Caustic getting more Apex Legends buffs to make toxic trapper \u201cterrifying\u201d again Respawn EntertainmentRespawn are buffing Caustic in a bid to make the Toxic Trapper \u201cterrifying\u201d again \u2014 the trick though, the Apex Legends devs say, will be to avoid pumping his damage numbers so he doesn\u2019t simply \u201ctake over\u201d the Season 9 meta. The iconic Apex Legends toxin master has had a very bumpy ride in the last few months. First, he was whacked with a \u201cdevastating\u201d bundle of gas nerfs that stripped away his close-range power, and tanked his play rate. Even worse, he then copped the brunt of secret smoke changes shipped in March\u2019s Chaos Theory update. Caustic has certainly been through the Apex Legends ringer in the last few seasons. Unfortunately, the repetitive nerfs and changes have all but removed him from the battle royale\u2019s Season 9 meta. While his 5.1% win rate was barely affected \u2014 a \u201csmall positive, Respawn says \u2014 his pick rate is now teetering ever closer to 2.6%. It\u2019s a huge dip from his lofty 6.6% presence in early Season 8. Luckily, Respawn has the Toxic Trapper in their sights; they\u2019re already \u201cthinking about what to do with him,\u201d and have some early buffs in the chamber. According to lead designer Daniel Z. Klein, who spoke at length about the Apex Legends metagame in a Reddit thread on May 18, Caustic is certainly on the buff list heading into the next Season 9 update, in a bid to save the trapper. Warning bells started ringing for Respawn soon after the defender\u2019s \u201cdevastating\u201d v0.8.1 changes; loud enough that something \u201creally had to be done.\u201d \u201cCaustic\u2019s win\/loss ratio barely changed\u2026 it went from 5.1% to 5.0%,\u201d the Apex Legends designer explained. \u201cHis pick rate, however, dropped a lot. The common explanation is that only Caustic mains stuck around after the nerf. That kind of self-selection undid a lot of the impact of the nerf after that update.\u201d There\u2019s two options now, in Respawn\u2019s eyes. First is simply to boost the Toxic Trapper\u2019s damage again, and let him go wild. This is the \u201clesser\u201d pick, however. Instead, they\u2019d rather have a toy around with Caustic\u2019s \u201cnon-damage outputs,\u201d especially when it comes to how they can tweak his gas gameplay. Klein added: \u201cI want us to spend more time thinking of these possibilities first.\u201d \u201cThe goal,\u201d he continued, \u201cis to make players terrified of your gas again, and try to leave as soon as possible. That\u2019s currently not the case, and we will fix that.\u201d These planned changes mean Caustic joins a host of other Legends in Respawn\u2019s sights for buffs and nerfs in the next few Apex Legends patches. The biggest news is Lifeline will cop more nerfs soon; the healer has been judged \u201ca little too strong\u201d despite losing her shield in Legacy. Rampart is getting a \u201cspicy\u201d boost, while Revenant may well \u201cclimb to the top\u201d of the battle royale\u2019s meta with the changes being tested behind the scenes at the moment. Respawn did, however, knock back calls Wattson for to be buffed. The Apex Legends devs claimed she\u2019s \u201cvery powerful,\u201d and likely won\u2019t be touched.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Caustic getting more Apex Legends buffs to make toxic trapper \u201cterrifying\u201d again Respawn EntertainmentRespawn are buffing Caustic in a bid to make the Toxic Trapper \u201cterrifying\u201d again \u2014 the trick though, the Apex Legends devs say, will be to avoid pumping his damage numbers so he doesn\u2019t simply \u201ctake over\u201d the Season 9 meta. The […]<\/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-17056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17056","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=17056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17056\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}