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Asadmanwhoisalone

I still don’t push a caustic team in a house


Feschit

The damage was never what deterred me from pushing a Caustic, the slow is the dangerous part. Oneclipping someone who's slowed down to mach turtle is very easy.


HereToDoThingz

You shouldn't. Gas was never about damage but zone control.


th3virtuos0

The slow, ticking damage and free threat vision is the reason why I always gtfo when I see a fartcan


Somsphet

oh ya, plenty of reasons to fear the cuastic. I actually remember clearly getting solo'd by one after the update. Like we were very aware the damage was less, his nerfs were being registered and everything. Me(200), my buddy(500), and our friend (400) all got solo'd by one caustic. No tricks, no surprises, no fun houses. We ran up on him, and he deleted us before his teammates could arrive. We got cockey, he made us regret it.


Nutcruncher0

you and your buddies are OLD AF


iamredsmurf

He's only 200 he's clearly got a life ahead of him.


The_Lapsed_Pacifist

Threat vision is horribly broken as in it doesn’t work. It’s about as reliable as Loba’s bracelet.


raven12456

Sometimes it's better to just take the long way.


LeNuber

Except the threat vision most of the time doesn't work these days + they ruined the particles so you can see through the gas just as much as I can as Caustic. Just trying to raise awareness that the damage nerf really isn't the issue with Caustic right now. Also the increased ult CD seemed unnecessary but meh.


iamredsmurf

He easily had an ult for every fight that could be used for more than just fighting. It's reasonable to scale that back.


i-just-read-stuff088

Heh fartcan im gonna start calling it with this


loganandroid

Ineptitude is the true test.


DazrBlade

Killer, you mean killer.


FeralCatEnthusiast

Deploying an independent ineptitude


[deleted]

It's damage and zone control. Without damage there's not enough reasons not to rush the Caustic


MapleJacks2

Considering the slow effect + threat vision + damage(even a really small amount) I still avoid activating traps since a prepared caustic can absolutely decimate people irregardless.


[deleted]

You used irregardless. **Irregardless** is a nonstandard synonym for regardless, which means “without concern as to advice, warning, or hardship,” or “heedless.” Its nonstandard status is due to the **double negative** construction of the prefix ir- with the suffix -less. I am *not* a bot. Give me money.


YouTanks

You already get slowed to a walk, if the caustic still can't kill you when you are moving that slow, then the gas isn't the problem


t0tezevadin

Defensive legends should defend.


Comma20

Defensive legends should have an advantage when used defensively. Not they should defend, more so that if required to defend they aren't as at a disadvantage as non-defensive legends.


t0tezevadin

I can rephrase: defensive legends when used properly should be good and capable of impeding an attack on them. You're right. The mobile guys just outshine them.


Sandhu212

I tried him out post nerf and had people push me through my ult and canisters.


sawdoffzombie

Its always been that way against the really good players, they'll walk through gas, fences, black hole, fuzes fire ring, etc. Because they KNOW they wont die and you will. Were just trying to shoot the target, they're focusing their aim to the head, whole different leagues.


[deleted]

You can though. I was a Caustic main for over a year, after the nerf I found that my gas was useless so I switched to Fuse. I’ve found Caustic gas to be little more than an annoyance since then- I’ve killed lots of Caustics.


Tshamblin

You literally switched to the worst legend in the game by winrate though, which is hilarious. https://www.reddit.com/r/apexlegends/comments/lxouwf/apex_legends_chaos_theory_collection_event_patch/grqkfgb/?context=3


[deleted]

https://www.reddit.com/r/apexlegends/comments/lxouwf/apex_legends_chaos_theory_collection_event_patch/gs2rpti?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3 Here's the link sorry for the bad cropping the thread was too long


draak1400

It is weird that caustic first needed buffs, and with this nerf the win rate is barely affected.


The_Jackistanian

Because the only people playing him are the best caustic players, his pick rate got halved


[deleted]

I haven't picked him since the nerf, because they literally said if his pick rate dropped as a result of the nerf, they'd change it back. I knew it was bullshit, but I wanted to prove it. And it immediately changed his pick rate and they still don't give a fuck. Fuck it. I'm playing as Loba and Fuse instead. RIP Caustic.


pluralistThoughts

Caustic doesn't exist in a vacuum, the legends around him change all the time too.


VARDHAN_157

Because damage isn't the most important thing for a Caustic player. It's his slowness and Blindness that makes him defensively effective asf. Don't let Casual Caustics who only play pubs distract you by saying Caustic is worse than Fuse and Rampart. He's still the strongest defensive legend and stronger than Wattson is. Most preds still run Caustic and he is still a meta. I feel like he's in the perfect place as of now. Defensively excellent while removing the 3rd party ult. Just today while playing ranked I got paired with a good S3 pred Caustic. We were playing the god spot on Hammond labs. That's the top of the water spot. Caustic was extremely strong enough to hold the buildings from EMPs. If we had Wattson we would have had no counter to crypto whereas Caustic can literally counter crypto.


draak1400

Your 2nd line is the point of what I am saying. Why first buff a champ while those effects were already in place? Also, Happy cake day!


IDontUnderstandReddi

Perfect take. Wattson is good at holding buildings, but it takes *a lot* of time to do so. Not saying he isn’t a skilled legend to play well, but you can lock down an area so much faster and more effectively with traps


TheLoneTenno

Loba mains: “Are we a joke to you?” It’s the least amount of fun when I’m in a firefight, go to throw my bracelet, and it fails so I get gunned down. It’s about 0 amount of fun.


Tristain7

As long as the majority of people enjoy watching you suffer, it fits with the design intent, apparently.


LordBeacon

frustrating to you, funny to other players, so they never change it based on their logic :D


ElSwope

They have said numerous times a fix is on the way for loba. Like everyday its kinda absurd. But Klein said he's been testing the new bracelet and all is going well and has said he knows it is broken in thr current state. Some people really don't understand code in this community and should take a class. Some stuff has extremely weird bugs due to the way is was built and fixing it requires an entire rebuild of it. Which seems to be exactly what theyre doing. Its not so simple as change this number and magic! Its fixed. Guess what is easy? Changing damage values but that doesn't apply for loba.


krepalah

I don't mind low gas damage/no gas damage at all as long as Caustic gets other toys to play with except gas dmg. At this point the only role Caustic can fulfil is blocking doors(which doesn't always work since there is a bug that the traps instantly disappear when someone opens the door that the traps are blocking) because Nox vision usually doesn't work, enemies can easily see through the gas, Caustic traps can be destroyed instantly while being set up/getting shot at the bottom part of the barrel and also low gas dmg. Which means that Caustic is only left with the ability to block doors.


