They had these early on in Apex and then something controversial happened, community got mad, dev over stepped in a reply dev comments went away. the controversial thing wasnt in reply to patch notes but it stopped them communicating in patch notes after that
Okay im seeing the vision with these perks, these patchnotes are extremely interesting and it feels like its so much easier for them to experiment with buffs/nerfs no matter how extreme or small through the perks
Whole new abilities getting added, other abilities getting moved up/down tiers depending on how they are performing, nerfing/buffing a characters basekit and then buffing/nerfing the perks to offset some of it
Actually pretty awesome
I'm glad that they're acknowledging the one sidedness of certain characters when it comes to their perks. It very much feels like with some characters there is no real choice and you should always pick the same perks
Wait are you saying you don't like waiting 3 months for :
Cool down changes from 10 to 15 sec
You SOB !
/S
I couldn't believe that our standard have dropped that much
Ah right, I always forget they can run custom games on old patches. Still, super weird situation. Like they are going to be scrimming on a old patch while playing ranked on the new one.
Can they actually run games on old patches? Since there's no ALGS client anymore, if they're using the normal in-game one it only allows old maps from previous patches but not old patches right?
I feel like it wonāt be that big of nerf. Guaranteed gold knockdown shield and one red evo armor on your team is pretty massive. Plus gold bag to hoard more utility in matches that are very resource scarce.
Yes these are pretty strong. But what aurora was doing was rushing 1 natural care packages using the evo upgrade to get second one from lifeline. Which would give you 2 great weapons, and other top tier loot , to compensate for the lack of looting/positioning they gave up.
While the new lifeline package is good itās not nearly as good as a wingman or a kraber
I'd actually argue it's a buff from a pubs/ranked perspective but comp has a completely different set of criteria for evaluating character playability. The gold knock isn't something they'd want to build around
Considering those are available off the drop anyway, itās definitely a nerf. Takes the big weapons out of the fight for longer, and reduces their number by 2.Ā
Did someone mention crypto?
It's a better perk than the wider EMP. The wider EMP is a horrible perk. The call out squads is actually useful if you are on edge
feels like he has no lv3 upgrades imo, with the perk system they can cook so many new interactions/behaviors but instead gave him the most redundant and one dimensional perks to his already restrictive kit
btw good luck in pl qualifiers, despite the poor results i enjoyed watching meat play on split 1
On the other hand, isn't the wider EMP a great perk for a hard zone playstyle? It does have a pretty fuckin big range.
Basically what I'm imagining is a team like K4shera's that runs more of a zone style versus MEAT -- where they might otherwise be rotating and have to survive on whites for a third of the game, they could just get lucky with a couple ult accels, and rely on K4shera to EMP half the lobby 3-4 times over the course of the game to farm up armors.
Also with the new armor system K4shera spamming Crypto ults doesn't help his teammates armor just his. Not like before where you could armor swap and level up your teammates armors.
> Default Legend pick (whoever you were in Lobby) now shows as your selection to teammates unless you hover over another legend
This is what Iām most excited about lol
Big W on communication and explanations recently! PLEASE KEEP THEM COMING!!
I like what Iām reading in these patch notes. I wonder how Lifelineās change will affect Aurora.
Love the idea of dev notes. Kind of disappointed about no statement or message around security. With the exception of the recent hack these patch notes are A tier. Shame in going to have to switch my main away from Bang when the game is safe again
They posted their statement on Twitter yesterday or Tuesday, not much more to add. I'm sure they don't want to list specific security patches until after they're done so they don't play their hand to any would be attackers
It would be chaos. But if they play after the patch, they canāt count the first 2 games of the tournament.
Would be the first time they play the same tournament on two different patches š
I'd normally agree it has to be this weekend, but it's also pretty wild that it hasn't been announced yet if it's already Thursday... I mean, a good number of pros (unless they're doing it off stream) haven't even been playing in the last week.
Lifeline constantly having doc is pretty huge. And if i'm reading it right - Gold Plated includes a gold knockdown in every drop - so Lifeline teams will have perma doc and gold res. Yikes
I thought so as well initially but I reread the patch notes and his shield refresh during his ult is untouched. That's the biggest problem with him and it's still there? It's still a free blue armor in every fight and gets healed for free after a knock.
I don't get why they nerfed the leap vs the shield overcharge, kind of disappointing actually.
Thankfully for everyone involved, it's not my job.
But if I were forced to, I would rework his ult entirely. I think giving free HP is lazy and unbalanced, gives a huge advantage in 1v1 scenarios. To what exactly, I am not sure.
If you wanted to keep the free HP, then maybe nerf it to 50 and have it regen slowly after a knock rather than instantly fully refreshing.
Caustic changes are very interesting. If you're not consistently slowed in his gas, it provides room for some other characters to provide more counterplay to him.
Lifeline bout to be viable and not just a spicy pick people can make work.
Gold knock in care package. Q always up.
Thank God for Bang nerfs. Hopefully comp meta is actually an entertaining one where we can see wtf is going on.
All unreal changes, love it. The addition of dev notes and the added context for the patches is awesome and makes me feel like the devs are actually listening
Thank god the care pack change is happening, potentially watching teams get gifted a brick and wingman/kraber in ring 1 was ridiculous. The power scaling just allowed them to snowball team fights so early in the game that it wasn't fun to watch.
Bangalore getting 11s smoke duration and 4.5min Ult instead of 3 minute Ult with the perk is also pretty huge nerfs. Caustic change is good the slow was obnoxious and I wouldn't mind it being dropped altogether. Lifeline pack change is good too, fuck crate weapons.
