Respawn has released a new Apex Legends devstream to further explain the changes being made in the upcoming Chaos Theory event. The devstream also reveals what looks to be an upcoming change to how ultimate abilities may work, an adjustment that wasn’t touched on in the Chaos Theory patch notes.
At 13:36, Bangalore’s ultimate ability finishes charging and you see a prompt pop up for her to say, “My Ultimate is Ready!” So it looks like this next update will add in new voice lines that allow you to call out when your ultimate ability is fully charged and ready to go. This is an awesome addition; we love that Respawn keeps implementing new conversational quips that make it easier to “talk” to teammates without ever having to use a mic.
As detailed in the patch notes, a big part of the Chaos Theory update is rebalancing the defender characters–Wattson and Rampart get buffs while Caustic and Gibraltar get nerfs. Wattson’s change is the most interesting of the bunch, as she now passively heals her shield. In the devstream, Respawn explains this is being done to finally make Wattson a little more “selfish.”
“Wattson still finds success at high level play,” Apex Legends live balance designer John Larson said on the devstream. “As far as competitive is concerned, I’m curious to see if we’ll see more usage from her given the Caustic changes. But for all of us who are not competitive players, a reason her pick rate is low could be because she doesn’t have much ‘selfish’ power.”
Wattson is one of the few characters in Apex Legends who doesn’t possess a passive, tactical, or ultimate ability that allows her to more easily get a kill. Even her fellow defenders possess offensive potential (especially Caustic), making Wattson the only pure defender in the game. She’s there to help her team win, not score kills for herself. So this new buff is a nice reward for all the folks who main Wattson.
And speaking of Caustic, the devstream responds to fans’ long-time request for Respawn to add some form of differentiation in the gas created by a friendly Caustic and enemy Caustic. Respawn has seen fans clamoring for it, but the team feels like it can’t enact such a change because it would alter the in-match meta in a negative way.
“I often see requests for a quality-of-life change to create a color differentiation for friendly and enemy gas,” Larson said. “Right now, the biggest hesitation that teammates have when fighting in gas is when two Caustics are involved. With differentiation, it only encourages teammates to play in gas even more, actually making [Caustic] stronger. All gas should not be easier or fun to fight in unless you’re Caustic, and that’s by design.”
Chaos Theory kicks off on March 9, the same day that Apex Legends releases for Switch.
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