Apex Legends Wingman & Peackeeper Nerfed, Hitbox Changes To Come

Speaking in an update on the official subreddit, Respawn developers Apex Legends have confirmed that they have released a patch for weapon balances, namely for the Peackeeper and Wingman.

These two weapons are probably the game’s most popular, but also the most controversial — the Wingman in particular. Featuring barely even a pixel of recoil and a high rate of fire, it has become the apex of the game’s armoury to the point where every squad now has at least two members carrying one. While it’s fun to use because it can drop players in just a couple of shots, it’s not fun to be on the receiving end of. It’s also rather bland to have so many engagements come down to a Wing-off.

This update, which does not require a download, nerfs the Wingman’s rate of fire and makes it less easy to hipfire; you really barely had to aim with the thing. It should now work more like a conventional Deagle. The Peacekeeper, meanwhile, has had a smaller nerf, but both weapons will be less common.

The weapon balances in full:

Wingman
– Rate of fire reduced from 3.1 -> 2.6 shots per second.

– Skullpiercer Headshot damage multiplier reduced from 2.5 -> 2.25

– Increased base hip fire spread and decreased the rate at which hip fire spread decays (shrinks back down).

Peacekeeper
– Shotgun Bolt rechamber rate has been reduced for the Peacekeeper only.
— Level 1 mitigation 10% -> 7.5%
— Level 2 mitigation 20% -> 13%
— Level 3 mitigation 25% -> 16%

– Wingman and Peacekeeper availability has been reduced in all zone tiers.

– Increased availability of energy weapons & ammo in all zone tiers.

Respawn also mentioned that they will be making hitbox changes to make Caustic, Pathfinder, and Gibraltar more viable to coincide with Season 1:

“For character balance, we look at a combination of things: pick rate, win rate, and character v. character matchup win rate among other metrics, and, of course, player feedback. The results between the 5 small and medium rig characters have been positive – they are all in a safe band of relatively equal power. Our large rig characters, however, are underpowered and their natural size appears to be a large contributor. We’re planning on adjusting the size of the large character hitboxes to better fit the model. If these changes are insufficient to bring these characters in line, we’re also considering a range of other changes such as natural damage reduction as well as individual kit power tweaks. Because many of these changes are significant, we want to make sure they are heavily tested before they go live, in the event they are necessary. Below is a quick overview on the roadmap of how we’re thinking about bringing large characters back in line.

“Overall, we want to try to increase the power level of the large rig characters, before we consider large nerfs to everyone else. While we’ve made small adjustments, we’re hopeful that increasing the power of large rigs is healthier than nerfing everyone else.”

No news on the Mozambique or P2020 getting buffed, but Respawn seem to have them terrible by design judging by this comment:

“…our goal is to have a power curve of weapons. “Power curve” just means that some weapons will be weaker and more common, while others will be stronger and rarer. Some weapons are intentionally less powerful until fully purp’d with hopups and attachments, while other weapons on the bottom of the power curve are your early game, better-than-melee, but-gotta-upgrade-out-of-ASAP weapons. We’ve seen some good feedback from players about how to make these pistols more exciting without losing out on the goal above that we’re listening to. We’ll be continuing to watch player data and feedback and trying things out internally but for now, they’ll remain the same.”

No news on when Season 1 will be dropping, apart from “soon”.

MORE APEX LEGENDS:
– Apex Legends Beginner’s Guide: Tips, Pinging, Characters, Hop-ups & More
– Apex Legends: Best And Worst Ultimates
– 10 Apex Legends Tips For High Kill Games