Apex Legends: Patch Notes for Season 24 - Assault Buffs, NEW Helmet, & More

Michael Caruso | Feb 11, 2025

Apex Legends

The developers of Apex Legends never rest. Whether Respawn is releasing a new legend, expansive maps, or fancy cosmetics, there's always something fresh around the corner in Apex. Now, the 24th season is dropping into the battle royale to switch up the gameplay like never before.

There are lots of little things to be excited about, like an overhaul to the helmet system, but the massive buffs coming to popular assault characters will truly change the meta forever. We're going to let you in on the most important additions in the official patch notes for Season 24 of Apex Legends.

1. How is the Meta Changing in Season 24?
2. The Official Patch Notes for Season 24

How is the Meta Changing in Season 24?

Apex Legends

The Takeover is officially out, and balancing changes have been released for weapons, legends, and even armor. Season 24 is overhauling Apex's assault legends and bringing an all-new system to help players collect desirable loot. Ash will now be a fan-favorite character in the esports community due to her new Predator's Pursuit passive, which is a dash ability that helps the legend move around more freely.

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Ballistic has received a notable update too. His ultimate now increases movement speed, while a new level-3 upgrade can double Ballistic's whistler charges. Overall, the changes to assault legends make them more viable for competitive play, so you can expect to see them more often in every mode.

You'll also need to be on the lookout for gold and mythic helmets in bins around each map, as they are now the only headgear available if you want to bolster your defense. Below is a collection of the most important changes revealed in the Season 24 patch notes.

The Official Patch Notes for Season 24

Apex Legends

Legend Buffs

Ash

Ash sees a number of improvements this season to her Arc Snare and Phase Breach to make them more effective and reliable. Her snare change lets her snag targets against the strong edge of the tether more often. Her Ult goes farther, travels faster, and endpoint detection has improved to make the targeting stickier and less prone to accidental bad snapping.

The big change for Ash is her new passive: Predator's Pursuit. This grants her an omnidirectional short-range dash—enabling her to close the gap on a tethered target or evade swiftly in a close-quarters skirmish. With these changes, Ash is set to become the Apex Predator she was always meant to be.

Ballistic

Ballistic sees some of his favorite upgrades, the extra charge and sling levelling, integrated into his base kit, giving him more utility and versatility in the early game. A new Level 3 upgrade allows him to double his Whistler charges, opening up his utility and crowd control potential immensely.

Tempest, his Ult, now also grants a speed bonus—making him a frightening force when he and his team bare down on you. But the big guns? Ballistic's sling can now carry crate weapons, which can spool with infinite ammo when Tempest is active. In Takeover, Ballistic may very well relive his glory days.

ASSAULT CLASS PERKS

Assault Legends are walking arsenals: forged in combat and always ready for a fight. Their abilities grant them incredible combat utility that helps disrupt enemies, threaten their positions, or give them openings to strike. These Legends are enhanced with perks that let them worry less about their weapon economy, bring more explosive power to the table, and give them the combat edge to capitalize on one of core moments in any combat encounter—the shield break.

Combat Reserve
- Carry extra ammo per ammo stack
- Have two new grenade-only slots in inventory
- Retain access to Red Extended Supply Bins
Stowed Reload: stowed weapons automatically reload after 2s
Battle Surge: breaking an enemy’s shields grants a speed burst, fast reloads, and highlights the target enemy for 4s

WEAPON BUFFS, HELMETS AND ARMOR

Over the years, Apex has evolved in so many ways to provide players with more agency and deeper options for how to play, survive, and express their skill. Through that evolution, the benchmark damage for our weapons has stayed stable but has grown stale. We want to make sure the nuanced flow of combat remains tight, and weapons are lethal in order to provide exciting gameplay options.

Battle Royales are all about strategy and timing. These are the mechanisms to success, but strategy goes right out the window if encounters are taking too long to resolve and you're dealing with your 3rd, 4th, or even 5th party. This latest suite of changes is designed to keep you in the drivers seat by providing the tools to resolve conflicts faster, getting you back to if the 3rd party is coming and not when.

In addition to sweeping weapon buffs, we have taken a look at the defensive side of loot in Apex with some hefty streamlining. Low tier Helmets (white, blue, and purple) have been removed, and rare high value Helmets that provide meaningful gameplay perks have been added in their place. As for Armor, you will no longer level into red tier (125 shields) at Level 4 but will instead be capped at Level 3 (100 shields). However, red shields will still be available in the form of the new Mythic Armor Upgrade Helmet.

MUZZLE FLASH

Visual clutter in gunfights is no joke. In an attempt to combat this, we’ve reduced the effects and particles you see when you fire your weapon. We believe this update balances increased visual clarity while still selling the impact and fantasy of firing our weapons.