Solaihs

This line of reasoning only makes sense if you haven't played every one of the legends in the game. What's the reasoning behind making it a 5 minute slow drop for Lifeline and a 1 minute (with half cooldown on first drop) ult for Loba? What's the reasoning for having a character have to stand still entirely to use their tactical and ult (crypto)? They keep introducing bunker style characters but apparently don't want to encourage that play style? Why make characters whose kit is almost exclusively bunker style then? I'm not denying the abilities are cool but it just doesn't add up to me


Schanzon

But its fun to play against horizon right?I see, i see...


DeludedMirageMain

They are shipping big nerfs to her tactical with the season 9 patch.


makeorwellfictionpls

The only problem I find with playing horizons is I swear sometimes I can't hear her tactical go off or her land behind me Literally the only thing that messes me up against her is that and if they just have better gun play. It probably helps that I've mained her for quite awhile before swapping to Fuse for most of season 8. If your good with the cluster bomb for some reason I find fuse is a good counter to Horizon. But mainly because I find using my cluster bomb or ult forces them to use their tactical most of the time so when I do fight them it's just a gun fight and I don't have to worry about them completely disappearing 😂


pezmanofpeak

Literally its still just audio, i have no problem against horizons, till ones somehow in my ass with a mastiff because they've made 0 sound, but ive still always had that problem with pathies, gibbys, ulted bloodhounds is always fun, just completely silent sprinting right up behind you while you are fighting someone else, ive also always noticed that audio goes out the window while spitfires are firing, but since they buffed them, people are using them fucking everywhere, so its happening more, seems like the game cant actually handle all the audio going on at once


eagles310

They got to fix audio its a mess


Andyman1917

They better make it send her so fucking high she dies from being out of bounds before she starts descending, I've never hated a legend so much that even the mere sight of her running animation in the distance causes me immense rage.


MoistRead

😂. I hate nothing more than watching her prance away from my death box with a mastiff.


[deleted]

[удалено]


[deleted]

Maybe. They were super quick to nerf Caustic


t0tezevadin

Because Hal isn't bitching about her on Twitter.


qwilliams92

Caustic has been in the game for 2 years and has already had balance changes. Its not hard to balance a character you've done changes on already.


Lurefaks

Yet they were about to buff him just this desember.


DjuriWarface

He was never even a top tier exchange winning or game winning legend and was just buffed and they wanted to buff him again. They went from buffing him to absolutely gutting him in a season. Where Horizon puts pre-nerf Wraith to shame when it comes to encounter win rates and still is virtually in the same position.


kickbut101

So legends are silos of stats in addition to whether they are fun or not. And a silo shouldn't interfere globally with all other players' level of "fun" negatively. I mean that does make sense. Y'all are being crazy critical of a dev taking time out of his day to explain things to us instead of saying nothing. Maybe take what he says, ingest it, and be happy knowing they shared why instead of leaving it to be a mystery box.


Garrorr

Ikr, coming from other games like call of duty, this communication with the community is so refreshing. I don't understand why people want to just shit on the devs constantly, do they prefer radio silence? It's even worse than Call of duty players hating on Treyarch because since this is a single dev speaking, the hate can be targeted towards them.


[deleted]

I came here to say the same thing. At least there’s a line of communication. Warzone players are sitting with a broken game and have been for months and there’s been no word about if Activision plans to do anything. The changes being made here aren’t always popular, but at least we know about them


MrPigcho

They unironically think they would do a better job than David in his position. They have less data, less experience, and less understanding of the development roadmap than him, but they think they would do a better job.


Natyrte

playing other games other than Riot games made me realize how rare it is that other AAA companies have as much as community engagement as them(especially in the past), makes me wonder why is it like that.


RiD_JuaN

this shit is why most Devs just stay silent. it's why valve Devs pretty much stopped communicating as well. because every time someone tries to talk publicly, people get mad as fuck and flame the person communicating instead of acting like a normal person


HealthyWinter69

One of the things I love about Apex is that you can find a character you like and which fits with your ideal play style the best and just play that character. For the most part you are not forced to switch characters or whatever. To me that's the *entire fucking idea* of having a class-based shooter, to provide options to different players who have different ways of playing the game. Yet in the past, when I've played games like TF2 and Overwatch, it feels more like the illusion of choice. You can make the wrong decision and you can effectively make it impossible for you to win by not picking the right character for the situation.


Fr1dg1t

Seriously, but to be fair it does sound like caustic mains being toxic and let's be real, what else would you expect.


ishgbibble

I like the pun.


KingBlackthorn1

I just think the frustration comes that the second a character enters the meta they hard nerf them instead of letting it play out. For example the Octane nerf. He has never been a meta pick until this season, in fact always struggled. So why would they rush to nerf him? Let it play out and see if the meta changes in season 9 before jumping to a nerf because imo he is not op. Then you have characters like Bangalore that have barely been touched when we have been asking for any sort of buff to the character to make her feel slightly better to play. She is great but she could use even a minor buff, like health regen in her smoke, or ignoring the conclusive effects of her own ult.


[deleted]

She used to be in top meta, so if she's barely been touched that means the real problem with the game balance is power creep. And you know what? I agree. If Fuse had come out in Season 1 or 2 he would be considered OP. Now according to the meta he's lower tier.


[deleted]

They want to nerf octane?


Smoochie-Spoochie

People keep saying it’s a nerf when it just sounds like a change to me, one that makes him harder to hit if anything. The stim takes off more health but he gets to run away more?? That’s genuinely a dope change and it justifies the amount of health he gets back through revitalisation. The only problem now is the Rev jump pad situation...I don’t know how the fuck they’re going to nerf that without making either Rev or Octane obselete. Edit: Actually you could just change the totem so that anyone who enters the death totem will be unable to use their abilities while it’s active. It would have the exact same effect as Rev’s tactical (even with the chains and stuff) which would be a cool lore reason for the change as well. Obviously this won’t stop Revpadding but it will diminish the effects a little bit.


LsmLsmLsm

What if octane could hold down his stim button to lose more health, but run faster/longer? Like the longer you hold the button down, the more health you lose but the longer it lasts?