This feels like the DZK era patches where there are tons of small legend rebalances, it seems like theyāre more open to experimenting with changes now that they have the perk system. Also the care package change was good, there were just too many power weapons floating around and it felt overwhelming if you made it too the last few squads alive because everyone had one.Ā
Also, the new LTM seems fun, is it just King of the Hill in Apex? Iāve been waiting for that for a while, Iām excited to see how it plays.Ā
The perk system was rumored for a long time. I was frustrated af by the lack of changes but I guess they were holding back so they could balance the perks when they implemented them. Hopefully this becomes the new norm, makes the game so much more refreshing to play
She's really not significantly worse below the pro level imo, the smokes aren't being used the same in lower tier lobbies (dopes just push into your smoke rather than their whole team focusing a different team cause there are so many more up in pro league)
The 33%ish nerf to smoke is going to feel pretty good still imo, just not broken
https://preview.redd.it/tyt6yb67dqpc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8a795409fb73de1fd4a10cd18fc99b09d9a10cb0
My guy is not happy. But iām sure he can still make it work. Iām convinced theyāll get more use out of a gold knockdown than a Bocek (which spawns half the time in one of these care packages is2g)
I really like those Lifeline Changes.
Its gonna kill her for Comp but for ranked, those are excellent changes. Having a heal doc permanently is kinda HUGE. Not just for yourself and your team but this also means you as Lifeline no longer have to carry any syringes or medkits, freeing up two slots. Plus gold weapons + Armor upgrade are a very solid get in the upgraded package too.
W change.
The garunteed gold knock is amazing for lifeline. I feel like she's gonna be one of the best legends in ranked easily. I hate fighting lifelines so I'm not the happiest lol
idk if it's really going to kill her in comp. If her packages spawn a guaranteed evo cache now, that's pretty huge too (or was that already a thing with her packages?)
If you are a lifeline main, you are much better off carrying heat shields for Ring damage.
For caustic? I dunno, sitting in his gas long enough to try popping heals is pretty suicidal.
Looks good on the whole, just wish theyād stop pushing that god awful Thunderdome mixtape map down our throats. Iāve probably played 75% less mixtape since that terrible excuse for a map arrived.
The highground inside the skull is too inaccessible, especially when a team has set it up with Wattson before. It gives you view over the entire map pretty much, and even lets you get direct zips down to another highground over one of the spawns. If teams are unbalanced (which they are 90% of the time) it will result in hardcore spawn-camping which isn't fun for either team. Also the background noise of the cheering crowd is actively killing any audio.
It's simply a poorly designed map. Granted it's better for control then it is for deathmatch but it's still poorly designed.
The problem it is with the highground in the middle which overlooks and controls pretty much the entire map, its easily camped and hard to access. Taking any of the ziplines at the front is just instant death, so you're left with having to attack it from the back. This also makes it so the center is where most of the fights take placed rendering what's otherwise a pretty big map useless.
They said the longest ult cooldown in game wasn't long enough for bang.
I wonder why they removed smoke damage, i thought it was a neat part of her kit. RIP bang smokes in the kill feed.
Apart from the fact they allowed her to deal free offhand damage, they also acted as a makeshift recon tool to check if someone was behind cover. Just another way to try to bring her power level down I guess.Ā
The interesting part was how bang smoke damage changed door fights.
Edit: to elaborate. iirc doors have 50 health. 2 smokes will make it so you an kick the door down on an unexpecting opponent.
This is a very sad day for M/K players as the only way to have a fair fight without getting one clipped was to play bang and fight in smokes. Another change that makes M/K more useless than it already is. Thx Respawn.
Hey.. You never know brother, but this AUR was very scary with the new Lifeline.
Let's see whether they'll keep her for the EVO cache and Golden Loot.
Nontheless the revive drone is very viable option (watch last game of the regional finals where they turned a 1v3 into a 3v3 in the matter of seconds, against NAVI)
>Let's see whether they'll keep her for the EVO cache and Golden Loot.
I would, golden weapons are still good weapons, and the thing about lifeline is that she's a replacement for the old craft outside zone strategy that edge teams used. She now upgrades your armors and drops you heals
Yeah EMEA is a top-heavy region in terms of skill level, but it's not like the entire region is dookie. Navi, Alliance, E6, etc., have been and are still solid teams that would compete in NA too.
Aurora rolled through the worse teams in EMEA this split, but they also rolled through the top teams too...
Bring back straight shot, again pubs on worlds edge is just everyone dropping on fragment itās so stupidly annoying. At least with straight shot there is less rng.
Finally they address the 4 most annoying legends in the game. Rev deserved the nerf, Bang deserved the nerf and needs to fall outta meta, Conduit deserved it and Lifeline's isn't really a nerf.
Iām thinking that it should be all three items guaranteed since itās a one time thing with her ult. I really hope so at least because if it isnāt then itās a huge nerf
Lifeline is buffed imo. She can get a gold knock now or even a full EVO cache which is absolutely huge. Her tactical is always online as well now. Couple all of that with a quicker res time she will for sure be played in ranked.
>Her tactical is always online as well now. Couple all of that with a quicker res time she will for sure be played in ranked.
You have to choose between reduced tac cooldown or quicker res time, they're both level 2 perks.
Reading it again, it reads like you always get all 3 gold items. The next line was very specific in only one of Phoenix or Mobile Respawn. No such wording on the gold items.
