Apex Legends update nerfs Axle hard, tweaks Bloodhound and Seer

Respawn is rolling out a balance patch for Apex Legends early next week, targeting Tuesday morning. Three legends are in the crosshairs: Axle, Bloodhound, and Seer.

Axle is taking the heaviest hits. Nitro Gate launch speed drops from 750 to 700, Ultimate HP falls from 200 to 150, and the base Ultimate cooldown stretches from 90 seconds to 120 seconds. The Ultimate's knockback arc is getting wider while max height is cut, and stun duration is slashed from 1.5 seconds down to 0.25 — a massive reduction. On the upgrade side, Jump Gate is being replaced entirely by a new Drone Deployer upgrade that brings the ult cooldown back down to 90 seconds, giving players a way to offset the base cooldown increase if they pick it.

Bloodhound gets a mixed bag of changes. Cloak visibility is being reduced while inside a dome, and ring damage will no longer break cloaks — both quality-of-life wins for the tracker. Tactical scan duration increases by one second, and scans will now deliver more frequent snapshots that fade over time, making tracking targets more readable in a fight. Seer's change is a single but meaningful one: the turn slow applied when hit by the Tactical is being removed, which should reduce how punishing it feels to get tagged.

Respawn noted this announcement is a departure from their usual cadence — they're flagging the changes ahead of the patch rather than dropping them silently. The update is targeting Tuesday morning, though no exact time was given.