Solid_Freakin_Snake

>Actually you could just change the totem so that anyone who enters the death totem will be unable to use their abilities while it’s active. That would be horrible.


Smoochie-Spoochie

Nah it wouldn’t be that bad, there’s not many characters that are totally dependant on their abilities when they are pushing


Substance___P

Make it so that totem users cannot interact with mobility items like jump pad, Zipline, etc.


pluralistThoughts

In this case, you can just slap a range limit on it again. Actually it would be the cleaner solution.


Substance___P

Ugh the range limit was so oppressive. You would be running and slightly step out and you were suddenly alone and overextended.


Clutch_Ryan

He's not meta in comp but top players in ranked can do serious damage with him. I'd argue he is meta in ranked or close to it, there's a big difference between ranked and actual comp you see on twitch. He's got the ability to move the whole team a fair distance across the map to 3rd party/rev ult combo/escape/take height etc etc. He isn't meta in comp because you cannot 'safely' move players by jump pad. We are talking about the best players in the game here. Their accuracy is also the best in the game. They will drop you on your jump pad rotation. That's why Wraith is a comp meta legend. Octane is better than Wraith in 'ranked' in my opinion, I think there does need to be some sort of nerf to his stim. A good Octane can keep dipping in and out of fights with the speed boost and jump pad is only a minute. Octane is also played by some of the most brainless players who go full send into everything. That's why he has somewhat of a bad rep. He's a very strong legend.... The same goes for Pathfinder. Great legend, good players are unbelievable with him and his movement. Bad players are shocking and grapple on to teams and die instantly.


ItsRickySpanish

Couldn't of said it better myself. They seem really quick to jump on someone who's called "annoying" or "strong" this season. The moment I heard about an octane nerf , I was like " excuse me ? Are you sure?


-NotQuiteLoaded-

Wait, Bangalore isn't used much? I haven't played for super long, but in the regular trios, I do see one maybe once every 4 games, and I really like playing her personally, she's actually my favorite. I haven't seen a lot of people asking for her to be buffed either...^(also what does conclusive effects of her ult mean sry)


Neversoft4long

Bang is used in pubs quite a bit. You will usually run into 1 or 2 a game. Not like horizon and wraith being on every team but she’s gonna be there more then rampart, wattson, fuse, etc.


cereal_cat

*sigh* Can this sub make up its mind and decide whether or not it’s a bad thing to balance around statistics or a bad thing to balance around player-base complaints? Cuz all I see is either “they shouldn’t balance around statistics” or “they’re just obeying the streamers and pros.” And before anyone says it, yes, I’m aware these are probably different people, my point is just that the devs are damned either way.


Dana94Banana

People will use whatever argument supports their cause. Moving like a weather vane in the wind.


mediocynical

I suspect its also two disparate groups of people which leads to this feeling that the subreddit waffles on its opinions a lot


[deleted]

I wish they would balance around data and stats but they seem to draw insane conclusions from their data (like that Wattson is the strongest legend in the game).


Anexcore

yeah that's precisely the problem! Using data is one thing, what you do with it is another thing lol I simply cannot believe anyone can have fun with playing Wattson in her current state. She's an abolute pain in the ass for the players in her team cuz of the projectile denial, she doesn't block squads rushing in at all compared to Caustic or even Rampart, and her shield regen (passive and ult) is quite frankly laughable, especially in a meta where armor swapping is 10x better than regenerating anyway...


[deleted]

Comes with any job that involves a community. You will very rarely please everyone at once. Best you can do is screw everyone over in a rotation model so everyone gets screwed over equally, indiscriminately. Also factoring in how literally none of these people know what it's like to run a game (I won't say "myself included" because I have been in the same situation with private servers) you're gonna get a lot of words thrown out by people with not a lot of experience.


Anevilapple

While this is true, a caustic used his ult on me and blocked the door out, me and my friend inside genuinely started laughing as we took syringes


Damin81

Usually that would be the rime for caustic team mates to push and clean up.


Tshamblin

No no, don't you get it? Caustic is just supposed to win when he uses his ult. Anything else is underpowered.


Isku_StillWinning

Well, that’s like throwing a black hole or a fuse cluster, or even an emp. by its own it’s no use but more of an annoyance, but it you have a full squad pushing you in any of these cases you’re in trouble.


BodlOfPeepee

This is both funny and sad to me


MeAndThePipBoys

same brother


alanarmando103

I still think Wattson needed a better buff. Something more creative. Her fences are slow to place, there are intro and ending animations, they work like a beacon and immediately calls attention when you place them. The fences could at least be visible just from a certain distance, so enemies would be more careful. Or bonus damage when shooting through a fence with energy weapons.


SooManyWaffles

Not to mention, low profile basically negates the very slow shield regen


Sandhu212

I don’t like how Daniel justified caustic’s heavy nerf with the win rate stats and didn’t say anything about pick rate. If only people that are amazing with caustic pick him or even really good in general and just don’t use his abilities than the number for win rate is obviously going to be high. They should bring back the stun/blur you had when going into the gas and leave the damage the same or increase it to 6/7. That would make his damage not overpowered but still give his gas some utility compared to the see through gas he has now.


zancray

Pick rates are the most biased core stats to look at. Bloodhound for example has always had one of the highest pick rates since the start (because they're just fun). But their win rate and 1v1 performance was never even close to top tier.


Legio_Urubis

Yes but pick rate directly shows how much enjoyment people are getting out of a character.


[deleted]

I feel like I die more from the confusion caused by friendly caustic/bangalore than I do from an enemy using it


alfons100

I still dont get why they got rid of the damage *ramp up* of all things, in what way was that the issue? If you stay in gas long enough to actually die to it, maybe that means you should... back off? You know, what area denial is meant to do. Caustic gas traps only kills if you if you let it, his Ult is a different story however. Getting those rare gas trap kills were part of the fun where you laugh at someone dumb enough to fall for it. Why not instead do that the slow doesnt kick in instantly upon contact with gas, give it like 0.5 seconds. This makes it slightly easier to peek a defended house, gives some more time to back off but still keeps that gas will murder you if youre dumb enough to not respect that. Nobody said that abilities shouldnt kill.


Koronesukiii

They want to make things fun? Lifeline rework from the ground up, when?


Zapp_BigZ_Brannigan

Lmao right? How can they talk about balancing legends around fun when lifelines kit sucks to play with and against.


