Bloodhound rework: Changes to iconic Legend explained (Season 16)

The Apex Legends Revelry patch notes have dropped, and with them, changes galore! Among the many changes is a rework of everyone's favorite hunter, Bloodhound. The rework has been a long time coming — Scan legends like Bloodhound and Seer have been very popular for a long time. Both Seer and Bloodhound are getting changes in Season 16 as a result.

Bloodhound has been a core member of the Apex cast. They have maintained a consistent popularity among players thanks to the easy information that their kit can provide. As a result, this Bloodhound rework has reduced their power. However, Respawn has kept the core of Bloodhounds ethos. Scan, track, and hunt.

Some might argue that this rework was not needed. Despite being popular in unranked lobbies, Bloodhound had fallen out of favor as the premiere information gathering legend. Despite this, they have still been on the receiving end of a rework because Apex devs want to entirely move away from a scan heavy meta. This has included removing beacon scan from recon legends.

While it is true that Crypto and Seer provide more utility than Bloodhound with their kits. For instance, Seer can provide constant vision and interrupt most abilities, while Crypto has a huge AOE stun and doesn't need to put himself in danger to get information, Bloodhound's rework is still a nerf to the legend.

Bloodhound's entire kit is iconic as they are one of the original Legends that have been around since Apex has started. Their Tracker passive ability would let them see recent actions performed by enemies.

In other words, foes would leave behind a trail of clues that Bloodhound could follow and track. However this passive ability has had a rework according to the Apex Legends Season 16 patch notes.

Now, in Season 16, Bloodhound is accompanied by White Ravens. The ravens will spawn near Bloodhound when there are no enemies around.

The Ravens can be interacted with or scanned which triggers them to fly towards the nearest enemy and leave a white foggy trail for Bloodhound to follow. The specific patch notes read:

The patch notes for the new season also explain that using a White Raven recovers both Tactical and Ultimate charge time while scanning them will fully refund the tactical ability.

This aspect of the Bloodhound rework adds a new mechanic for Bloodhound mains to master. Rather than just seeing tracks that lasted 90 seconds, this allows Bloodhound to have a better understanding of their prey's movement. This should offset the pretty substantial nerfs to the rest of their kit.

Bloodhound's bread and butter is their Eye of the Allfather ability. This ability is a large scan that reveals nearby traps, enemies, clues and loot ticks to Bloodhound.

The ability will also reveal the amount of nearby hostiles, while the detected enemies will get a notification telling them that they've been detected.

This ability has had the least amount of changes, compared to Bloodhound's other abilities. Previously, the scan would last three seconds on the enemy. However the "full body scan" has been significantly reduced to one second. There is still a diamond shaped tracker, like you see in Seer's ultimate, for the extra two seconds.

Although this is quite the nerf, the easy information gathered by this scan is still very powerful.

The most iconic of Bloodhound's abilities is their ultimate: Beast of the Hunt. For 30 seconds, Bloodhound goes into a bloodthirsty rage. With a 30% movement speed increase and highlighted enemies, nobody is safe. Even their footprints are highlighted, so Bloodhound won't have trouble tracking enemies down. It is no surprise that this ability was impacted by the Bloodhound rework. It was a very strong ability that provided a lot of information in a short space of time.

Beast of the Hunt changes coming in Season 16:

Previously, eliminations would speed up the tactical charge rate and the tactical ability would have a shorter cooldown. However this is not the case anymore. You would also get a much reduced scan cooldown allowing you to spam scans during the Beast of the Hunt. After this Bloodhound rework, this is no longer the case.

Now, the ultimate includes Bloodhound's White Ravens. Kills now "will launch a White Raven that flies towards the nearest enemy" and "Killing an enemy while in Beast of the Hunt will also trigger a White Raven".

This works in tandem with the reworked Tracker passive, with the White Raven being a new way to gather information in your games.

Season 16 is bringing so many new changes to Apex Legends. This will no doubt be healthy for Apex Legends. Especially as the new season doesn't bring a new character. Season 16 seems to be focusing exclusively on what's already in Apex. You can check out the full patch notes breakdown here.

For more of the latest esports news, be sure to stick around on Esports.gg