Apex Legends Season 11 Escape is just around the corner, scheduled to release on November 2, 2021. And dev team has recently released the Apex Legends Season 11 Escape patch notes, which brings a lot of changes, balance updates, and bug fixes. And that path notes is mainly centered on Wattson; the dev team is bringing a hug buff to Wattson. So let’s talk.
Before we talk about Wattson updates, the patch notes featured a note from the dev team; take a look at it below:
Dev Note
Move aside Ash, this is Wattson’s season. We’re ecstatic to finally share some long-anticipated Wattson improvements! Her win rate and encounter win rate have always been above average. This could be for a multitude of reasons; her defensive playstyle correlates to higher average placements, Wattson mains are diehard loyalists, and her hitbox has been the smallest in the game ever since Lifeline’s adjustment.
Regardless, much of the high-level data that we’ve shared doesn’t match perception. Play a few games as Wattson and you’ll often find yourself wanting more out of her kit. The goal of these changes is to redistribute her invisible power into the parts of her kit that shape the battlefield in a unique way. We wanted to see what changes could spark more consistency and efficacy in her kit, and ideally ground some of the difficulties surrounding the way her abilities work.
We want to enable more active gameplay from Wattson players by smoothing out the rough edges in placing fences. Responsiveness tweaks, longer range, and faster cooldowns means that Wattson can much more quickly and reliably set up a defensive position, or even use her fences and pylon in the midst of open combat in a pinch.
Apex Legends Season 11 – Wattson General Changes
- Improved the reliability and responsiveness of placing Wattson’s Tactical and Ultimate in-world objects.
- Wattson can place her Tactical and Ultimate objects on valid surfaces above Wattson’s eye level (to a reasonable extent).
- General hitbox size increased to compensate for the removal of low profile in the Legacy update.
Tactical Balance Updates – Perimeter Defense
- Increased damage on crossing a Fence by 33%. (15 to 20)
- Increased debuff duration on crossing a Fence by 100%. (1.5 to 3 seconds)
- Increased the time allowance to be hit again by a subsequent Fence effect by 100%. (0.5 to 1 second).
- Decreased recharge time by 50% (30 to 15 seconds).
- Increased placement range by 50%.
- Decreased the delay between Fences shutting off and reactivating after an ally passes through them by 60%. (1.0 -> 0.4 seconds)
- Wattson now moves at Unarmed-speed while readying/placing Fence nodes.
- Instead of waiting for the animation to finish, fence nodes can now be placed as soon as the weapon is ready.
Ultimate Balance Updates – Interception Pylon
- The Pylon output has been significantly reworked.
- Reduced the number of active Pylons Wattson can place from 3 to 1.
- The Pylon now lasts forever (instead of timing out after 90 seconds).
- The Pylon now has a pool of 250 Shields that can be distributed to nearby players instead of effectively infinite Shields.
- Increased the Pylon shield recharge rate by 150%, and smoothed regen rate. (2/second -> 5/second, or more accurately: 1/0.5 seconds -> 1/0.2 seconds)
- When a Pylon is out of Shields, it no longer recharges players’ Shields but can still zap incoming ordnance.
- Taking damage while regenerating Shields via the Pylon delays continued regeneration by 1 second.
- The UI on the ground and HUD elements now display the Shields that remain in the Pylon.
- Pinging a friendly Pylon will now display the percentage of Shields remaining in the Pylon.
- Pylon ordnance-zapping has been moderately reworked.
- Ordnance is now zapped when the Pylon detects that it would hit any surface within range and line of sight of the Pylon, instead of being zapped as soon as it comes within range.
- As a part of the changes, current issues where the Pylon doesn’t reliably zap ordnance (particularly concerning airstrike abilities and ordnance that bounced off surfaces near the Pylon) should now be addressed.
Not only the Wattson balance updates, but the Apex Legends Season 11 Escape patch notes also showcase a lot of weapon changes, legend changes, bug fixes, and more. However, take a look at the official patch notes to read more about upcoming changes.
So, that’s been it. Thank you for reading, and do share the article if you get a bit piece of information. Also, keep an eye on this space for more relevant updates. Stay safe, and we hope to see you around.