‘Apex Legends’: Wattson Buff Denied, Lead Game Designer Calls Her ‘Very Powerful’
Apex Legends players have been feeling a little frustrated with Wattson lately — many gamers seem think a Wattson buff is badly needed. During a recent Reddit AmA, Apex Legends’ Lead Game Designer, Daniel Z. Klein, claimed that Wattson is “very powerful,” leaving some fans feeling even more frustrated. The designer did tease Revenant, Rampart, and Caustic buffs in addition to shooting down dreams of a stronger Wattson.
‘Apex Legends’ players want a Wattson buff
Many Apex Legends players have recently suggested that Wattson is in dire need of some help from Respawn Entertainment. The legend, who relies on her shield and ultimate recharges, as well as her electrical fences, has been hamstrung by a bug.
Her fences, which typically slow, slightly disrupt vision, and deal damage, are no longer slowing at all. In addition, there are many players who feel as if the fences simply don’t do enough damage — it’s so little as to seem negligible for a tactical skill that has a 30 second long cooldown.
One Redditor uploaded a video of an Octane player running through 20 Wattson fences on the shooting range. The Octane was left at about half health after running through all 20 — they did destroy a full shield.
Additionally, some players have suggested that the Apex Legend character’s shield recharge is negligible. As it stands now, Wattson’s shield recharges slowly after she doesn’t take damage for six seconds. After that six second window, she recharges one shield point every two seconds. Not exactly lightning speeds.
Daniel Z. Klein thinks Wattson is ‘very powerful’
During the AmA, Apex Legends Lead Game Designer Daniel Z. Klein received plenty of questions about nerfs and buffs to various characters. A Wattson buff was, of course, discussed.
“Yo! I’m a Wattson main and really want her fences fixed! Also I feel her shield regen is way too slow in my opinion,” wrote a Redditor.
“Fences will be fixed soon! I think her shield regen is fine. It’s a lot of power, and she’s very powerful. I’d rather not keep pushing more power into her into until she becomes overbearing. Until we push her power, how do you say, beyond capacity,” replied Klein.
Fans seemed further frustrated by his answer. His reply currently has over 350 downvotes.
“‘I think her shield regen is fine.’ Bruh it takes 4 minutes and 10 seconds to fully charge a red shield with it…,” replied one disgruntled player.
“The vast majority of us think otherwise so please buff it,” replied another player.
‘Apex Legends’: Revenant, Rampart, and Caustic buffs are incoming
Although Apex Legends Wattson mains may be frustrated by Daniel Z. Klein’s response on Reddit, the game designer did tease some incoming buffs for Revenant, Rampart, and Caustic.
“It’s a bit too early to talk about her spicy buff because we don’t yet know if it’ll work and if so when we can ship it. Right now, IF EVERYTHING GOES WELL (which it never does), you can expect it halfway through Season 10. Game dev is hard and takes a long time!” said Klein of Rampart.
“We have a set of changes we’re trying out internally at the moment and they feel fun and fine, but they’ll probably not move the needle on power a lot. That may be fine! So long as people playing as him / against him have fun, numbers are fake anyway. And while I can’t give you any details on the buffs we’re trying out, I can tell you he’ll certainly climb to the top,” wrote Klein of Revenant.
As for Caustic buffs, Klein says the team is still working on ideas.
“We’re thinking about what to do with him–we could just up the damage again, maybe find an in-between point where he’s okay, but I want us to spend some time thinking of non-damage outputs we could use on the gas. The goal is that people should be terrified of your gas and try to leave ASAP. That’s currently not the case, and we will fix it. No ETA, as always,” he wrote.
