Grenades are powerful tools in Apex Legends, and that’s why many of them have telegraphed timings before they explode. Thermites ignite instantly upon hitting the ground, while arc stars are on a timer after they land on a surface or enemy player.
Frag grenades deal the most damage out of every grenade, and they also have the longest timer before they explode. That’s why you’ll often see players throw them high in the air, in effect “cooking” the grenade to explode almost instantly when they land on an opponent’s head rather than give the enemy a chance to escape the blast radius.
HisWattson didn’t try to do that with the second frag grenade in a clip posted today, but that didn’t stop the frag from drawing things out far, far longer than normal.
After hitting a picture-perfect frag grenade for 100 damage on an enemy hiding behind a Replicator, HisWattson followed it up with another frag rolling down the slope to finish the job. But instead of exploding, the second grenade just sat there, waiting. And waiting.
“Dude! Oh my god,” the FURIA pro laughed, realizing that either the grenade itself was bugged or the entire server was lagging and about to crash. Playing on an alt account for a self-imposed Bronze to Masters ranked challenge where he doesn’t wear any body shield, helmet, or use a backpack, every kill point in ranked can feel like a victory.
And then, just as randomly as the frag grenade seemed to stall out on the ground, it finally exploded, securing the kill after all.
Shortly after the frag stalled out, just about every connection symbol that Apex has to offer popped up in the top right of HisWattson’s screen, which usually indicates the server is crashing in some form or fashion. This time, however, the servers managed to pull through and come back online. Undoubtedly, the person HisWattson was going against spent all that time just looking at the frag grenade at their feet, wondering if they had been bailed out by the error gods (or a DDoSer).
Unfortunately for them (and fortunately for HisWattson’s ranked challenge), that wasn’t the case. Maybe the grenade and the servers just have a good sense of dramatic timing.
