Apex Legends Season 3 update: All buffs and nerfs for weapons & Legends

The release of Season 3: Meltdown in Apex Legends has introduced some changes and tweaks to both weapons and Legends in the popular battle royale title.

Apex Legends Season 3 has finally launched, meaning that there is now a new Legend, weapon, map, and Battle Pass in the game, among other things.

However, in addition to the massive flurry of new content, developers Respawn Entertainment have also implemented both buffs and nerfs to certain weapons and characters, making them stronger in some regards while also weaker in other aspects. 

You can find all of the details about these changes below, including explanations from the developers themselves giving insight as to why they decided to apply those specific adjustments. 

Season 3 has not only introduced a lot of new content, but major changes as well.

Weapon Changes

Designer Notes: For Season 3 weapon changes, our goals were to encourage and improve longer range gunfights and reduce power on some of the weapons that have been dominating lately. We will of course be closely watching data and player feedback on these during the season.

As far as weapons go, there was a mix of both buffs and nerfs implemented, although a larger number of the changes seemed to be aiming to reduce the effectiveness of certain guns.

The R-99, Longbow DMR, and PDW Prowler have  all been nerfed, the G7 Scout and Mozambique both have only received buffs, while the Hemlok, Mozambique, and L-STAR got a mixture. 

• Read More: Major change made to Legendary Backpacks

The Wingman and Longbow have also seen their base headshot damage multiplier increased because the Skullpiercer Rifling hop-up has now been removed (see hop-up changes below)

• R-99
  • Base mag size reduction
    • Before: 18/22/26/30
    • After: 18/20/23/27
  • Added some recoil randomness to patterns.
• PDW Prowler
  • Added some slight recoil randomness while maintaining the same pattern when fired in full-auto mode.
• Longbow DMR
  • Reduced rate of fire
    • 1.6 -> 1.3
  • Reduced leg damage multiplier
    • 0.9 -> 0.8
• G7 Scout
  • Increased base damage
    • 30 -> 34
• Hemlok
  • Increased base damage
    • 18 -> 22
  • Slight decrease to rate of fire to both fire modes.
• Mozambique
  • Decreased pattern spread
  • Mozambique will now reset from recoil faster, which should make it easier to track targets and see where shots land.
• L-STAR
  • Substantial reduction to horizontal recoil.
  • Now comes equipped with 1x Digital Threat optic.
  • Reduced damage
    • 21 -> 19

The base headshot damage multipliers of the DMR and Wingman have been increased slightly.

• Wingman: Was 2.0 base / 2.25 with Skullpiercer. Is now 2.15 base.
• DMR: Was 2.0 base / 2.5 with Skullpiercer. Is now 2.15 base.

The popular R-99 weapon has been nerfed for Season 3.

Changes to Hop-ups

Designer Notes: We think the number of hop-up types in the game is about as high as we want to go right now when we consider loot dilution and the likelihood of finding a desired hop-up. Going forward, we intend to rotate hop-ups each season — some may be removed from the loot pool to make room for new or returning ones. Below are the changes we’ll be making to hop-ups for Season 3

Hop-ups are an integral aspect of weaponry in Apex Legends, as they allow players to boost up the strength of certain guns using weapon-specific attachments.

The Disruptor Rounds and Skullpierecer Rifling have both been removed, resulting in the Wingman and Longbow’s base headshot damage multipler to be increased (see above)

There have also been two new hop-ups added – Anvil Receiver and Double Tap Trigger:

• NEW HOP-UP: Anvil Receiver
  • Attaches to: Flatline and R-301.
  • Rarity: level 4 (gold).
  • This hop-up empowers semi-auto mode; it offers highly increased damage, but at the cost of reduced rate of fire and double ammo per shot.
• NEW HOP-UP: Double Tap Trigger
  • Attaches to: G7 Scout and EVA-8 Auto.
  • Rarity: level 3 (purple).
  • This hop-up makes each trigger pull fire a quick two round burst.

The removal of the Skullpiercer Rifling has increased the Wingman’s headshot damage multiplier.

New Kitted Gold Weapons

The launch of Season 3 has also refreshed the pool of Gold Weapons, which are guns that come stacked with a full set of attachments, all of tier three rarity.

Here are the fully-kitted weapons for this season, along with the optic that they come equipped with:

• Flatline
  • Includes 1x-2x optics
• EVA-8
  • Includes 1x threat scope
• TripleTake
  • 4x-10x Threat scope
• G7 Scout
  • 2x-4x optics
• Charge Rifle
  • 4x-10x threat scope

The new Charge Rifle is available on the map as a fully-kitted Gold weapon.

Changes to Legends

Six Legends have received some sort of change to at least one of their three abilities, as well as a general change that was implemented for all Legends across the board.

The Executioner Perk, which was previously exclusive to those wearing Gold Armor, will now be available to all Legends, regardless of what tier Armor they have on. 

This means that performing an Execution finishing move on a downed enemy will now grant the player a full shield recharge, even if they’re not wearing Gold Armor. 

Gibraltar

• Dome Shield
  • Players in the Dome Shield use healing items 25% faster.
  • Increased the throw distance by 60%.
  • Increased cooldown.
    • 20 seconds -> 30 seconds.
• Defensive Bombardment
  • Decreased cooldown.
    • 4.5 minutes -> 3 minutes.
  • Decreased duration
    • 8 seconds -> 6 seconds.
  • Increased throw distance by 36%.

Bloodhound

• Eye of the Allfather
  • Reduced the animation time to activate by 33%.
  • Now immediately tells you how many targets have been pinged.
• Beast of the Hunt
  • Fixed an issue with FoV scaling messing up ADS aim sensitivity.
  • Reduced animation time to activate by 30%.
  • Increased movement speed bonus
    • 25% -> 30%

Bangalore

• Rolling Thunder
  • Increased damage
    • 20 -> 40.

Octane

• Adrenaline Junkie
  • Fixed an issue with FoV scaling messing up ADS aim sensitivity.

Wraith

Designer Notes: We’ve pulled back additional nerfs for further testing, but Wraith’s power balance is definitely on our radar.

• Dimensional Rift
  • No longer deploys if you are downed before placing it.

Pathfinder

• Grapple
  • Reduced the grapple projectile velocity by 33%, meaning it takes a fraction of a second longer to connect the grapple to the wall. The behavior once you are connected remains the same.
• Zipline
  • Increased cooldown
    • 90 seconds -> 120 seconds.

Gibraltar was heavily buffed with this Season 3 update.

Remember, all of the tweaks listed above for weapons and Legends are only a fragment of what the entire Season 3 update has to offer.

You can keep track of all the new content using the links below:

• Season 3 Full Patch Notes
• Season 3 Battle Pass – all tiers and rewards
• First look at Crypto gameplay
• All 15 locations revealed for new Season 3 map