Respawn just pushed out a smaller but pretty meaningful update. It fixes one annoying Alter bug, takes a sizable swing at Axle across all three of his abilities, and continues tuning the Street Fighter crossover in Wildcard based on community feedback. Here’s everything that changed and what it means when you drop in.
Fixed
ALTER
- Unreliable tactical and ultimate usage near large moving structures has been fixed.
In practice this means her abilities should no longer randomly fail to register when you’re trying to use them around big moving geometry.
Adjusted
AXLE
Axle got touched in every part of his kit, and all of it goes in one direction: downward. If you want to compare him with the rest of the roster, we have an overview of the Legends and their roles.
Passive
- Sliding lateral control nerfed by 50%, which makes it harder to keep your slide momentum while cornering tightly.
Tactical
- Sliding lateral control nerfed by an additional 25% for Nitro Gate users.
- Aim assist is disabled for players under the effect of the Nitro Gate.
- Nitro Gate initial push speed nerfed from 700 to 650.
Ultimate
- If the Kickstart drone locks on immediately after being deployed, the resulting knock-up is significantly decreased.
- Max knock-up magnitude nerfed from 700 to 650.
- Max drone chase time nerfed from 10s to 8s, so it gives up on an active chase two seconds sooner.
Put together, Axle keeps his mobility identity but loses a lot of the precision that came with it. Sliding around corners at full speed is harder, boosting through a Nitro Gate no longer comes with aim assist, and the Kickstart drone both hits softer and gives up on its target faster.
WILDCARD: another round of fighter tuning
Respawn says it’s still tracking community feedback on Apex KO and is making a few more tuning changes to address player pain points. This isn’t the first pass either – we covered the earlier changes in the article on the Wildcard event adjustments.
- Fighter’s Defense reduced from 55% damage reduction to 50%.
Dev note: the team is still seeing that fighters are difficult to take down in a 1v1 gun-versus-fighter fight. This change gives players with guns a bit more damage when they run into a charging fighter, and Respawn will keep watching fighter combat performance.
- Max number of Ult charges for Ryu, Chun-Li and Dhalsim reduced from 3 to 2.
Dev note: fighters were able to cast multiple Ultimates back to back and completely decimate enemy teams without giving them a reasonable window to respond. Instead of touching how fast fighters build their Ultimate meter or how much damage they do, Respawn simply cut the number of stored Ultimates by one.
- Passive Fight Gauge regen is now enabled when you’re not in Fighter Form and are below 1 pip of Fight Gauge.
Dev note: the team saw potential droughts of Fight Gauge Tokens mid-match as K.O. Trucks get destroyed. The passive regen is meant to counter that, so you can get into Fighter Form more often and be ready for your next fight.
What it means for you
If you’ve been playing Axle, expect your movement to feel heavier and your ultimate to be less of a guaranteed opening. In Wildcard, guns are now a slightly better answer to a charging fighter and you won’t get chained Ultimates dumped on you quite as often – while running out of Fight Gauge late in a match should be less of a problem.
Where to go next
If you want the bigger picture around the crossover, check out our piece on the Street Fighter 6 crossover, and for everything else from the game we keep a running hub of Apex Legends news.
FAQ
Her tactical and ultimate were unreliable near large moving structures. That issue has been fixed, so the abilities should register properly in those spots.
His passive loses 50% of its sliding lateral control, Nitro Gate users lose another 25% on top of that, aim assist is disabled under Nitro Gate, and the initial push speed drops from 700 to 650. The Kickstart drone’s max knock-up drops from 700 to 650 and its max chase time from 10s to 8s.
They could chain multiple Ultimates in a row and wipe a team without giving it time to react. Their max stored Ult charges went from 3 to 2, while their Ultimate meter build rate and damage stayed the same.
Slightly. Fighter’s Defense damage reduction went from 55% to 50%, so your bullets do a bit more damage to a charging fighter. Respawn says it will keep monitoring fighter combat performance.
It should happen less often. Fight Gauge now passively regenerates when you’re not in Fighter Form and sit below 1 pip, so you can access Fighter Form more frequently.