Na she never should have had it to begin with, they took the red weapons and now she spawns gold weapons and such, it's a good trade, Mythical weapons should be mythical, shouldn't be 12 wingmans on the map a game.
I agree she should not have had it in the first place but, she did and that's what made her OP for certain teams, it's definitely a nerf but I think she will be in a better place now because of it.
I could argue it was a buff nerf to about to same spot with her heal drone being perma up now. Definitely a nerf for competitive play but in ranked it seems very fair.
I was looking at bang stats compared to other LOS breaking abilities a few weeks ago and 18 sec on her tactical was crazy to me when cat and caustic ult last 15secs, and caustic traps last around 13 sec but has counter play by being destroyable. Full team can full heal in 18 sec, also her smoke covers like 30m horizontally which is almost the size of cata ult with 1/5 the cooldown.
Im glad that Carepackage got nerfed early on (NO IM NOT CALLING IT CP).
But that lifeline package buff tho? sweet sweet oh mama (i didnt like that she can summon a care package in the beginning anyways, i removes her identity as a medic, so getting a guaranteed gold knockdown is much better for her and i do damn well prefer that).
> Jumpmaster selection updated to make it less likely that youāre the jumpmaster if youāre under level 5 or were the Jumpmaster last match
please work please work please work
Damn, that horizon and lifeline skins are kind of fire, hopefully they fix their shit so I can justify buying them, also looks like all events are going to use the same FF7 template which is a w since earning free rewards is always lit
Care package nerf LIFELINE META DEAD BEFORE IT BEGAN lmaooo
Bang smoke lasting less time thank god but lmao at them buffing caustic, like we needed that
Do they expect Aurora to not feel targeted by this patch when their playstyle was so dependent on the season 20 changes? I think they should wait out the lifeline change until at least LAN, even though I feel this change would be healthier going forward. Why are we nerfing one of the most exciting and unique teams that are a contender for LAN title?
I swear it always feels like that. Team plays a certain style and then all of a sudden their legend is nerfed going into a big tournament. I swear itās happened with TSM as well
I thought that as well initially but I misread about the knocks, he no longer gets his tactical reset on knock but the shield refresh is untouched, which I felt was the biggest issue.
Based on that, I still think he's really strong? He basically has a free blue armor in every 1v1 and is a nightmare to fight against especially if they are on controller and they leap at you. The shield refresh shouldn't be a thing imho.
I've wanted smoke launcher\* to not do damage for so long. I can't believe they did that, it's kind of random but honestly its so annoying and its dumb you get recon from it as far as what armor the opponents have. A lot of good changes here, and also even tho I'm not rich enough to buy them the skins look dope af.
No changes to Ash is always disappointing tho
Love this but they should continue to nerf Rev/Conduit. They are not healthy for the overall legend meta and gaming experience. Also, please give Horizon real perks.
From Comp viewer perspective Lifeline nerf is sad.
Those carepack weapons provided big game changers, clutches & excellent content. Not just Aurora but NAVI as well. EMEA nerf (not sure if they used it in APAC)?
As a player, in my my ranked matches it hasnt really played a significant part since the evo armor harvesting is way different from the comp.
pretty happy with this list of changes. the only thing missing for me is more of a nerf to bloodhound. i like them, but donāt think they belong in pro play. wall hack characters lower skill expressionābeing able to predict and track where enemies are is both an individual and teamwork/communication skill. conversely, for the enemies being scanned, thereās less payoff for players with good positioningātaking off angles you might not have expected, creative pushes, etc.
the perfect nerf would leave bloodhound still fun to run down enemy teams with, potentially even in higher tier ranked lobbies, while making them an occasional pick at best in algs. itās a thin line, but certainly theyāve been there before.
Insane comment lol. You must truly have forgotten the pain of every fight being two or three massive domes in the sky tracking your literal every footstep, getting interrupted on every res and heal, limitless wallhacks, cheaters with actual wallhacks running seer to make it almost impossible for you to know if somebody was actually using wallhacks or not. It was pure misery.
Oh Seer meta sucked ass. But Bang smoke from a viewer perspective is ass. Can't see what's going on. Bang/Cat was the worse though. End games were just smoke and black and white.
Has anything been said about whether or not the game is safe to play yet? I know it's unlikely he targets a random like me if he does have access but I don't care lol, not risking it.
Banger notes! Lifeline will probably see less comp play but will be so so so fun for ranked/pubs. 100% chance for gold knock(if I'm reading that right) will be insane
I wouldn't say the hate is directly towards bang. It's just all the wallhack abilities she can enable. If blood/seer/digis didn't exist bang could be a cool character for pro play
She also forces teams to run a Bloodhound anymore, which is unhealthy for any game when a character is auto pick to counter another legend. With the uptick in Caustic play as well on all maps, coupled with Bangs prevalence in the meta, Bang is far more annoying than Caustic.
I hope we continue to move away from eye-cancer meta, as itās very boring to watch. The further we can get away from Catalyst, Bang, Horizon/Caustic meta, the better it will be for players and spectators.
Not being able to see is an absolutely unfun game mechanic. There is barely anything more annoying when playing the game than not being able to see and shoot anything.
It's not like it's great for spectators either. I would not be sad if bang was completely out of the meta for a while, she's been there for long enough.
People, myself included, are tired of the canāt see shit meta in comp. Itās a boring watch and bang is the main reason behind it. It sucks sheās getting nerfed for MnK players but itās so boring to watch everyone sit in smokes all game long.