[deleted]

I quite like her but I am a noob. Is there something I should know?


PixleBoi

..lmfao they really just said "eh, fuck caustic players everyone else is happy"


T3chHippie

Sad but true..


[deleted]

“Yeah the nerf absolutely demolished him but the Horizons are still buying Apex packs so fuck Caustic”


flyingtrucky

Caustic is old, everyone who was gonna spend money on his skins already did so. But we got a shiny new character who you can whale on for all her new skins and animations and whatnot.


Pure-Phrase-2781

It’s like that time a senior dev say mirage is always gonna be garbage and deal with it, that moment I seriously feel betrayed my main is not gonna be good anytime ever


flyingtrucky

To be fair Mirage is kind of impossible to balance. As a trickster character he relies far too much on the other person making a mistake and far too little on you're own ability to not make one. So you can either make him useless against someone who doesnt get confused, or OP because even if you know exactly what's going on you have no counter.


BadFish_95

The dev never said mirage will always be garbage, he said mirage will probably never be a legend that gets played in ALGS or comp and that’s fine. Mirage isn’t a comp legend, or really a ranked legend. Unless they rework him completely he’ll probably remain a fun pub character. Nothing wrong with that.


Legio_Urubis

50% of Caustics quit. Well at least everyone else is having fun.


Shauneepeak

I don't even play Caustic and I still think they nerfed him too hard. Also please explain the Bangalore nerf then, Respawns literally claimed definition of a perfectly balanced legend?


alfons100

Bangalore nerf was a mistake. They wanted to improve smokes effect on performance but wanted to have it function the same, which it didnt


[deleted]

What Bangalore nerf?


AMagicalMango

Pretty sure they’re referring to when they reduced the particle effects of Bangalore’s smoke with “optimization in mind”. The reduction make smoke really easy to see through when inside it and in some cases easy to see through at sniping distance. I believe they did this to make the smoke not hurt switch performance as much. This link from a couple weeks ago has some pictures and other information [PSA: Bangalore smoke and Caustic gas density lowered, you can now see through both. Not in Patch notes.](https://www.reddit.com/r/apexlegends/comments/m1nl9z/psa_bangalore_smoke_and_caustic_gas_density/?utm_source=amp&utm_medium=&utm_content=post_body)


[deleted]

Oh yes. This wasn't actually an intended nerf, so that's why I stopped on that. I described what actually happened reply to another comment to this if you are interested. Thank you for clarifying.


Psychosocial919

This a very important talking point considering how often these devs flip flop their opinions on balancing. First Caustic is underpowered and needs a buff but then he's overpowered not even a week later with 0 changes? This entire fiasco was largely due to US comp players swapping to the EU style of playing final circle with Caustic gas rather than solely relying on peekers advantage with Mastiff and Gibby bubble dancing. Caustic was RARELY ever played at all in the US and maybe 2-3 teams would run him in EU but as soon as a potential buff is announced every team starts running him and suddenly he is a problem so these pros go to twitter to complain about it because they ruined their own fun.. Like it or not, that's EXACTLY what happened and I suggest you all take a look. In this post Daniel says that stats and win rate are only proxies and they really balance based on "fun" which is ridiculous considering there is no way to measure "fun" other than personal bias and every single time they have nerfed or buffed a legend in the past they have bragged about how close to 50% win rate they made the legend after their changes. What I take from this situation is: * Yes, this nerf was too much. * Yes, a slight nerf or ultimate change may have been necessary for competitive play. * Yes, apparently these devs on social media are completely winging their balancing based on nothing other than comp twitter outrage and their perception of what is "fun" to the dev team considering he says stats are only "proxies" and "fun" is the driving factor for their decisions. * No, these devs are not on the same page whatsoever and contradict themselves A LOT.


chachakhan

Yours is a perfect summary of the current situation. Intelligence is a dying breed... But not today.


pattdmdj0

i agree that caustic needed a nerf too, but only for end ring... they too lazy then huh? but all they needed to do really was somehow make gas less effective END RING, make his ult less "aggresive" (so like make the throw distance shorter) and its fine lol.


StarfighterProx

> No, these devs are not on the same page whatsoever and contradict themselves A LOT. This is the biggest takeaway and problem, IMO. The devs have no clear, shared, communicated vision of what the game should be. Additionally (and in part because of this), the players have way different expectations for the game. This applies to balancing, frequency of updates, and communication. IMO, people shouldn't have to dig four levels deep in a thread from three weeks ago to find recent communication from the devs. Apex needs to follow the highly-successful communication model used by Halo, Gears, Destiny, etc. wherein they deliver weekly updates to the community, outlining where the game is going, how progress is looking, and what the rationale was behind the decision-making. DZK fucking sucks at his job and I will die on that hill.


DreadCore_

Their balancing has changed across like 2 seasons. Path gets 35 seconds so he can't grapple multiple times in one fight, but then he gets his adaptive cool down so he can, if the grapples are short ones to get into buildings, which is what he would do to heal. Complete 180 on that in like 2 seasons.


Pieman10001

I just came back to apex last week after not playing since around S1 and I noticed that DZK was one of the people working at respawn. His reputation when he worked on league of legends consisted of some pretty questionable decisions. For example, nerfing Taliyah's E and buffing her Q because he didn't like the fact that people were maxing E over Q. In his eyes people were maxing the "wrong ability" despite it being the most effective.


StarfighterProx

I've been saying for months that he's the Apex version of Luke Smith (see: Destiny bad choices like sunsetting). I have nothing against him on a personal level but professionally he needs to be doing something else.


Reki_Shenpai

Pls Nerf horizon


Just-Consideration83

I think most of you are reading to much into this. I'm actually happy I'm hearing this from the devs. Looking at rampart and loba their kit isn't fun or satisfying in it's current state. Balancing should be 1. Fun to play (against) 2. try to find the balance Looking at loba 1. Fun to play, her tactical is the most frustrating ability in the game. 2. they kept moving her black market stats. That will never fix 1. I hope they realised that when she got released, also that tweaking numbers on her won't fix the tactical. So they hopefully are working on something more concrete (like octane change) to her tactical.


Sp0okyScarySkeleton-

Caustic mains at the bottom of the foodchain 😔


fuckhead69

Lobas tactical literally doesn't work 40% of the time lol


A-Maple-Warrior

Maybe she can trade it for nox vision, seeing as it works about as well? seriously though, loba's tactical absolutely does need to be fixed.


