Apex Legends Shockwave Patch Notes - Apex Legends Guide - IGN (2024)

The Shockwave update has arrived for Apex Legends, bringing with it the new E-District map, new Class Perks, balance adjustments, and more!

This page acts as a comprehensive breakdown of the Shockwave update for Apex Legends, including a link to the full Patch Notes.

New Map - E-District

This new map has dozens of buildings, all of which can be explored and focuses the gameplay experience around verticality. Explore this vibrant, neon-filled cityscape with your squad and secure victory!

E-District will be the featured map for a limited time in-game, with each Pub match for the first week, and the first 72 hours of the season for Ranked play.

Shockwave Map Rotation

The following maps will be available in Pubs and Ranked for the first half of this season:

• Broken Moon
• E-District
• Storm Point

Controller and Recon Class Perks

New class passives have been introduced for Controllers and Recons, and are as follows:

Controller

• New Class Perk
  • Zone Overcharge: Controller Legends now have extra shield capacity when playing in zone
  • The Zone automatically grants an overcharge of 25HP shield capacity
  • This capacity is permanent while the player remains in zone (white ring area on the map)
    • Overcharge is lost when leaving zone (after 5s delay)
  • Overcharge can be healed with cells, batteries and abilities while in zone
  • If a player enters the zone at full shields, the overcharge pip will fill automatically
  • If a player acquires a shield core that overcharges beyond this extra zone capacity, that additional overcharge will still drain normally but the zone overcharge will remain
  • Zone Overcharge will never enhance Legend Armor beyond maximum (red) capacity
• New QoL
  • Remote Pick-Up: Controller Legends can now remotely pick-up their undamaged Tacticals by looking back at them and pressing a button
    • Additionally, if the player abandons the area, they will prompted to recover ALL possible objects
    • Remotely recovering these objects will restore the Tactical charge

Recon

• New Class Perk
  • Threat Vision: Recon Legends now gain threat vision when aiming down sights
    • Threat vision will highlight enemies that the character has Line of Sight to whenever using ADS (aim down sights)
    • This ability will not work through walls or smoke, and it’s limited in range by the type of scope or zoom range of an ability
• Survey Beacons
  • Faster to use ~3s (was ~7.5s)
  • Shortened range of ~500m (was scanning the entire map)
  • No longer randomly distributed and all will now be turned on with every map
  • Scanning now grants 75 EVO (was 200 EVO)
  • Now pulses 3 times over 15s, with each pulse taking a snapshot of enemies in range for 5s
  • Now release a large in-world scan wave that players can spot to identify an activated beacon (enemies no longer receive a scan message)
  • Enemies scanned will display along the edges of the mini-map even if not in

Stat Tracker Update

Stats and Art are being separated, letting you set these on your Banner Cards individually. Art has also been made universal, allowing you to apply it to any Banner Card. By logging in during Shockwave, you'll automatically receive 3 new Stat Trackers.

Balance Updates

• Care Package
  • EVA-8 returns to the floor
    • Blast pattern size slightly increased
    • Damage increased to 7 (was 6)
    • Fire rate decreased
    • Now takes Boosted Loader Hop-Up
      • 4 shots remaining activation
      • Quick reload overflows Magazine by 2
    • Slight increase to recoil
  • R-99 enters the Care Package
    • ADS strafe speed increased
    • Improved recoil
    • New Feature: Damage fall-off
      • Damage increased to 14 at close range
      • Damage falls off to 10 at 11+ meters
    • No movement penalty when equipped
  • EVO Cache Spawn Rate in the first wave increased to 100% (was 50%)
• Gold Weapon Rotation
  • Mozambique Akimbo, P2020 Akimbo, R-301, Rampage, Sentinel

Gameplay Updates

• Aim Assist
  • Console crossplay into PC lobbies: Aim Assist strength reduced 18%
  • Console performance mode crossplay into PC lobbies: Aim Assist strength reduced 22%
  • Controller on PC: Aim Assist strength reduced 25%
• Aim Flinch
  • Aim Flinch has been removed from all weapons & most abilities
  • Damage from the ring still incurs Aim Flinch
• Loot Bin Reset
  • Bins that have been rerolled will appear slightly differently than ones that have never been opened
  • After the reset, multiple bins will convert into Legendary loot bins that provide smart loot, guaranteeing that the contents to be relevant upgrades for a squad
• Mythic Bin
  • One Mythic bin will spawn into the match with:
    • One random Care Package weapon
    • Gold version weapons of those that the squad is running at the time of opening the bin
    • Medical supplies and grenades
    • Large XP bonus to the squad
  • Mythic bins are locked and require players to hold interact on them for a significant amount of time to crack them open for their team
  • Displayed on the map and minimap
• Loot Pool
  • Reduce the spawn rate of Purple and Gold attachments by about 50%
• Traversal
  • Mantling at the same time in the same spot as a teammate no longer forces both players to drop

