August 18, 2020 Patch

The **August 18, 2020 Patch** is a major patch.

## New content

* New legend: **Rampart**
* New weapon: the **Volt SMG**
* Several changes to World's Edge
	+ Added Blast Walls players can activate
* New loot  **Crafting** system
	+ Added  Replicators around the map
	+ Added  Materials, a new resource used for crafting
	+ Loot that is in rotation in the crafting system will not spawn as ground loot
* New cosmetic:  **Holo-Sprays**
* New Quest: **The First Ship**, now with full-color comics

## Armor meta

* All  Body Shields are now  Evo Shields.
	+ Players spawn with Level 0 Evo Shields, which have no Shield by default
	+ Level 2 and Level 3  Body Shields are replaced with pre-leveled  Evo Shields. Level 4 Body Shields still exist separately. Level 5 armor is not found in the game world and can only be achieved by evolving.
* Armor HP adjusted:
	+ Level 3: 100 -> 75
	+ Level 4: 100 -> 75
	+ Level 5: 125 -> 100
* Adjusted Evo Shield leveling requirements:
	+ Damage to white: 50
	+ Damage to blue: 125
	+ Damage to purple: 250
	+ Damage to red: 500

## Legends

### Recon class

* Added  Recon passive perk: All  Recon characters (Bloodhound, Crypto, and Pathfinder) can now use  Survey Beacons to get the next ring location.

 Pathfinder
* Passive: Each time Pathfinder scans a survey beacon, the total cooldown of  Zipline Gun is reduced.
	+ Zipline Gun cooldown is reduced by 10 seconds each time Pathfinder scans a beacon.
	+ Up to 6 rings per game means the total cooldown of Zipline Gun can go from 120 seconds to 60 seconds.

 Bloodhound
* Beast of the Hunt: Now gains even more duration when Bloodhound scores a knockdown or kill with the ultimate about to run out.
	+ Beast of the Hunt duration extension is now between 5 and 15 seconds based on the remaining duration.
* Eye of the Allfather: During  Beast of the Hunt, Eye of the Allfather now comes out twice as fast and has a much shorter cooldown.
	+ Cooldown during Beast of the Hunt is now 6 seconds rather than the usual 25.
	+ Total use time during Beast of the Hunt is now 0.9 seconds rather than the usual 1.8.

 Crypto
* Surveillance Drone:
	+ Crypto can now activate  Respawn Beacons and  Survey Beacons from his drone. Doing so is instant instead of requiring prolonged use.
	+ Made the surveillance drone slightly more consistent to hit but also doubled its hitpoints.
		- Health increased from 30 to 60.
		- Hitbox size increased: cube of edge length 16 → cube of edge length 24
* Drone EMP: Now slows teammates.

 Revenant
* Death Totem: For 2 seconds after being recalled by the totem, players cannot use Wraith’s  Dimensional Rift.

 Octane
* Stim: Can now use it while healing, but not removing the slow you incur from healing.

 Loba
* Black Market Boutique: Decreased cooldown from 3 minutes to 90 seconds.

 Gibraltar
* Defensive Bombardment: Increased cooldown from 3 minutes to 4.5 minutes.

 Bangalore
* Rolling Thunder: Decreased cooldown from 4.5 minutes to 3 minutes.

 Wraith
* Dimensional Rift: Increased cooldown from 2.5 minutes to 3.5 minutes.

 Wattson
* Interception Pylon: Now shoots down Caustic barrels in flight if they would have landed inside the range.

## Weapons

Fully Kitted Weapons rotated for  Season 6
* Devotion LMG
* Mastiff Shotgun
* Triple Take
* VK-47 Flatline
* Volt SMG

 R-99 SMG
* Removed from normal loot pool and is now a Care Package weapon.
	+ Comes pre-equipped with 160 backup ammo, a  1x Digital Threat scope, and a level 4  Barrel Stabilizer.
* Damage increased from 11 to 12.
* Increased magazine size from 20 to 32.

 Devotion LMG
* Removed from Care Package and is now ground loot.
* Clip size reduced back to original values (36 / 40 / 44 / 48).

 Hemlok Burst AR
* Reduced vertical recoil in burst mode.
* Slightly reduced recoil in the pattern on the second and third shot so the first burst kicks less.
* Reduced burst delay from 0.32 to 0.28 seconds.

