Breaking Down Apex Legends Season 19 Patch Notes: Respawning Updates and Catalyst Nerfs Revealed

Apex Legends Season 19: Ignite is almost here, starting on October 31st. After gradually sharing details about the upcoming season over the past few weeks, Respawn has finally unveiled all the features that players can anticipate in Apex's playerbase, as found in the patch notes for Season 19.

Season 19 is one of the largest seasons in Apex Legends to date, with a plethora of new content, including cross-progression and extensive map alterations. The patch notes provide comprehensive information on the new legend, Conduit, and her abilities, as well as intricate specifics regarding adjustments to legends, such as buffs and nerfs, changes to weapons, and various gameplay tweaks. There is a substantial amount of content to delve into.

Respawning reworked

One of the major updates in the game this season involves a significant revamp of the respawning system. In Season 19, players will now respawn with their shields and weapons intact from before they were eliminated. The quality of both the body shield and helmet will be preserved, although knockdown shields will be reset to Level 1. Additionally, the player's backpack will be removed, but their inventory will still contain their weapons, along with the necessary ammo, two syringes, and two shield cells. However, it's important to note that care package weapons will not be preserved, and all weapon attachments will be removed from the standard weapons in a player's inventory.

This radical change to the respawning mechanics will undoubtedly have a significant impact on the gameplay moving forward, particularly in competitive scenarios.

Legends

Respawn has announced their intention to tackle the "can't see sh*t meta" in Season 19, resulting in nerfs for several popular legends.

Catalyst is set to receive significant nerfs, particularly affecting her Piercing Spikes tactical ability. The projectile distance of Piercing Spikes has been cut by approximately 50%. Additionally, players will now have limits on the number of Piercing Spikes they can deploy on the map. In Season 19, only two sets of Piercing Spikes will be allowed at once, down from the original three. Another change is that Piercing Spikes will no longer serve as a barrier against projectiles, granting players the freedom to fire at them without hindrance.

The duration of Bangalore's scan-proof Dark Veil ultimate ability is being reduced from 30 seconds to 25. The cooldown timer for this ability will now only start after Dark Veil has been cast and has come down.

In addition, there are changes to Bangalore's kit for this season. Her Double Time passive speed boost will now last for 2 seconds instead of 3. The duration of her Smoke Launcher tactical ability has been decreased from 23 seconds to 18 seconds. Lastly, her Rolling Thunder ultimate ability will now only stun enemies for 6 seconds instead of the previous 8 seconds.

Weapons

Another noteworthy change in the ongoing Season 18 is that the Revenant-themed adventure is drawing to a conclusion, resulting in a minor adjustment to the formidable murderbot's abilities. Previously, with his Forged Shadows ultimate ability, Revenant's overshield would refresh upon eliminating or knocking down an enemy, as well as earning an assist. However, the window in which assists can renew the overshield has been significantly shortened from 30 seconds to a mere 3 seconds. It is important to note that this modification solely pertains to assists, excluding knocks and kills.

Weapons

Additionally, an exciting game-altering tweak made this season involves the inclusion of a weapon within each Care Package throughout all stages of the match. This signifies that even in the initial round, savvy players have the chance to acquire a top-tier weapon by playing their cards right. The Care Package will no longer contain the L-STAR and instead be substituted with the Wingman, which will receive the customary boosts offered by the Care Package, such as increased damage, larger projectile size, and an automatically attached Boosted Loader hop-up.

However, there is an added enhancement for the Wingman known as Skullpiercer Elite. This new hop-up functions similarly to the standard Skullpiercer hop-up but with a deadly twist: it disregards the extra protection offered by a helmet. Consequently, scoring a headshot on an enemy equipped with an Epic-tier helmet will have the same impact as targeting an individual without any headgear.

Furthermore, the Replicator will now include the R-301 and Volt SMG, while the RE-45 and 30-30 Repeater will return to the floor loot. Additionally, the Boosted Loader hop-up and Digital Threat optic will be removed from the Replicator and replaced by the Hammerpoint Rounds hop-up.

Apex Legends Season 19 introduces noteworthy enhancements, featuring some of the most significant game-changers to date.

Other changes

Moreover, as part of Season 18's launch, a newly implemented component has now become operational: a notification system to alert players in the lobby when a cheater has been banned.

According to the accompanying patch notes blog post, this notification will be displayed in the kill feed, informing players that a participant has been removed due to cheating. It's important to note that this alert will solely be triggered by the anti-cheat systems and will not appear when someone leaves a match voluntarily, experiences a connection issue, or gets kicked for being AFK. The development team acknowledges this as the initial milestone in their efforts to enhance transparency and provide users with actionable feedback.

