Cover-Credits:
Apex Legends Season 17, Arsenal, brings new gun-toting Legend Ballistic, significant changes to the Ranked system and a new and improved Firing Range to the game. World’s Edge is also getting an update and is back in the map pool for the season. Apex Legends Season 17 has gotten fans pretty excited with the number of quality of life changes added to the game which includes weapon mastery, a new survival item and ping system updates. Apex Legends Season 17, Arsenal, goes live on 9th May at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm BST / 10:30pm IST and 10th May at 1:00am SGT. Here is all you need to know about the Apex Legends Season 17 Arsenal Patch Notes.
Apex Legends Season 17’s new legend Ballistic
The new season adds Sir August Brinkman a.k.a. Ballistic to the legend roster. Forged in the brutal Thunderdome Games, preceding the Apex Games, Ballistic was a force to be reckoned with before a tragedy made him withdraw from the games for decades. Now he fights in the games in place of his son Nate. Ballistic comes with the following abilities:
Passive: Sling
Store a third weapon in the sling. Access via inventory or Character Utility Action Button. The sling weapon cannot take attachments.
Tactical: Whistler
Shoots a projectile that heats up an enemy's gun as they shoot. Overheating causes damage. Hold the Tactical to lock-on.
Ultimate: Tempest
Nearby teammates get faster reloads, faster-armed move speed, and Infinite Ammo. The sling weapon will be upgraded to gold.
New Survival Slot Item: Evac Tower
The Evac Tower is a new loot item coming to the game. This portable Jump Tower can help you escape a tight spot or rotate quicker across the map. However, it can be shot down by enemy squads.
New World’s Edge
The World’s Edge map is returning to the map pool after it was replaced by Olympus in Ranked Split 2. Respawn has overhauled the map, changing up points of interest like Fragment and Construction Stack, along with changes to Harvester and the return of the popular Mirage Voyage (now called Mirage à trois).
Fragment has been ‘reconstructed’ into Monument with a lot more open space compared to the old, boxy buildings.
Gone are the toppled over buildings and surrounding carnage. They have now been replaced by a giant museum to the Apex Games and there is a lot less lava. The Monument will provide players access to a bunker with some great loot and a sniper’s nest.
The Construction stack is now just called Stack and adds a variation of the infamous streamer building to the area next to Rampart's Big Maude. The update also makes changes to Harvester, raising the lava level in the building’s central tube and adding a zipline across Harvester’s circular arena. There is also a new vault added along with a new Skyhook which will have a higher Vault key drop frequency.
Weapon Mastery
Apex Legends previously only had the level system to denote your overall progress across seasons, but now a new long-term progression system has been added for weapons. The Weapon mastery system will have players start at level 1 with every weapon. Players can earn Weapon XP every time they use weapons in the game.
Respawn Entertainment
Every 20 levels, a weapon specific trial can be undertaken to test your skill with that weapon, with rewards for completion. Getting your weapon to level 100 and finishing all five trials to fully “master” that weapon will earn you final rewards. Rewards include weapon-specific badges, performance trackers, Legendary weapon mastery banner frames, and a guaranteed Legendary skin for each weapon.
Apex Legends Season 17 quality of life changes
The Firing Range has been completely redesigned to include a wide variety of configurations to allow players to practice fighting in a simulated combat experience. This includes customizable dummies, improved targets, and improved dynamic stats.
Apex Legends has also added an updated ping system with three new pings:
Avoid Area
Enemy Audio
Regroup
Respawn is also improving overall pinging with in-game objects that have map icons (Respawn Beacons, Crafters, Wildlife, etc) now pingable from the map; creating accurate waypoints with callouts.
Apex Legends Season 17 Ranked changes
Ranked play is getting an overhaul:
New matchmaking by hidden skill rating, with skill adjustments made on premade sizes to account for the competitive advantages gained.
New Scoring system that replaces Ranked Points (RP) with Ladder Points (LP).
New Bonus system that conditionally rewards wins and compensates losses.
No more split reset, with a full seasonal reset starting off with 10 provisional games.
Ranked will now require account level 50 to play.
10 provisional matches at the start of the season.
A flat 35 LP Match Entry Cost.
There are three new bonuses in the new season:
Elimination Bonuses: Earned by eliminating other players with the Assist Timer increased to 30 seconds.
Rating Bonuses: Given when hidden Matchmaking Rating (MMR) > Ladder Points.
Skill Bonuses: When your team spars with stronger opponents or does well in an unfavorable match.
Apex Legends Season 17 Balance Updates
Crate Rotation
L-Star EMG enters the crate.
RE-45 returns to the floor.
Weapon Crafting Rotation
Alternator SMG enters the crafter.
Sentinel enters the crafter.
EVA-8 returns to the floor.
30-30 Repeater returns to the floor.
Gold Weapon Rotation
Flatline, Triple Take, Spitfire, Mastiff, Volt
Loot Spawns
Improved Vault Loot:
Increased chances of gold loot.
Added light mags to spawn pool.
Improved Cargo Bot Loot:
Removed small healing items, Mobile Respawn Beacon, White Armor, White Backpack.
Adjusted Large Healing and Heatshield spawns to allow for more desirable loot spawns.
Removed gold weapons from purple tier Cargo Bots but increased spawn chance in gold tier.
Weapons
L-Star EMG [Crate]
Added Disruptor Rounds: 60% damage increase against shields.
Base Damage Reduced to 16 (was 17).
Projectiles now have passthrough: 60% damage retained.
Projectile growth increased.
Improved recoil pattern.
Removed barrel.
