The mid-season patch notes for Apex Legends are here, bringing some significant changes for a select few Legends that have slipped lower in the pick rates over the last few seasons, as well as an update to footstep audio. Gibraltar, Wraith, and Wattson are all receiving updates to improve their viability, which includes some incredible perks for Gibby and Wraith.
Alongside the mid-season update is a new Wildcard event and a brand new prestige skin for everyone’s favorite Aussie grenadier.
Legend Updates
Three Legends – Gibraltar, Wraith, and Wattson – are receiving special attention in this mid-season update. While Wattson’s updates are primarily tied to improving her synergy with Hardlight Mesh, Gibby and Wraith have received more in-depth changes to hopefully improve their popularity across all ranks.
First off is Gibby, who currently sits at the absolute bottom of the pick rate, according to Apex Legends Status. The major highlights of his changes are more speed (a common trend in Legend updates recently) and faster, more effective abilities.
| Passive | Momentum Boost: If Gibraltar maintains sprint speed for a couple of seconds he will get a speed boost. This will only trigger while unarmed or if the weapon doesn’t have a sprint speed restriction (ex. The Fast Shotties Upgrade) Gibby punch will deal double damage to Hardlight |
| Tactical | Cooldown on Dome of Protection reduced (was 17s, now 13s) |
| Ulimate | Integrated the size increase upgrade into his base kit, increasing radius by 20%. Call in time for the missiles has been sped up. Can now throw your ultimate before the uldate equip animation finishes. |
| Upgrades |
Level 2 Thunder Dome: The dome becomes electrified when placed, and will deal 50 damage and slow the first enemy to enter Healing Dome: Dome duration increases 4s and any player within the healing dome will get double small meds healing Level 3 Triple Bombardment: Splits the ultimate into 3 charges, reduing the radius and number of missiles for each Removed Big Bruddah, Bubble Bunker, Baby Bubble |
Despite sitting respectively high in the pick rates, Wraith is getting a buff to help her stand out among the rest of the skirmisher class. The most noteworthy update for Wraith are her new upgrade options, one of which creates a phase dome that can last for up to 30 seconds when Wraith triggers her ultimate.
| Tactical | Integrated the tactical cooldown reduction upgrade into her base kit (was 20s, now 15s) |
| Ultimate | Integrated the ultimate cooldown reduction upgrade into her base kit (was 2.5 minutes, now 1.5 minutes) Increased casting speed animation for quicker activation |
| Upgrades |
Level 2 Phase Dome: When Wraith starts channeling her ultimate she will create a Phase Dome. This dome will last for 30s or until Wraith places her portal. Anyone who enters the Phase Dome will go into the void. Level 3 Phase Jumper: Wraith will stay in the void for longer when using her tactical (was 4s, now 6s) and will gain double jump while in the void |
Finally, Wattson has earned some new special ways to interact with Hardlight Mesh, most likely to cut down on the amount of time she needs to spend managing that extra feature when holding down a bulding. Among those quality-of-life updates are some small, but mighty updates to fences to make them faster to place and more dangerous to enemy teams.
| Tactical | Placing a fence in front of a Hardlight mesh will reinforce it; if the mesh is broken the fence will rebuild and reinforce it Increased fence damage (was 20, now 35) Reduced fence deployment time (was 1s, now 0.5s) |
| Ultimate | When Wattson’s ultimate is placed it will reinforce Hardlight meshes in the zone of the pylon; if the mesh is broken it will rebuild and reinforce the mesh |
Footstep audio and other changes
Another small, but potentially significant change to Apex Legends is another update to audio, specifically directed towards footsteps. Now, when an enemy isn’t in the player’s field of vision, the volume of their footsteps will increase, as it will be “loud when beside you, louder when over your shoulder, even louder when directly behind you”.
Other changes include weapon changes, with the Hemlok at the forefront as the newest Elite Weapon.
| Hemlok Breach AR [Elite Weapon] | Removed Burst & Single firing modes New Firing Mode: Automatic – Slow fire rate – Body Damage: 23 – Headshot Damage: 32 – Integrated Silencer New Firing Mode: Breach Charge – Single shot explosive – Cooldown: 15 seconds – Damage to players: 38 with radial falloff – Significant damage multiplier to Hardlight and structures |
| 30-30 Repeater | Increased base damage to 43 (was 41) |
| RE-45 Burst | Elite version is now the default version of the RE-45 Removed Elite weapon visual treatment |
| P2020 | Decreased points required to unlock Hammerpoints to 425 (was 500) Base magazine size increased to 9 (was 8) |
| EVA-8 | Improved base reload speed |
| Prowler PDW | Burst fire delay reduced Recoil improvements |
The final small change comes to the city in the sky, Olympus, as the POI (point-of-interest) Elysium is moving to the northeast corner of the map to sit near Rift. The reason for Elysium scooching across the map is to prevent the forced fights that always occured with teams at Somers University.
