Wattson Reworked in Apex Legends Season 11

Respawn Entertainment has overhauled Wattson's kit and hitboxes in Apex Legends Season 11 as it attempts to make her more satisfying to play without losing her overall efficacy.

"[Wattson's] win rate and encounter win rate have always been above average," the developers wrote in patch notes released Thursday. Respawn has several theories about why that is, including a more defensive playstyle correlating with higher average placements or her hitbox being the smallest in the game.

Regardless of the high win rate or its reasons for existing, Respawn says players often find her kit lacking.

"The goal of these changes is to redistribute her invisible power into the parts of her kit that shape the battlefield in a unique way. We wanted to see what changes could spark more consistency and efficacy in her kit, and ideally ground some of the difficulties surrounding the way her abilities work."

Here are all the changes included in the update:

Apex Legends Season 11 Wattson Changes

General

• Improved the reliability and responsiveness of placing Wattson's Tactical and Ultimate in-world objects.
• Wattson can place her Tactical and Ultimate objects on valid surfaces above Wattson's eye level (to a reasonable extent).
• General hitbox size increase, to compensate for the removal of low profile in the Legacy update.

Tactical – Perimeter Defense

• Increased damage on crossing a Fence by 33%. (15 to 20)
• Increased debuff duration on crossing a Fence by 100%. (1.5 to 3 seconds)
• Increased the time allowance to be hit again by a subsequent Fence effect by 100%. (0.5 to 1 second).
• Decreased recharge time by 50% (30 to 15 seconds).
• Increased placement range by 50%.
• Decreased the delay between Fences shutting off and reactivating after an ally passes through them by 60%. (1.0 -> 0.4 seconds)
• Wattson now moves at Unarmed-speed while readying/placing Fence nodes.
• Fence nodes can now be placed as soon as the weapon is readied, instead of waiting for the animation to finish.

Ultimate – Interception Pylon

• The Pylon output has been significantly reworked.
• Reduced the number of active Pylons Wattson can place from 3 to 1.
• The Pylon now lasts forever (instead of timing out after 90 seconds).
• The Pylon now has a pool of 250 Shields that can be distributed to nearby players, instead of effectively infinite Shields.
• Increased the Pylon shield recharge rate by 150%, and smoothed regen rate. (2/second -> 5/second, or more accurately: 1/0.5 seconds -> 1/0.2 seconds)
• When a Pylon is out of Shields, it no longer recharges players' Shields, but can still zap incoming ordnance.
• Taking damage while regenerating Shields via the Pylon delays continued regeneration by 1 second.
• The UI on the ground and HUD elements now displays the amount of Shields that remain in the Pylon.
• Pinging a friendly Pylon will now display the percentage of Shields remaining in the Pylon.
• Pylon ordnance-zapping has been moderately reworked.
• Ordnance is now zapped when the Pylon detects that it would hit any surface within range and line of sight of the Pylon, instead of being zapped as soon as it comes within range.
• As a part of the changes, current issues where the Pylon doesn't reliably zap ordnance (particularly concerning airstrike abilities, and ordnance that bounced off surfaces near the Pylon) should now be addressed.