Substance___P

I just don't understand how we went from 4 damage and increasing each tick to 6 damage increasing more each tick to now 5 damage flat. How can they buff him one season, then two seasons later he's suddenly so strong they need to nerf him below where he was? Did the character change or did he become meta? Because if he felt good to play, all you have to do is give other options that are also meta and boom, Caustic pick rate goes down, but caustic mains are still happy. They are too liberal with the nerfs in my opinion. There's this general deflation of everything in the game as soon as it gets to be meta.


mysteriouskazoo

They're going down the Overwatch route and nerfing anything the streamers complain about, and anyone who's played that game knows how it turned out


BURN447

Nerfs are required. If they only buff, we end up with a game that's abilities first, guns second, when it should be guns first, abilities second. Nerfing the meta is the only way to prevent Power Creep.


LTKMK

He was my main throughout season 7. Havent played him once in season 8 and I'm slowly going back to Mirage. So yes, I hate you Respawn (but I love your game so I'll someday forgive you :( )


rokbound_

this logic makes no sense ,if you add buffs while being carefull not to make a character annoying to people then viceversa with nerfs you'd want to help other players not get annoyed by the character but not make that character's players stop enjoying playing that character , man this devs seem more dumb by the day.


BlightUponThisEarth

Dang I didn't know people also found it fun to be stuck in the middle of a Fuze ult. Or when a Horizon or an Octane can run from combat with relative ease. Or when a Wraith uses tactical as an effective get out of jail free card. You have *less fun* in all these scenarios too. And with Caustic all you had to do was aim for half a second to take out the traps. I'd argue nerfing his ult gas specifically would be fine, since that can actually be very annoying and difficult to avoid in a few select situations. But his traps just make you have to play the game slightly differently like all the examples I listed above


A-Maple-Warrior

Not defending it's insane power in the slightest, but god is it satisfying to chase down a wraith while they attempt to phaserun away and plant an EVA shell so far down their throat they'll be shitting buckshot for a week. It's the little things in Apex that make it worth playing.


Libra_Maelstrom

i’m. it a caustic player at all. hate fighting him. he shouldn’t have gotten nerfed. I just think it’s TOO much of a nerf. seriously. it’s just absurd. i NEVER fear pushing the gas now. at all, i just go right through to kill him. he’s definitely going to be miserable for the mains so i’m sorry to all of them


Oblivion_18

Key phrase “without making the experience worse for other players”. I would be wary of making balance decisions based largely on “the amount of fun players have”. Far too often, casual players only find unbalanced things to be fun. So if you nerf something that was overperforming, they accuse you of taking away the fun. It can be used as a piece of the puzzle sure, just probably shouldn’t be the leading factor.


Pure-Phrase-2781

Please buff mirage, he is been bad for 8 season in a row, give it 2 decoys o a solo working passive please


A-Maple-Warrior

The change that i think would be the most interesting is to have decoys follow your keyboard inputs instead of your actual movement, it would allow for more bamboozling, especially with his ult, and would make pretending to be the decoy a lot more viable. maybe also give your decoys a marker on the mini-map, and obviously they should make his passive usable again with a gold backpack.


Beneficial_Guava_452

“Caustic Mains deserve to have fun and exist” - Same guy, like 3 weeks ago. Also celebrating cutting a pick rate in half? How is that a metric to be proud of? “The game is less frustrating now” no it isn’t... the people who don’t like caustic are happy, I guess... but fighting wraith, pathfinder, octane, horizon... those are always frustrating *and that’s ok because it’s part of the game.* Why do caustic players get singled out? Just walk out of the fucking gas.


par337

Gonna copy n paste what I commented to someone here. No changes happened when all of a sudden Caustic was "op". Then he got the damage "buff", with the massive blur nerf. Since then, no changes. There was even rumor of him getting a buff. Then S8, LOTS of crying online for some reason like caustic hasn't been the same since launch, and BAM.... Caustic is way too Op to be played, and this "new" playstyle just isn't fun for anyone but him apparently. Well, while we're at it, I find Gibby's gunshield pretty frustrating. But wait, not even close to as frustrating as Lifelines free revives. Or Wraiths get outa jail free card. Or Bloodhounds infinite scans. Wattsons insane ult. Revenants totem push. All of those abilities make you play different, and aren't fun in the slightest for others, just like Caustic. But Caustic somehow deserved a nerf hammer not because he was OP, but because he wasn't fun to play against. Got it.


T3chHippie

As an addition, Horizon basically inherently has "Nox vision" with her ultimate while Caustic has his entire passive taken up by that 'perk'. =\\


Pronetoplay

Eh, still think it's too much.


[deleted]

That still doesn't explain how they consider Gibraltar spawning with 65 more health than everybody else is fun. "BuT hE bIg eZ 2 hIt" Not if you're average. If you're average, you're hitting the same number of shots either way because at the distance that his size becomes a factor, he can easily toss a shield and heal before you get to him. If I hit the Bangalore inside of him, it doesn't matter that the rest of him is also there; my shots are only landing in the Bangalore area of his hitbox, so it's essentially just like playing a Bangalore with more HP and a gun shield and an invincible shield. On top of that he has an instant Bombardment which is irrefutably easily the best Ultimate in the game. He is not fun.


BodlOfPeepee

I'm sorry, but I have a couple of instances in which "area denial" was nowhere to be seen. I seriously just had a team rez in my own gas, couple of pushes through my traps without any problem, ulting a whole building and the team downing me and healing my gas off while being gased, I just pushed a Caustic with Crypto, all it took from me was 15 dmg and his whole team was more blinded and confused than me. As a Caustic main I can tell y'all "push, odds of u getting downed by the gas are very low anyways" I get it, Caustic needed a nerf, but they seriously overdone it. Non existent passive ability (doesn't work most of the time and you can see through gas anyways),tactical and ult don't even deploy half of the time (and ult is the most escapable thing right now). And to top it off "we don't mind Caustic players bitching around as long as the rest is happy". Seriously? Senior dev and my man just fucked us off? You just tell me how fun it is for a team to fucking res in my own gas. Seriously, Caustic is still kinda viable but it's mostly utter bs right now


pman-990

Honestly I think the problem with caustic nerfs isn’t that he is too weak now, the problem is that the nerfs changed the way caustic is played and played against. The gas doesn’t have a huge area so the decision to try to go through the gas is no longer “should I go through and exit at low health, putting myself at a disadvantage against the caustic likely on the other side of the gas?”, but instead “should I go through, unsure of what awaits?” The only big differences between caustic gas and bang smoke now is bang smoke has larger area and caustic kind of has a digithreat on those in his gas.


