After the changes brought in Season 18 and Revenant’s rebirth, Apex Legends now has two weapons that cannot take down someone wearing a red shield if you hit all body shots.
Reddit user u/Ninjafish_TTV posted this “worthless piece of trivia” on the Apex subreddit on Aug. 8, noting that the R-99 submachine gun—which just exited the crafter this season—has joined the RE-45 machine pistol as the only weapons that can’t down a player in one magazine with body shots if they have full health and red shields, thanks to its reduced base clip.
“So, Wasnt worth to post before this season, but since they reduced the mag of R9 i think it might be a cool worthless piece of trivia to know,” they wrote in the post. “Out of ALL the weapons in apex(exclude throwing knife), The RE-45 was the only weapon that couldnt down a red-shield player if you hit all body shots. But with the mag change now the r9 doesnt too.”
Related: These are the damage stats for all weapons in Apex Legends
The R-99’s new weakness can, of course, be remedied by finding a blue or purple magazine attachment, but that’s not exactly a simple thing to do during these Season 18 days. This update nerfed the spawn rates for both rarities of attachments, meaning you’ll need even more favor with the RNG gods to get an extended mag.
Considering that the R-99 has been one of the best guns in the game over the past few seasons, with ALGS pros favoring it throughout most of Split Two pro league, this nerf may sting. Unfortunately for SMG fans, the entire weapon class got nerfed at least a bit in this update, so you’ll have to adjust how you play with them regardless, or maybe switch to maining a stronger gun.
