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Apex Legends S18 : Resurrection brings in a hefty update to the game which includes a rework to Revenant, other legends getting a rebalance and rank updates.
A quick recap to the Kill Code story event, Lifeline, Maggie and Loba journey to Salvo to investigate a mysterious lead surrounding Durado Silva. Infiltrating an abandoned facility, their search for answers uncovers a more twisted secret than they imagined.
Fast forward, Crypto hacks into a discarded fragment of Revenant to investigate some disturbing changes, only to find out that Revenant is losing control of himself.
Revenant Rework
Revenant is an important character to Apex, but since his launch in season his playstyle hasn’t been kept up with the rest of the game. His reworked skills are as follows:
Passive – Assassin’s Instinct
This new passive will still retain Revenant’s initial ability to crouch faster and wall climb, but the latter has been improved to give him more horizontal movement and he’ll stick to walls more from a fall. Additionally, his senses have been sharpened to allow him to see nearby enemies that are low on health. On top of that, bringing the enemies’ health down to below 40HP will mark their position for Revenant’s team.
Tactical – Shadow Pounce
Revenant’s Shadow Pounce allows him to unleash a powerful leap forward that lets him close the gap between him and his prey. His tactical can be charged up to make Revenant leap further.
Ultimate – Forged Shadows
Forged Shadows allows him to create a shroud of shadows around him that protects him from direct incoming damage. The shroud increases revenant’s upper body hitbox and can absorb up to 75 damage before breaking, it’ll start to slowly recharge over time, forging a new shroud around him when it finishes.
Revenant is most vulnerable when his shields are down, however getting a knock will bring back the shadows immediately. Under the effects of his ultimate, getting a knock will also reset your Shadow Pounce charge, allowing Revenant to keep up the fight.
Legend Rebalance
One of the changes to existing legends would be Seer’s tactical. The silence duration will be reduced while the cast time is being increased. Additionally, the slow time when being hit by the tactical is reduced from two and a half second to only half a second.
The devs will be keeping an eye on the newest legend – Ballistic and how his tactical can be fired off easily in short range during duels and almost forcing enemies to take the overheat damage.
A number of ultimate cooldowns for some legends will also be adjusted such as Bangalore’s rolling thunder being increased by 60 seconds, while Gibraltar’s ultimate is reduced by 90 seconds.
Weapon Updates
Charge Rifle Rework
In Season 18, the Charge Rifle will have its hit scan be removed, making it a projectile based weapon with bullet drop. The pre-beam laser will be removed and the handling timings such as the reloading and draw will also get a change to better match this new gameplay.
The firing mechanism will also be changed up as it no longer automatically release its projectile when you hit the fire button. You’ll need to charge it up by holding down the fire button and if you release it early it’ll fall off. Magazines will be added back to the Charge Rifle and the ammo consumption per shot is reduced back down to one.
The damage profile is changed up to deal more damage the farther away the target is, but it’ll be harder to use since more skill is involved from the hitscan version.
Various Weapon Changes
The Prowler will be going back to being a care package loot and get its select fire back, becoming fully automatic. Meanwhile, the hemlock will be back to being ground loot and getting buffs for both damage and recoil compared to its previous version.
The R99 is getting a few nerfs in the upcoming season, with its vertical recoil being increased and its ammo capacity at base and magazine sizes getting a decrease. All of the other SMGs will also see nerfs in having its strafe speed and headshot multiplier being reduced.
It seems like the Shotguns will be the go to close quarter combat weapon this season with the nerfs to SMG. As of now, the only information we have is that the mastiff is getting its blast pattern be tightened up for more consistency.
The disruptor rounds are being brought back this season as a ground loot. Not only will the alternator be able to use it, the peacekeeper can equip it too.
Rank Updates
Season 17 saw the introduction of a brand new rank system, however the LP tuning had been a bit too “generous” which lead to a huge spike of Masters ranked players during the first few weeks of the previous season.
The upcoming season will have some changes in ranked games, where the changes have been revealed back in the July Developers Blog. The highlights are as follows:
- Decreasing the overall LP gains per match to combat the overall shift in the rank distribution.
- Adding a ruleset that only applies to Diamond+ to properly dial in the top of the ladder.
- Players in these ranked tiers will have increased stakes and losses, and decreased rating bonuses and loss mitigations.
- Adding a minimum elimination bonus increase based on the player’s MMR and buffing elimination bonus in general. Eliminations should always be a contributor to your rank.
- Increasing action in the ring by adjusting ring damage.
- Adjusting ring timings to create more mid-game encounters and less pre-finale lulls.
- Updating matchmaking to better handle players that are actively challenging their MMR, for more competitively challenging matches that mirror their ranking.
