Apex Legends Season 17: Ballistic Abilities and All Patch Notes Explained
Apex Legends Season 17, codenamed Arsenal, is poised to shake up the competitive landscape with its innovative features. This season introduces a brand-new Legend, significant map alterations to World’s Edge, a revamped Firing Range, Weapon Mastery, and a complete overhaul of the Ranked System.
New Legend: Ballistic
Ballistic, the new Assault Legend, offers unique advantages. His passive ability, Sling, allows him to carry a third weapon without attachments in his inventory. This adds considerable versatility in combat.
- Tactical: Whistler – This tactical ability launches a smart projectile that targets an enemy, inflicting a weapon overheat debuff. The debuff visualizes the remaining shots the enemy can fire before overheating, creating a compelling tactical element. Whistler can be held to lock-on, and if missed, it will remain on the ground, inflicting damage on enemies that step onto it. The tactical deals 20 damage on a direct hit and an additional 30 damage if the enemy overheats.
- Ultimate: Tempest – This ultimate creates an area-of-effect buff, granting teammates unlimited ammo, faster movement, and quicker reloads. Critically, Ballistic’s third weapon (without attachments) transforms into a fully-equipped, high-powered version for the duration of Tempest. Kill assists during the buff extend the ultimate’s duration for all allies.
Weapon Mastery
Weapon Mastery introduces a new method to engage with weapons in Apex Legends. Players can now level up their weapons and earn rewards. Similar to weapon camo challenges in other titles, players can level their weapons to earn unique trackers, banner frames, and even Legendary skins.
- All weapons start at level one.
- Weapons are leveled through gameplay and leveling persists across seasons.
- Every 20 levels, a weapon trial unlocks, offering a reward.
- Leveling to 100 grants a Legendary weapon skin.
World’s Edge Rework
World’s Edge undergoes a substantial transformation. Key points of interest, like Fragment East and West, are revamped with the addition of the Monument – a new museum-like POI. The map also sees the relocation of the Warehouse POI and adjustments to lava areas, creating new pathways and loot opportunities. Skyhook gets a new vault, and the Trial POI has been redesigned. Furthermore, the map rotation remains unchanged.
Firing Range Improvements
The Firing Range has been completely overhauled. Now a full-fledged map with multiple structures, it features a dueling pit for 1v1s, an agility course, and various practice areas. The layout for grabbing loot and targeting dummies have been improved. Dynamic stats are now available for tracking progress during practice sessions.
New Ranked System
Ranked matchmaking has been enhanced. Ten placement matches are now required to determine your starting rank. Placement is determined using a hidden MMR system rather than relying on wins or losses. Ranked points are now called Ladder Points, with no more splits within a season. The cost to enter ranked matches is a flat 35 LP, and Kill Points remain the same.
Season 17 promises a fresh start for Apex Legends, incorporating new gameplay mechanics and innovative features while enhancing the core experience of the game. This new season is sure to keep fans engaged through exciting gameplay updates, new challenges and further development of the existing gaming community.
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