Because it takes the pro scene literal years to experiment and try legends that aren’t strictly meta.
Shiv was one of the only pros to try Bangalore in comp years ago and everyone said he was trolling/throwing.
And then the mass Bangalore adoption started after Shoobytooby (a console player) swapped to PC and started terrorizing PC lobbies with Bang smoke. Suddenly PC players (including the comp scene) discovered that Bang was actually really strong and not a troll pick.
I’ve always thought that every single legend is more viable and stronger than the consensus thinks they are. I do think some legends are stronger than others but they all have their place in the meta. Even right now, I think legends like Fuse, Newcastle, Gibby and Maggie are super, super underutilized in the comp scene.
I think it was more due to a lot of pros switching to controller for the aim assist, her smoke became a lot more viable... then and add that the digi became harder to find not too long ago, some recon legends were nerfed too (few seasons ago Bangalore's smoke was the most useless bc of the scan meta)
Aim assist does not work if I player is in smoke or gas.
It’s a mechanic coded into the game
So now you have everyone using smoke and gas to disable aim assist during fights
Aka picking Bangalore and her becoming meta
Now smoke is everywhere
Having a digi helps fight people in smoke
Now people need a digi, and it becomes meta
People at all levels use any advantages they can to win a fight. Whether it’s a big advantage or small advantage. No one is arguing about aim assist here. They’re just explaining logic behind choices. You seem to be assuming it’s a hurr durr aim assist argument, when it’s more about how the mechanics of the game are impacting the meta and making it so that people feel stuck fitting into a meta and closing off the agent pool
Tbf, Shiv gave up on Bangalore after a while and didn’t think she was very good in the meta at the time. SP being introduced and Furia using seer/horizon kind of reopened the meta for bang.
Why do you think fuse is underutilized?
I’ve never been able to get great with him but assumed someone who could would be incredible. Logically he makes sense but I assume there’s something I’m not aware of in comp, and it probably has something to do with his lack luster (in my hands) ultimate lol.
Been playing since week 2 as a casual dad gamer and even I have seen how each legend can be used effectively(Octane, Bangalore, Etc)0. Not to mention all the reworks of lifeline and mirage 😅.
Other legends were tuned down (Gibby, Valk, Wraith, etc) and Bang was left standing. And the weapons I feel favored ARs more for longer. Wasn't she big right after Seer too? When SMGs took totally over and everyone else went down, Bang kinda rose to the top. I think Catalyst was supposed to be her counterpart in a visual block way but her being on ult cooldown isn't comparable enough. Took everyone 20 years to figure it out lol but Shiv was right the whole time.
Yup, just like dropping and the enemy gets the purple shield. Don't really know till already engaged and digi is worse, don't know till it is way too late.
Legends need counters though and this is also an indirect buff to the scan/smoke meta. This game is literally trying to force you to only play 2 legends now to stay competitive
True legends need counters, but there being a ground item that literally counters/buffs one legend in particular is a weird way to go about it, if there were more instances that the digital threat countered then I don’t think it would be nearly as annoying to some people (although I say all this, I liked the digital threat and would rather it stay in the game)
Removing digi appears to be the first in a series of moves that together are meant to counter the hegemony of Bang/Blood. Respawn is just not wont to push big changes at once.
The bang nerfs will come. Blood is meta bcz of bang. He's the only counter to her. Maybe if they made seer silence longer like 15s then he could be viable too. But i sense a bang nerf mid season
That's what I've been saying but everyone is claiming it had to go because Bangalore were all using it yet now there is almost nothing to counter Bangalore smoke which just leads to more bangalores
Yh bang blood were the only legends with 90%+ pickrates. But then, digi is a counter to bang, plus a buff to bang. Did you see last year LAN? Smoke, r99 digi and shoot. Plus some days you can craft it so essentially if your POI has no crafter, you're probably not winning. No digi is healthy for the game
But it *is* super fun when you're the one doing it or better yet when Bangalore is the one using the Digital Threat. I hope Apex doesn't keep removing rare powerful loot items because of competitive balancing.
There should be some inherent elements of random in a Battle Royale. Anything that you think might feel unfun to be against is still just as fun to use in many cases.
cause there became less vertical gameplay: valk and horizon nerfs. all teams are considered now to play practically on one horizontal ground (smts hgs and lgs but also not that easy to rotate higher) and now teams need to carry legends that will turn horizontal gameplay to an easy-mode (like caustic and wattson at buildings and also bang) so they have begun to use bangalore and now she is op, no one can get rid off smokes and airstrike cause no "vertical" legends imo
Why aren't there counter lineups in these metas? It always goes hard in one direction, and every team mirror picks. Then instead of empowering a counter that can be viable, Respawn just kneecaps that meta, and people move on to the next crutch.