All 1P weapons muzzle flashes have been updated
- 95% less visual noise over the line of sight (sparks, smoke, glows etc)
- Noise/visuals kept below line of sight
- Reduced size of muzzle flashes
- Optimized particle count
- Cleaned noise from shells ejects
- Cleaned lingering elements (smoke, sparks, etc)
- Light toned down to avoid flickering on weapons and environment models

BALANCE UPDATES

Care Package

- R-99 returns to the floor (balance details below)
- Peacekeeper enters the Care Package (balance details below)

Gold Weapon Rotation

- Alternator, R-99, Wingman, 30-30 Repeater, Rampage LMG

EVO

- Max level achievable by earning EVO is now Level 3 (Purple Armor)
- Red Armor no longer earnable through leveling
- EVO required to reach Level 3 increased to 1700 (was 1350)

Dev Note: Red armor allowed for a much wider health disparity in the mid to late game which reinforced activities like farming damage on the outskirts and avoiding encounters to collect resources. By lowering the total Armor available to these actions and the levels required to earn them, you can now get end-game ready more easily and focus on what matters most—the fight.

Accelerated Weapons

- Assists with an Accelerated Weapon equipped will no longer grant the extra 30% ult charge in Mixtape Modes

GAMEPLAY UPDATES

NEW Arsenals

These stations provide players with easy and deterministic access to weapons and ammo of their choice.

- Stations across all POI's on every map with fixed locations
- Ammo type provided randomizes each match
- Equipped with an enhancing terminal that upgrades one weapon matching the ammo type per Arsenal
- Enhancing grants an upgraded attachment and provides an optic if one is missing

Healing

- Cells now take 2.5s to complete (was 3s)
- Syringes now take 4s (was 5s)
- Cells & Syringes now stack up to 6
- Players now start with 4 Cells and 4 Syringes (was 2 each)
- Battery and Medkit spawn rates have been slightly increased

Dev Note: Players will undoubtedly need to continue popping meds whenever they can with lowered max health, a universal gold helmet perk, and a ton of weapon buffs. We’ve decided to shave down some of those sharp edges to make healing a little easier across the board.

Helmets

- White, blue, and purple have been removed from the loot pool
- Players no longer start with a white helmet

Dev Note: Finding and equipping Helmets has always been a bit lackluster in both feeling the impact of wearing one and making the potential damage output a bit murky. Removing headshot damage reduction from the game makes damage more consistent, understandable, and easier to calculate.

Gold Helmet

- Reworked into Gold Armor Upgrade Helmet
- Offers Improved Minor Healing perk that doubles the output of Cells & Syringes
- Sets the player’s Armor to 100 regardless of Level
- Leveling still required to unlock Legend Upgrades, but no longer affects armor while equipped
- No headshot damage reduction
- Chance to appear in Gold Bins after Bin Reset

NEW Mythic Armor Upgrade Helmet

- Red tier introduced
- Sets player’s armor to 125 regardless of level
- Leveling is still required to unlock Legend Upgrades, but no longer affects armor while this item is equipped
- Red helmets offer no headshot damage reduction
- Appears in the Mythic Bin & late game Care Packages

Dev Note: Both the new Gold and Red Helmets are designed to pull some of the passive power embedded in Legends and put it into the loot pool to create new items to chase and fight for. They’ll also create dynamic gameplay options for players to strategize which squadmates don these powerful new items.

Knocked Down State

- Significantly increased crawl speed while knocked with and without knockdown shield raised

POI Names on Drop

- Now able to see the name and loot tier of each POI projected over the POI during first drop
- Also includes Arsenal info to help drive drop choice

AMMO & ATTACHMENTS

Hop Ups: Hammerpoints have been removed from the loot pool
Gold Magazines: time to reload while stowed decreased to 2s (was 5s)
Optics: 1x Holo optic has been removed from the loot pool
Replicator: reduced the amount of ammo to 1 stack per weapon (was 2 stacks)

LEGENDS

Assault Class Perks

- New perks: Combat Reserve, Stowed Reload, & Battle Surge (detailed above)
- Removed Carry Extra Ammo & Access Weapon Supply Bin perks (now integrated into Combat Reserve)

Support Class Perks

- Heal Expert Removed: Support Legends no longer heal double with small meds or have increased movement speed while healing

Dev Note: The Support Class was very strong last season. The faster movement and double small med heals gave these Legends rapid combat-reset potential that made them effective skirmishers, but didn’t inherently have a team-oriented feel. While this was great during the season of Support, we felt their identity was stronger as revival experts and this change will let them focus on that team-oriented specialization rather than feeling hard to kill.

