Apex Legends: Hunted Patch Notes

Respawn has published the full patch notes of the new 14th season in Apex Legends. The publisher introduced a lot of updates, so let's check them.

New Legend

Vantage - Survivalist Sniper

Xiomara "Mara" Contreras is a survivalist who can see a threat coming from down her sniper scope from thousands of meters away. Born to a wrongfully-convicted criminal who gave birth to her alone on the barren ice planet Págos, Vantage has grown into the ultimate survivalist. Forced to live off a hostile land, she became unfathomably good with a scoped weapon.

Passive: Spotter's Lens

Aim down sights to scout with your eyepiece (unarmed or with mid- to long-range scopes) and use a bullet drop indicator to see where your shots will land.

Tactical: Echo Location

Position your winged companion Echo and then Launch towards him. Must have line of sight to Echo for Launch.

Ultimate: Sniper's Mask

Use your custom sniper rifle to mark enemy targets which applies a damage bonus for you and your team.

Reforged Kings Canyon

Kings Canyon’s past has risen from the ashes as Relic, a new POI that includes the best elements of Skull Town while bringing it into the modern day. The map has also received widespread changes that increase the clarity of its color and lighting, make rotations easier, decrease the chance of third parties, and better balance the spread of its loot for all stages of a match.

Level cap increase

Apex‘s level cap has been increased from level 500 to effectively 2,000. Players can loop through sets of 500 levels an additional three times, gaining an additional 345 Apex Packs in the process. Because an heirloom is guaranteed in the 500th pack, this update means that players will be able to receive an heirloom just through playing the game without having to factor in loot boxes received through events or battle passes.

Battle pass changes

Players can now choose whether they want to complete certain challenges with battle royale or non-battle royale feats. This nonspecific language has some wondering what non-battle royale modes Respawn plans on introducing in the future.

Patch Notes

Season 13 Ranked Results

For Split 1 of Season 13, we have the following max tier distribution among players who played more than 10 hours of Ranked (versus Season 12’s Split 1):

• 10.80% Bronze (0%)
• 28.78% Silver (3.78%)
• 44.45% Gold (25.12%)
• 14.60% Platinum (39.52%)
• 1.25% Diamond (26.63%)
• 0.10% Master & Apex Predator (4.95%)

As of August 2nd 2022, we have the following max tier distribution among players in Split 2 who played more than 10 hours of Ranked (versus Season 12’s Split 2):

• 2.22% Bronze (0.01%)
• 15.22% Silver (4.28%)
• 41.50% Gold (25.48%)
• 32.57% Platinum (42.80%)
• 8.05% Diamond (23.56%)
• 0.45% Master & Apex Predator (3.87%)

14.0 Ranked Changes

• Entry Cost: +5 to all.
• Kill RP: Removed diminishing returns on eliminations .
• Rank Reset: No change. Resuming ranked reset of 6 divisions.

Balance Updates

Laser Sights

• New attachment to replace barrels for SMGs and pistols.
• Reduces hipfire spread.

Care package rotation

• G7 Scout returns to the floor.
• Volt SMG returns to the floor.
• Bocek Compound Bow enters the crate.
• Rampage LMG enters the crate.

Crafting rotation

• Wingman returns to the floor.
• C.A.R. SMG returns to the floor.
• Devotion LMG enters the replicator.
• RE-45 and Hammerpoint combo enters the replicator.

Gold weapon rotation

• Longbow DMR, G7 Scout, Mozambique, R-99, Hemlok

SMGs

• Base hipfire spread increased.

Assault rifles

• Base hipfire spread increased.

EVA-8

• Recoil improvements.
• Now takes stocks.
• Removed one pellet from the blast pattern.
• Fire rate increased to 2.3 from 2.0
• Pellet damage increased to seven from six.
• Bolt rate of fire bonuses increased.

Bocek Compound Bow

• Damage at full draw increased from 60 to 70.
• Tempo draw speed increased from 0.32 to 0.38.
• Shatter Caps pellet damage increased from 11 to 12.
• Fired arrows can no longer be collected.
• Arrows spawns have been removed from the floor.

Rampage LMG

• Damage increased from 26 to 28.
• The Rampage comes with a Thermite Grenade.

Volt SMG

• Damage reduced from 15 to 17.

C.A.R. SMG

No longer takes barrel attachments.

G7 Scout

• Damage reduced from 36 to 34.
• Headshot multiplier reduced from 2.0 to 1.75.
• Double Tap hop-up burst fire delay increased from 0.375 to 0.4.

