After months of fan and pro player pressure, Wattson was finally given a large set of buffs in the Apex Legends Season 11 update.
Long-awaited buffs come to Season 2's Wattson
Respawn's Season 11 Apex Legends patch notes revealed large-scale changes to Wattson, delighting Apex Legends players and fans alike. Yes, the long-awaited Wattson buff is here! (Also be sure to take note of the Apex Ranked changes).
Wattson, who is infamous for having one of the lowest pick rates in the game while simultaneously having one of the highest win rates is a fan favorite and much-adored character.
Respawn acknowledged this oxymoron in their patch notes, admitting "much of the high-level data that we’ve shared doesn’t match perception. Play a few games as Wattson and you’ll often find yourself wanting more out of her kit".
"We want to enable more active gameplay from Wattson players by smoothing out the rough edges in placing fences.
Responsiveness tweaks, longer range, and faster cooldowns means that Wattson can much more quickly and reliably set up a defensive position, or even use her fences and pylon in the midst of open combat in a pinch."
Pylon no longer time limited (A huge Wattson buff)
One of the most notable changes to Watton's kit, comes to her ultimate ability, 'Interception Pylon'. This has seen a large overhaul. The timer that was added to the Pylon back in Season 5 has been removed and one Pylon is now "active" for an infinite amount of time.
However, this is not a complete return to the Pylon of old, instead of a time limit the Pylon now has a shield limit. Each Pylon placed by Wattson has a finite 250 shield health that it can distribute to anyone in it's range. Once this shield health is used up, the Pylon still acts to block incoming ordinance but will not heal any more shield health to players.
Alongside this, the speed at which the Pylon delivers regeneration has been increased by 150%. Further, taking damage while in range of the Pylon pauses healing for one second (similar to how Octane and Wattson's passive regeneration passive abilities behave).
Friendly grenades will no longer be destroyed (Thank god)
Perhaps one of the most popular changes is to how her Pylon behaves around throwable items. The Pylon of old (when it was working correctly and bug free!) used to eliminate any and all grenades in its radius and line of sight.
Now, the behavior has changed to only eliminate grenades that will land in range of the Pylon. This eliminates one of the biggest frustrations when fighting with a Wattson on your team.
Throwing a grenade at the enemy while in range of a Pylon, and your own Pylon zaps your grenade before it can reach the enemy. Now, friendly grenades thrown from inside Pylon range but headed for outside the range will be unaffected. A significant Wattson buff.
Fence damage increased
Wattson's tactical ability, Perimeter Defense, also got a number of changes. Fence damage is increased from 15 to 20, and there are a variety of changes that result in the fence both stunning you for longer, and there being a shorter cooldown before the fence can hit you after a friendly player passes through.
Crucially, her fence cooldown has been reduced from 30 to 15 seconds, which is another much-requested change. Also, to aid the ability to use fences in fast-paced combat situations, Wattson now moves at normal speed when placing fences.
Wattson Hitbox enlarged
It was not all buffs for the fan favorite legend however, as was previously mentioned and expected Wattson has also had her hitbox increased in size.
This has been a common theme for previous low profile legends, with Wraith, Pathfinder and Lifeline all previously receiving hitbox changes in the past. Respawn notes that her hitbox was the smallest in the game after Lifeline received changes to her hitbox and Wattson has now been brought in line with the rest of the legends in-game.
It is yet to be seen how these changes will settle out her pick rate and win rate in Season 11. There is even early speculation that this might see Wattson deployed in future ALGS tournaments.
However, with Wattson a trending term on Twitter after the patch notes dropped, there is a good feeling around the changes and the infamously hard to satisfy Wattson mains have a spark in their eyes as we head towards Tuesday's season release.
Stay tuned to esports.gg for the latest Apex Legends news and updates.