Apex Legends season 12 Defiance is here and, as usual, there’s a lot to cover. If you’re interested in how the new limited-time mode Control plays I have a whole other article on that that you can check out. But let’s cover the new Legend Mad Maggie and all the map and gun changes coming to Season 12.
To start, Apex is having its third anniversary and there’ll be free rewards for every player logging on during the first three weeks of Season 12. All you have to do is log in during February 8th and March 1st to unlock your rewards. With the three year anniversary, Season 12 will feature map rotations of Olympus, Storm Point, and Kings Canyon for the Casual playlist and will have Olympus for Split 1 of Ranked and Kings Canyon for Split 2.
With these rotations, there have been some massive changes to Olympus and smaller adjustments to Storm Point to help balance the maps. Olympus’ Phase Runner was hacked and the city almost crashed into the planet below after the city was phased to a new location. Olympus is a bit bigger than before and some new POIs have been added offering better rotation and loot pool options. There’s now a Phase Driver in the spot between Bonsai and Hydroponics which offers more options for rotations out of the Southern areas. The Phase Driver can be interacted with and when it’s activated, 3 loot rollers will phase in and at least one Gold-Tier ball is guaranteed each activation. This can be activated again but only after a 45 second cooldown. But each time you boot up the Phase Driver, it’ll emit a loud noise and alert teams to your location.
There’s also a new POI Terminal that is an opening in the Phase Runner tube that powers the new Phase Driver. This POI has 5 new entry points and offers more rotation points between Hammond Labs and Bonsai Plaza. After the Phase, Olympus has had several POIs shift positions so it revives some of the areas that were annoying to pass through or loot in.
Stormpoint has had some adjustments mostly with wildlife. Prowler damage going from 30 to 20 and Prowler nest completions now grant you 150 crafting metals instead of 90. Prowler Den spawns are now disabled when there are two teams inside of the same nest except for the Prowler Den POI. Wandering Prowlers are now down to 2 instead of 3 as well.
But enough map talk. Let’s go over the new Legend, Mad Maggie. Maggie isn’t really new to Apex. We saw her before with the limited time modes in the War Games event in Season 8. She was the conductor of those events but is now back after being presumed dead after an explosion on Kings Canyon. She faced a trial and is now sentenced to death by the Apex Games.
Here’s how Maggie’s Kit works:
Maggie is definitely built for aggressive players, like me, and will change late game fights to drive rats and campers out of position.
This season there isn’t a new gun being introduced but there are some changes implemented to the weapons. Two weapons will be going into the crafting stations: The Flatline and Longbow DMR. They’re available for 30 materials and cannot be found on the ground loot pool and when crafted, they come with no attachments and two boxes of ammo. Some notable weapon changes are that the Alternator has been taken out of care packages and onto ground loot and the Volt is in its place in drop weapons with slightly more damage. The Triple Take and Flatline damage has been slightly nerfed by a few points of damage. Most notable, the Rampage has also gotten a decent nerf after it ran the meta last season. The damage was reduced from 28 to 26 and the number of shots you can take during the Revved state went from 40 to 34.
For Hop Ups, there have been a few changes. There’s a new Hop Up, the Kinetic Feeder that can only be attached to the Triple Take and Peacekeeper. Sliding with this attachment on those guns significantly speeds up choke time and automatically reloads rounds. Hammerpoint Rounds are back but now are equippable on the P2020, Mozambique, and the RE-45. On the P2020 it does the most unshielded bonus damage at 50% and on the Mozambique and RE-45 it does 35%. Shatter Caps are still only on the 30-30 Repeater and Bocek but now the actual Shatter shots will only happen when firing from your hip for both weapons.
And last but not least, there are two Legend changes that don’t completely alter the game but do help improve it. Crypto finally got a buff and his drone can be thrown out without immediately going into camera view and the HUD in drone view now shows the health of the Drone and includes information with the state of the game like the minimap, killfeed, team status, and ping information.
Caustic’s gas traps have been altered slightly so they can now be destroyed after being deployed and activated. Each barrel has 150 HP and the activated traps will now stop at 11 seconds instead of 12.5.
Have you played Maggie yet? How do you feel about the new LTM Control? Let us know! For more Apex Legends news updates be sure to keep it here at IGN.
Continue reading...
To start, Apex is having its third anniversary and there’ll be free rewards for every player logging on during the first three weeks of Season 12. All you have to do is log in during February 8th and March 1st to unlock your rewards. With the three year anniversary, Season 12 will feature map rotations of Olympus, Storm Point, and Kings Canyon for the Casual playlist and will have Olympus for Split 1 of Ranked and Kings Canyon for Split 2.