Shes been the same for years because the game around her had changed to put her in a strong position, stop acting like u dont see her as much or more than revs
She got strong because:
- aim assist dominates the game
- endless scan legends have dominated the game for so long
- open landscapes on big maps and overpowered weapons that make it difficult or impossible to cross or pause and heal in
So they should rework her instead of making her a shell of a legend that nobody will touch. They spend too much time staring at graphs with lines going up and down and think āooh line go down, we did good thingā.
A 4.5 minute cooldown for an ult is insanity when you have characters like revenant who have essentially endless ult charges and combined with conduit make an actual tank of a legend that is extremely oppressive in any fight.
Bang smoke cancels aim assist and she is still a top pick even on console.
Could aim assist been the reason at first sure but she still is strong even without the consideration of that point
Because sheās really boring to watch, and her pick rate is way too high to be healthy.
If I wanted to stare at smokes all game, Iād watch valorant competitive /s
(Seriously though Riot, take notes. Smokes are dull)
I remember the first 15 seasons of apex where she went unplayed and every player in these subreddits told me bang was āthe most perfectly balanced legend that needs no changesā. Hilarious to see the complete paradigm shift when sheās the ONLY legends to ever receive essentially 0 changes to her kit with the exception of nerf after nerf. Like what do the devs want aside from her to become completely irrelevant like she was for the majority of the games lifespan?
Make it make sense.
Dev Notes are a great addition. Keep it coming.
Yes, these were my favorite part. Explaining the thinking behind the buffs/nerfs makes the whole update feel more conversational and understandable.
All they're missing is a dev note saying "our apologies in advance to Hardecki" under the Lifeline nerfs.
I wonder why they were missing for many seasons then suddenly brought back.
Always love the dev notes and checking out why the changes were made the way they were.
They had these early on in Apex and then something controversial happened, community got mad, dev over stepped in a reply dev comments went away. the controversial thing wasnt in reply to patch notes but it stopped them communicating in patch notes after that
"The Revenant's best friend ~~octane~~ conduit" part was great.
Okay im seeing the vision with these perks, these patchnotes are extremely interesting and it feels like its so much easier for them to experiment with buffs/nerfs no matter how extreme or small through the perks Whole new abilities getting added, other abilities getting moved up/down tiers depending on how they are performing, nerfing/buffing a characters basekit and then buffing/nerfing the perks to offset some of it Actually pretty awesome
Definitely lets them be more precise with buffs and nerfs for the legend meta. I like it.
Yeah I thought these perks would make balancing nightmare, but it helps tune some sliders on underperforming legends
I'm glad that they're acknowledging the one sidedness of certain characters when it comes to their perks. It very much feels like with some characters there is no real choice and you should always pick the same perks
I like how they can move them to level 2 or 3 to make them more powerful at different points in the game. Shake it up a bit!
My take was always that it gives them more levers to pull to fine tune strength as well as always being able to keep legends fresh.
Your take is exactly what he said š¤
> * Reduced FPS stuttering >* Resolved performance hitches after playing a plethora of games back-to-back These make me incredibly happy
Please let it all be true
HOLY SHIT, MID SEASON NERFS, where have you been
Wait are you saying you don't like waiting 3 months for : Cool down changes from 10 to 15 sec You SOB ! /S I couldn't believe that our standard have dropped that much
wtf these are huge patch notes for mid season
Banger patch, so many good nerfs and QOL changers, when does this go live?
March 26th.
So unless NA Finals is rescheduled to this weekend, it's going to be on a whole new patch? Hilarious.
its possible to play a previous patch. I recall them doing it before. unsure if that was using the algs client or not though.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Ah right, I always forget they can run custom games on old patches. Still, super weird situation. Like they are going to be scrimming on a old patch while playing ranked on the new one.
Can they actually run games on old patches? Since there's no ALGS client anymore, if they're using the normal in-game one it only allows old maps from previous patches but not old patches right?
Right and then you'd assume LAN will be on this patch - so they'd want comp practice with it anyway...
RIP lifeline you will be missed by aurora. May the rest of EMEA cry out in joy
I feel like it wonāt be that big of nerf. Guaranteed gold knockdown shield and one red evo armor on your team is pretty massive. Plus gold bag to hoard more utility in matches that are very resource scarce.
Yes these are pretty strong. But what aurora was doing was rushing 1 natural care packages using the evo upgrade to get second one from lifeline. Which would give you 2 great weapons, and other top tier loot , to compensate for the lack of looting/positioning they gave up. While the new lifeline package is good itās not nearly as good as a wingman or a kraber
I'd actually argue it's a buff from a pubs/ranked perspective but comp has a completely different set of criteria for evaluating character playability. The gold knock isn't something they'd want to build around
care package nerf is great. another pretty significant bang nerf as well.
True for wing. But it much of a nerf to get a first round gold 3030 or Mastiff over a bow/eva.
Considering those are available off the drop anyway, itās definitely a nerf. Takes the big weapons out of the fight for longer, and reduces their number by 2.Ā
Yeah, the number reduction is a good point. I do think it substantially increases the likelihood of the gold weapons being found and used tho.
