Apex Legends Season 18 Recap - Everything You Need

Season 18 of Apex Legends came out today, and players can check out the patch notes for the Resurrection update to see all the changes that are coming. The launch trailer for the season came out on July 31, and there have already been a lot of leaks and teases, including a reworked version of a legend and a gun. In addition to new material, the new ranked season will have some changes that are meant to make matches more difficult.

But there isn't much time left before everything starts. So, here's what we know so far about the Apex season 18 patch notes for Resurrection.

When Does Apex Legends Season 18 End?

We expect the season 18 to end on November 8th, 2023.

Apex Legends Season 18 Buffs and Nerfs

Revenant Rework

On August 2, Respawn showed an early look at Revenant's new ability kit with iiTzTimmy. Fans all over the world got to see how the development team worked on the update and how the Synthetic Nightmare plays in season 18, Resurrection.

• Passive: Assassin’s Instinct – You can crouch-walk faster than other Legends and climb higher than them both up and down. You can see which enemies are close to dying. Bringing an enemy down to low HP lets your whole team know where they are.
  


• Tactical: Shadow Pounce – Launch toward a targeted direction. Hold the tactical ability button to charge up energy for a longer distance leap.
  


• Ultimate: Forged Shadows – When activated, gain a shadow shield with 75 health that absorbs damage and recharges over time. Downing enemies extends the duration and resets your tactical and shield cooldowns.
  

Other Buffs and Nerfs

Several cooldowns for ultimate abilities are being changed, and there are a few other changes as well.

• Ballistic
  The Whistler tactical is getting a nerf, with overheated weapons now cooling down a second quicker, and overheated weapons now cool down four seconds faster as well.


• Bangalore
  Ultimate cooldown now 240 seconds (a full minute added)


• Catalyst
  Ultimate cooldown now 150 seconds (30 seconds added)


• Gibraltar
  Ultimate cooldown now 180 seconds (reduced by 90 seconds, giving Gibby one of the rare buffs of this season)


• Horizon
  Ultimate cooldown now 210 seconds (30 seconds added)


• Loba
  Ultimate cooldown now 150 seconds (30 seconds added)
  Ultimate accelerants now grant 25 percent to her ult charge (was 20 percent)
  Tactical teleport ability cooldown reduced to 25 seconds (was 30 seconds)


• Mad Maggie
  Ultimate cooldown now 120 seconds (30 seconds added)


• Pathfinder
  Ultimate cooldown now 180 seconds (one minute added)


• Seer
  Tactical ability nerfs
  Slow when hit by tactical reduced to 0.5 seconds (was 2.5 seconds)
  Silence when hit by tactical reduced to eight seconds (was 10 seconds)
  Firing speed of tactical increased to 1.4 seconds (was 0.9 seconds)


• Wraith
  Ultimate cooldown now 180 seconds (reduced by 30 seconds, another buff for Wraith)

To see how will our professional Apex Legends boosters rank the legends in season 18, check our Apex Legends Tier List.

Ring Changes

Respawn is trying to speed up matches without taking away too much from how tough they are. As a result, the round one ring is getting bigger, the time before the ring closes each round is getting shorter, and the speed at which the rings close is getting a bit slower to make up for it.

• Ring one increased in size by 10 percent


• Ring two damage increased from three to four damage per tick


• Ring four damage decreased from 20 to 15 damage per tick

What have all these changes led to? Quicker games. The usual time to finish a map has gone down by about 2.5 minutes for all of them. Large maps now take about 20 minutes to finish, while small maps take about 19 minutes.

Ranked Changes in Season 18

The ranking changes for season 18 are now official, and they are meant to stop rank inflation like the kind we all saw last year. Ladder Points (LP) will be easier to lose in groups and harder to get, and it looks like prizes will also be harder to get.

Placement	S17	S18	S18 Diamond+
1	200	150	150
2	175	100	100
3	150	85	85
4	125	70	70
5	100	55	55
6	80	40	40
7	60	25	25
8	40	10	10
9	24	0	0
10	20	0	0
11	-25	-30	-45
12	-25	-30	-45
13	-25	-30	-45
14	-35	-50	-75
15	-35	-50	-75
16	-35	-50	-75
17	-35	-50	-75
18	-35	-50	-75
19	-35	-50	-75
20	-35	-50	-75

From 10th place to first place, you get the same amount of LP as listed above. However, if you are a Diamond or higher, finishing 11th through 13th will cost you 45 LP, and finishing below that will cost you 75 LP.