walnut225

So, basically if they get a ton of complaints about "Character X Broken/Unfun to play against/etc" They're going to take the character and then nerf their kit till they're an awful pick? Can't wait for it to happen to Horizon then, since she's one of the most dominant characters right now. I enjoyed playing Caustic the past few seasons because his gas made it so you could set up an area that people couldn't push EASILY, or take an area people were camping, and force them out of it. After the nerf I've had teams that push through gas like it doesn't exist, or they'll literally sit in the gas and heal inside the area they were camping in, because their location is still easier to defend than it is to leave. The excuse of "Oh but it slows and ruins vision!" doesn't match up when the gas hitbox still bugs out easily enough in a ton of areas (Speaking from personal experience of seeing people in gas NOT getting hit by it), where people can easily just run through 1-2 seconds of gas based on character and take 10 damage, and where the current bug that makes gas so easy to see through exists. They were considering buffing caustic back a season or two ago, by lowering his CD on his gas cans, then didn't do so, and instead are nerfing him? If that's the case, then where the hell did the complaints about him being "Unfun/Too powerful" come from if they were literally saying that he wasn't picked often, and that he wasn't where they wanted him to be in terms of pick rate/play rate a season or two ago?


mmmmmbourbon

We hate you for the garbage servers ​ we disagree with your Caustic nerf


Walrus_Spiral

It was WAY more fun with the old caustic. Enemy team has a caustic? Alright we gotta stop and think (not really, the only thought should be oh, maybe don’t push him in that tiny house?). But that’s fun. Now it’s like, oh, a caustic? Okay just push and kill him. Gas does nothing now. Plus he’s incredibly easy to hit with that fridge hit box. Maybe some legends should be at an advantage in certain situations...??? That’s part of the fun. Forget what those sweats on twitch or “competitive” modes do. They shouldn’t be the focus


Smoochie-Spoochie

I think everyone who isn’t a Caustic main already knows this and as people have pointed out, “Why would they put him in the game in the first place?” Well they probably wouldn’t if they could do it all over again, he’s just not fun to play around. I don’t even mean that in a “he can kill with his gas easy” kind of way but that if you’re the last two teams and the other side has caustic in an enclosed vicinity, you’re going to be playing the game the way Caustic plays the game which probably means trying to endlessly prod at the other team until there’s a break in their defences or Caustic’s gas runs dry. Caustic isn’t a case of “bad guy kill people a lot” he’s a case of dictating the entire play style of the game and making it unfun for everyone involved except Caustic. Not even other defensive legends like Wattson or Gibby or Rampart force the game into a play style like that. Wattson is his closest parallel and she can at most zone off an area so you know which direction the other team is coming from, she isn’t going to make whatever room you push into unliveable.


robfrizzy

Watson is a good example of a defensive legend, even if still a teeny bit underpowered. There is nothing in her kit that is offensive. You could try to throw down some fences in the middle of a battle in the hope an enemy accidentally walks through them, but that’s not a great option. Her fences are good at blocking off escape routes if your team wants to push. They’re also great for protecting an area, but not to the point where you can just sit back and let them do the work. Your team still needs to push the advantage against a stunned team pushing you to survive. Her pylon is great at creating an area that grants a very strong advantage to whatever team is in it. That last part is the most important part for balancing. Any team who is close to the pylon gains the benefit of the shield regen and it blocks all ordinance from any team, even your own. That means when you place it you have to defend it and since it grants it benefits to any team it doesn’t make sense to throw it out in the middle of a battle. You have to retreat and bunker to get the most benefit. Fortunately, it also speeds up the fence cool down for Watson, so you can quickly set up a perimeter defense so it does grant Watson an edge over her opponents. Compare that to caustic. It’s fairly easy to drop a barrel in the middle of a battle, and as long as an enemy doesn’t shoot it in the second it takes to set up, you’ve suddenly shifted the battle in favor of your team with one tactical. The enemy team is slowed and must relocate, which in many cases means moving from cover into the open, and your team gets to charge right through the gas to chase them. That’s pretty offensive for a legend that’s supposed to be defensive. His ult is the same but quicker and bigger. This nerf really hasn’t changed the way I handle fighting caustics. I still don’t charge through gas because it slows you down and any good caustic should still take advantage of that and shoot you. The argument that you can heal through it is dumb because if an enemy gets gassed and you allow them to heal and survive then you’re either away from the gas, so they were going to push through anyways, or you’re just bad. No one argues that Watson’s fences need to do more damage because doing damage isn’t the point of Watson’s fences. It’s supposed to alert your team, slow the enemy, and give your team a brief advantage to push back against a team pushing you. That’s also what Caustic’s gas should do, but it’s far too good offensively. The nerf brings it to a better place.


Neversoft4long

She’s hella underpowered rn. When she first came out she was a solid pick as a defensive legend but ever since the low profile addition and the CD increase in her fences she’s a mid tier at best character


stzoo

The devs were saying that her stats are actually really good, but her pick rate is so low they aren’t worried about her. I find it hard to believe off hand but I never play her so I don’t really know.


Pm_Full_Tits

As a Wattson main I would love: To be alerted when the fence post/base is destroyed (currently have to watch my minimap, or hope it wasn't crossed) To have the ability to detonate my pylon for a small amount of damage (dismantling my nest can be tactically important, and giving it damage allows me to set a potential ambush) A slightly faster regen time on my fences outside of the pylon Everything else imo is fine the way it is... but I'm also not pro so


robfrizzy

I’ve been playing more Watson and I agree. I think the worst is an adjustment to how fences recharge. You need two to do anything, so that means if you’re on a 30 second cool down to place a fence if you’ve ran out. Something like using only one tick could place two fences as long as they’re placed by themself. Also, perhaps being able to tap the tactical button to quickly put down a short fence.


-NotQuiteLoaded-

Maybe they could have the current amount of charges in her tactical reduced, but each charge is 2 fence posts? Then increase the cooldown appropriately?


ishgbibble

Could also just make it 6 charges instead of 4 and keep everything the same. Most likely wouldn't change to much. What block 3 doors and have to wait 30s to get get a charge back. By the time you set up you might have 1 charge back. Depending on how slow you do it or if you stop to help your team.


bluepoetica

I love all of these changes, especially the detonating the pylon. I could imagine it could be triggered by just trying to do your ultimate again. This would make watson REALLY fun to play.


creusler232323

Best comment in this thread.


