Apex Legends Season 9 Legacy patch notes: Lifeline rework, legend updates, and weapon changes detailed

With Apex Legends Season 9 Legacy launching on May 4th, developer Respawn Entertainment has finally dropped the official patch notes. Players can get acquainted with all the new changes, legend updates, and balance tweaks that Respawn has made ahead of Apex Legends' biggest season yet.

With the addition of a new weapon and a couple more hop-ups, the loot pool has been affected quite a bit, with fan favorites such as the Peacekeeper returning as ground loot.

Fans can read on to find the complete list of changes in Apex Legends Season 9 Legacy.

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Apex Legends Season 9 Legacy: Legend changes, weapon balancing, loot tweaks, and more

Starter Kit and loot changes

The Starter Kit aims to reduce RNG off of drops for players (Image via Electronic Arts)

Respawn shared the following notes about the new "Starter Kit" that will now be standard in Apex Legends.

• Players will now start a match with a "Starter Kit" consisting of a Level 1 EVO Shield, Helmet, and Knockdown Shield, plus two Shield Cells and Syringes each.
• Removed Level 1 Helmets and Knockdown Shields from the loot pool.
• Spawn chances for Level 1 EVO Shields in the loot pool have been significantly reduced.
• Along with the lowered or removed spawn chances for these items, the loot pool has been rebalanced such that higher-level versions of these items will appear nearly the same as they do now. But other item types will appear more often (weapons, ordinance, health, ammo, etc.).

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Legend updates

Lifeline rework

• Combat Revive: No longer deploys a shield. Can now revive two players at the same time. Can now cancel active revives in progress to allow your teammate to defend themselves with their knockdown shield.
• D.O.C. Heal Drone: Heal rate increased from 5hp per second to 8hp per second. Deployment time before healing begins reduced by roughly 33%.
• Care Package: Cooldown reduced from 6 minutes to 5 minutes. Now guarantees an upgrade (if possible) in three categories: Body Shield, Other Equipment (Helmet, Backpack, and Knockdown Shield), and Weapon Attachment, based on your team's current gear when the Package arrives.

Octane

• Stim: Reduced cooldown between stims from 4s to 1s. Increased health cost from 12hp to 20hp.
• Increased bullet spread while in the air and shooting from the low Launch Pad trajectory.

Loba

• Burglar's Best Friend: Can now run and slide at full speed while aiming the bracelet and while the bracelet is in the air. Loba will no longer be slowed after translocating.
• Fixed a lot of bugs that caused bracelet tosses to fail.
• Black Market Boutique: Increased cooldown from 90s to 120s.

Horizon

• Gravity Lift: Reduced lift speed by 30%. Reduced side-to-side acceleration. Limited the time you can sit at the top of Gravity Lift to 2 seconds. Increased cooldown from 15s to 20s.
• Horizon's abilities will now get zapped by Wattson pylons.

Bangalore

• Smoke Launcher: Thickened Bangalore's smoke.

Fuse

• Knuckle Cluster: Fuse now has two stacks of Knuckle Cluster. Reduced cooldown from 25s to 20s.

Bloodhound

• No longer receives assists from Eye of the Allfather.

Crypto

• Crypto's drone can now scan and open care packages.
• Can no longer use his drone to "hijack" a respawn beacon that's already in use.

Note: Low profile no longer exists in Apex Legends. This trait has been removed from Wraith, Lifeline, and Wattson. Hitbox and kit changes will be issued to combat unbalanced legends.

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Weapon changes in Apex Legends Season 9 Legacy

The Bocek Bow is the latest weapon to be added to Apex Legends (Image via Electronic Arts)

Along with introducing a new weapon to Apex Legends, many changes have been made to care package loot, hop-ups, and "fully kitted" gold weapons in the game.

Marksman weapon category

Weapons in this category are precision weapons that are most effective up to the medium-long range and are somewhat in-betweens of Assault Rifles and Snipers.

• G7 Scout
• 30-30 Repeater
• Triple Take
• Bocek Bow

ADS movement for all marksman weapons has been increased in Apex Legends Legacy.

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Supply drop rotation

• Removed Peacekeeper
• Added Triple Take

The Peacekeeper finally returns to Apex Legends as ground loot in Season 9 Legacy

The Kraber will spawn less often in the early game and more often in the mid-game to better accommodate its power. The Triple Take will be the most common early game crate weapon, with the Prowler being the most prominent late-game crate weapon.

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Fully kitted rotation

• Added: Wingman, Bocek, R99, Hemlock, and Sentinel.
• Removed: R301, 30-30 Repeater, Mozambique, Longbow DMR, and Spitfire.

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Hop-ups

• Shatter Caps - Fire select to toggle between standard mode and shatter mode. In shatter mode, rounds split into a blast pattern on firing. This hop up will be equipable to the 30-30 Repeater and the Bocek.
• Deadeye’s Tempo - Firing at the perfect moment increases fire rate. This can currently be attached to the Sentinel and the Bocek.
• To make room, the Hammerpoint and Skullpiercer hop ups are being vaulted for now, and won’t be available.

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Assault Rifles in Apex Legends

Matching the Hemlok, Assault Rifles have received a huge nerf in Apex Legends Legacy.

• Reducing the headshot multiplier for all assault rifles from 2.0 to 1.75.

Peacekeeper

A mainstay for early Apex Legends players, the Peacekeeper finally returns as ground loot.

• It comes with the Precision Choke by default, which can be toggled off.
• Pellet damage reduced from 10 to 9.
• Rechamber time increased from 0.9 seconds to 1.1 seconds.
• Reload times increased (regular from 2.45 to 2.5, empty from 3.35 to 3.5).
• Pellet spread increased in general, and spread when charged increased for all charge levels (from 0.65/0.45/0.2 to 0.85/0.65/0.35).
• Quickly loses charge after leaving ADS.

Triple Take

• As a crate weapon, it will come with a 9 ammo clip and 63 reserve ammo.
• Fire rate increased from 1.2 to 1.3.
• Time to full charge reduced from 1.1 seconds to 1 second.
• Retains charge briefly after leaving ADS.
• Move-speed while aiming down sights has been increased to match other marksman weapons -- faster than snipers, slower than ARs.
• Increased spread while airborne and aiming down sights.

Havoc

• Increased recoil controllability early in the pattern.

Spitfire

• Reduced recoil controllability early in the pattern.

Note: Respawn has acknowledged that the Spitfire is too strong in Apex Legends right now and will make changes in the future if needed.

30-30 Repeater

• Increased leg damage multiplier from 0.75 to 0.85.
• Move-speed while aiming down sights has been increased to match other marksman weapons -- faster than snipers, slower than ARs.

G7 Scout

• Move-speed while aiming down sights has been increased to match other marksman weapons -- faster than snipers, slower than ARs.
• Increased hipfire spread size (reduced accuracy) to be more in line with other marksman weapons.

Longbow

• Increased headshot multiplier from 2.0 to 2.15.

Wingman

• Increased headshot multiplier from 2.0 to 2.15.

Mozambique

• Increased magazine capacity from 4 to 6.
• Moved the lower 2 pellets inward in the blast pattern.

P2020

• Increased bullet damage from 15 to 18.
• Lowered fire rate from 8.5 to 6.25.

Arc Stars

• Aim and movement slow removed from the initial stick.

The exhaustive list of changes shows how much work Respawn has put in to make Legacy the biggest season of Apex Legends yet. Players can get their hands on Apex Legends Season 9 on May 4th, 2021.