Ash

Predator’s Pursuit
Removed ability to scan Death Boxes to reveal killers, but they’ll still show on the minimap and map with info on how recently they died
NEW: press the Jump key while in the air to perform a dash
Arc Snare
Tether plants at location of projectile on impact rather than the hit player's location
Tether is slightly harder to break and no longer gets instantly broken by some abilities
Phase Breach
Range increased to 100m (was ~76m)
Travel time reduced
Improved reliability of placement
Removed one frame delay on placement preview
Now has VFX to show max range when in placement mode
Upgrades: Level 2
Murder Machine: removed
One Minute to Live: removed
Greedy Snare: moved to Level 2
NEW Dual Breach: adds additional ult charge
Upgrades: Level 3
NEW Ghost in the Machine: adds additional Dash charge

Ballistic

Sling
Now upgrades with Level by default
Can now carry Crate Weapons and they will gain infinite ammo with Ult
Whistler
Tac now has 2 charges
Overheat reaction time increased to 1.2s (was 1s)
Smart Bullet on ground damage increased to 20 (was 10)
This damage is now equal to the direct hit damage
Tempest: squad gains a speed boost when empowered by Ult
Upgrades: Level 2
Sling Shot: removed (integrated into base kit)
NEW Killing Time: increases duration of Ult by 15s
Upgrades: Level 3
Extra Bullets: doubles the number of Tac charges (was +1 charge)
Quiet Time: Overheat now also silences enemy for 6s

Crypto

EMP: once again destroys Gibraltar’s Dome of Protection

Loba

- Ult back to starting at 50% charge

Maggie

Wrecking Ball
- Once again destroys Gibraltar’s Dome of Protection
- Will now destroy Newcastle’s Mobile Shield

MAPS

PUBS

- Kings Canyon
- Olympus
- Broken Moon

RANKED

- Kings Canyon
- Olympus
- Storm Point

Mixtape

February 11-March 24, 2025
- TDM: Thunderdome, Habitat, Skull Town, Estates, Zeus Station
- Control: Lava Siphon, Barometer, Labs, Caustic, Thunderdome
- Gun Run: Wattson, Estates, Thunderdome, Fragment, Skull Town

Modes

Takeover: Mythic Mayhem Royale (February 11-March 3, 2025)

• Rampart’s new experimental care packages deliver three Mythic R-301 weapon variants
• Hornet (Yellow): faster movement and reload speed, Tac charge on shield break, Ult charge on knock
• Limelight (Green): helps replenish your squad’s health and shields when damaging enemies
• Vermilion (Red): increases critical hit damage and triggers Thermite on knocked enemies

Takeover: Redemption Trios & Duos (February 25-March 3, 2025)

• In collaboration with Creator Commissioner: Ninjayla
• Respawn Tokens are a new Mythic rarity Survival Slot item only available in this Takeover. If you are eliminated with this item in your inventory, you’ll immediately respawn back into the action
• At the start of the match, all players are given one Respawn Token
• Collect additional Respawn Tokens from: eliminating other players, Care Packages, and Mythic Supply Bins
• No respawn limit and no penalty for respawning multiple times
• Usable until the start of the final ring, then any equipped Respawn Tokens will be exchanged for EVO Armor XP
• They only last a short while when on the ground, so pick one up if you need one!
• Respawn Beacons can still be used to bring back players without Respawn Tokens

Takeover: Relic Weapons Trios & Duos (March 4-10, 2025)

• In collaboration with Creator Commissioner: Ninjayla
• Weapons spawn fully kitted
• Only weapons on the ground are Gold and Mythic tier
• Sights can be looted and swapped out, but all other attachments come with the weapon
• Increased supply drops each round which carry two Mythic tier weapons

Standard Trios & Duos (March 11-24, 2025)

LTM: Three Strikes Mystery Legends (March 11-24, 2025)

• In collaboration with Creator Commissioner: Oraxe
• Three Strikes returns with a twist modifier

RANKED

NEW Road to Ranked Challenges

Introduced a new set of challenges to unlock Ranked for new players and returning players who have not yet reached the level requirement.

• Level 20 minimum still required to access Ranked and this is reflected as one of the challenges
• Existing players above Level 20 retain access
• Party restrictions apply: all members must complete challenges to access Ranked

SYSTEM

NEW Bot Royale Tutorial

• Notes will appear to assist with Legends, weapons, loot, and gameplay scenarios
• Low ammo or health items also receive prompts to ping nearby desired loot items
• On by default for accounts below Level 20 and will turn off once that threshold is reached

Weapon Mastery

Trial simplification
- Re-designed all trials
- Removed weapon level restriction for trials

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