The Apex Legends character Gibraltar seems like a genuinely good guy; Caustic, on the other hand, is a complete douche. But one thing they have in common is that they're both built like early '90s minivans, which makes them far easier to hit with gunfire than smaller, sleeker characters like Wraith or Lifeline. That's a serious vulnerability problem, and they were "getting crushed" (and, particularly with Gibraltar, not being selected very often) as a result.
Respawn adjusted their hitboxes (and Pathfinder's, which was also wonky) last month in order to give them a little more appeal at the player selection screen. The change worked very well for Pathfinder, the grappling robot with the can-do attitude, but it turns out that Gibraltar and Caustic are just too damn thicc to fix. So the developers are going to try a different approach by adding a new perk to their passive abilities called Fortified, which reduces incoming damage by 10 percent.
Caustic has been further buffed with a big boost to his per-tick Gas Damage, which has gone from 1 to 4, and an increase to the throw distance of his Gas Grenade ultimate from 28 meters to 33. Gibraltar's Gun Shield health has also been increased, from 50 to 75.
"Over the week or two following this change, we will be watching how they perform with this additional protection and aggressively tune it if they are still underpowered relative to their size," Respawn explained in the patch notes. "Our goal is to ensure both Legends are viable picks by the end of this process."
Some weapons are also being changed to make them a little more effective. Leg-shot damage reduction and sway on sniper class weapons are being reduced to make them more effective, the Spitfire and Wingman are getting nerfed a bit in the form of smaller ammo capacities, and the Havoc is getting some ammo and charge beam buffs intended to make it suck less—or, as Respawn put it, "to bring it in line as a viable energy ammo AR that competes with the R-301 and Flatline/Hemlok."
"The end goal is that the Havoc pressures a player’s ability to find Energy ammo, but is less dependent on finding attachments, whereas the R-301 and Flatline/Hemlok have less ammo pressure, but a higher reliance on finding more attachments to achieve power," it said.
The full list of weapon changes:
G7 Scout/ Triple Take / Longbow DMR
- Lowered leg shot damage reduction: 25% -> 10%
- Reduced base weapon sway by about 33%
- Reduced base sway speed by about 25%
Longbow DMR
- Increased fire rate 1.2 -> 1.6
- Increased magazine size Base mag increased: 5 -> 6 rounds
- Common mag extender increased: 6 -> 8 rounds
- Rare mag extender increased: 8 -> 10 rounds
- Epic mag extender increased: 10 -> 12 rounds
Havoc
- Increased base magazine size: 25 -> 32 rounds
- Charge Beam:
- - Reduced cost per shot: 5 -> 4
- - Increased close range damage: 55 -> 60
- - Increased damage at range: 45 -> 50
- - Close range damage falloff increased: 35m -> 75m
- - Ranged damage falloff increased: 75m -> 125m
Wingman
- Reduced magazine size:
- - Base mag reduced: 6 -> 4 rounds
- - Common mag extender reduced: 8 -> 6 rounds
- - Rare mag extender reduced: 9 -> 8 rounds
- - Epic mag extender reduced: 12 -> 10 rounds
Spitfire
- Reduced base damage: 20 -> 18
- Magazine extender attachments reduced:
- - Common mag extender reduced: 45 -> 40 rounds
- - Rare mag extender reduced: 55 -> 45 rounds
- - Epic mag extender reduced: 60 -> 55 rounds
Adjustments to Gold Weapon Attachments
- Gold Havoc now has Turbocharger, 1x-2x variable holo site
- Gold R301 now has 1x-2x variable holo site
- Gold Wingman now has digital threat
Under the "miscellaneous" category, the jump ship speed is being increased by roughly 50 percent so that players who aren't in a super-fired-up hurry to be killed (like me) don't have to wait quite so long to get where they want to go, and a bug in the interface that was displaying incorrect percentages for boost badges has been fixed. For the future, Respawn said it's aware of "reports around audio issues, slow mo servers, hit registration, and more," and is "actively working on many improvements" to address them.
Finally, Respawn is also holding a two-day "bonus Battle Pass XP event" that will grant pass owners one full Battle Pass level for their first top-five finish of the day. The event begins at around 10 am PT/1 pm ET on April 16 (so it's live now) and runs until the same time on April 18, meaning that you can snag three Battle Pass levels with three reasonably good finishes over the weekend.
