A new meta seems to be rising in Apex Legends where it’s all about scans and knowing an enemy’s location. Seer’s tactical ability can identify opponents 75 meters away, while his Ult will cover a small area. Bloodhound can use his tactical to scan a wide area, while Crypto can drop into his drone and identify others. At the same time, even those now captured in Fuse’s ultimate get highlighted.
Knowing an enemy’s location is definitely key to success, but as the game shifts, it seems clear that movement remains the name of the game yet scanning isn’t far behind. With these new shifts in Apex Legends, it’s no clearer than it is with Bangalore, Crypto, and Wattson, all of whom have continued to fall behind and are in need of major buffs.
Apex Legends Bangalore Buff
For Bangalore, it’s basically that her kit is the absolutely weakest its ever been in any season of Apex Legends. She’s always been the standard soldier -style character in Apex Legends, with a decent ult and passive. Her tactical is where she has fallen by the wayside, as it is easily the most counterable in the game. Seer, Bloodhound, Crypto, and even Fuse can see through her smoke with their abilities.
Aside from that, though, the smoke tend to thin out at certain points making it even easier to see through. And if any Apex Legends player has a Digi-Threat on their SMG or sniper rifle, the Bangalore might as well as put a stick in it. She’s done.
What many Bangalore players are calling for and what seems to be clear is that her tactical smoke should be upgraded and prevent scanning abilities. Her tactical is meant to obscure the battlefield, for offense or defense, and allowing basically any character with the real weapon set-up to counter her, as well as many others via abilities, makes it obsolete.
Apex Legends Crypto Buff
Like other legends such as Pathfinder in Apex Legends, Crypto’s biggest issue is that he effectively doesn’t have a passive. While newer characters like Valkyrie and Seer’s passive give them distinct advantages, Crypto’s passive is incredibly weak. It’s his ability to scan enemies with his drone, which sounds like it should just be part of his tactical.
Crypto could use a stronger rework than Bangalore, perhaps because of this, as many Crypto mains feel like they are being snuffed out by other scanning legends. Indeed, scanning should be inherent to his tactical, not shoehorned as his passive. A potential passive replacement could be that Crypto, and just Crypto, cannot be detected by scans on the battlefield. His entire character story is about being “off the grid” and that would give him an advantage compared to other scanning legends.
At the same time, many have called for his drone to have the passive ability to follow him, which would give him more scanning ability. With these two buffs, it would make Crypto more viable as a choice against Bloodhound or Seer.
Apex Legends Wattson Buff
In the right hands, Wattson can be an absolute nightmare of a defensive legend. At the same time, many Wattson fans have been calling for a buff because, compared to other tactical abilities, she suffers a lot. For example, Seer entered season 10 with a tactical that recharged in 30 seconds. His tactical deals 10 damage, flash bangs an opponent, marks their location for 8 seconds, and reveals their health.
Wattson’s tactical ability, which takes 30 seconds to recharge, gives her one fence post. She can have up to 12 nodes out at once, but she can only hold four and only gets one more every thirty seconds. Even when bunkered down, few battles take roughly 4 minutes. This is how long, using the four she begins with, it would take to set up full perimeter security.
Wattson is meant to be slower, as defensive legends are, but her ability is essentially kneecapped with this recharge rate. One fence post after players have moved on to a new area in a POI does nothing for Wattson. She can pick them up to regain her charges, sure, but so can Caustic. His tanks still charge faster than her posts. Perhaps the best fix would be a reduction to 20 second recharge times, as well as give her two posts instead of one. This means that, in the worst-case scenario, Wattson could quickly set up a simple fence at least.
Of course, this is all speculation. It’s unknown how Respawn Entertainment would adjust Wattson, Bangalore, or Crypto, when/if they will, or anything like that. But, in terms of gameplay, it seems simple: Bangalore shouldn’t be countered so easy, Crypto needs to be brought up to the same level of other scanning legends, and Wattson shouldn’t be kneecapped by her recharge rates.
Apex Legends is available now for PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One. PS5 and Xbox Series X upgrades are in the works.