I feel okay with the R-99, It's not the easiest weapon to master but it's great in the right hands. I think if you nerfed the damage anymore it would become solely unviable at doing its main job, which is burst DPS. However a horizontal recoil increase could be the ticket to reducing this weapon's supremacy at mid-range.
Let's look at it's advantages.
And now it's disadvantages.
I think this weapon limits most people to close quarters, it's not quite as bad as the prowler in that regard, but the Prowler makes up for it in endurance damage due to it's large clip and decent bullet damage.
This weapon is made for skirmishers and ambushes, it's about doing your damage as quickly as possible and moving into cover. I wonder if the devs will keep nerfing it, but I hope for the sake of the weapon that they don't move it out of being relevant altogether.
The Prowler performs better at medium range than the R99.
In fact, the Prowler with full upgrades is simply a better gun than the R99.
However, the Prowler is, by default, more uncommon than the R99 -- and that's before considering the rarity of the Selectfire Receiver + Heavy Extended Mag.
What makes the R99 silly is that you can reliably find one every game, and popping a Mag + Barrel on the gun makes it viable through the late game.
And while you're better off with a fully upgraded Prowler, the effort and rarity required to obtain the upgraded Prowler makes it an unreliable find -- whereas the R99 is basically a handout.
I agree with removing the barrel mod from the R99. It would leave the R99 largely the same at short range, while curtailing medium and long range potential.
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