According to a developer from Respawn Entertainment on Twitter, changes are coming to the gold self-revive knockdown shield in Apex Legends.
The knockdown shield allows players to defend themselves when they are knocked by an enemy. The level of the shield, 1-4, dictates how much protection it offers. All level 4 items in Apex Legends also offer a bonus ability, with the level 4 knockdown shield’s being the ability to revive oneself. Many of the level 4 items have been rotated in or out of the game or have had their ability changed, like how the level 4 body shield changed from allowing players to heal twice as quickly to allowing players to heal twice as much damage with syringes and shield cells. But the level 4 knockdown shield ability has remained the same since its inception.
But not all players are happy about that. Professional Apex player Reps tweeted yesterday with a suggested change for the knockdown shield. He suggested that a player should only be able to revive oneself as long as another member their team is still standing. Reps’s teammate on TSM, Albralelie, agreed, citing how frustrating it is to wipe out a team in a top 3, only to lose as you fight the last team because the other team is able to revive themselves. He points out too that not only is that upsetting, but as a player, if it happens to you, you will also lose placement and kill points.
Apex Legends producer Josh Medina, however, was quick and responded within the hour, promising “adjustments” coming “soon.” Though he did not elaborate beyond that, surely it must mean that a balance change to how the level 4 knockdown shield functions is coming, likely before season’s end.
It will be interesting to see what the team at Respawn has in mind for the level 4 knockdown shield. One could argue that changing the level 4 knockdown shield to requiring one teammate to still be standing defeats the purpose of being able to self-revive with it and save your team. Regardless, any changes to the game will always affect the metagame of Apex Legends.
That is not the only change players can expect to see soon. Respawn at the launch of Season 5 promised that legend Octane would be receiving significant balance changes, similar to what it did for Mirage, it just couldn’t finalize them in time.
There is no date for the next patch or event, but the weekly Hunts for the Quest for the Broken Ghost are still ongoing.
Apex Legends is out now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.