Olympus/Stormpoint Map Changes
With these rotations, there have been some massive changes to Olympus and smaller adjustments to Storm Point to help balance the maps. Olympus’ Phase Runner was hacked and the city almost crashed into the planet below after the city was phased to a new location. Olympus is a bit bigger than before and some new POIs have been added offering better rotation and loot pool options. There’s now a Phase Driver in the spot between Bonsai and Hydroponics which offers more options for rotations out of the Southern areas. The Phase Driver can be interacted with and when it’s activated, 3 loot rollers will phase in and at least one Gold-Tier ball is guaranteed each activation. This can be activated again but only after a 45 second cooldown. But each time you boot up the Phase Driver, it’ll emit a loud noise and alert teams to your location.
There’s also a new POI Terminal that is an opening in the Phase Runner tube that powers the new Phase Driver. This POI has 5 new entry points and offers more rotation points between Hammond Labs and Bonsai Plaza. After the Phase, Olympus has had several POIs shift positions so it revives some of the areas that were annoying to pass through or loot in.
Stormpoint has had some adjustments mostly with wildlife. Prowler damage going from 30 to 20 and Prowler nest completions now grant you 150 crafting metals instead of 90. Prowler Den spawns are now disabled when there are two teams inside of the same nest except for the Prowler Den POI. Wandering Prowlers are now down to 2 instead of 3 as well.
Introducing Mad Maggie
But enough map talk. Let’s go over the new Legend, Mad Maggie. Maggie isn’t really new to Apex. We saw her before with the limited time modes in the War Games event in Season 8. She was the conductor of those events but is now back after being presumed dead after an explosion on Kings Canyon. She faced a trial and is now sentenced to death by the Apex Games.
Here’s how Maggie’s Kit works:
- Passive: Warlord’s Ire. This lets her highlight enemies she’s damaged and she gets faster movement speed when holding shotguns (think like Bangalore’s passive speed).
- Tactical: Riot Drill. Maggie fires a drill that can hit through walls or obstacles. You can’t attach this to anyone, if you try it’ll just bounce off and hit the ground.
- Ultimate: Wrecking Ball. Maggie throws a ball that bounces and drops speed-boosting pads where it lands and will knock enemies back and give them a slight stun (again think Bangalore’s ultimate effect with the blurred vision, slow, and recovery time).
Maggie is definitely built for aggressive players, like me, and will change late game fights to drive rats and campers out of position.
Weapon Changes
This season there isn’t a new gun being introduced but there are some changes implemented to the weapons. Two weapons will be going into the crafting stations: The Flatline and Longbow DMR. They’re available for 30 materials and cannot be found on the ground loot pool and when crafted, they come with no attachments and two boxes of ammo. Some notable weapon changes are that the Alternator has been taken out of care packages and onto ground loot and the Volt is in its place in drop weapons with slightly more damage. The Triple Take and Flatline damage has been slightly nerfed by a few points of damage. Most notable, the Rampage has also gotten a decent nerf after it ran the meta last season. The damage was reduced from 28 to 26 and the number of shots you can take during the Revved state went from 40 to 34.
For Hop Ups, there have been a few changes. There’s a new Hop Up, the Kinetic Feeder that can only be attached to the Triple Take and Peacekeeper. Sliding with this attachment on those guns significantly speeds up choke time and automatically reloads rounds. Hammerpoint Rounds are back but now are equippable on the P2020, Mozambique, and the RE-45. On the P2020 it does the most unshielded bonus damage at 50% and on the Mozambique and RE-45 it does 35%. Shatter Caps are still only on the 30-30 Repeater and Bocek but now the actual Shatter shots will only happen when firing from your hip for both weapons.
Legend Changes
And last but not least, there are two Legend changes that don’t completely alter the game but do help improve it. Crypto finally got a buff and his drone can be thrown out without immediately going into camera view and the HUD in drone view now shows the health of the Drone and includes information with the state of the game like the minimap, killfeed, team status, and ping information.
Caustic’s gas traps have been altered slightly so they can now be destroyed after being deployed and activated. Each barrel has 150 HP and the activated traps will now stop at 11 seconds instead of 12.5.
Have you played Maggie yet? How do you feel about the new LTM Control? Let us know! For more Apex Legends news updates be sure to keep it here at IGN.
Continue reading...
