Apex Legends’ upcoming Fight Night event is bringing a slew of new additions, including some balancing tweaks and quality of life fixes to several elements in the game.
The Hemlok, Mastiff, and the Prowler will go under the knife when the patch drops next week, as well as Caustic and Rampart. Here are the upcoming changes.
Weapon balance
The new patch is bringing adjustments to three weapons and two legends. The tweaks aren’t dramatic, but for the most part, they’re welcome changes to balance some problematic elements.
The Hemlok’s damage will drop from 22 to 20, a noticeable reduction that could help make the burst rifle less oppressive. The weapon has been a force to be reckoned with for the past two seasons after a series of balancing adjustments made it extremely deadly.
The Mastiff will also change a bit. The shotgun will gain more spread on the third and fourth pellet to reduce the max range of four-pellet hits and force players to use it at even closer range. This could make the weapon more inconsistent but may not have an impact on it at point-blank range.
The Prowler won’t get any changes to fundamental mechanics, but players will have more ammo for the SMG. A stock Prowler will come with 210 reserve bullets rather than 175, a change that will mitigate its ammo scarcity after the SMG moved to the care package drop pool.
Legend balance
In addition to the weapon changes, two legends will see tweaks in their kits: Caustic and Rampart. The two legends need some extra firepower, according to Respawn—despite the changes to Caustic in the last patches.
The Toxic Trapper’s cooldown will drop from 25 to 20 seconds, which makes it easier to fortify an area. Rampart will undergo a similar change: her Amped Walls will now take 20 seconds to charge instead of 30.
The upcoming change to Caustic “is an extra bit of compensation for the loss of vision blur from gas in Season 7,” according to Respawn, but the Toxic Trapper could still see more adjustments. “The Season 7 change was a solid buff for Caustic, but he’s not quite where we want him to be,” Respawn said.
Quality of life changes
The upcoming patch will bring more than just balancing adjustments, though. Some invaluable quality of life changes are slated to come to Apex next week as well.
Players will be able to use Ultimate Accelerants without opening the inventory. Pressing the ultimate button while the ability isn’t charged will cause the legend to automatically pop an Accelerant. This solution is a more practical way to access the inventory in the middle of a firefight but without clogging up the Item Select wheel with another item.
The patch will also bring a series of minor quality of life changes, including the “Mark As Seen” button—a long-requested feature. Party members leaving a lobby in the main menu will also default the rest of the squad into “not ready” to prevent matches from starting by accident.
The official website lists a series of quality of life adjustments and bug fixes that are also slated to come with the Fight Night patch, which will drop at 10pm CT on Jan. 5.