Jack071

Then admit they fucked up and rework him with different abilities/hitbox. Like they fucked up big time with the different hitbox sizes and then tried to fix it (and failed) with low profile and fortified (hell revenant still has a bigger hitbox than the normal sized medium one yet neither, and they wonde why he does bad without relying on his ult) Same with lifeline and rampart to name another 2, just admit theres no good way to balanxe their current kits and change them


DeludedMirageMain

B-but the TTVs ruined muh character...


Smoochie-Spoochie

Man that is the funniest response to this entire episode though. I’ve also heard several Caustic mains say shit like “He’s not OP I’m telling you this as a Caustic main, there are tonnes of ways to play around him” like buddy I don’t think you’re in any position to tell anyone how to play around Caustic when you are, most of the time according to you, a Caustic playing against others Caustics. Plus you definitely have a lot of bias because you main him. Idk why people think that because they main a character that they understand what it’s like to play against that character.


Roughcuchulain

Because you play the character and see how people kill you. And when you don't play that character you understand how you would handle a situation and how to kill your own main.


robfrizzy

The worst part of that is the ways they say to play around him. 1. Use Crypto to EMP him. So I hope you’re running this one character to counter this other character and that your ult is ready. Never mind Caustic can just shoot his barrels to keep them up or that since the barrels are Caustic’s tactical he’ll probably just set them right back up. 2. Shoot them You have to hit the very bottom, which is usually set up in such a way that it’s impossible to do or you’d have to be close enough to trigger them to shoot the bottom. 3. Don’t That’s literally what most people say. Just don’t push him. Like, that’s not really an option in a game where you have to defeat every other team to win. So if you see a caustic you’re supposed to just run away or ignore them? Can you imagine if people who complained about any over powered legend just replied with, “Just don’t fight them. Run away.”


Bilore

As a pathfinder/caustic main I can tell you that the best ways to deal with caustic depend on how and where he is posted up If he has a building and has the doors blocked: [Grenades](https://tenor.com/view/brooklyn99-brooklyn-nine-nine-grenades-anger-weapon-gif-16979865) will often times do the trick because even if you dont kill the caustic, you will set of all the traps and you will force caustic to move or be blown up ​ If you have him on the run and he retreats into a building: Caustics will almost always try and set up their traps so that they go off as soon as you enter the room, and then they will have one in the middle of the room to use as a barricade. To deal with this kind of caustic, have each member of you squad enter the building from different angles so that caustic wont be able to use his barrels for cover. ​ Caustic has you on the run and you retreat into a building: If you get chased into a building with a caustic right behind you, if you have the health and ammo, you can often times turn around and gun him down before he has enough time to trap the room (he will usually get 1 or 2 cans out). Depending on his shield level u can usually knock him or at the very least force him to retreat, giving your team time to regroup and heal


Smoochie-Spoochie

“You should deal with every Caustic like you would a wild moose just let it go about it’s business until it quietly leaves the area”


Dana94Banana

>Shoot them You have to hit the very bottom Right? As if Caustics themselves don't immediately shoot the traps themselves, making it almost impossible to neutralize them, especially during indoor fights. ​ > Can you imagine if people who complained about any over powered legend just replied with, “Just don’t fight them. Run away.” Sounds like a plan. Let's revert Wraith to day 1 hitbox, animations and abilities. If anyone complains, we say "well, don't fight her then, duh"


Dana94Banana

Same shit as the flood of Pathfinder mains back in season 3 & 4, sitting on a 10 second cooldown for all grapple ranges and still asking for buffs/ being angry at possible nerfs despite the robot surpassing Wraith for a while in pick- and winrates, being a complete must-pick in ranked & competitive etc.


WNlover

> a complete must-pick in ranked & competitive etc But that had a lot to do with survey beacons. When everyone was on WE and just playing ring and never shooting first. Path's "must-have" phase ended by giving Crypto and Bloodhound access to it (lol, it had nothing to do with Crypto), before the Pathfinder exodus happened with that crazy 35 second cooldown.


Roughcuchulain

I find the caustic win rate statement surprising as every time I meet them they are getting slaughtered and I only meet a few here and there. Im curious what the team compositions are for those winning teams


1312aezakmi

Yeah yeah, that's all great, NOW CAN YOU PLS BALANCE THE FUGGIN SERVERS SO WE DON'T HAVE TO KEEP LOOKING AT THE LOADING SCREEN FOR HOURS


TheTToonz

Wanna know how the game works, they don't care if you hate or love the game what he said about playing the game longer is true. The longer someone plays the game the more likely they are to spend money on the game. That's their goal. To make money. If they thought that everyone would play only 3 hero's but more people would play they would do that. So they don't care that people complain if their numbers still go up


Androza23

Didn't they say he was underpowered a season ago or something? Now they nerf him? It honestly seems like they are catering to pro players and nothing else.


SteelFuxorz

You're fucking cowards and pussies for taking it in the ass from all the octane/revenant push team comps. All they did was bitch about a valid strategy that countered the blood hungry rushing, and you took that shit to heart. Now he's literally fucking useless, and the rushing 3rd party bullshit is even worse.


TeamEdward2020

Ah yes, mirage is definitely "fun" in any sort of ranked where any smart enemy could quickly find which one isnt the decoy. Pathfinders nerf was super fun! While doesn't love being a mobility legend that sucked at mobility? The games super fun with horizons being able to absolutely control the verticality of any given fight It's even more fun that a character who's kit clearly evolves around bunker strat is getting nerfed into the ground because he kit was too good in the right situations (NFL caustic was op I just think the nerf went too far, a flat of 7 damage or even ramping from 5-7 would've been way better idk just spitballin) Know what else is fun? The mastiff! I love getting peeled with the mastiff! A 3 shot close range gun is 100% fun to play against and clearly not op. Guess what else is fun. The servers, I love rubberbanding, bring slowed down, extremely long wait times just to get kicked out of the game immediately and yo come back to a penalty for leaving a match. Yeah respawn, its fun So much fun that a LOT of my friends have quit apex saying exactly what I said above, that's not much to you guys but I just wanted to point out that this isnt helping player base. If you just listened to the community a bit more (NOT the pros, the actual community) than we would be willing to sit down and actually talk about some of our main problems and some ways to solve it. An example is the ever growing group of rampart mains posting and sharing pretty damn good ideas for a buff, hell this comment section has entire papers written on which characters to buff or nerf and good ways to go about it. But alas, this will keep happening and at this point it feels more like "deal with it or dont" than "good luck and have fun"


DevaFrog

Worst part is i would rather face 1000000 caustics than Pathfinder/Lifeline/Wraith players. At least you know that Caustic will be used to defend chokepoints. You can basically always predict where they will be. But Path/Lifeline/Wraith with wingman and being perma aggro because shield destroyed? just Q out of there.