Battle Sense

• Better Ammo Awareness & Feedback
  • Critical Ammo state will now kick on when a player has 0 relevant ammo in their inventory
  • On screen Low Ammo indicators kick on earlier allowing players more opportunity to find ammo
    • Indicator also now displays the icon of the ammo type
  • Pinging for ammo will now display the ammo icon in the kill feed
  • When emptying a weapon of all reserve ammo it will now automatically ping that the player is in need of ammo
  • When looking at ammo on the ground the tooltip now displays compatibility with any of your currently equipped weapons
• Enemy Health Bars
  • When damaging an enemy, players are now shown the enemy’s Armor and Health state. This Health Bar is only active for a brief time after dealing damage and then fades away. Health Bars, like Enemy Highlights require direct line of sight
• Enemy Highlight
  • Enemy players will now be highlighted with a red outline similar to how allies are highlighted with a blue one. The highlight is most prominent at close ranges and the intensity fades as targets get farther away. Enemy Highlights require direct line of sight

Weapons

• Akimbo
  • Aiming tightens hipfire spread instead of looking down sights
  • Attachments are mirrored to the second weapon
  • Both P2020 and Mozambique are automatic in Akimbo
  • Increased rate of fire
  • Longer reload times
  • Magazine size is doubled
  • Optics are disabled while in Akimbo
  • Toggle select fire to holster your second weapon and re-enable your optic
• LMGs
  • All LMGs now benefit from the Reverse Hipfire mechanic found on the Care Package Devotion
  • New Hop-Up: Gun Shield Generator
• Alternator
  • Magazine size changes
    • Base: 19 (unchanged)
    • White: 23 (was 22)
    • Blue: 26 (was 25)
    • Purple/Gold: 28 (was 27)
• CAR
  • Magazine size changes
    • Base: 19 (unchanged)
    • White: 22 (was 21)
    • Blue: 24 (was 23)
    • Purple/Gold: 27 (was 26)
• Devotion
  • Empty reload speed decreased
  • Gun Shield Generator added
  • Reverse hip fire improved; shots needed for max hipfire reduced to 14 (was 21)
• Flatline
  • Magazine size changes
    • Base: 19 (was 20)
    • White: 23 (was 25)
    • Blue: 27 (was 28)
    • Purple/Gold: 29 (was 30)
• Havoc
  • Hipfire accuracy significantly reduced
• Hemlok
  • Burst Delay slightly increased
  • Damage reduced to 19 (was 20)
  • Magazine Size Reduction
    • Base: 18 (unchanged)
    • White: 21 (was 24)
    • Blue: 24 (was 27)
    • Purple/Gold: 30 (unchanged)
• P2020
  • Damage increased to 21 (was 18)
  • Hammer Point damage decreased to 23 (was 27)
  • Magazine size changes
    • Base: 10 (was 14)
    • White: 11 (was 16)
    • Blue: 12 (was 18)
    • Purple/Gold: 14 (was 21)
• Mozambique
  • Hammer Point Damage for a full blast reduced to 54 (was 60)
  • Rate of fire significantly increased
  • Shotgun Bolt rate of fire multiplier decreased at all levels
• Mastiff
  • Damage increased to 15 (was 11)
  • Pellet count reduced to 6 (was 8)
• Peacekeeper
  • Damage increased per pellet to 11 (was 9)
  • Pellet count reduced to 9 (was 11)
  • Blast pattern shape changed
• R-301
  • Magazine size changes
    • Base: 21(was 18)
    • White: 23 (was 20)
    • Blue 28: (was 25)
    • Purple/Gold: 31 (was 28)
• RE-45
  • Magazine size changes
    • Base: 18 (was 16)
    • White: 20 (was 19)
    • Blue: 23 (was 22)
    • Purple/Gold: 26 (was 25)
• Rampage
  • Increase projectile size while Revved Up

Full Patch Notes

If you wish to read the Patch Notes in full, you can do so via the official Apex Legends websites Shockwave Patch Notes blog post.