Apex Legends Patch Notes: Cross-Play Update Changes Wraith And Pathfinder (Again)

Respawn has released the full patch notes for the Apex Legends update that's going live alongside the upcoming Aftermarket Collection Event, a limited-time event that adds Caustic's heirloom, legendary cosmetics, a brand-new mode, and cross-play to the battle royale game. The two big standouts in the patch notes are character balancing changes and evo shield adjustments, and you can expect to see all of this go live with the update today, October 6.

In terms of characters, Wraith and Pathfinder get the two big changes this time. Respawn has attempted to nerf both characters numerous times, as both consistently remain top picks for their overall utility and dominance (especially Wraith). "We don't want to hit [Wraith's] abilities anymore," Respawn writes in the patch notes. "We think both she and Pathfinder have been pushed to the edge in terms of cooldown and utility nerfs where pushing them any further would make them a lot less fun to play."

So instead of adjusting her abilities any further, Respawn is instead changing the interdimensional skirmisher's running animation--something that has allowed the already tiny legend to become even smaller and harder to hit. The new animations make her "more upright and expose a larger area of her body to gunfire," which should nerf Wraith a bit by making her easier to hit.

Pathfinder is kind of getting a buff. After a hefty nerf to his grapple at the start of Season 5, Respawn is now adjusting how the cooldown on Pathfinder's tactical works in order to better balance the character. It's not going back to its overpowered state--instead, the cooldown on Pathfinder's grapple is now dependent on how you use it. Perform a short grapple that goes nowhere? Your tactical ability will recharge rather quickly. But if you do a much longer grapple that sends you soaring through the air, you'll have to wait much longer before using it again. The shortest that the cooldown on Pathfinder's tactical can be will now be 10 seconds, while the longest is 35 seconds.

Fans will be happy to see how Respawn is changing evo shields. A long-requested feature by the community is going live: You'll be able to see how close an evo shield is to upgrading before equipping it, helping you determine whether to keep the one you currently have or pick up one from a death box. Additionally, you'll now be able to equip an evo shield of equal rank to the one you're using even if the new shield is empty and the one you have is full--this should make it easier to switch to an evo shield that's close to ranking up even if it's already broken.

Aftermarket is scheduled to go live on October 6 on PC, PS4, and Xbox One, with the cross-play beta allowing players on all three platforms to play together. You can add players as friends from other platforms, and by default, you'll be put into cross-play matches. You can disable this, but doing so may result in longer queue times.

The full patch notes to the accompanying update can be found listed, below.

Apex Legends Aftermarket Update Patch Notes

Legend Meta

• Rampart
  • Increased the rate at which Sheila's bullet spread tightens
• Bloodhound
  • Updated Bloodhound’s tactical cooldown while ultimate is active from 6 seconds to 8 seconds.
    • Dev Note: The 6.0 changes have been extremely powerful for Bloodhound. Their ultimate is now truly a moment you should fear as the enemy. We think we might have gone a little far with 6s. Against a competent BH, there would only ever be 2s during which you're not scanned. Changing it to 8s means you've got 4s of being revealed and 4s to reposition in between pulses.
• Pathfinder
  • Grapple cooldown is now based on the distance Pathfinder traveled. The shortest possible pull has a 10s cooldown; the maximum cooldown is still 35s, but you're going to have to swing a very long distance to get there. Have fun out there, friends!
  • Dev note:
    • Pathfinder mains rejoice, the Outlands happiest robot is getting some love. Instead of dropping grapple cooldown back to 15s where it was before, or moving it to 25s as a compromise, we considered a player suggestion (thanks Reddit) to have the Grapple drain energy as it goes, similar to Titanfall 2. The difference here is we're looking at your full distance traveled: from the moment you leave the ground to when you're on the ground again and not sliding at crazy high speeds. What this means is two things:
    • Bad Pathfinder players, no longer need to fear the faceplant grapple quite as much. If you're not going anywhere, you're not incurring much of a cooldown.
    • If you're really really good at Pathfinder and looking for the absolute max distance grapple, you'll still have a 35s cooldown, assuming you land it. This both buffs Path a little less for the scariest robot players out there and it also opens up room for extra skill expression: can you find useful short distance grapples that'll give you a shorter CD but still do something good for you? Looking forward to seeing what you all do with this one.
• Wraith
  • Updated Wraith's sprint animation.
  • Dev note:
    • Wraith is a very challenging Legend to nerf. We look at Legend performance across a number of axes: how often trios with this Legend on them win games / place highly, how often this Legend gets knock downs vs is knocked down, how often this Legend is picked. Across each and every single one of these axes, Wraith dominates.
    • And yet each time we hit her abilities (which we've done a lot) she bounces back within a few weeks without bleeding a lot of pick rate. Her kit is uniquely useful both in solo games and in highly coordinated games. Also she's just really cool. We get it.
    • We don't want to hit her abilities anymore. We think both she and Pathfinder have been pushed to the edge in terms of cooldown and utility nerfs where pushing them any further would make them a lot less fun to play. We don't want that!
    • So we started looking at other Legend specific things that could give her this power--and discovered that her sprinting animations are unique in how much they artificially shorten her (by hunching over), thus shrinking her shootable area from the perspective of the enemy. It doesn't sound like a lot, but taken together with her already small hitbox, it's a lot of power.
    • This patch, we're introducing a new set of sprint animations for Wraith. These are much more upright and expose a larger area of her body to gunfire. Now we know her old sprint was iconic and we hate to see it go as well, but we believe this is the best way by far of bringing her in line without having to hit her abilities again. Depending on what we see after these animations go live, we may even be able to put some power back into her abilities (no promises though).
    • As always, we will be listening to feedback and monitoring data on this change.
• Crypto
  • Crypto's Drone can now open loot vaults if Crypto has a key in his inventory. It consumes the key as usual.
• Loba
  • Increased range of ultimate & passive from 3100 units to 4500 units.
  • Loba now starts the match with her ultimate half charged.

