Chaos Theory patch brings Solo option and care package tweaks

With Season 8 well on its way and the anniversary collection event coming to a close, a new event is on the horizon for the Apex community: The Chaos Theory event. Themed around Caustic taking over water treatment on King’s Canyon, the event brings some new mechanics, some gorgeous new skins and a new heirloom for the smoke grenade missile launching Bangalore. However, among all the new features that the event brings, there are also changes to the quality of life, the legends, and some of the weapons for our favorite battle royale.

Among the various changes that always come with patches, some of the most important changes are those to the legends.

There is some irony in the fact that Caustic is getting a nerf when his Chaos Theory event goes live, but the 2 changes to our favorite poisonous gas chucking legend are not horrible. The first is an increase in the charge time of his ultimate ability; from 2.5 minutes to 3.5 minutes. And the second is related to the damage of the Nox gas, in that instead of ramping ticks from 6hp to 12hp, the gas damages at a flat rate of 5hp per tick.   

Another change is towards the well-known non-murderer robot Pathfinder. His low-profile perk got removed, which is great considering the size of the hitbox. With him grappling into fights without the 5% increased incoming damage will feel good for all the path mains out there.

The last big change is with Gibraltar’s dome of protection. The patch removes the 15% faster heal item usage while in the dome. Although this nerf seems like a big deal, other items in his kit, such as the gun shield, the bombardment, and the dome itself still make him a great pick for any squad.

With the changes to legends and quality of life, there is one more category that is important to the game: the weapons. There aren’t too many changes, but the changes are relatively significant.

The first is that to every twitch streamer’s favorite gun, the wingman. The pistol got a pretty good buff, which is that it got an additional bullet in the magazine at all levels. So, originally with 5 shots, you now have 6 at base level, 7 with a level 1 extended mag, 8 with a level 2 extended mag, and 9 with a level 3 or 4 extended mag. This is great because more bullets leads to more shooting which means more fun and more clutches with that singular bullet left in the chamber.

Another important note is the 2 changes to gold and care package weapons. The first is that gold AR and LMG weapons have a default 2x HCOG Bruiser sight. Additionally, the Devs added “locked weapon swapping”, which allows the changing of optics for gold and care package weapons with exception for the Kraber. So, with that gold spitfire you found, you can change the 1x-2x variable optic to a 1x HCOG classic or a 2x HCOG bruiser if that’s what your heart desires.

The last important change is to the mastiff, which got a damage decrease from 13 to 11 damage per pellet and a fire rate increase from 1.0 to 1.1. Although the numbers are relatively low, the changes were aimed towards making it a middle ground between the fast-firing EVA-8 and the peacekeeper while not 2-tapping people with a couple well placed shots.

Among the patch notes, the dev’s over at Respawn have added some quality-of-life changes to the game. Among the changes there are a couple changes that are a little more noteworthy than others.

The first is the inclusion of “No-Fill matchmaking”. This matchmaking setting is a toggleable option in the ready up screen which allows you to toggle whether to fill your squad with random players. This has great potential for warming up, easter egg hunting, or doing daily or weekly challenges without potentially aggravating your teammates because you are running around with 2 Mozambique’s trying to complete a weekly challenge.

Another important quality of life change is some redistribution of loot across our ever-exploding King’s Canyon. With the Mirage Voyage sadly departing, the Devs have moved some loot around. The small wooden shacks spread around the map have some better-quality loot, the spotted lakes’ loot quality was reduced to medium (rather than high), and the crash site loot locations got redistributed with higher tier loot being around the ship.

And that’s it, those are the prominent changes in the upcoming patch notes from the Caustic takeover event. Although no changes are going to make or break certain weapons or legends, the changes are always aimed at balancing out the Apex Games.