Apex Legends Community Survey Reveals Which Legends Need Buffs and Nerfs
Apex Legends is but one of the many community-driven games where the complaints, praise and criticism from the players can cause change. Developer Respawn Entertainment is one of the few companies that are willing to listen to its players and enact change because of it.
However, that doesn’t stop some issues from falling through the cracks when it comes to the battle royale game. One issue always shifting and changing throughout the seasons is the balancing of the legends. Each legend has different abilities and utility, making it hard to keep things fair.
The developer implemented many balancing changes, nerfs and buffs for some of the heroes. But even still, not everything is perfect at this time, which has led the community to figure out who needs fixes in the current metagame.
Apex Legends Community Survey Reveals Who Needs a Nerf or Buff
Reddit user DYSPROssium reached out to fellow players and created a detailed Apex Legends community survey. The survey polled various players to see what the community feels about the current state of all the legends.
The Apex Legends community survey, conducted across three main areas: the official sub-Reddit for the battle royale game, the official competitive sub-Reddit page and the EA Answers forum for the game, is known as the buff or nerf or neither poll.
A total of 1,936 completed surveys contributed to the results given on Reddit. Seven troll submissions in the survey were eliminated from the results.
It gives us the latest data on what the community thinks of all the legends currently in the middle of Season 3. The Reddit user acknowledges this survey will not likely be used solely to determine the future of balancing in the game.
It will take data from the game and feedback to determine what changes will be given to each of the characters in the game. The results are exciting and give a pretty good idea of where the metagame is right now and where it needs work.
How it works is that each legend has its own graph in the Apex Legends community survey where you can see what each of the community members think of them. Players had the option to select if the legend is good just as they are now, if they need a buff, or if they need a nerf.
For the most part, many of the surveyed players attributed to each hero with only a handful choosing to provide no comment on certain ones. The legends with the highest number of no comments are Crypto and Wattson, with around 214 and 155 players with no opinions on them, respectively.
Which Characters Need Nerfs, Buffs or Neither
Starting with Bangalore and going in alphabetical order, we have one of the most positive characters in the whole Apex Legends community survey. A whopping 83% said that she is just fine as she is currently.
Only 1% said Bangalore needed a nerf while 16% said she needed a buff. This shows that the offensive legend is rather great. However, the same cannot be said for Bloodhound.
Bloodhound ended up with a similar percentage as Bangalore at 82%, but this was in favor of giving Bloodhound a buff because they are too weak now. On the other hand, Caustic is a more positive legend who had a significant 67% say that he is fine as he is.
At the same time, a fourth said Caustic needs a buff, so there is a chance that the hero isn’t perfect just yet. As for the most recently released legend Crypto, it is the opposite situation compared to Caustic.
Around 68% said Crypto is too weak and needs a buff while 30% said he is fine. Next up is Gibraltar, where a solid 68% think that the defensive legend is just fine as he is. A significant chunk of 30% believes that he is too powerful and needs a nerf.
Lifeline is one of the most positive legends for the community, as 85% say that she is fine. The same can’t be said for Mirage as 91% say Mirage needs a buff.
Not a single player surveyed said that he needs a nerf. Only nine percent of them said he was fine as is. If this wasn’t clear enough that Mirage needs some help in the metagame, we don’t know what is. For Octane, though, the community seems to be more split.
Just over half think that the fast-paced legend is fine as is at 53% while 46% think that he is need of a buff. With the community so split on Octane, it is telling that there might be need for a minor buff that perhaps isn’t as dramatic as some of the others like Mirage.
That same general split is also the case for Pathfinder but in a much different way with 56% saying that Pathfinder is fine. However, 41% think that the sarcastic robot is too powerful and needs a little nerf.
For our second most recently released legend, Wattson, the community is fairly split on her as well with 54% saying that he is fine. However, 43% think she is a little weak and needs a slight buff.
Finally, we come to Wraith, one of the most popular legends in the game. Roughly 60% say she is excellent. But at the same time, 35% want to see her nerfed a bit in the metagame.
Players Selected Nerf or Buff for Legends
The survey doesn’t end with those basic numbers of who wants nerfs, buffs or neither. The community survey was smart enough to dig even deeper and find out, specifically, is the cause of the players’ concerns. Players were asked to give specific reasons for why they selected what they picked.
Players who selected buffs were given six possible reasons while players who selected that a character should get a nerf for being too powerful were given five reasons.
The six reasons a legend should get a buff included a bad passive ability, bad tactical ability, bad ultimate ability, negative effect on the team or just bad team abilities, being difficult to play for players or a bad hitbox.
As for the five reasons for why a character needs a nerf, they could pick that they have too strong of a passive ability, too strong of a tactical ability, too strong of an ultimate ability, positive effect on teams or very good team abilities, or they have too good of a hitbox.
Why Players Think These Legends Need Nerfs or Buffs
Since Bangalore was generally regarded as being just fine, we are going skip to why a vast majority of players think Bloodhound needs a buff. More than 60% said because of bad tactical ability. There is an even split between those saying bad passive, bad ultimate and that they aren’t too great for teams. Crypto is another character in dire need of a buff.
As with Bloodhound, Crypto has an even more evenly split result between the reasons why this buff is needed. A bad tactical ability leads the charge compared to the other reasons, but bad passive, bad ultimate, and negative effect on the team aren’t too far behind it.
There is a significant portion of players who believe he is too difficult to play. Gibraltar was mostly positive with players saying that he doesn’t need anything, but there were a fair bit who think the support character needs a nerf. As for the reason why, 78% said he needed a nerf because his passive ability is too powerful. The other reasons trail far behind this one, making it clear that this could be an issue.
The passive ability that Gibraltar has is called Gun Shield. It creates a gun shield that blocks incoming fire when the hero is aiming down the sights. This protects a good portion of the hero but also leaves him vulnerable at the same time.
Next up is Mirage with the greatest number of people for any legend said that he deserves a buff because of lack of quality abilities. All three abilities of bad passive, bad tactical and bad ultimate lead the pack with even numbers across the board. It tells us that players are generally disappointed with the abilities that the disappearing hero has available to him.
Octane was divided. It was a fair split between those saying that he is good as is and those who think he needs a buff. As such, it is no surprise that there is a fair split between the reasons why players think that he needs a buff as well.
Pathfinder is another split character, but this time between those who think he is fine and those who say he needs a nerf. For the reason why players believe he needs a nerf, users claim that it is mostly because of his powerful tactical ability.
The tactical ability allows Pathfinder to launch a grappling hook that can be used both offensively and defensively. It is a versatile ability that is solid for this maneuvering character. Trailing behind this reason is that he has a bad hitbox, something that has remained a common sentiment in the community since the game’s launch.
As for Wattson, there is even split between the reasons why players think she needs a buff. The three ability reasons are all about the same, making it clear that players think she has some weak abilities currently.
A lot of players also cite that she is difficult to play, and her hitbox is rather weak, making it clear that there are a lot of problems in need of fixing for her. Finally, we have the reasons why players think that Wraith needs a nerf.
What is interesting about Wraith is that the community selected two main reasons. The leading one is that she has too good of a hitbox and she is too strong of a tactical ability. Both are interesting picks that could go together.
The Wraith tactical ability turns her almost completely invisible and makes her invulnerable to all damage for a few seconds. This would, of course, be included in her hitbox, which would make it harder to hit her since she would be invincible during that time. For now, we will have to wait and see how/if Respawn responds to this community survey.
Comments