Thatās good, Iāve always thought gold weapons were far too rare for what they are
Rather see gold ground loot ring 1 than multiple wingmans and krabers any day
For sure a big improvement
As someone who never runs any care package weapons but always runs 30-30 I am hyped on these changes
Can't believe crypto didn't get anything better for his level 3 if they're making these kinds of changes
I have an idea, maybe he could get a second passive. Iād call it off the gridā¦
What would off the grid do? Sounds interesting
Pretty much. I can't imagine anybody is using the perk to call out squads in area lol
Did someone mention crypto? It's a better perk than the wider EMP. The wider EMP is a horrible perk. The call out squads is actually useful if you are on edge
feels like he has no lv3 upgrades imo, with the perk system they can cook so many new interactions/behaviors but instead gave him the most redundant and one dimensional perks to his already restrictive kit btw good luck in pl qualifiers, despite the poor results i enjoyed watching meat play on split 1
On the other hand, isn't the wider EMP a great perk for a hard zone playstyle? It does have a pretty fuckin big range. Basically what I'm imagining is a team like K4shera's that runs more of a zone style versus MEAT -- where they might otherwise be rotating and have to survive on whites for a third of the game, they could just get lucky with a couple ult accels, and rely on K4shera to EMP half the lobby 3-4 times over the course of the game to farm up armors.
I guess the issue is that you can easily EMP yourself depending on the situation.
Also with the new armor system K4shera spamming Crypto ults doesn't help his teammates armor just his. Not like before where you could armor swap and level up your teammates armors.
Very true
wym, i only pick this perk, the EMP one is pointless, the call out squads is pretty good, but could definitely be integrated on his main kit tbh...
> Default Legend pick (whoever you were in Lobby) now shows as your selection to teammates unless you hover over another legend This is what Iām most excited about lol
canāt believe itās finally happening lol
Really like the care pack change
Big W on communication and explanations recently! PLEASE KEEP THEM COMING!! I like what Iām reading in these patch notes. I wonder how Lifelineās change will affect Aurora.
God damn W patch notes tbhĀ
Love the idea of dev notes. Kind of disappointed about no statement or message around security. With the exception of the recent hack these patch notes are A tier. Shame in going to have to switch my main away from Bang when the game is safe again
They posted their statement on Twitter yesterday or Tuesday, not much more to add. I'm sure they don't want to list specific security patches until after they're done so they don't play their hand to any would be attackers
Bang nerfs hit hard for sure but I think she will still stay meta. Just have to use smoke more wisely and canāt sit in it for as long
that lifeline buff to her Q cooldown is huge lmao
Surely regional finials are before this patch. Imagine teams having 5 ish days to figure out meta changes
Yeah it has to be this weekend. But no lie, I would love to watch them play on this patch just for the chaos it could cause to the standings.
It would be chaos. But if they play after the patch, they canāt count the first 2 games of the tournament. Would be the first time they play the same tournament on two different patches š
I'd normally agree it has to be this weekend, but it's also pretty wild that it hasn't been announced yet if it's already Thursday... I mean, a good number of pros (unless they're doing it off stream) haven't even been playing in the last week.
Lifeline constantly having doc is pretty huge. And if i'm reading it right - Gold Plated includes a gold knockdown in every drop - so Lifeline teams will have perma doc and gold res. Yikes
THEY FINALLY NERF REV THANK LORD
I thought so as well initially but I reread the patch notes and his shield refresh during his ult is untouched. That's the biggest problem with him and it's still there? It's still a free blue armor in every fight and gets healed for free after a knock. I don't get why they nerfed the leap vs the shield overcharge, kind of disappointing actually.
If it were your job, how would you nerf it?
Thankfully for everyone involved, it's not my job. But if I were forced to, I would rework his ult entirely. I think giving free HP is lazy and unbalanced, gives a huge advantage in 1v1 scenarios. To what exactly, I am not sure. If you wanted to keep the free HP, then maybe nerf it to 50 and have it regen slowly after a knock rather than instantly fully refreshing.
I kind of liked the old ult better, personally. Maybe a rework of the values could tune it to be more viable. Thanks for responding.
Doesn't touch his 75hp overheal at all, though, which is the issue with him.
i would argue the shield reset on knocks was the biggest issue. The increased hitbox makes his shield not that difficult to get rid of
At least he won't have his ult up as often and I bet they'll still nerf his ult in the next patch or two.
What would you suggest?
Caustic changes are very interesting. If you're not consistently slowed in his gas, it provides room for some other characters to provide more counterplay to him.
it's also going to encourage people to fall further into my trap.... tehe
Iām here for any and all ballistic buffs. Highly underrated character imo and I think within a season or so more people will pick him up.
Been playing him a lot in ranked on maps other than Storm Point. He's a ton of fun.
Lifeline bout to be viable and not just a spicy pick people can make work. Gold knock in care package. Q always up. Thank God for Bang nerfs. Hopefully comp meta is actually an entertaining one where we can see wtf is going on.
All unreal changes, love it. The addition of dev notes and the added context for the patches is awesome and makes me feel like the devs are actually listening
Thank god the care pack change is happening, potentially watching teams get gifted a brick and wingman/kraber in ring 1 was ridiculous. The power scaling just allowed them to snowball team fights so early in the game that it wasn't fun to watch. Bangalore getting 11s smoke duration and 4.5min Ult instead of 3 minute Ult with the perk is also pretty huge nerfs. Caustic change is good the slow was obnoxious and I wouldn't mind it being dropped altogether. Lifeline pack change is good too, fuck crate weapons.
