Apex Legends Devs May Nerf Bloodhound's Tracking Ability

Apex Legends’ scouting Legend Bloodhound is in a popular spot this season with the third highest [...]

Apex Legends' scouting Legend Bloodhound is in a popular spot this season with the third highest pick rate among all the Legends, but that's put them in a spot where they could end up getting nerfed sometime soon. John "JayBiebs" Larson, an associate live balanced designer working on Apex Legends, suggested as much recently in a conversation on Reddit after appearing on a player's stream to discuss game balance and the Apex Legends meta that's unfolded this season.

After speaking with Apex Legends content creator night raven about balance and other topics related to the battle royale game, Larson responded to some follow-up questions shared in a Reddit thread by other players. One asked if Bloodhound would be getting a nerf soon while saying that the Legend was their "worst enemy," a sentiment solo players may be able to relate to. The constant scanning from Bloodhound provides players and their teams with exceptional data, but for many players, getting scanned constantly can be quite oppressive.

As for whether or not the Legend will actually get nerfed, Bloodhound's currently in "we'll see" territory, though Larson had one theory about a potential change that may impact Bloodhound's pick rate.

"We'll see. I think there's a ton of intrinsic value in the ability," Larson said when asked about the potential Bloodhound nerf. "From the data side of things I'm curious how much pick rate is affected by the fact that scans count for assists in ranked. Would anything significant happen if we took that away?"

In a different response within the same thread, the developer added to the conversation by saying he'd been keeping an eye on Bloodhound for a while. Larson said that it's pretty common to come across a Bloodhound team in ranked matches with a pick rate that reflects that frequency, and he again suggested that removing assists from the scan may impact the Legend's pick rate.

"Yeah I've been keeping an eye on Bloodhound," Larson said. "Seems rare to come across a squad without one in my experiences in ranked, and they have the third highest pick rate at the moment. I'd be curious to see how much that may dip if we removed assists from scans. I know it's a super powerful ability regardless, but I'm curious if it'd move the needle at all before looking at nerfing the ability itself."

Whether that nerf will actually happen or not remains to be seen, but we've at least gotten some hints of things that are definitely happening soon as we get closer to the game's next season.

[H/T Dexerto]

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