 Charge Rifle
* Now uses 2 ammo per shot.
* Increased mag size from 4 to 8.

 Triple Take
* Increased fire rate from 1.25 to 1.4.
* Increased mag size from (5 / 6 / 7 / 8) to (6 / 7 / 8 / 9).
* Built the  Precision Choke into the weapon by default. Toggle select-fire to enable/disable the Choke.

 Peacekeeper
* Built the  Precision Choke into the weapon by default. Toggle select-fire to enable/disable the Choke.

 M600 Spitfire
* Improved recoil controllability.

 HAVOC Rifle
* Updated recoil pattern.
* Mag size is now 24 / 28 / 32 / 36 rather than a flat 28.

 Mozambique Shotgun
* Increased clip size from 3 to 4.

 P2020
* Increased damage from 13 to 15.
* Decreased  Hammerpoint damage multiplier from 2.7 to 2.35.
* Increased mag size from 10 / 13 / 15 / 18 to 12 / 14 / 16 / 18.

 Sentinel
* Only requires one  Shield Cell to charge if you have  Gold Armor equipped.

 Prowler Burst PDW
* Slightly reduced vertical recoil in burst mode.
* Increased horizontal recoil in auto mode.

## Loot

* Re-added:
	+ Extended Energy Mags
	+ Turbocharger hop-up
* Updated:
	+ Precision Choke - Removed from loot pool, but it will now be integrated into the Triple Take and Peacekeeper by default. Fire select toggles on/off the choke.
* Sniper Ammo:
	+ Increased pickup from 8 to 12.
	+ Increased stack size from 16 to 24.
* Energy Ammo:
	+ Reduced pickup from 30 to 20.

## Quality of life

* Supply Drop Weapons are now Heirloom Tier to avoid confusion with fully kitted guns which will remain gold.
* World's Edge received performance improvements, especially around The Tree, The Dome and Skyhook, looking towards the center of the map.
* Alterations were made to The Ring to prevent late zones from centering on unplayable terrain and reduce the predictability of the zone’s “pull.”

## Bug fixes

 Bangalore
* Fixed an issue with the La Catrina and Killing Machine skins obscuring views when ADS with the  1x Holo,  2x HCOG "Bruiser",  2x-4x Variable AOG or  3x HCOG "Ranger" scopes.
* Fixed an exploit with being able to see through the smoke when looking through a chain-link fence.

 Bloodhound
* Fixed an issue with Bloodhound being able to get an additional Ult when using a Wraith ultimate.

 Caustic
* Fixed an issue with gas traps clipping into  Mobile Respawn Beacons.
* Fixed an issue with Revenant and Pathfinder taking less damage from his gas.

 Crypto
* Fixed an issue with VFX showing false positive when hitting his  Surveillance Drone.
* Fixed an issue with Crypto being able to use his drone while using Loba's  Black Market Boutique.
* Fixed an issue with  Drone EMP not destroying Loba's  Black Market Boutique.
* Did a geo pass to help prevent Crypto's drone from clipping into walls.

 Gibraltar
* Defensive Bombardment: Fixed an issue with the airstrike markers sometimes appearing inside buildings.

 Loba
* Fixed an issue with Loba's  Black Market Boutique not being pingable.
* Fixed an issue with enemies getting teleported with Loba when they melee her when she teleports.

 Mirage
* Fixed an issue with decoys flying rapidly across the ground when the player takes control of it before a jump tower or geyser.
* Fixed an issue with decoys not looking natural when the player uses a zipline.
* Fixed an issue with decoys getting launched into air while the player enters Wraith’s  Dimensional Rift.
* Fixed bug where his decoys would sometimes not deploy while skydiving.

 Octane
* Launch Pad: Fixed an issue with it disappearing when placed on ordinances and under Loot Ticks.

 Pathfinder
* Hi Friend!

 Revenant
* Fixed an issue with enemies getting teleported with Revenant when they melee him before he teleports back to the  Death Totem.

 Wraith
* Dimensional Rift:
	+ Fixed an issue with Wraith portals pushing players beneath geo when a death box is on the other end.
	+ Fixed an issue for when a  Death Totem and portal are too close to each other causing players to auto-enter a portal upon death totem recall.
* Into the Void: Fixed an issue with Wraith losing velocity when pressing the fire button while it is active.