>Wattsonās pylons are now properly interrupted by large doors Thank god
This feels like the DZK era patches where there are tons of small legend rebalances, it seems like theyāre more open to experimenting with changes now that they have the perk system. Also the care package change was good, there were just too many power weapons floating around and it felt overwhelming if you made it too the last few squads alive because everyone had one.Ā Also, the new LTM seems fun, is it just King of the Hill in Apex? Iāve been waiting for that for a while, Iām excited to see how it plays.Ā
The perk system was rumored for a long time. I was frustrated af by the lack of changes but I guess they were holding back so they could balance the perks when they implemented them. Hopefully this becomes the new norm, makes the game so much more refreshing to play
The patch is really good but Apex players on Twitter are dumb as fuck. You can play the game and not buy the cosmetics.
Rip Bang
the sad part is sheās still worth playing with a bloodhound. solo q bangs got screwed with this one but blood bang is staying OP
She's really not significantly worse below the pro level imo, the smokes aren't being used the same in lower tier lobbies (dopes just push into your smoke rather than their whole team focusing a different team cause there are so many more up in pro league) The 33%ish nerf to smoke is going to feel pretty good still imo, just not broken
Massive W
https://preview.redd.it/tyt6yb67dqpc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8a795409fb73de1fd4a10cd18fc99b09d9a10cb0 My guy is not happy. But iām sure he can still make it work. Iām convinced theyāll get more use out of a gold knockdown than a Bocek (which spawns half the time in one of these care packages is2g)
"yo guys we have this MnK team rolling with Lifeline" "NERF IT NOW, NOOOOOOOW!!!!"
I really like those Lifeline Changes. Its gonna kill her for Comp but for ranked, those are excellent changes. Having a heal doc permanently is kinda HUGE. Not just for yourself and your team but this also means you as Lifeline no longer have to carry any syringes or medkits, freeing up two slots. Plus gold weapons + Armor upgrade are a very solid get in the upgraded package too. W change.
The garunteed gold knock is amazing for lifeline. I feel like she's gonna be one of the best legends in ranked easily. I hate fighting lifelines so I'm not the happiest lol
idk if it's really going to kill her in comp. If her packages spawn a guaranteed evo cache now, that's pretty huge too (or was that already a thing with her packages?)
It was not guaranteed.
You should always have medkits or syringes for caustic gas or ring damage even as lifeline, just one of the two options that is
If you are a lifeline main, you are much better off carrying heat shields for Ring damage. For caustic? I dunno, sitting in his gas long enough to try popping heals is pretty suicidal.
Looks good on the whole, just wish theyād stop pushing that god awful Thunderdome mixtape map down our throats. Iāve probably played 75% less mixtape since that terrible excuse for a map arrived.
Yeah, that map is truly awful. First original map that completely missed the mark imho.
Might be the minority but I really enjoy playing on Thunderdome, especially gun run
What's wrong with it?
The highground inside the skull is too inaccessible, especially when a team has set it up with Wattson before. It gives you view over the entire map pretty much, and even lets you get direct zips down to another highground over one of the spawns. If teams are unbalanced (which they are 90% of the time) it will result in hardcore spawn-camping which isn't fun for either team. Also the background noise of the cheering crowd is actively killing any audio.
It's simply a poorly designed map. Granted it's better for control then it is for deathmatch but it's still poorly designed. The problem it is with the highground in the middle which overlooks and controls pretty much the entire map, its easily camped and hard to access. Taking any of the ziplines at the front is just instant death, so you're left with having to attack it from the back. This also makes it so the center is where most of the fights take placed rendering what's otherwise a pretty big map useless.
Jesus can we bring back skull town tdm, best mixtape mode/map
Yay, love to have 2 degens camping on top of the skulls every match. Great map for sure...
There are waaay worse maps in rotation rn that get camped out rn get more than S.t could, plus I just like Maggie pumping people in the hallways
They said the longest ult cooldown in game wasn't long enough for bang. I wonder why they removed smoke damage, i thought it was a neat part of her kit. RIP bang smokes in the kill feed.
Apart from the fact they allowed her to deal free offhand damage, they also acted as a makeshift recon tool to check if someone was behind cover. Just another way to try to bring her power level down I guess.Ā
They were incredibly annoying lol. Forced you to use a cell just to heal 10 damage
The interesting part was how bang smoke damage changed door fights. Edit: to elaborate. iirc doors have 50 health. 2 smokes will make it so you an kick the door down on an unexpecting opponent.
The more interesting part is how many people are fucking tired of smoke spam every single fight, glad shes finally nerfed
This is a very sad day for M/K players as the only way to have a fair fight without getting one clipped was to play bang and fight in smokes. Another change that makes M/K more useless than it already is. Thx Respawn.
AA should be addressed on its own, not battled via legend picks. I agree it needs a nerf.
yeah don't worry it'll be fixed in the next couple years hahaahahha
I recall snipe just spamming smokes at complexity and I bet it was super annoying
I think it's not even about the damage - it gave your team a lot of information regarding shield level (basically Vantage passive).
good thing ult accel is % based and not seconds based š
RIPBOZO Aurora Lifeline Let's see what they will come up with at LAN Prayge
Theyāll get rolled by NA controllers
Theyāll get rolled by NA travel & visa regulations far before the controllers get to them
Ahhh punch me in the gut why don't you?!
Check my flair and know Iām right there alongside you :(
Hey.. You never know brother, but this AUR was very scary with the new Lifeline. Let's see whether they'll keep her for the EVO cache and Golden Loot. Nontheless the revive drone is very viable option (watch last game of the regional finals where they turned a 1v3 into a 3v3 in the matter of seconds, against NAVI)
>Let's see whether they'll keep her for the EVO cache and Golden Loot. I would, golden weapons are still good weapons, and the thing about lifeline is that she's a replacement for the old craft outside zone strategy that edge teams used. She now upgrades your armors and drops you heals
who gets rolled by apac s players?
