Apex Legends Makes Interesting Changes For Season 6

Apex Legends, the hero-based battle royale by Respawn Entertainment, has officially begun its sixth competitive season. With this occasion comes many changes to the game, but perhaps most interesting is the way that Respawn has changed how armor works in game, not to mention various tweaks to champion abilities.

As is common knowledge among Apex players, a new legend was introduced by name of Rampart, who wields a minigun as her ultimate and has the ability to place amped cover, increasing friendly damage against enemies. 

New areas of the map have been added to expand the game's lore, such as Countdown and Launch Site. Additionally, new crafting stations can be found 
around the map, known as Replicators. 

After collecting enough materials by draining material reserve tanks or by opening specific bins, make your way to the crafting station. The Replicator offers eight different pieces of craftable loot, most of it rotating on a daily or weekly basis. 

While all of these changes are well and good, they are more "surface level" changes to the game than anything else. Respawn has only recently revealed the full patch notes, including character buffs and nerfs, as well as a new armor meta.

As many players may have discovered, all champions now drop into the battlefield with a Level 0 Evo-Shield, which can be upgraded by doing damage to enemies. All lootable shields have been changed into Evo-Shields, save the rare golden shields. With this change, players can evolve their armor up to the red level, giving them the biggest shield pool in the game. 

Additionally, players should note that all Armor is being decreased by 25 health. For example, red armor will only bring players to 200 health points instead of 225, and purple and gold armor will give users 175 total health points.

Respawn has also changed the damage evolution limits for their evo-shields, and the new amounts are as follows: In order to achieive a base, white evo shield after dropping, players must deal 50 damage, 125 to level up to blue, 250 (total) to level up to purple, and 500 (total) to receive a red evo-shield.

Finally, we come to the technical changes of Apex Legends Season 6, the character balances. All recon class heroes (Pathfinder, Bloodhound and Crypto) can now use Survey Beacons, instead of being solely for Pathfinder. Because this change made Pathfinder a little less unique, every survey beacon scan will now reduce the total cooldown of Zipline Gun, his ultimate ability.

As for Bloodhound, they have been given a buff for their ultimate, as it is extended upon knocking down or killing enemies when the ultimate nears its time limit. Additionally, Bloodhound's tactical, Eye of the Allfather now activates twice as fast during their ultimate, and has a shorter cooldown as well.

Crypto has always been a difficult hero for players to grasp, as using his drone will make him extremely vulnerable, but it is also his best weapon. In order to help Crypto players, Respawn has made it so that Crypto's drone can use respawn and survey beacons instantaneously, rather than holding down a button and waiting. Secondly, Crypto's ultimate, EMP, will now slow teammates caught in the blast, shield or no.

Many of the other Apex Legends received unique changes, but there is not enough space to discuss all of the changes that were made to the battle royale. The season's full patch notes can be found here, for players that want to prepare themselves before they jump in to the new season. 

As for those of you who have yet to try Apex Legends, I highly recommend it! It is a unique squad-based battle royale, and each character has their own set of unique abilities. Additionally, the game is totally free, and available for download on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, with a Switch version coming later in 2020.

Kieran Mouritsen
Editor, NoobFeed