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Apex Legends’ Crypto was nerfed in the latest update that implemented some important bug fixes. The legend can no longer destroy Wattson’s shield generator which is a very severe nerf considering he was one of the biggest counters to the defensive legend.
Crypto is still able to destroy all of Wattson’s electric fences, which is powerful, and his ultimate continues to deal up to 50 shield damage and stun anyone in range. Respawn Entertainment is yet to reveal why the change was introduced but the community thinks it was due to an exploitable interaction in recent patches.
Why Crypto was nerfed in Apex Legends?
In recent patches, Crypto was able to recharge his shields by placing his drone near Wattson’s shield generator and it even worked through walls. Wattson’s shield generator slowly regenerates shield health when placed down. All nearby players (including enemies) can stay in range and continuously gain shield health until the shield meter on the generator goes to 0.
Shield generators can continue to stay deployed and eat all incoming projectiles, but if you deplete the shield meter, you will no longer regenerate shields. This interaction allowed Crypto players to heal themselves using enemy Wattson shield generators, but this was an unintended interaction. Crypto players could get into their drones and stay in a shield generator’s line of sight to heal their shields.
Crypto’s EMP was also able to destroy shield generators and he was a big counter to Wattson. But with the new nerf, he will destroy only the fences which might not be enough to push into a Wattson team.
Wattson has negligible cooldowns for her fences when she is near a shield generator and if her fences are destroyed, she can just place down more fences before a Crypto team can even get into an area that she is holding.
While Wattson fences do not do a lot of damage, ignoring them when pushing will get you stunned and you will be easily killed if enemies focus you down. Also, being forced to destroy multiple fences means that the focus of your gunfire is being diverted away from your enemies and this can be quite frustrating.
