Apex Legends desperately needs a new Support Legend in Season 12
Respawn EntertainmentAfter six seasons of Offensive and Recon characters, Apex Legends needs a new Support Legend to counteract the chaos and provide an alternative style of play.
Since Apex’s release all the way back in 2019, Respawn Entertainment has added 11 new characters to the roster, giving players a huge selection of 19 Legends in total.
Each of these personalities have their own set of abilities and unique mechanics that can take thousands of hours to fully master.
However, over the last six seasons, the devs have continuously introduced Offensive and Recon-style Legends that push players to take aggressive gunfights and hunt down their opponents.
While this design choice does ensure matches are always action-packed, it doesn’t cater to players who prefer to take up a more supportive role, and it only adds to the long-standing third-party problem frustrating the community.
One new Support Legend in 11 Seasons
Respawn EntertainmentThe last Support character to be added to the Apex roster was over 15 months ago with Loba in Season 5. Since then, Respawn has introduced three Offensive, two Recon, and a single Defensive Legend in the form of Rampart. However, with Rampart’s Ultimate now mobile, she’s just as much an assault Legend.
While there’s no denying that the likes of Ash, Valkyrie, and Horizon are all expertly designed, they fail to offer any supportive abilities. Apart from a variety of repositioning tools that can be utilized by an entire squad, none of the recent arrivals can directly aid a teammate in battle like Lifeline.
Not only that, Respawn’s decision to continue adding location and recon-style abilities to the game with Ash and in particular Seer, has only accelerated the third-party issue plaguing King’s Canyon, World’s Edge, and Olympus.
After the infamous “scan meta” that arose with Seer in Season 10, it felt like a perfect opportunity to introduce a Support Legend in Season 11 that could act as a counter to the abundance of Recon and Offensive abilities. Instead, Titanfall’s Ash arrived, another Offensive character with an unbelievably fun kit that unfortunately still pushes the same search and destroy play style.
The difficulties of designing a Support
Respawn EntertainmentDesigning an engaging Support Legend is not an easy task, and it also comes with a lot of risks that could significantly affect the game’s meta. While Respawn could take the safe route and create another Lifeline-style character that heals or regenerates shields, it’s safe to say that this wouldn’t satisfy a lot of the community.
On the other hand, they have the option to create a Legend that counters Recon or Offensive abilities, like Bloodhound’s Tactical or Ash’s Passive. Although this sounds positive in practice, the devs have to be careful not to make the character too oppressive, as it’s all too easy to make a support Legend that becomes a must-pick overnight.
The anti-recon or cloaking Support that’s been suggested by a lot by players could be an option for Respawn. Ex-Apex pro Snip3down even put forward a similar idea on Twitter shortly after the Season 10 update as an answer to Seer’s overpowered state at launch. Creating his own custom Legend, Snip3down presented a Support with an AOE Tactical that temporarily removes any scans, slows, or stuns.
The next character in Apex should have an ability like a debuff, a new cool support character. Basically a Q that is AOE that removes all stuns/scans/slows. Would be a really good balance for the current character meta imo since there is no counters
— FaZe Snip3down (@Snip3down) August 6, 2021
Although this is definitely a great idea, the execution has to be perfect or unlike an Offensive Legend, nerfs will run the risk of sacrificing what makes the character useful, so it will always be hard to strike a balance between too strong, and useless.
With Season 12 on the horizon, it’s an opportunity for Respawn to deliver a well-thought-out Support that’s engaging and fun to play.
On top of this, a Legend that slows down the pace of matches and potentially even counters a lot of the Recon abilities could help aid the frustrating third-party issues the community has been facing.
Either way, after six seasons with no Support, the anticipation has been building and the devs will need to knock out of the park when the Legend finally arrives.