In the kill feed, when a player is banned, the message "[username] has been removed from the match" will be displayed.

Season 19: Ignite not only focuses on anti-cheat efforts but also brings changes to all three maps in the Season 19 rotation. Among them, Storm Point undergoes the most significant update, introducing new Points of Interest (POIs) and improvements to facilitate squad rotation, while also addressing the issue of scarce loot areas. Additionally, Respawn has made updates to Storm Point, Olympus, and Broken Moon, eliminating popular hiding spots as part of their ongoing fight against ratting.

Ranked Mode in the standard battle royale will follow the same map rotation. Respawn has introduced a new feature called Promo Trials to add more challenge to ranking up. Once players are about to advance in rank, these challenges will appear. Players are given five matches to complete the challenge. If they fail, they will be demoted on the Ranked ladder. When they climb back up, they will face the same challenge, but this time they will have six matches to complete it. This cycle can continue up to a maximum of 10 matches. After that, players can still attempt to complete the Promo Trial but will not be given more than 10 matches to try again if they fail.

PATCH NOTES

Cross Progression will be rolling out in phases across existing platforms—read more in our detailed blog here

Holosprays can now be deployed while skydiving

BALANCE UPDATES

Introducing Crafting Rotation

RE-45 and 30-30 Repeater leave the crafter and are back on the floor

R-301 and Volt enter the crafter

Boosted Loader removed from crafting rotation

Digital Threat optic removed from crafting rotation

Hammerpoint Rounds added to crafting rotation

Care Package Weapon Rotation

L-Star EMG returns to the floorRemoved Disruptor Rounds

Projectile size reduced

Improved recoil pattern

Reduced randomness in the early part of the recoil pattern

Damage increased to 17 (was 16)

Barrel attachment improved to match other weapons

Wingman enters the care packageNew hop-up - Skullpiercer Elite: ignores helmet headshot damage reduction

Boosted Loader hop-up attached

Base damage increased to 50 (was 45)

Projectile size increased

110 ammo

Care Packages

Care Packages will now always have 1 weapon at all stages of the game

Gold Weapons Rotation

Havoc, RE-45, C.A.R. SMG, L-Star, Longbow DMR

Hop-Ups

Boosted Loader: removed from floor loot

Turbocharger: Removed 1 damage reduction when equipped

WEAPONS

30-30 Repeater

Increased hipfire spread

Bocek Bow

Faster initial draw speed

Select Fire button now toggles Shatter Caps

Tightened Shatter Caps blast pattern

Charge Rifle

Improved bullet drop ballistics

Increased projectile size

Hemlok

Damage reduced to 21 (was 22)

Longbow DMR

Increased projectile size

Sentinel

Increased Amped Shot projectile size

LEGENDS

Bangalore

Double Time: reduced duration to 2s (was 3s)

Smoke Launcher: smoke lifetime reduced to 18s (was 23s)

Rolling Thunder: stun duration reduced to 6s (was 8s)

Catalyst

Piercing SpikesCore no longer blocks projectiles, allowing bullets to pass through

Max in-world count reduced to 2 (was 3)

Throw range decreased by about 50%

Dark VeilCooldown now starts after the wall comes down

Reduced lifetime to 25s (was 30s)

Passive Updates

Pathfinder now possesses insider knowledge and can scan Care Packages even after allies have already scanned them.

Wraith's Voices from the Void ability has been improved by reducing the required look time to trigger, resulting in a more reliable and consistent experience.

Ultimate Updates

Newcastle’s Castle WallReduced recovery time on landing

Increased max leap height

Revenant’s Forged Shadows: reduced time extension window for assists to 3s (was 30s)

Vantage’s Sniper’s Mark: bullet count increased to 6 (was 5)

MAPS

Olympus

Addressed a number of bugs and rat spots

Addressed known exploits to get underneath the map

Kings Canyon

Addressed multiple rat spots

Fixed geo holes in world between Relic and Caustic Treatment

Storm Point

Added two Mixtape maps based on new POIs (ZEUS Station and Wattson’s Pylon)

Addressed a number of bugs and rat spots

WORLD SYSTEMS

Players now respawn with the shields and weapons that they had when they were eliminatedBody shield and helmet level are preserved

Knockdown shield is reset to white

Backpacks are removed

Inventory will contain some ammo for their weapons, two syringes, and two shield cells

Weapons are kept in their original state, unless they were obtained from a care package. Moreover, all attachments are taken off, even from fully equipped weapons.

