All Legend buffs & nerfs in Apex Legends Season 7 update

The highly anticipated Apex Legends Season 7: Ascension update is finally here, bringing with it adjustments to several of the battle royale’s characters, including Pathfinder, Mirage, and more.

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While new content has and always will be the area of focus when it comes to the launch of new seasons in Apex Legends, the changes that the massive patch makes to the game’s various aspects also hold a lot of significance.

As expected, the huge update that accompanied the launch of Season 7 implemented tweaks to eight different Legends, some of whom were buffed while others were nerfed.

Pathfinder

The changes made to Pathfinder are two-fold, focusing on his hitbox and Grappling Hook ability. The robot’s tall and slender frame has always made him among the more difficult Legends to shoot at and, as time’s gone by, the impact of that has become more and more apparent. As a result, Respawn have nerfed this aspect by making his hitbox bigger all around.

However, to make sure they don’t overdo the nerf, they’ve kept the Low Profile passive ability enabled: “If this change does make a meaningful difference in terms of his win rate we will drop Low Profile, but we really didn’t want to take it off him this patch only to have to put it back next patch when it turns out his win-rate spiked.”

• Read More: Apex Legends Season 7 patch notes

As for the Grappling Hook, the developers have added to the changes pushed through in the 6.1 update by making four more adjustments to the tactical:

Octane

This is one of the more significant buffs in this update, as Octane’s Swift Mend ability has doubled in healing rate, up from 0.5 HP per second to 1.0 HP per second.

“We figured we could give him a little extra out of combat help. His passive’s heal rate was very slow, requiring up to 200s to fully heal your health bar,” the devs explained.

You can find a visual demonstration of this change below, starting at around the 11-minute mark.

Loba

Loba’s Black Market has been buffed so that ammo doesn’t count towards the ability’s maximum anymore, allowing players to grab up all the ammo within range.

This is part of Respawn’s effort to try and make Loba the “ultimate Legend to bring to solve all of your team’s loot needs.” While this change is being hailed as a significant one, the devs have also teased that there could be improvements to her tactical ability as well.

Rampart

There were two buffs administered to Rampart in order to increase the speed at which her abilities were set up: “We do not want to change Rampart away from being a Legend that requires setup, but we do want to make it faster to set up.”

• Read More: Apex Legends players are freaking out over another random tree

Firstly, her Sheila machine gun now takes 1.25 seconds to fully spin up, down from two seconds, while the Amped Wall now takes three seconds to fully build up, reduced from four seconds.

Wattson

Wattson’s Perimeter Security has been boosted by increasing the damage per touch from 10 to 15 ticks. While the Season 2 Legend was already pretty powerful, the powers that be determined it would be “safe to giver her a little extra power in her best case: people running into her fences.”

Mirage

Respawn have added give life to Mirage’s decoys, almost literally. Now, the decoys each have 45 health and will flicker on and off when being shot at to let enemies know they’re not the actual Legend.

However, to make sure this buff doesn’t turn into a game-breaking exploit, it’s been tuned in a way so that the bullets hitting decoys will also travel through and impact whatever’s behind them. This way, Mirage players can’t camp narrow pathways or hallways and use their decoys as physical shields.

Caustic

As with Pathfinder, the devs have made two changes to Caustic: one a buff and the other a nerf. In terms of the nerf, Legends no longer get blurred vision while in the gas, which should mitigate what was arguably the biggest frustration when fighting the Toxic Trapper.

However, to balance this, the damage of the Nox Gas has been buffed, as it now deals 6-12 ticks of damage, up from 4-10 ticks.

• Read More: Apex Legends Season 7 brings major crafting changes

Bangalore

Last but not least, we have Bangalore who’s Rolling Thunder ability has been buffed to reduce the time it takes for the explosion, down to six seconds from eight seconds.

The developers hope that this will “encourage” enemy teams to vacate the zone faster, making the ability more influential outside of the actual damage it can cause.

That wraps up this round of the Legend buffs and nerfs in the Apex Legends Season 7 patch. Remember, these changes will not go into effect until Ascension is fully live in-game, which is scheduled to be on Wednesday, November 4 at around 8 PM PT / 11 PM ET.

For more information about the rest of this update’s contents, you can check out the full Season 7 patch notes here.