Caustic had to be nerfed last season to diminish the effects of his toxic gas traps and grenades, a decision which developer Respawn Entertainment will be reconsidering in the ongoing season of Apex Legends.
Taking to Reddit earlier today, lead game designer Daniel Klein confirmed that Caustic will receive some buffs in one of the coming updates. The buffs however will most likely be related to his “non-damage outputs” and as such, players should not expect any damage buffs to his toxic gas traps and grenades.
Klein noted that since Caustic received his nerfs last season, his win/loss ratio has barely changed. His pick-rate however has dropped a lot in Apex Legends which means that only Caustic mains have stuck around. Hence, Respawn Entertainment wants to address that in the going ninth season.
“We could just up the damage again, maybe find an in-between point where he is okay, but I want us to spend some time thinking of non-damage outputs we could use on the gas,” reasoned Klein. “The goal is that people should be terrified of your gas and try to leave ASAP.”
Respawn Entertainment will be returning to its drawing board to come up with a good enough buff for Caustic which retains his currently balanced win/loss ratio while making him a popular pick among newcomers at the same time.
The developer hence is refraining from citing any release date. The only thing confirmed for now is that Caustic will be buffed (in whatever way) during the Legacy ninth season which began earlier in the month and will be concluding in early August 2021.
In the meanwhile, players can continue trying out the new Valkyrie character who specializes in flight and is able to mark enemies for a barrage of missiles.
Apex Legends is now available on PC, Nintendo Switch, and both previous- and current-generation consoles. The latter being through the backwards compatibility of PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X (Series S included) consoles. The game has surpassed a 100 million players worldwide at the time of writing.
