Apex Legends Season 12 update Crypto and Caustic changes

There's a whole lot to love in the Apex Legends Season 12 Defiance update, released on 8th February 2022. From a brand new Legend called Mad Maggie to the Control LTM, map changes, a shiny new battle pass and much more. For the competitive Apex Legends player, we've already covered the weapon and equipment balance changes. Now, it's time to look at the Legends changes.

In this article, we outline all the changes to both Caustic and Crypto, featuring the balance adjustments these two Legends have received.

Caustic balance changes Apex Legends S12

The balance changes to both Caustic and Crypto come straight from Respawn and EA as per the official Apex Legends Season 12 patch notes.

Caustic mains should be aware that the Nox Gas Traps are now destroyable after detonation.

Nox Gas Traps changes:

• 150hp
• Detonated traps will expire at 11s (instead of 12.5s)
• Gas effects linger for two seconds after barrel destruction or expiration (gas particles still linger a bit longer as they dissipate)

Now, onto the Crypto balance changes in Apex Legends Season 12.

Crypto balance changes Apex Legends S12

Crypto has received a massive round of balance changes in the Apex Legends Season 12 update. 

The developers explain these balance changes to Crypto: "Crypto has been off the grid in terms of pick rate. The goal of these changes was to make his kit more accessible and engaging. With a new deployment option, we lowered drone health to prevent reckless drone deploy.

"Crypto is still a methodical, calculating legend, and manually piloting Hack should still be the primary way to access macro-level recon. The drone view HUD updates should help here as well. Crypto’s never been weak per se; we’re cognizant of his strengths at high-level play and will be keeping an eye on his usage and performance."

Drone View HUD and other Quality of Life updates:

• Added gamestate (e.g. Ring information, round timers), minimap, killfeed, team status, , and ping information to the Drone's HUD.
• Repurposed the Drone HUD's old Crypto health/shield presentation into displaying the health of the Drone itself.
• Survey Beacon markers are now displayed in-world while piloting the Drone (same as when controlling Crypto himself).

Neurolink changes:

• Increased the Neurolink detection FOV from 160 -> 240 degrees.
• Neurolink detection is now disabled while the Drone is being recalled.

Surveillance Drone changes:

The deployment of the Drone has received a rework:

• Pressing the Tactical button causes Crypto to send the Drone flying in a straight line in the direction of Crypto's view for a few seconds.
• If thrown to a wall (or other geo), the Drone will hit the wall and re-orient itself so that it's facing away from the wall.
• Crypto no longer immediately accesses Drone View after deploying his Drone in this way.
• Pressing and holding the [Tactical] button will launch the Drone forward in the same way, but then Crypto will immediately access Drone View.

Further changes to Crypto include:

• Reduced Drone health from 60 -> 50.
• The HUD marker for the Drone has been tweaked to increase visibility.
• The HUD marker for the Drone is now always displayed on-screen while the Drone is deployed (instead of only when the Drone was off-screen.

It will be interesting to see how these balance changes to both Legends affect the meta, especially with the introduction of Mad Maggie as well.

So there you have it, all the balance changes to both Caustic and Crypto in the Apex Legends Season 12 Defiance update. 

• Read more: Apex Legends Mad Maggie: Release date, abilities, lore, loadout, more

Don't forget to check out our dedicated Apex Legends section for news, guides, tier lists and much more.

Featured image courtesy of EA.