Spawn rates for Replicators, Ring Consoles, and Survey Beacons have been balanced across all Points of Interest (POIs) once again.

MODES

Mixtape Map Rotation

ControlCaustic Treatment and Siphon are out

Barometer and Production Yard are in

Gun RunSkulltown and Fragment are out

The Core is in

New map: Wattson Treatment

TDMFragment and Habitat are out

Phase Runner is in

New Map: Zeus Station

BUG FIXES

Closed an exploit that allowed players to survive ring damage longer than expected using the Phase Runner on Olympus

Death Boxes can no longer fall into unreachable areas - or lava

Heat Shields can no longer stick to Tridents

Heat Shields no longer provide protection above them on higher ground

Holster weapon UI no longer appears when healing outside the ring

Knockdown Shield FX no longer remains on while spectating

Longbow’s Dawn’s Awakening skin no longer has visible barrel with scopes

Nemesis’ Demon’s Whisper skin no longer obstructs player view

Provisional badge icon restored on Ranked match summary screen

Rarity display now updates after equipping from store or pack opening

Resolved occasional “[UI] Array index 100000000 is out of range (array size 45)” error when launching the game

Revenant now faces direction he is shooting in third person view

Skydiving into an exiting respawn dropship will no longer propel the player along with it

Squad sorting now consistent between HUD and Inventory

Swapping to lower tiered armor after taking damage no longer requires refreshing the Death Box

AUDIO

Addressed uncommon scenarios where the priority system erroneously silenced specific local player weapon sounds.

GRAPHICS

Rectified the issue where squads' animated poses occasionally overlapped with each other.

PCFixed Intel ARC graphics cards defaulting to suboptimal video settings

Fixed issue with low resolution textures when using adaptive supersampling or after changing resolution

PC DX12: fixed occasional bad triangle rendering on AMD cards

LEGENDS

Loba: Tactical is no longer canceled when thrown on a tower near Containment

Mirage: resolved not breaking cloak sometimes when switching weapons

RevenantAssassin’s instinct

Digital threats now highlight enemies after being highlighted by Assassin’s Instinct

Fixed cases where enemies were not being highlighted correctly

Highlight no longer interferes with other legend highlights

Highlight now applies to Mirage decoys

Forged Shadows shroud no longer gets stuck on indefinitely (previous hotfix)

Wattson: fences now collapse when the round ends, preventing ongoing damage audio in post-match screen

QUALITY OF LIFE

Added Offscreen Portraits setting

Caustic: restored “Shield Cracked” VO in German

Firing Range: blue Nessie stays hidden for now… but a new challenger has appeared

Implemented additional security measures

Enhanced support for PC controllers:

- Controller input will now be disabled when another window is in focus.

- Native support for Bluetooth-connected PS4 and PS5 controllers has been added. Players using Steam Input to connect these controllers should disable that setting in Steam.

Mixtape: Assists will now be granted for Assisted Kills by all teammates in game modes that involve multiple squads.

Pings - Ping Enemies on the map: Double-clicking the Ping Button will place an Enemy Ping on the map at the corresponding location.

Reply to Enemy Pings with Ok, Hold On, and Wait ping reply options

Rampart: players can now pick up their amped walls while in placement mode

Revenant Add vibration support when Forged Shadows shield is damaged, and when the shield reforms or breaks

Improve vibration support when charging Shadow Pounce

LOCALIZED AUDIO

Playstation is relocating localized audio from the base game package for Apex Legends. Players who use languages other than English will be required to download the free Additional Content pack, which includes the audio in their desired language. This change does not affect in-game text.

Editor's P/S

As an avid Apex Legends fan, I am thrilled about the upcoming Season 19 update. The developers have outdone themselves with the sheer volume and significance of the changes they are bringing to the game. The new respawning mechanics, in particular, have caught my attention. Allowing players to respawn with their shields and weapons intact is a bold move that will significantly impact how the game is played. It will be interesting to see how this change affects the overall strategy and tactics employed by players.

The nerfs to Catalyst and Bangalore are also noteworthy. Catalyst's Piercing Spikes have been a dominant force in the game, and reducing their effectiveness will help create a more balanced environment. Similarly, Bangalore's Dark Veil ultimate ability has been a source of frustration for many players, and shortening its duration will make it less oppressive. Overall, I believe these changes will positively impact the game's balance and make it more enjoyable for everyone.