Apex Legends 22.1 mid-season patch notes — Valkyrie buffs, HAVOC nerf, and more

We’re almost halfway through season 22 of Apex Legends, and that means changes are coming for different legends, weapons, and more. And one character in particular is getting a huge suite of adjustments.

It’s no secret Valkyrie has fallen off since the introduction of the game’s Evac Towers essentially rendered her ultimate ability useless, so Respawn is changing her game up with some familiar abilities that just might give her new wings. There are also changes to some obviously strong weapons, map changes to E-District, and more to come in Apex.

Apex Legends 22.1 patch notes

Legend changes

The biggest, most obvious winner of this patch is Valkyrie. She’s going back into the Recon class, enabling her to use survey beacons and also giving her Threat Vision while aiming down sights and while using her jetpack. Her jetpack will also feel more similar to her release with more agile movement, her tactical has gotten several buffs to radius, damage, stun duration, and more, and she’s even got a new level three Evo upgrade, Eyes in the Sky, which will reveal enemies from further way while skydiving and even scan them through walls.

Other hero changes include the following:

• Fuse nerf: Hard capped radius of scan from the Motherlode to prevent further exploiting ultimate.
• Revenant nerf: Ultimate shields decreased to 50, ultimate activation increased to double the previous time.
• Rampart buff: Decreased delay to re-enter Sheila in turret mode.

Weapon and Hop-up changes

It’s no secret the HAVOC was still incredibly strong at high levels of the game, even with its power and popularity taken away at the ALGS Split Two Playoffs thanks to the Akimbo Mozambique. But Respawn still nerfed the HAVOC further by taking the Turbocharger hop-up out of the loot pool completely. The wind-up time on the weapon is now its default mode, which will likely make it far less popular.

Other weapon and item changes include the following:

• R-99 changes: Damage fall-off increased, recoil pattern improved.
• Ammo buff: Ammo spawning with a weapon will have a single inventory brick with twice the ammo.
• Gun Shield Generator nerf: Reduced spawn rate.
• Ultimate Accelerant changes: Ult Accelerants are now Purple rarity and have reduced spawn rate. Increased player movement while using an Accelerant.

E-District changes

E-District is in line for plenty of quality-of-life changes, including the following:

• Assets added to help climbing up walls.
• Two new survey beacons on the map.
• Electro Dam spillway can be traversed going up.
• Ground loot buff
  • 100 loot bins added to the map.
  • Ground loot now spawns in buses.
  • Some buildings have had their ground loot increased.
• Reduced high-tier spawn rate at The Lotus.
• Changed position of Blossom Drive Replicator.
• Fixed several rat spots.

The loot buff is a huge change to E-District, which some have complained felt empty and devoid of loot while moving through some areas of the map. And while several of its POIs are large, it wasn’t uncommon for me to hot drop at a building and run through it without finding any weapon or loot bin whatsoever.

Map rotation

E-District will stay in the map rotation, while Kings Canyon and Olympus return to the rotation as well.

For a full rundown on all the other changes and bug fixes coming to Apex in the mid-season patch, check out the full patch notes. Apex Patch 22.1 is set to go live on Sept. 17.