Our Apex Legends boosting squad is looking forward to boosting you in Season 18 as well. Simply head over to our Apex Legends rank boosting page, customize your order and let's get you going right away!

Weapon Changes

In addition to the official overhaul of the Charge Rifle, there are a lot of other changes to the balance of weapons. The focus seems to be on making shotguns shine again, loosening the grip of SMGs on the meta, and making a couple of bad weapons useful again. What do I think? The developers are trying to make controller players less powerful without making aim assist less powerful.

• Charge Rifle
  - No longer hitscan
  - No longer has “pre-fire” laser
  - Projectiles open doors
  - Projectiles have player damage passthrough at 80 percent damage retained
  - Projectiles gain damage the further away the target is
  - 75 damage dealt to targets 50 meters away
  - 110 damage dealt to targets 300 meters away, which seems like the upper limit
  - Added extended sniper mags (five for White, six for Blue, eight for Purple/Gold)
  - Ammo consumption now one bullet per shot
  - Reload times decreased 0.5 seconds (3.5 seconds on “tactical” reload, 4.5 seconds when reloading an empty Charge Rifle)


• All SMGs
  - All SMGs get a nerf to ADS strafe speed (remember how you used to sprint left and right in a duel? That’s going to be a lot slower now if you’re using an SMG)
  - All SMG headshot multipliers nerfed to 1.25 (originally 1.5)


• R-99
  - Vertical recoil increased
  - Ammo capacity reduced
  - Base ammo now 17 (was 19)
  - White mag now 20 (was 21)
  - Blue mag now 23 (was 24)
  - Purple/Gold mag now 26 (was 27)


• Spitfire
  - Barrel mods can now be added to Spitfire
  - ADS recoil improved
  - Hipfire spread also improved


• Mastiff
  - Projectile pattern tightened

Grenade Changes

Frag bombs are getting a little stronger. The "outer radius" is going from 320 to 350 units, and the "inner radius" is going from 96 to 125 units. Frag grenades are now easier to use and do more damage when they hit someone.

Thermites are getting a small change to make it clearer where their hitbox is and where they do damage.

Armor Changes

In an odd change, White evo shields now need 200 damage instead of 150 damage to level up to Blue. The same is true when you use a Replicator to make your White evo shield. Lastly, damage should now properly flow into your leveled-up evo shield on the hit where you level your armour up.

Disruptor Rounds are back

For the first time since season two of Apex, Disruptor Rounds are coming back as floor loot. They will be available for the weapon they are most closely linked to, the Alternator, but they will also get a new friend in Disruption: the Peacekeeper.

The damage boost to shields will be added to both guns. With the hop-up, each bullet from a Disruptor Alternator will do 20 percent more damage to shields, and each pellet from a Peacekeeper will do a huge 25 percent more damage to shields. And, really? That makes me want to really play Peacekeeper in all games.

In season 18, the Boosted Loader is also coming back for the Wingman and the Hemlok. The Double Tap Trigger is going away completely, and Hammerpoint Rounds will no longer be used in crafting.

New replicator and care packages rotations

• Hemlok returns to ground loot with buffs over its previous ground loot state.
• Prowler SMG enters care package with Selectfire hop-up.
• R-99 and Rampage LMG return to ground loot.
• Nemesis AR and Mozambique with Hammerpoints enter crafting rotation.

Many players probably hope that those Hemlok buffs help it because in season 17, when we had to choose between picking up a care package Hemlok or a Nemesis from the ground with no attachments, we almost always chose the Nemesis. The gun is just that good, and compared to it, the Hemlok didn't do much for us.

Map Rotation In Season 18

Storm Point and World's Edge will no longer be used when season 18 starts. Broken Moon will stay in the rotation, but Olympus and Kings Canyon will return. Broken Moon is also being turned into a mixtape. This means you'll be able to play modes like Team Deathmatch, Gun Run, and Control in different parts of the terraforming project.