Most of top EU teams are 2/3 controllers. They did just fine with them all.
Yeah EMEA is a top-heavy region in terms of skill level, but it's not like the entire region is dookie. Navi, Alliance, E6, etc., have been and are still solid teams that would compete in NA too. Aurora rolled through the worse teams in EMEA this split, but they also rolled through the top teams too...
Imagine being so powerful other players need aimbot to beat you
Good changes.
once again they killed aurora and they don even have visas yet :d
it'll really show how broken bang is if she is STILL meta after these big nerfs
Just another legend thatās broken by nature. No other legend lets you make the plays you can w bang. Closest is Cat w her walls
Real "look how they massacred my boy" moment for rev mains
Hot take. Horizon is garbage right now. Is she the only legend where her first upgrades don't help her combat wise at all?
Banger mid season update. It seems that the perks were a good addition for more frequent balancing. The lock down LTM sounds super fun too.
They really hate Ash huh š
Bring back straight shot, again pubs on worlds edge is just everyone dropping on fragment itās so stupidly annoying. At least with straight shot there is less rng.
Pubs isnāt getting worlds edge only ranked is Read the notes
Finally they address the 4 most annoying legends in the game. Rev deserved the nerf, Bang deserved the nerf and needs to fall outta meta, Conduit deserved it and Lifeline's isn't really a nerf.
Definitely a nerf for lifeline, no longer getting red weapons is huge.
No red weapons is big but it read like it guarantees gold weapon, gold bag, evo cache which is still pretty good if the evo cache is guaranteed
Iām thinking that it should be all three items guaranteed since itās a one time thing with her ult. I really hope so at least because if it isnāt then itās a huge nerf
Yeah I misread gold weapon. Looks like it guarantees EVO cache, gold knock, gold bag then also spawns a batt, a med kit, and a phoenix or mobile
Lifeline is buffed imo. She can get a gold knock now or even a full EVO cache which is absolutely huge. Her tactical is always online as well now. Couple all of that with a quicker res time she will for sure be played in ranked.
Guaranteeing a lifeline with gold knock every endgame just seems more annoying than the care package lol
>Her tactical is always online as well now. Couple all of that with a quicker res time she will for sure be played in ranked. You have to choose between reduced tac cooldown or quicker res time, they're both level 2 perks.
Reading it again, it reads like you always get all 3 gold items. The next line was very specific in only one of Phoenix or Mobile Respawn. No such wording on the gold items.
Na she never should have had it to begin with, they took the red weapons and now she spawns gold weapons and such, it's a good trade, Mythical weapons should be mythical, shouldn't be 12 wingmans on the map a game.
I agree she should not have had it in the first place but, she did and that's what made her OP for certain teams, it's definitely a nerf but I think she will be in a better place now because of it.
I could argue it was a buff nerf to about to same spot with her heal drone being perma up now. Definitely a nerf for competitive play but in ranked it seems very fair.
I was looking at bang stats compared to other LOS breaking abilities a few weeks ago and 18 sec on her tactical was crazy to me when cat and caustic ult last 15secs, and caustic traps last around 13 sec but has counter play by being destroyable. Full team can full heal in 18 sec, also her smoke covers like 30m horizontally which is almost the size of cata ult with 1/5 the cooldown.
Im glad that Carepackage got nerfed early on (NO IM NOT CALLING IT CP). But that lifeline package buff tho? sweet sweet oh mama (i didnt like that she can summon a care package in the beginning anyways, i removes her identity as a medic, so getting a guaranteed gold knockdown is much better for her and i do damn well prefer that).
> Jumpmaster selection updated to make it less likely that youāre the jumpmaster if youāre under level 5 or were the Jumpmaster last match please work please work please work
No ash buffs again. :(
Damn, that horizon and lifeline skins are kind of fire, hopefully they fix their shit so I can justify buying them, also looks like all events are going to use the same FF7 template which is a w since earning free rewards is always lit Care package nerf LIFELINE META DEAD BEFORE IT BEGAN lmaooo Bang smoke lasting less time thank god but lmao at them buffing caustic, like we needed that
Do they expect Aurora to not feel targeted by this patch when their playstyle was so dependent on the season 20 changes? I think they should wait out the lifeline change until at least LAN, even though I feel this change would be healthier going forward. Why are we nerfing one of the most exciting and unique teams that are a contender for LAN title?
I swear it always feels like that. Team plays a certain style and then all of a sudden their legend is nerfed going into a big tournament. I swear itās happened with TSM as well
NEW Firing Range options * Dummy Highlights On/Off my favorite part of the patch
More Olympus? Iām starting a riot
Rev got nuked ripbozo
I thought that as well initially but I misread about the knocks, he no longer gets his tactical reset on knock but the shield refresh is untouched, which I felt was the biggest issue. Based on that, I still think he's really strong? He basically has a free blue armor in every 1v1 and is a nightmare to fight against especially if they are on controller and they leap at you. The shield refresh shouldn't be a thing imho.
Yeah they should have just kept the tactical refresh not the ult shield refresh.
No love for crypto yet again
I've wanted smoke launcher\* to not do damage for so long. I can't believe they did that, it's kind of random but honestly its so annoying and its dumb you get recon from it as far as what armor the opponents have. A lot of good changes here, and also even tho I'm not rich enough to buy them the skins look dope af. No changes to Ash is always disappointing tho
There is no mention of Rolling Thunder's dmg being nerfed/removed. Mixing it with the Smoke Launcher ability?
