New Apex Legends patch fixes weapon balancing

Last month, Respawn Entertainment — now owned by EA — launched a battle royale experience called Apex Legends. There were rumors that it would be a free-to-play version of Titanfall, but it's more along the lines of Overwatch. The game seems to take place in the Titanfall universe, but it doesn't feature mechs or any other towering contraptions you can control. It's a standard run-and-gun shooter, where each character has various special abilities.

Recently, the team announced that Apex Legends would get a new season of content and a "Battle Pass" along the lines of Fortnite. While it's unclear what this will include, we got a taste of some of the changes today. Respawn just released a new patch for Apex Legends which addresses longstanding balancing concerns. You can read about the important changes below.

Weapon adjustments

Wingman

• Rate of fire reduced from 3.1 to 2.6 shots per second.
• Skullpiercer headshot damage multiplier reduced from 2.5 to 2.25.
• Increased base hip fire spread and decreased the rate at which hip fire spread decays.

Peacekeeper

• Shotgun bolt rechamber rate has been reduced for the Peacekeeper only.
• Level 1 mitigation 10 percent to 7.5 percent.
• Level 2 mitigation 20 percent to 13 percent.
• Level 3 mitigation 25 percent to 16 percent.

General

• Wingman and Peacekeeper availability has been reduced in all zone tiers.
• Increased availability of energy weapons and ammo in all zone tiers.
• Fixed some script errors that we identified were occasionally causing disconnects during matches.
• Caustic occasionally causing disconnects while throwing is Ultimate.
• Pathfinder occasionally causing disconnects when activating a Survey Beacon.
• Players occasionally causing disconnects when removing an attachment.
• Gibraltar occasionally causing disconnects when pulling up his Gun Shield.
• Players occasionally causing disconnects when entering Spectate Mode.

Upcoming changes

Major balancing

• Hit box size reductions and optimizations for Caustic, Pathfinder, and Gibraltar.
• We're better sizing hitboxes to character gear and models.

Minor balancing

• Caustic's traps will increase their cooldown from 25 seconds to 30 seconds.
• Caustic's traps will increase in radius by 10 percent.
• Caustic's traps will remove the 1 second delay allowing smoke to immediately deal damage.
• Pathfinder's Insider Knowledge will increase the number of beacons to 12.
• Lifeline's Care Package will increase the chance of Level 4 armor and helmets dropping.
• Wraith's Into The Void will require 25 seconds to cool down.
• Lastly, Bangalore's Double Time will reduce the speed bonus to 30 percent.

It's great to see that Respawn is addressing balancing concerns this thoroughly. Hopefully even more changes will be part of Season 1. We'll keep you posted as soon as we know more.

Do you play Apex Legends? What do you think of it? Let us know.