General
* Fixed an issue with  Evo Armor doubling the effect of leveling up. This caused some brightness on the screen.
* Fixed an issue with the train killing players when coming out of a Wraith portal on the train.
* Fixed an issue with some vertical ziplines not correctly placing players once they get off.
* Fixed an issue with spectator view pinging last pings when swapping through views (Private Match Issue).
* Fixed an issue for the knockdown state not eliminating the squad when no one had a gold shield.
* Fixed an issue where Death Protection runs out with an active  D.O.C. Heal Drone nearby, D.O.C. would not start healing you.

## Undocumented changes

* Crouch-spamming or killing an enemy will now bring up a “Quip/Throw Holo” option, bound by default to the `F1`// button.
* Reckoner,  The Iron Rampage, and  The Golden Rampage now have dynamic light effects applied on the skins.
* Turned off the charged VFX for the HAVOC Rifle and Sentinel when viewing the weapons tab.
* Added a new Announcer voice-over when a Replicator is dropping into the map.
* Added new voice lines for Bangalore.
* Updated the  Reckoner Longbow DMR skin, slowing down the dynamic effect.

## Developer notes

1. ↑ This patch, we're taking a look at the recon class. A class built around information gathering should be powerful in a BR where knowing where the enemy is is often the difference between life and death, but out of the three Legends in the recon class (Pathfinder, Crypto, and Bloodhound), one dominates in terms of in-game performance. (It’s the robot. The robot dominates.) In this patch, we’re mostly buffing Bloodhound as they needed the help the most. Crypto’s changes are a mixed bag as we also found one bug we had to fix that was giving Crypto a hidden advantage (TLDR: sometimes when you thought you were hitting the drone, you weren’t really hitting the drone). Between the buffs to Bloodhound's ult and the new utility Crypto gains on his drone, we hope to see a more diverse field of recon legends in-game.
2. ↑ Giving all Recon legends access to survey beacons makes Pathfinder less unique, and obviously we don’t love that. For now, we’re giving our friendly robot a small buff to his ultimate cooldown when he uses a survey beacon, but in the future, we will take another look at Pathfinder to see what else we could do to make him feel more unique.
3. ↑ Bloodhound fulfills a very clear role in Apex Legends: they’re the information gatherer and tracker, but currently their performance leaves a lot to be desired. In this patch, we wanted to double down on their ultimate being their big moment of becoming a god-like tracker. Bloodhound already gives up some information to the enemy when they scan or use the ultimate (it makes a noticeable sound), so we think there is room for a lot more power during the ultimate.
4. ↑ Crypto is a particularly interesting recon character: the amount of information he can gather for his team with the drone is very high, but the fact that he has to switch over to his drone leaves him vulnerable and often at a great distance from his team. Because he has no abilities without his drone, we figure there’s room for even more power when he’s in his drone.
5. ↑  EMP will now slow teammates caught in the blast, even if they had no shields. This means that players who have used Revenant’s  Death Totem will also be slowed.
6. ↑ We’re happy to see that dropping the range restriction on Death Totem brought a lot more Revenants into play, but we’ve been watching a particularly frustrating combo play out in professional-level play involving a squad of Revenant, Wraith, and Crypto, where using the three ultimates together resulted in two back to back runs at the enemy team that they could do very little about. We’ve attacked part of that in the Crypto EMP change, but here’s the other part aimed at making this play less overwhelming.
7. ↑ While Loba was initially very popular, she’s been struggling to keep up more recently, so we’re tossing her a little buff. If you’re curious why we’ve chosen to buff her ultimate, rather than her tactical, we’re seeing that she has decent combat success but that teams with her on them don’t win as much as, say, teams with Lifeline or Wattson. This suggests to us that her out-of-combat utility (that is to say, how she funnels loot to her team) isn’t doing enough.
8. ↑ The Havoc's existing recoil pattern had constant horizontal movement. This means it would either be too difficult to control if there was too much recoil or far too easy to control if there was too little recoil. Updating to a new pattern that is more consistent in style with existing recoil patterns.
9. ↑ This will leave Hammerpoint P2020 damage unchanged in most scenarios.