Weapon Meta

• Devotion
  • Increasing hipfire spread at a base level and also increasing the spread added while firing.
• Spitfire
  • We try to keep hipfire numbers consistent with similar weapons of the same class. So, the hipfire spread increase on the Devotion is also being applied to the Spitfire. To compensate, we are reducing horizontal recoil on the Spitfire.
• Triple Take
  • Reduced fire rate from 1.4 to 1.3.

Quality Of Life

• Loot Prompts now show how much damage an evo shield has accumulated, so you can make a better decision when switching.
• You are now able to switch to same-level armor that has less health, if it is closer to evolving.
• Loot Prompts will now have a small indicator that lets you know if your teammate needs this item, so you can ping it!
• Performance Display is a new option that activates a panel that appears in the top right corner of your screen during a match.
  • The data displayed is as follows:
    • FPS - Frames Per Second, or how quickly your game is rendering frames
    • Latency - The time (in milliseconds) it takes for your game client to communicate to the server and back
    • Loss - Indicates the percentage of packet data lost per second on its way to or from the server
    • Choke - Indicates the percentage of packet data congestion on its way from the server
    • In/Out - The amount of data being sent from/to the server
  • If you're noticing persistent issues while playing, this display may help you (and us!) identify what's going on. The Performance Display can be enabled or disabled at any time from your Gameplay Settings menu.
• Anonymous Mode has been added to the options. Anonymize your name in the champion presentation, obituary, and other locations of living opponents.
• Level 0 Evo Armor will now appear as empty in the inventory, so you can ping to request for Armor
• There are more banners placed around World's Edge to better support Cryptos ability to see nearby squads in his drone.
• Out of Bounds - The out of bounds timer no longer refreshes each time you enter a new out of bounds area. The timer is now a fixed amount of time: 30 seconds. If you enter new out of bounds areas, the timer will steadily decrease. However, if you only have 5 seconds left, the timer will keep refreshing up to that 5 second mark.
  • This should work against people exploiting the timer, while still allowing time for people to get down if they land up there.
• Random Favorite selection added for Music and Loadscreen categories
• Holo Sprays will now remember which players liked them, and will display a count to the owner. This also prevents other players from spamming "like" on the holo spray.
• Legend Tokens have been minimized to a tool tip in the lobby. Hover over your currency to see your amount.

Bug Fixes

• General
  • Added the ability to ping the satellite dish at Crypto's Map Room from the dropship.
• Gibraltar
  • Fixed an issue with the bubble shield looking white in certain conditions.
• Lifeline
  • Fixed an issue with the "Guardian Angel" Skin having a stretched neck when using Sheila.
  • Fixed an issue where care packages would not be allowed to be placed on certain parts of Capacitor, Rig, or Salvage in Kings Canyon.
• Caustic
  • Fixed Caustic barrels from being placed at an angle on shipping crates.
• Mirage
  • Fixed an issue that prevented Mirage decoys from being pinged.
  • Fixed an issue that did not allow Crypto’s drone to highlight decoys.
• Octane
  • Fixed a visual issue that removed Revenant’s shadow form from a player after jumping off an Octane Jump Pad.
  • Fixed an issue with the Jump Pad clipping into the ground in certain areas
• Crypto
  • Fixed an issue with his drone not detecting Wattson's Security Fences.
  • Fixed an audio issue with survey beacon sometimes making very little sound when using it as Crypto's drone.
  • Fixed an issue with his drone not taking damage from directly below.
• Revenant
  • Fixed an issue with the HUD of the Replicator staying on screen when the totem effect wears off.
• Loba
  • Fixed inconsistencies with teleporting onto a supply ship.
  • Fixed an issue allowing teleporting into drills around Lava Fissure.
  • Fixed an issue preventing teleporting on certain terrain in Staging.
• Rampart
  • Fixed an issue with doors closing when dismounting a placed Sheila in a doorway.
  • Fixed Amped Cover from floating in the air when placed on a supply ship.
  • Fixed an issue with being able to place Sheila on loot bins.
  • Fixed an issue with Longbow DMR, Triple Take, Mastiff and Sentinel not always receiving the Amped Cover buff.
  • Fixed an issue with Amped Cover being able to be placed at bad angles around the map.
  • Fixed an issue with the Amped Cover not being destroyed by the initial blast of Charge Rifle.
  • Fixed an issue with bullets getting amped before they cross the amped wall from certain angles.
• L-Star
  • Fixed an issue with overheating occurring when firing a single shot from the weapon multiple times.