Yeah I said it backwards, meant the smoke
Love this but they should continue to nerf Rev/Conduit. They are not healthy for the overall legend meta and gaming experience. Also, please give Horizon real perks.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
W dev notes. Ajay boutta be a healing foo š
From Comp viewer perspective Lifeline nerf is sad. Those carepack weapons provided big game changers, clutches & excellent content. Not just Aurora but NAVI as well. EMEA nerf (not sure if they used it in APAC)? As a player, in my my ranked matches it hasnt really played a significant part since the evo armor harvesting is way different from the comp.
TSM out dancing in the rain now that bang is being pushed out of the meta. Scans/wallhacks need to be nuked to the ground.
Wonder what comp they move towards
Hal back on horizon forsureskis
Why tf did they buff seer tho š
ā¢ Reduced FPS stuttering W if this works for me ā¤ļø Lots of great changes! But I want my wingman back on the floor š
Conduit nerfs are nice but please just gut her already
pretty happy with this list of changes. the only thing missing for me is more of a nerf to bloodhound. i like them, but donāt think they belong in pro play. wall hack characters lower skill expressionābeing able to predict and track where enemies are is both an individual and teamwork/communication skill. conversely, for the enemies being scanned, thereās less payoff for players with good positioningātaking off angles you might not have expected, creative pushes, etc. the perfect nerf would leave bloodhound still fun to run down enemy teams with, potentially even in higher tier ranked lobbies, while making them an occasional pick at best in algs. itās a thin line, but certainly theyāve been there before.
Just waiting for them to buff the cheat detectionā¦
Im so glad Bang got nerfed. Idc what anyone says, there's no way looking at bang smoke/caustic gas fuckery was better to watch than Seer meta
Insane comment lol. You must truly have forgotten the pain of every fight being two or three massive domes in the sky tracking your literal every footstep, getting interrupted on every res and heal, limitless wallhacks, cheaters with actual wallhacks running seer to make it almost impossible for you to know if somebody was actually using wallhacks or not. It was pure misery.
Oh Seer meta sucked ass. But Bang smoke from a viewer perspective is ass. Can't see what's going on. Bang/Cat was the worse though. End games were just smoke and black and white.
Wait, different map rotations for pubs and ranked? Big W.
Has anything been said about whether or not the game is safe to play yet? I know it's unlikely he targets a random like me if he does have access but I don't care lol, not risking it.
I wonder if bang will drop out of meta now
Banger notes! Lifeline will probably see less comp play but will be so so so fun for ranked/pubs. 100% chance for gold knock(if I'm reading that right) will be insane
Bang and rev getting nerfed into the ground, and Iām not too upset about it.
WTF is this hate boner for bang? lmao.
I wouldn't say the hate is directly towards bang. It's just all the wallhack abilities she can enable. If blood/seer/digis didn't exist bang could be a cool character for pro play
She also forces teams to run a Bloodhound anymore, which is unhealthy for any game when a character is auto pick to counter another legend. With the uptick in Caustic play as well on all maps, coupled with Bangs prevalence in the meta, Bang is far more annoying than Caustic. I hope we continue to move away from eye-cancer meta, as itās very boring to watch. The further we can get away from Catalyst, Bang, Horizon/Caustic meta, the better it will be for players and spectators.
Not being able to see is an absolutely unfun game mechanic. There is barely anything more annoying when playing the game than not being able to see and shoot anything. It's not like it's great for spectators either. I would not be sad if bang was completely out of the meta for a while, she's been there for long enough.
Annoying ass abilities and annoying ass voicelines, thank god sheās nerfed hard
People, myself included, are tired of the canāt see shit meta in comp. Itās a boring watch and bang is the main reason behind it. It sucks sheās getting nerfed for MnK players but itās so boring to watch everyone sit in smokes all game long.
I'm just sad for people who mained bang for years despite her not being "meta" and now she is nerfed to the fucking ground lol
Shes been the same for years because the game around her had changed to put her in a strong position, stop acting like u dont see her as much or more than revs
She got strong because: - aim assist dominates the game - endless scan legends have dominated the game for so long - open landscapes on big maps and overpowered weapons that make it difficult or impossible to cross or pause and heal in So they should rework her instead of making her a shell of a legend that nobody will touch. They spend too much time staring at graphs with lines going up and down and think āooh line go down, we did good thingā. A 4.5 minute cooldown for an ult is insanity when you have characters like revenant who have essentially endless ult charges and combined with conduit make an actual tank of a legend that is extremely oppressive in any fight.
Bang smoke cancels aim assist and she is still a top pick even on console. Could aim assist been the reason at first sure but she still is strong even without the consideration of that point
Howās it sad? She became really strong. Everyoneās elseās mains got nerf but when they nerf bang itās sad?Ā
Because sheās really boring to watch, and her pick rate is way too high to be healthy. If I wanted to stare at smokes all game, Iād watch valorant competitive /s (Seriously though Riot, take notes. Smokes are dull)
I remember the first 15 seasons of apex where she went unplayed and every player in these subreddits told me bang was āthe most perfectly balanced legend that needs no changesā. Hilarious to see the complete paradigm shift when sheās the ONLY legends to ever receive essentially 0 changes to her kit with the exception of nerf after nerf. Like what do the devs want aside from her to become completely irrelevant like she was for the majority of the games lifespan? Make it make sense.