LSTAR

Increased projectile speed.
Increased number of shots before overheat at base from 20 to 24.
Removed bright red flash when hitting non-armored targets.

RE-45

• Increased ironsight FOV to 70 to be consistent with other pistols.
• Increased strafe speed by 5 percent to be consistent with other pistols.

Wingman

• Wingman now uses sniper ammo and magazines.

Sniper ammo

• Sniper ammo inventory stack increased from 24 to 28.
• Sniper ammo boxes now contain 14 rounds instead of 12.

Spitfire

Recoil adjustments to increase vertical barrel climb.
The Spitfire now uses light ammo and magazines.

30-30 Repeater

• Dual Shell has been worked into the base 30-30 Repeater.
• Now takes Skullpiercer Rifling.

Mastiff

Projectile growth reduced.
Base fire rate reduced from 1.2 to 1.1.
Dual Shell removed.

Sentinel

• Deadeye’s Tempo has been worked into the base Sentinel.

Hop-Ups

Double Tap: Adds burst fire mode to the EVA-8 and the G7 Scout.
Skullpiercer: 35 percent headshot damage increase on the Longbow, the Wingman, and the 30-30 Repeater.
Removed Deadeye’s Tempo and Shatter Caps from floor loot.
Boosted Loader has been reduced from legendary quality to epic.

Item Balance Updates

Backpack gold perk

• New perk: Deep Pockets.
• Deep Pockets makes large medical supplies stack higher in your inventory: shield batteries and med kits now stack to three in inventories, while phoenix kits now stack to two.

Knockdown shield gold perk

• New perk: Guardian Angel (previous backpack perk)
• Self-revive removed from the game.

Arc Star

• Reduced stick damage on armor from 40 to 10.
• Removed aim slow on stick. The slow remains on detonation.
• Detonation damage increased from 70 to 75.

Explosive holds

• Added blue attachments to possible spawns.
• Added laser sights to the pool.
• Reduced spawn rate of gold magazines.

Legend Changes

Valkyrie

VTOL Jets

• Acceleration on activation decreased by about eight percent.
• Fuel consumption on activation increased by 33 percent.
• Aerial boosting and strafing take a 20 percent debuff when hit by slowing effects.
• Added a third orange state to the fuel meter UI between green (>60 percent) and red (>30).

Missile Swarm

• Aim/turn slow removed.
• Move slow duration decreased from 2.5 seconds to two seconds.
• Explosion radius reduced from 175 to 125.

Skyward Dive

• Height reduction of 25 percent.
• Launch time reduced from 5.5 seconds to five seconds. Coupled with the height reduction, players using Valkyrie’s ultimate now travel upward at a slightly slower speed.

Horizon

Black Hole

• Adjustments to N.E.W.T.’s hitbox to make destroying it more reliable.
• N.E.W.T. takes 50 percent more damage from explosives.

Wattson

• Improvements to the Perimeter Security placement system.

Newcastle

Retrieve the Wounded

• Increased move speed during revive by 25 percent.
• Reduced turn slow while reviving by 50 percent.
• Increased white knockdown shield health from 150 to 200.
• Increased blue knockdown shield health from 250 to 300.

Mobile Shield

• Increased HP from 350 to 500.
• Doubled maximum movement speed.

Castle Wall

• Added turn slow to electrical barrier effects and increased the severity of the slow effect to movement.

Mad Maggie

Riot Drill

• Projectile launch speed doubled.

Wrecking Ball

• Now travels twice as far while dropping the same amount of magnets.
• Duration increased from five seconds to 10 seconds.
• Magnet spawn delay increased from 0.4 seconds to 0.8 seconds.
  Wrecking Ball will deal damage to these enemy placeable objects: Black Market, Castle Walls, Exhibit, Death Totem, Mobile Shield, Black Hole, Amped Cover, and Gas Barrels. It will also destroy Gibraltar’s Dome of Protection.
• Fixed Wrecking Ball not slowing and blinding enemies.

Rampart

• Now ignores friendly collision on Amped Cover placement, meaning placing walls around teammates will feel more smooth.

Caustic

Fixed gas ramping bug where transitioning from friendly to enemy gas would initially damage for more than intended.

Mirage

• Mirage decoys will now be scanned by Valkyrie when skydiving.
• Mirage decoys will now be picked up by Seer’s Heart Seeker.
• Fixed a bug where Mirage Decoys were picked up by Seer’s Exhibit as AI and not players.