Ammo Stockpile: 324.
Reduced VFX brightness when hitting unarmored targets.
30-30 Repeater
Projectile size increased when fully charged.
Triple Take
Projectile size increased.
Improved hipfire spread.
Tightened bullet pattern when fully choked.
Ammo per shot reduced to 1 (was 3).
Magazines sizes adjusted to match the new ammo costs.
Purple Mag: Increased to 10 shots (was 9).
R-99 SMG
Removed 1 bullet from base and all magazines.
No Magazine reduced to 19 (was 20).
White Magazine reduced to 21 (was 22).
Blue Magazine reduced to 24 (was 25).
Purple & Gold magazine reduced to 27 (was 28).
Charge Rifle
Reduced shots per magazine to 3 (was 4).
Reduced spawn rate.
Legends
Catalyst
Dark Veil: Scan Highlights & Diamonds are no longer visible through the Dark Veil.
Mirage
Class changed from Skirmisher to Support.
Ash
Now gets slowed to weapon sprint speed instead of weapon walk speed when targeting with her tac.
Assault Class
Smart loot gains have been adjusted to reduce skipping an upgrade tier.
It will now be less likely to jump from White to Purple or Blue to Gold.
Optics are now given based on team rather than just Assault Legend who opens them.
Added special drop rate for Gold Optics.
Skirmisher Class
Care packages are now automatically pinged for the team on reveal.
This includes empty Care Packages that have already been looted by another team.
Support Class
Support Bins will now guarantee at least one Battery in one of the Secret Compartment slots.
Support Bins will now award MRBs if your ally is dead, even if you don’t have their banner card.
Legend Banners can now be crafted by ANY player who has a Support Class Legend in their Squad.
Mixtape
New Podium screens for Gun Run and Control.
Display a message in the Kill Feed if Leaver Penalties are disabled for the match due to an unfair match.
Control and Gun Run will indicate the team's MVPs on the intro podium.
Control and TDM have updated loadouts (Crate Weapon changes and updates based on weapon meta/pick rates/kill rates).
Gun Run and TDM now have XP Bonuses for Match Completion and Match Completion after Join in Progress.
Control
Map rotation: Barometer is out, Olympus: Hammond Labs is in.
Weapon Evo Change: No longer Evo the weapons automatically when a new Rating Tier is reached. Players now reach the new tier and their weapon will Evo when the player holsters and then unholsters their weapon in any form (reload, weapon switch, manual holster, rides a zipline, performs a skydive, etc).
Gun Run
Weapon Track update for new crate weapons.
Added an additional XP bonus on the last weapon knife kill.
Team Deathmatch
Map rotation: Skulltown is out, Phase Runner is in.
Bug Fixes
Prowler: fixed ADS while crouching.
IMC Armories: fixed spectres taking too much damage from arc stars.
Fixed Duos showing NBR challenges instead of BR challenges.
Fixed comms wheel not being usable when a game is over.
Fixed players glitching inside of loot bins.
Fixed spectators not receiving audio queues for all types of launch pads/jump pads.
Fixed flickering of banners during victory and end of match screens.
Scoreboard is saved when a game is finished now, not post-podium sequence.
Lifetime Stats numbers no longer overlap for more than 7 digits.
Various lobby ultrawide UI improvements.
Legends
Ash:
Steps are no longer louder if heirloom is equipped.
Fixed UI loop when crouch inspect is canceled early.
Ultimate will now persist for the entire duration even if Ash dies while it is active and while players are still traveling through it.
Bloodhound:
White Ravens already in flight can no longer be scanned for free Tacticals and Ult charge.
Caustic:
Fixed traps destroying when placed near closed doors that are then opened.
Crypto:
Drone can no longer be accessed after being knocked.
Drone no longer occasionally teleports behind a wall after you throw it.
Fixed drone sometimes spawning in the middle of the world when thrown into a wall.
Loba:
Fixed visibility issue with Black Market when Bangalore’s smoke is behind.
Amount head peeks over cover while crouching adjusted to match other Legends.
Mad Maggie:
Improved reliability when hitting objects that the ball will damage or destroy.
Octane:
Removed the double jump hint from the Launch Pad in cases where it would incorrectly show as an option (e.g. after a Pathfinder grapple).
Rampart:
Multiple cover walls can no longer be placed in the same spot on a Trident.
Seer:
Dummies in the firing range will now have the same footstep behavior as other players when moving inside of Seer’s Ultimate instead of behaving like other AI (Prowlers, Spiders).
Valkyrie:
Ultimate cooldown no longer set to 75% after being canceled while in Death Totem protection.
Wraith:
Fixed ultimate being usable while ziplining.
Mythic finisher “Whiplash” no longer pushes players outside of play area.
Modes
Mixtape
Fixed shields dropped by killed enemies being empty.
Fixed players leaving a match will no longer try to join the same match if its join-in-progress window is still active.
Team Deathmatch
Fixed grenades not dropping on player death.
Fixed Estates map image displaying the night variant of the map in the Lobby.
Control
Fixed Custom Match Observer issue where it was difficult to close the Map Screen if an Observer had it opened before players spawned in the match.
Fixed teammates death icon not appearing on the map if the map wasn't open when the teammate died.
Fixed ordnance not auto-equipping to the ordnance slot if the player spawned out of bounds.
Fixed reserve ammo counter not displaying when switching weapons from Rampart or Vantage's ultimate ability.
Other Quality of Life Updates
Removed Auto-Taunt Prompt on Enemy Killed.
Can now ride ziplines while playing the banner pickup animation.
Bullet impact VFX on snow reduced.
