Pathfinder gets a big nerf in the Apex Legends season five patch
But Mirage finally gets a full rework.
Depending on whether you're a Mirage or Pathfinder main, this is either the best or worst day of your Apex Legends career, as the season five patch has brought a raft of changes to the game's meta.
Aside from the addition of new legend Loba, the big news from Respawn's patch notes is that Pathfinder - normally considered one of the most powerful legends due to his mobility - has had his wings clipped. Quite severely, in fact, as his tactical grapple now has a cooldown of 35 seconds instead of 15. "Given the power of quick repositioning in Apex, being able to use Pathfinder's grappling hook multiple times in a fight is both too powerful and muddies combat legibility," a designer explained in the patch notes. This means Pathfinder mains are going to have to choose their moment wisely, as missing a grapple mid-battle can now be rather lethal.
Meanwhile, professional bamboozler Mirage (who has often been regarded as underpowered by the Apex community) has finally been given a complete makeover, with new abilities and serious improvements to his existing skills. His tactical ability psyche out, which pops out a decoy, now allows Mirage to control it by having it mimic his movements, and he can now release another decoy which simultaneously removes the previous one. Oh, and the decoys now last for 60 seconds.
Mirage's previous ultimate, vanishing act, has been replaced by an ability called life of the party, which releases a team of decoys to mimic his movements. His previous passive has been given a new twist, allowing him to cloak not only when knocked down, but also when using a respawn beacon and reviving a teammate, with the cloak extending to the teammate.
And, finally, to let players know when they've achieved a successful bamboozle, Mirage's "you got bamboozled" line will now occur when another player shoots a decoy. Now that's far more satisfying.
The patch also brings a number of quality of life changes, conditional legend chatter to make dialogue more convincing between characters (meaning Loba isn't going to thank Revenant anytime soon), and a reconnect option to allow players who quite unexpectedly to rejoin a match. If you crash out, all you'll need to do is restart the game and enter the lobby, then Apex will automatically reconnect you. But be warned, as the player character will remain AFK in the game world while the player is disconnected, meaning they can still be knocked out or killed during that time. It's like a little extra gameplay challenge involving the help of Task Manager.
There's plenty more to read about in the full patch notes, such as which weapons are being cycled out of regular drops and into care packages (goodbye Peackeeper, hello Mastiff). And, if you're wondering what on earth all this treasure-hunting is about, you can check out our guide for that here.