These days, Respawn Entertainment has been doing a great job at entertaining fan questions and answering their concerns regarding Apex Legends, the developer’s highly popular hero shooter battle royale. For instance, one developer recently shared that when the new legend Fuse was still in development, his ultimate ability was supposed to be an instant kill.
Now, new information has been revealed by a Respawn developer, and it pertains to a possible nerf to none other than the “Toxic Trapper” known as Caustic. Apex Legends fans who enjoy keeping up with the game’s updates know how Caustic has essentially been a major reason why Respawn has been doing a lot of back and forth when it comes to balancing in the game.
For example, the legend almost received a buff early in the year for the Fight Night Collection Event update. However, fans were unhappy about this decision and caused quite a backlash, which resulted in Respawn Entertainment removing the buff from the update instead.
When Apex Legends Season 8 came around, the developer decided to nerf Caustic instead by ensuring that his gas will no longer linger even after his team has already been eliminated. Although, this wasn’t exactly a helpful nerf, given the fact that the rest of the team are already wiped out, anyway.
Respawn Entertainment did another Reddit AMA a few days ago, and one fan couldn’t help but ask why the studio hasn’t nerfed the legend more, emphasizing the fact that a legend’s offensive abilities are just as important in a match as the weapons used. The fan then proceeded to use Blizzard’s Overwatch as an example, wherein more often than not, the game’s meta is intertwined with the characters’ damage-dealing abilities.
John Larson, who happens to be Respawn Entertainment’s Live Balance Designer, responded to this query with a particularly in-depth answer. The developer states that the team wants to adjust Caustic “in a way that removes frustration without hurting how it feels to play as Caustic.” Larson also states that this change will most likely take place in the “near future.”
Larson also mentions in their lengthy reply that Caustic has a high win rate when it comes to matches that “last longer than 20 minutes.” This is because the legend’s tactical and ultimate abilities allow him to cover a lot of ground once there’s only a little space left late game. As such, Larson confirms that “potentially devastating synergies between legend abilities” is something that Respawn Entertainment is “actively working on resolving.”
At the moment, we still don’t know what the developer has planned for this supposedly upcoming nerf. On the bright side, it appears that Respawn Entertainment has finally found a way to balance out legends without completely changing the way they play.
The studio once had trouble finding the perfect balance for Pathfinder as well, going back and forth with changes. However, they were able to resolve the issue by tweaking his hitbox. In fact, Respawn implemented a similar adjustment to Wraith in this latest season as well in an effort to balance her out.
In the meantime, we’ll just have to wait and see what Respawn Entertainment has in store for Caustic.
