As is standard whenever a new season rolls around, Respawn has taken the opportunity afforded by the tri-monthly refresh to make some much-needed changes to some of Apex Legends‘ underperforming characters.
The theme this time around, it seems, is the Scout class in general which, according to the developer, has fallen to the wayside somewhat as of late. A series of extensive adjustments to Pathfinder, Bloodhound and Crypto are par for the course this time around, then, but will they be enough to nudge any of the trio up existing tier lists? Given how long it takes for a new meta to be established following sizable updates such as these, it’s far too soon to make a decisive judgement, though on paper, at least, the tweaks certainly look promising.
Of the three, Pathfinder has received the smallest number of changes, with Respawn admitting that, in light of giving every Scout-based character access to beacons, the friendly robot has lost a large portion of his identity. You can likely expect a more thorough rework in the future, then, but here’s what’s changed as of today’s patch.
Pathfinder:
- Passive: Each time Pathfinder scans a survey beacon, the total cooldown of Zipline Gun is reduced.
- Numbers: Zipline Gun cooldown reduced by 10s each time Pathfinder scans a beacon. Up to 6 rings per game mean the total cooldown of Zipline Gun can go from 120s to 60s.
Bloodhound players, on the other hand, have been spoiled with cooldown reductions and buffs to his various skills – including the already powerful Eye of the Allfather ultimate – across the board. The revised numbers are as follows:
Bloodhound:
- Beast of the Hunt: Now gains even more duration when Bloodhound scores a knockdown or kill with the ultimate about to run out.
- Eye of the Allfather: During Beast of the Hunt, Eye of the Allfather now comes out twice as fast and has a much shorter cooldown.
- Numbers:
- Beast of the Hunt duration extension 5s → [5s – 15s] based on remaining duration
- Eye of the Allfather CD during Beast of the Hunt: 25s → 6s
- Eye of the Allfather total use time during Beast of the Hunt: 1.8s → 0.9s
As for Crypto, Respawn seems to have finally cottoned on to the fact that the expert hacker’s surveillance drone usually ends up being more of a hindrance than genuinely helpful. To combat that, the drone can now activate and survey beacons remotely, a process that is instant.
Crypto:
- Surveillance drone:
- Crypto can now activate respawn and survey beacons from his drone. Doing so is instant instead of requiring a prolonged use.
- Made the surveillance drone slightly more consistent to hit but also doubled its hitpoints.
- Drone EMP:
- EMP will now slow teammates caught in the blast, even if they had no shields. This means that players who have used Revenant’s Death Totem will also be slowed.
- Numbers:
- Surveillance Drone 30HP → 60HP
- Surveillance Drone hitbox size: cube of edge length 16 → cube of edge length 24
That about wraps up all of the major balance adjustments introduced in Apex Legends Season 6, then, though the above is by no means an exhaustive summary. For a breakdown of everything included in the patch notes, see here.