Respawn Patches Tap Strafe Bug in Apex Legends After Shadow Nerf Complaints

Tap strafing is one of the most debated topics in the Apex Legends community. Respawn Entertainment also reportedly tried to remove the movement from the game in Season 10, sparking arguments between players. On 15th August, many Apex Legends streamers and pros noticed that they were unable to tap strafe in the game and wondered if Respawn had shadow nerfed the movement without a dedicated patch update or notes. Players including NRG Chris “sweetdreams” Sexton and Svend-Erik “Taxi2g” Høegh brought up the discussion on their streams after they could not tap strafe and also noticed that it was only working now and then.

What is tap strafe in Apex Legends?

The tap strafe technique in Apex Legends is all about movement and making sharper turns. The technique allows you to make harder turns which cannot be done while performing normal side jumps. It is basically a combination of air strafing and bunny hopping. Tap strafe in Apex Legends will let you spin 180 degrees and confuse your enemies as to which direction you’re going next. Before that, bind your forward key onto your mouse scroll wheel. Now, it can be performed by the following steps:

• Slide Jump and hold either A or D depending on which side you want to go

• When you're about to jump, let go of W, and flick the scroll wheel, without taking your finger off of the A or D key

• Flick the scroll wheel and look in the direction you want to go next

On 15th August, many Apex players claimed that they were only able to make 90-degree turns using the tap strafe technique and that the 180-degree hairpin turn was gone from the game.

While sweetdreams stated that it was back on his stream, Taxi2g was still unable to perform tap strafe.

Respawn Entertainment addresses the issue

After players raised complaints about tap strafing getting shadow nerfed, Respawn Entertainment officially addressed the issue and confirmed that it was unintentional. It wrote, “Heads up, legends. We've seen your reports about issues with tap strafing in @PlayApex after today and are looking into it. Thanks for being patient while we sort this one out.”

Within an hour of initially tweeting it, Respawn announced that it pushed out a small update to fix the bug. “We just pushed a fix for this and things should be returning to normal shortly. Carry on, legends.”

With the fix in place, players should be able to do the movement technique and flex over controller players.