Apex Legends' Season 8 content is nearing its end as Respawn starts preparing for all the new content coming to the battle royale with the start of Season 9. While there's still about two weeks left in Season 8, Respawn has already teased Season 9 content that the team has been planning to implement for some time now.
Among the new content coming to the game is the standard character buffs and nerfs that will address the strongest and weakest Legends according to player data, feedback, and the current meta. Now, Respawn's lead game designer has teased some changes coming to Apex Legends' loot-based character Loba which will be implemented during Season 9.
The confirmation comes by way of Apex Legends' lead game designer Daniel Klein who engaged in some discussion during a recent Twitch stream. The chat was discussing Loba's current position in Season 8's meta, mentioning Loba's consistently buggy bracelet tactical ability. Klein stepped in to confirm that further fixes to Loba's bracelet are planned for Season 9 with some additional quality of life changes to the bracelet planned as well. While Klein didn't outright confirm any specific changes, it's likely that the speed and vulnerability of Loba's tactical ability will be adjusted next season.
Loba's tactical ability, Burglar's Best Friend, allows Loba to throw her bracelet in an arc which lets her teleport to a desired location. Players will teleport wherever the bracelet lands or can interrupt the arc prematurely to teleport earlier instead. Unfortunately, Loba's tactical ability leaves her entirely vulnerable while active, as she cannot sprint, draw her weapon, and has decreased movement speed when her bracelet is in the air. Additionally, an animation plays when she lands which gives players following her bracelet's arc another decent window to get easy damage on her.
Loba's bracelet flies in a fairly predictable arc, is easily visible to enemies, and makes a very audible sound when thrown. These issues have caused Loba to consistently place low in many Apex Legends character tier lists, so improving those abilities would be great for Loba fans. Unfortunately, Klein also confirms that Respawn is planning to nerf Loba's ultimate ability, the Black Market Boutique. Loba's ultimate ability is far and away her biggest asset in competitive play, with the ability allowing players to grab two items in a surrounding area, along with unlimited ammo. While Klein mentions the nerf will be light, it's admittedly a strange nerf all the same.
Loba's ultimate ability seems to be one of the more balanced abilities in the game, considering it also makes it much easier for enemies to tell if a Loba player is in the area. As Klein mentions the nerf will be light, perhaps the change will involve increasing the cooldown for Loba's ultimate ability, considering it is by far the fastest ability to recharge. Hopefully, these changes only serve to improve Loba overall, as the loot thief is desperately in need of a few boosts to her kit.
Apex Legends is out now for PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.
Source: Dexerto