Apex Legends released a small patch on Nov. 30, bringing in a couple of much-needed changes around Catalyst along with a few bug fixes.
Head's up, Apex Legends players! The game just received a small but important update. The upcoming Wintertide collection event has Apex Legends players eagerly anticipating the return of the Winter Express limited-time mode.
However, the game is having a rather underwhelming time with Season 15. That comes down to a few factors, one of which is the underwhelming nature of Catalyst's abilities. Everyone was excited about a new counter to scan legends, but she just doesn't work as advertised. Thankfully, Apex Legends released a patch on Nov. 30 to address some of these issues.
Respawn Entertainment posted a Tweet with the patch notes and some of them seem pretty important. Particularly the changes to Catalyst and the way some legends interact with her abilities. There's one particular change which stops a legend from being a direct counter to her passive ability.
Crypto can't open doors blocked by Catalyst's passive
When Catalyst was revealed, it looked like she was going to be the solution to the scan meta. Her abilities seemed to be designed around blocking recon legends from scanning and revealing her team's position.
Unfortunately, Crypto, a recon legend could simply bypass her passive with his drone. They fixed this with the Nov. 30 patch. It's a bit of a good news and bad news situation since Crypto's drone can no longer hack doors blocked by Catalyst. The bad news is that Seer's ultimate will still detect your team through her ultimate. And Seer's ultimate is the scan ability that everyone hates the most. Crypto isn't a commonly picked legend, either. This means not many players knew he directly countered her passive.
Wraith counters Catalyst after the Apex Legends November patch
Well, they did address Crypto's drone, but they inadvertently nerfed her against Wraith. According to the Nov. 30 patch notes, Wraith can now use her phase through Catalyst's ferrofluid. This means she can simply use her tactical to get through Catalyst's ultimate and tactical trap unphased. Get it? Additionally, she can see doors blocked by Catalyst's passive while in phase.
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The Heirloom glitch is now fixed, apparently
Another major change not mentioned in the patch notes is that the Heirloom glitch has been fixed. This is according to KralRindo, a popular dataminer and Apex Legends content creator. A lot of players exploited this glitch and received free Heirloom shards without needing to grind much. Though Respawn hasn't addressed whether or not these Heirlooms will remain in players' inventories, so it looks like players get to keep their Heirlooms for now.
Fixes to some of Catalyst's buggy abilities
Catalyst launched in a buggy state with some malfunctions around her abilities. For instance, if someone knocked her down while she was casting her ultimate, her knockdown shield wouldn't work. Additionally, controller players were unable to reload their guns when they ran through Catalyst's tactical. These issues are now fixed and this will hopefully mean less frustration for Catalyst players and her opponents.
Broken Moon bug fixes
Probably the biggest attraction for Season 15 was the Broken Moon map. Unfortunately, it launched in a broken state. Not unplayable, but players reported plenty of bugs and glitches. The Apex November patch also addressed these. In the Promenade POI, there was an invisible wall that blocked ordinances and throwables. This disrupted many fights in the area. The patch fixed this alongside many instances where awkward collision glitches led to unnatural hiding spots.
The patch also fixed some minor bugs like incorrect lifetime stats and small visual bugs. This patch dropped right before the upcoming Wintertide Collection Event which brings back the Winter Express game mode. Hopefully, these bug fixes and ability changes along with the upcoming event will breathe some life into Apex Legends Season 15.