Season 17 of Apex Legends promises one of the biggest quality of life updates for one legend class, Support, bringing widespread benefits for their entire team that will drop with the new season tomorrow, May 9.
Chris “sweetdreams” Sexton, pro player for North American org NRG Esports, positively reacted to the new class changes when reading season 17’s patch notes today, remarking on how the Support class buffs will change the entire ranked landscape, and could possibly influence the highest level of competition.
Previously in season 16, Support legends could craft ally respawn banners at any replicator, even if they already expired, giving an alternative method for a team to fully recover from a lost fight. Now, that ability has been extended to any member of a squad with a Support legend in it, and not just the Support legend themselves.
Sweet pointed out the buff’s positive effects for ranked play and the Apex Legends Global Series, where teams frequently must cut their losses or risk being completely eliminated when trying to recover their downed teammates.
According to Apex Legends Stats, Lifeline and Loba land in the top 10 legends globally picked, making up nine percent of the player base. In the ALGS, Sweet highlighted Loba’s prominence in North America, with NRG consistently running the legend on World’s Edge throughout Split Two to great success, placing seventh place in the NA Pro League and qualifying for the Split Two London Playoffs with her. The translocating thief was the highest played Support legend in all regions, also finishing with a nine percent pick rate in North America’s Split Two regular season.
Season 17’s patch notes also introduced the first character class change since the new classes were introduced, bringing the total amount of playable support legends to five. Mirage moves from the Skirmisher to the Support category, providing additional protection by fully cloaking himself while interacting with natural or mobile respawn beacons.
Additionally, all Support legends gained buffs to the rest of their class abilities. Blue support bins are scattered across and marked on the map, which contain additional healing and shielding items for a team. Season 17 changed the spawning logic of support bins, now guaranteeing a mobile respawn beacon if any allies are dead. Even if the mobile respawn beacon is part of the daily or weekly crafting rotation, support bins will always spawn the survival item, guaranteeing a chance at reviving all teammates during any stage of the match.
New players who want to try out the buffed support legends can access all characters in the newly improved Firing Range, even if they did not previously unlock them, when Apex Legends Arsenal arrives to all platforms on May 9.
