The Chaos Theory event makes some big changes in gameplay, in addition to the new content from the collection event. Check out the full patch notes for all changes to Legends, weapons and more to come on March 9th.
Caustic’s Town Takeover, Bangalore’s Heirloom and a lot of new skins are the main highlights of the collection event, but Respawn has made many adjustments to Legends and weapons as well.
At the top of the list we have nerfs for Mastiff, which has definitely become a little strong in recent seasons. There are also nerfs for the caustic and some improvements to some of the weaker Legends. No Fill Matchmaking is also being introduced.
Check out the full Respawn patch notes below.
LEGEND UPDATES
Caustic
- Nox Gas Grenade cooling increased from 2.5 minutes to 3.5 minutes.
- Nox gas damage at a fixed rate of 5hp per tick instead of increasing from 6hp → 12hp.
Developer note: Caustic is brutally effective in slowing engagements. Your entire kit revolves around gas with a large area of effect, slowness, obstruction of vision and direct damage to health. It is proven to be very oppressive in many scenarios, especially considering that teammates can play with relatively intact gas. Significantly reducing the damage of the gas (without removing it completely or causing it to affect the armor) seems like a fair deal that stays true to the character while making him less oppressive at the receiving end. We will be monitoring the data and gameplay closely. If these changes reach Caustic’s appeal or effectiveness too strongly, we will revisit accordingly.
Pathfinder
Developer note: The Low Profile has been used as a balancing tool for mobile devices and / or small legends. Although Path is still mobile, his hitbox is large. While your overall win rate and win rate per encounter are by no means low, it is difficult to justify keeping Low Profile in a hitbox of your size.
Gibraltar
- Removed the use of healing items 15% faster while in Protection dome.
Horizon
- Increased Black Hole cooling from 2 minutes to 3 minutes
ghost
- Revenant’s silence now disables Mirage’s revive and covert respawn, as well as Swift Mend from Octane.
Wattson
- Wattson now has passive shield regeneration at 0.5 hp / s (half of Octane’s current health regeneration rate).
Rampart
- Explosive damage Amped Cover normally, instead of doing 200 damage.
- Explosive damage Sheila normally, instead of doing 175 damage.
Developer note: The walls must be robust and powerful after being built. Before Rampart was launched, we were concerned that its nests were too oppressive and that is why we gave enemy players the option of quickly eliminating them with grenades. This was not necessary, so we are removing the increased damage from the grenades against Amped Cover and Sheila.
WEAPON UPDATE
Weapon optics
- All AR and LMG gold standard optics upgraded to 2x Bruiser.
Mastiff
- Projectile damage decreased from 13 → 11. The rate of fire increased from 1.0 → 1.1.
Developer note: The purpose of these changes is to place the identity of this weapon between the fast-fire EVA-8 and the high-impact Peacekeeper. The Mastiff has been consistently dominant in hand-to-hand combat given its indulgent propagation pattern and high damage spikes with each shot. This change reduces the high damage potential to limit the number of two bombs that players experience at the receiving end.
Right arm
- +1 marker for each magazine size, including the base.
Hemlok
- Increased spread of fire in the hips.
Developer note: The damage caused by Hemlok’s hip shot seemed a little too consistent for an AR that was supposed to stand out at medium range. This change attenuates the damage spikes at close range from the Hemlok that caused a bad sensation at the receiving end.
QUALITY OF LIFE CHANGES
- Kings Canyon Loot – we forwarded the withdrawal to increase the quality of the map, while maintaining a certain amount of withdrawal after the Mirage Voyage flight.
- The wooden shacks along the map should have a few more pieces each and, generally, be of a slightly higher quality.
- Lago Manchado has been reduced from High to Medium Quality.
- Crash Site slightly redistributed the loot in the area. The amount remains the same, but the best quality withdrawal must be on the ship.
- Caustic treatment has more loot than water treatment and remains in high quality.
- Optical Locked Weapon Exchange – For weapons with fully locked attachment slots, such as fully equipped gold weapons and most crate weapons, you can now remove the optics and replace it with a different scope. This does not apply to the Kraber sniper rifle.
- Assists were added to the game’s HUD, alongside deaths. This was already present in classifieds and has now been added to unclassified. Assists do not yet contribute to XP. This replaced the Spectator’s “eye” icon.
- Assists and strikes have been added to your team’s banners and will be displayed at the end of the match.
- Club names now appear in the Match Summary and on the Champion’s screen if all players are part of the same club.
- Items will no longer “stick” to the Crafting Replicator when dropped on the Replicator.
- Badge progress – for badges that have a greater amount of progress, hovering over the badge will show you more information. For example, if you are trying to get 50 wins like Lifeline, you will now see that you have 45 instead of between 15 and 50.
- Ping My Deathbox – While respawning on a dropship, you can now drip your own death box to help you locate it more easily.
- Gold Backpack – Players revived by a gold backpack will have a burst of energy – based on the level of armor they wear – while reviving is taking place. They will also display the armor healing FX when the revive is over. This change should help players prioritize the ongoing revive.
- PC players can now return to the lobby title screen to allow data center switching without restarting the game.
- Numbers added to the advanced visual controls. This should help people to experiment and easily revert to their favorite settings.
- When scanning a beacon for Ring 6, you should now be able to see where Ring 6 ends.
- Inspect Weapon – Since the Survival Slot took over its button on the controller (we only have a few buttons!), Inspect Weapon has been moved to the action wheel by default. It can be linked to any key on the PC.
BUG FIXES
Gibraltar
- Fixed an issue with Gibraltar not getting hit records when releasing ADS and shooting simultaneously while his weapon shield was active
Wraith
- Wraith players can no longer cancel Into the Void by jumping on a wall
- The new Skydive emote will now work with legendary skins
Caustic
- Fixed a bug that caused Nox Gas to blink for some players affected by it
Octane
- Using the same jump button repeatedly no longer disables double jumps
- Players can no longer “slide” along a wall after using the jump block
Cryptographic
- Crypto’s animation to bring your Drone is no longer skippable with a holospray
- Encryption can no longer teleport to a replicator
- Recharging the Mastiff and 30-30 will not be faster while on the Crypto drone
Wolf
- Fixed some areas where Loba could teleport that would trap her
Rampart
- Players can no longer use Sheila to enter the world when placed too close to the Phase Runner on Olympus
Horizon
- Fixed Gravity Lift falling to the ground when used on the train tracks at the World Edge Selection Factory
- Using a zip line after a gravity lift will no longer increase accuracy
Fuse
- Motherload will now damage and destroy jumping pads
- When under a small compartment, players will no longer be pushed out after using Motherload
- Players can no longer fold their grenades after looting the dead box from a dead fuse
Mastiff
- Dropping and picking up the Mastiff will no longer cause it to be reloaded
3030 Repeater
- Dropping and picking up the 30-30 will no longer cause it to be reloaded
- 30-30 will now have spread deviation when ADS fires and jumps
MISC
- Fixed a bug that prevented Steam users from sending friend requests to each other
- Usernames are now updated when a user switches between Origin Client and Steam Client
- Fixed a bug that prevented players from creating or joining clubs due to their EA account already being associated with another platform
This is all for now. See you at the Arena, Legends.