei_G80_BmwM3]

Same here, but it does feel like a pea shooter, the fire rate does compensate for ot, overall there just better smgs to use

[@alexmaurice4274]

Overall I feel shg heavily needs to buff all smgs still for this game. The striker and rival 9 feel ok but the rest r quite underwhelming imo

[@jeremywatson9129]

Preferred before launch

[@ashleyholland9607]

I feel like the only good smgs are the wsp swarm and rival 9 wsp swarm for its fire rate and ad's times and rival 9 for its handling and mobility

[@morgonfr33m4n1337z]

Thing needs a flat damage buff at all ranges

[@paintballalienindy09]

Striker slaps in HC search

[@denniebethancourth4424]

Got my SMGs Gilded and Forged working on my Shotguns now have Gilded now working on Forged