Revenant

• Death Totem will now show a placement preview when activated instead of placing immediately.

Crafting Updates

• Team-use Harvesters: When any player interacts with a Materials Harvester, all players on their team will be given the Materials.
• Removed Shatter Caps from crafting.
• Removed Hammerpoints from base crafting and added them to the RE-45 weapon craft.
• Heavy, Energy, and Sniper magazine prices increased from 25 to 35.
• Laser Sight added to crafting for 25 materials.
• Stock and barrel prices reduced from 35 to 25.
• Added Skullpiercer Rifling hop-up to crafting.
• Added Double Tap Trigger hop-up to crafting.
• Added Kinetic Feeder hop-up to crafting.
• Increased Shotgun Bolt price from 25 to 30.
• Reduced 2-4x ACOG optic price from 35 to 30.

Maps

The public map rotation during season 14 is Kings Canyon, World’s Edge, and Storm Point.

Changes to all maps

Replicators and Crafting Materials have been rebalanced across the maps.

Ring adjusments

• Ring one damage increased from two to three HP per tick (equivalent to ring two)
• Ring one preshrink time decreased from 180 seconds to 60 seconds.
• Ring one closing time on Kings Canyon has been increased from 4:10 to 4:32
• Ring one closing time on World’s Edge has been increased from 3:42 to 4:32
• Ring one closing time on Storm Point has been increased from 4:15 to 4:35
• Ring one closing time on Olympus has been increased from 4:10 to 4:32

World’s Edge

• Removed some frustrating final rings at Staging that were causing heal-offs.
• Fragment East loot has been buffed from low tier to medium tier.
• Added out of bounds to the west rocks at Lava Siphon.

Quality-of-life changes

• New mode and map name UI element on load screen and start flow.
• “Winning” and “champion” tags added to the scoreboard.
• Added ability to use “tap” interact prompts when they conflict with “hold”. Reloading near downed teammates is now a lot more reliable on controller.
• Added flourish to the crafting materials in the top right of the HUD when they increase.
• Added a flourish to items if they become craftable while in the crafting station UI.
• Added accessibility switch for turning on and off text-to-speech, defaulting to what your console or system has it set to (where available).
• When dropping from the dropship, the location of the POI player lands in is now displayed.

Bug Fixes

• Hipfire reticles now change size based on field of vision.
• Fixed a bug where canceling a Lifeline revive would cancel it for other teammates also being revived by Lifeline.
• Fixed a bug where players could not deal melee damage to Caustic gas barrels or Octane’s Jump Pads.
• Fix for an issue where the buy menu would close each time a teammate completed a purchase and/or closed the buy menu.
• Crypto’s ultimate now destroys Wattson’s Pylon.
• Fix for issue where Crypto’s heirloom animation audio would play globally when using a survey beacon.
• Fix for an issue where players could sometimes get stuck while crouched between a Replicator and Black Market after crafting.
• Fixed a bug where players could not unlock the “Fully Kitted” badge.
• Fix for issue for Legends losing functionality like meleeing, using an ability, etc. while mantling.
• Fix for a bug where players could not switch ammo types for the C.A.R. SMG.
• Newcastle: fix for issue where Newcastle could get stuck in his ultimate animation while riding a zipline.
• Newcastle: fixed a bug where throwables placed on a Mobile Shield would start floating after the Mobile Shield disappears.
• Newcastle: fix for cases where players wouldn’t take damage from ordnance or activate Caustic’s barrels when positioned between a Tactical Shield and its drone.
• Newcastle: fix for a bug where throwable abilities placed on a Mobile Shield could float away after the Mobile Shield disappears.
• Wraith: fix for bug where Wraith would still take damage in the Ring while phasing.
• Fix for a reload bug with the Mastiff and 30-30 Repeater where players could not ADS until reloading animation was finished.
• Fixed a bug where Crypto’s melee animations wouldn’t show his heirloom while in third person.
• Vending machines in Big Maude now have buyer protection.
• Fixed an issue that could cause some stuttering and framerate spikes on consoles, especially PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.
• Fix for a bug where the Dropship would sometimes spawn players outside the ship.
• Fixed a bug where Heat Shields would disappear when placed under a respawn beacon, or mobile respawn beacon, and then the beacon was used.
• Fixed a bug where Pathfinder’s zipline would be destroyed if placed on top of a respawn beacon and then the beacon was used.
• Fix for cases when a Heat Shield could disappear when set under a Respawn Beacon that is activated.
• Fix for a bug where Mirage decoys would not show up on scan for a few legends.