Apex Legends dev explains why \u201cuseless\u201d Wattson won\u2019t get more buffs Respawn EntertainmentBad news Wattson fans\u2026 Respawn has no plans to buff the Apex Legends engineer again in Season 7, despite the fact much of the battle royale\u2019s player base believes the Static Defender is \u201cuseless\u201d in her current state. [jwplayer GCL7xjyu] Wattson who has been part of the ever-growing Apex Legends roster since mid-2019, was recently handed a buff in Season 7\u2019s \u2018Ascension\u2019 patch; her signature ability, \u201cPerimeter Security,\u201d had its damage topped up slightly. According to the Apex Legends community, however, the French defender is still relatively \u201cuseless\u201d in the Season 7 meta. In fact, the view is so widespread that a Reddit thread simply titled \u201cBuff Wattson please\u201d racked up 15.1k upvotes, and more than 125 awards. In the thread, \u2018BaguettePaquette\u2019 declared: \u201cIt\u2019s time to radically remake Wattson. Not just +5 to fences, but the whole concept of a \u2018defending legend\u2019.\u201d Unfortunately, when an Apex Legends dev did finally arrive in the thread, it was to deliver bad news: there are no plans to give Wattson more buffs in Season 7, despite the defender\u2019s low pick rate in public playlists and ranked lobbies. Wattson isn\u2019t \u201cuseless,\u201d says Apex dev The reason, game designer Daniel Z. Klein explained, is twofold. The first is that Wattson is \u201call over the place\u201d in pro play. According to the dev, who \u201crewound the final game,\u201d four of the final six squads in ALGS finals included a Wattson. The second was a rebuttal to the Reddit thread\u2019s suggestion Wattson is \u201cuseless,\u201d both on new map Olympus, and in all Apex Legends lobbies. \u201cI\u2019m going to respectfully disagree\u2026 on Olympus, or elsewhere. You\u2019re confusing two things; pick rate and effectiveness,\u201d Klein said. \u201cYes, she\u2019s lowest pick rate, but her win rate is very good. She\u2019s is top 4 across most power metrics.\u201d The \u201cfun\u201d problem: why no one plays Wattson The problem, he continued, is that Wattson \u201cisn\u2019t super fun for most people.\u201d Her abilities are based around holding choke points, which Apex Legends players often shy away from. \u201c[That] means we can\u2019t just put power into her until she\u2019s more widely played, because she\u2019s already very near the top of our power charts; on the other hand, it means that putting power into her won\u2019t address the problem either,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not that people pick her and fail to be effective. Clearly the people who do run her have more success than on most other characters. There\u2019s something about the FEELING of playing her that isn\u2019t attractive, and power doesn\u2019t fix that.\u201d Rework may be one possible solution So, no more Wattson buffs in Season 7, especially as she continues to hit top scores on many of Respawn\u2019s hidden metrics. A rework though? That\u2019s another story. \u201cYour suggestion for a rework is most promising,\u201d Klein admitted, but said there are two issues there; the cost \u2014 \u201creworks are incredibly expensive\u201d \u2014 and two, she already fills an area \u201cvery needed\u201d in competitive play: defensive strengths. \u201cI don\u2019t think she should be 100% or near 100% pick rate in competitive\u2026 ideally we find a rework that makes at least part of her kit exciting in the moment, while not losing her identity as a structure giver,\u201d the Apex developer concluded. There was a glimmer of hope for fans of the French defender, however. Klein admitted he \u201ccould be convinced to buff her\u201d in an effort to \u201cthrow a bone to Wattson mains,\u201d but promised that \u201cwouldn\u2019t change the problems.\u201d For now, Wattson mains should hold tight. There\u2019s a rework in the pipes that may eventually land, and more buffs are possible; it may just take a bit of begging!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Apex Legends dev explains why \u201cuseless\u201d Wattson won\u2019t get more buffs Respawn EntertainmentBad news Wattson fans\u2026 Respawn has no plans to buff the Apex Legends engineer again in Season 7, despite the fact much of the battle royale\u2019s player base believes the Static Defender is \u201cuseless\u201d in her current state. [jwplayer GCL7xjyu] Wattson who has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14524\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}