Recently revealed stats appear to indicate that the buff given to Lifeline in the Apex Legends Old Ways Lore event has been nigh on pointless – with many fans even calling for a rework.
Despite her popularity in nearly every season of Apex Legends so far, recent nerfs (and buffs to her rivals) have seen Lifeline fall in terms of competitive viability. In order to combat this, Respawn Entertainment gave her something of a buff in the April 7 patch.
This gave her a new Passive Ability, enabling her to gain access to extra healing items through blue bins scattered around the map. While this sounds like a useful new trick, new statistics appear to contradict its relative strength.
The stats were shared by one Apex Legends fan on April 10, and show why the Lifeline buff has barely changed the healing medic’s viability.
In the game’s current build, only 10% of the supply bins in the game are blue. On top of this relatively low percentage, the player suggests that the chance of getting a “useful” item in the supply bins is around 20%.
Combining these two statistics will calculate the overall percentage of finding a useful item in a blue bin. The user’s maths shows this to be 2% – a buff which many feel is insufficient and even pointless.
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It’s fair to say that 2% is a very low probability, but Respawn were probably cautious of making Lifeline too strong.
However, the stats follows some serious discussion in the Apex community about the viability of Lifeline. Some players have even said that they have ditched the medic in favor of buffed legends, like Gibraltar.
Of course, the notion of a “useful” item is fairly subjective depending on the specific situation the player finds themself in.
In an early game situation, blue items may be useful to a player. However, in the late game, when they have done more looting, they may already have purple items.
It remains to be seen how Respawn will respond to the community feedback. There’s every possibility that the buff to Lifeline was supposed to be minimal to prevent her from becoming too strong. We’ll have to wait and see how this one plays out.