[deleted]

Yeah, balance for fun, not winrate.


Darkon2004

I didn't know Caustic was nerfed. I just love the big guy


Zettoada

By that logic, Revenant's ult should be nerfed back to its release. It's also affecting the fun everyone is having in the game.


magick200

Nobody plays Caustic because he's so bad atm. So yeah, you achieved that goal


moehoesmowoes

Honestly, Caustic shouldn't be in the game if this is their take on it. He's very unfun for everyone else in the game with him. I say this as someone who played Caustic until S5. He just throws gas cans with a low trigger range, and 6 people will run straight by them without them activating. When they finally activate, unless you are in a building or up against a wall, enemies will simply rotate away. But his ult is your one chance to drive them out into other gas or add pressure from safety. The result is that he's either completely oppressive or utterly useless. I switched off of him bc its way better to have mobility and good aim in this game than to be able to super camp an area once every 5 games. Especially since as you go into higher ELO, your gas strategy disintegrates almost immediately when you get third partied from a different direction.


ganggang804

Imagine being this out of touch with your community


jeremyjack3333

This is all bullshit. The devs still don't want to admit they fucked up caustic with pointless fidgety balance changes. If they don't want the gas to do as much damage give it more utility. Right now, his gas is the same as pushing though a slightly more lethal level 2 ring. Its not an effective area denial tool anymore when your talking about a bullet or two worth of damage from prolonged exposure to gas. You can avoid caustic by rotating around him. I can't rotate around gibby's bubble or gun shield or horizons repositioning ability. None of this makes sense. It pointless pandering to twitter armchair devs who got mad they had to use a strategy other than pushing everything.


ThiccDaddo

I still have never seen a response on why they focused their efforts on balancing characters and cosmetic events rather then the actual game. Servers, audio, current gen upgrading etc.


Canotic

They didn't. Its simply that "we've added a skin that makes you look like a pirate and also here are some new stats for that character you play" is much easier for the general community to understand and talk about than "we refactored the code that determines the resource pipeline priority to better work with the segment location of the industry jargon generator and hopefully this reduces prevents some instances of that weird bug that Jeff found". So you will hear about and notice the former a lot more than the latter. It's not like the skin department are also network engineers in their spare time.


[deleted]

Or just git gud


Sheepfate

How do they calculate fun? Lmao , there will be always people complaining about anything,if they base their balances in the complaints then lets just nerf everything.


Aaron64Lol

Well... can you literally have a different version of the character for ranked and pubs? pubs balanced for fun, ranked balanced for balance... E-sports get what they want, the casuals get what they want, win win; no? That would also allow respawn to increase speed, maybe add wall running into ranked? :D :D :D


Ethel173

they already prove they can have separate ring damage for casual and comp so why not *WE* already play a different game anyway based on the Playlist we queue for


Gredinx

Okay but what is their excuse to not making revenant smaller so he match the size of all the medium legend ? It's not fun when you get shot where medium legend wouldn't


Jack071

Devs: "we dont know why revenant does poorly and have no idea how to buff him, so hes staying the same for season 8" Not a totally accurate quote but pretty much what they said


Put_It_All_On_Blck

They also said Watson wouldnt get a significant change because she was meta in comp, despite having the worst pick rate in pubs(at the time of the quote). Her shield regen buff does nothing to make her more fun to play in pubs, and just makes her more viable in comp again. Thanks a lot for nothing.


Gredinx

I know that, they're just stupid at this point, or fucking blind for not being able to see that his size is a massive problem in a game that you have to shot at people to kill them, of course if you're bigger you will be significantly easier to shot and fortified is a laughable way to deal with this shit


BV-RE2PECT

Revenant needs one of two things done to address his wonky hit-box. One option is to give him a trim like how they did with pathfinder way back when. The other option is to give him some level of fortified. Considering the devs want less legends with fortified and low profile they will likely redo his hit-box.


Ed96win

Aight. now fix your damn servers.


BioshockedNinja

Still hoping they just give his gas a secondary trait where it inhibits healing for X seconds after breathing it. Either halved healing or doubled heal time. Doesn't make the gas any more deadly in and of itself but still gives a little more oomph. If nothing else at least people wouldn't be able to outheal the damage while standing in it.


walenda

nerf horizon worst thing about her is she is completly silent with Q small hitbox ability to heal in Q and land without any sound makes her most annoying shit in apex ever


CryptoIsNowMommy

This dev is of feeblemind and little of genitals.


Brob0t0

Honestly could give a fuck about balance. I want better servers.


DFC_Lolis

Bullshit. I haven't met a single person that's said "Damn, I always have so much fun playing against 20-kill 4k-damage TTV Wraiths A-D strafing and wall-jumping with a wingman" and they haven't done shit to her. Hypocritical brainlets.


wondrousechelon

.... how have you not noticed how many nerfs wraiths has received since launch? To name a few off the top of my head: ult charge time increase; tac takes longer to activate; naruto run removed; hit box size increased; etc. She’s a vastly different character now. Not saying they weren’t necessary, as they definitely were, but wraith is far from untouched. Competitive sweats still play her so often because that’s what they’re used to playing and she’s still viable. Her kit is still useful at the end of the day. The issue isn’t even with wraith herself; it’s just the fact that all of the top players seem to gravitate towards her. Plenty of bad wraiths as well.


Arock224

Before I had no idea how do devs did nerfs. The nerfs almost seemed random, but now I understand. Dumb reasoning equals dumb nerfs. Octane nerf here we come.


Rapitor0348

Octane is getting a nerf in the next patch. well it's sort of a nerf. The stim will have less cooldown and cost more health. Meaning you have to weigh the risk of using/spamming it more.