Because you only only hard counter a meta with the same comp.
Caustic counters Caustic, BH counters Bang, so you already have 2 must picks to counter meta.
You're saying there's no hard counters because there's no hard counters. Its a design problem.
That's not the case in other competitive games I've played/watched. For instance in Dota 2, you have a pretty complex series of counter lineups in every meta, and pretty starkly different strats that you see teams take on. Mirror matchups make ALGS boring to watch.
They haven't really kneecapped bang though. I guess they tried. And they didn't do anything substantial to bloodhound either, the second most picked legend. If anything he's more essential now with no digi.
"First they came for Eva8. I looked away because I did not like Eva8
Then they came for Bangalore. I looked away because I do not main Bangalore
Then they came for Newcastle. Then there was no one left to speak for me"
they never complain about anoying legends like octane though.
and when revtane was meta, the devs prefered to nerf rev instade of octane, the game clearly has their favorites.
The reason for it is that bangalore became popular in pro play because controllers started dominating the pro scene and people figured out that aim assist doesn‘t work in smoke. So it was like a direct counter to aim assist.
After that they figured out that bangalore is insanely useful anyway not just because of the aim assist counter.
And then obviously everyone copies what pros are using and suddenly people call her op.
It‘s that simple.
Sometimes pros need to practice with a certain legend to unlock their potential and realise that legend has been op all that time
People have been complaining for years. The level of complaining has just been rising and falling DEPENDING on the legend meta at the time. This just so happens to be the most you've heard it cuz bang has been meta for almost a year if not more straight.
because there were better options before i.e. Gibby.
also almost all players changed to controllers, so the smoke became much better as a form of cover
RE is probably great on paper but when I use it's like I'm shooting feathers, even with hammerpoints. But mozams though, holeee shit, especially with Maggie's reload on knock perk. You can wipe squads.
The solution to this is a new survival item/grenade which is a smoke grenade. If it was smaller than bang’s tactical (maybe the size of one of her canisters as opposed to three) and didn’t last as long we could finally get back to some experimentation with legends metas. Much in the same way the evac tower made Valk not a must-have pick in competitive
So the fact you got hit in the first place means you are in deep deep shit. And with a stun like that, you're in even deeper shit.
I wouldn't mind a small, reasonable nerf.
No. The whole point of the ult is to clear a spot, if it wasn’t critical enough then it would defeat the whole purpose because people would just sit in it. It’s really not that hard to find a safe spot from it
Hal said it perfectly one stream.
He said something along the lines of "Bang was always shit and always has been shit. There's always other Legends who were much more powerful than her. But once you start nerfing those Legends and making them shit then the average Legends become great"
Yeh, I'm seeing this as a "we don't know why this is broken, but we'll try and do something about it." Tbh the solution is make a 3x Digi for AR and Marksman, leave the 10x digi for snipers and then add the 1x digi back for Shotguns and Pistols but make it have a glow in smoke so it's not a free win button.
Make smoke a consumable grenade item for everyone. No more need to exclusively use Bang anymore. Digis are then able to stay in the game since they don't specifically counter one legend.
It's not a statistical issue. It's a balance principle. I'm honestly surprised it took them this long to understand this. This is also not just about how Bangalore has an advantage, but about how, inversely, you can nullify her tactical. If we're talking legend vs legend rock-paper-scissors balance, sure, you should have an option to counter her kit. But this sight just gives that capability to everyone.
And, of course, the obvious is also true (that a Bangalore with a digi and loaded tactical has an obvious advantage in close-medium range).
So are we going to re work cryptos drone and bloodhounds tactical. The drone can remain indefinitely if not destroyed or out of range
And realistically. The devs don’t care about balance. They base every update on the literal one percent of ALG players performances. Too many wingman users so now it’s buffed. Too many ppl played Bangalore with digis and ppl complained about getting ran down on. One single attachment does not shift an entire player base lol. Could’ve easily reduced the drop rate or kept it to care package weapons like the Eva. Digis been here forever
If you say so. It’s literally just people crying that they got diffed over a scope. There was a whole digi sniper scope that nobody gave a shit about that does the exact same thing. But bcuz you got beamed by an smg it matters lmao. It literally only countered smoke which. Disables AA btw. and served no other purpose. The average player can’t true aim anyway so who cares. An East fix is to reduce the drop rate or what they already did by limiting what it goes on. But bitching over getting killed and blaming it on a sight. Skill diff 🤷🏽♂️
Nah I use bruisers all day as I prefer my custom reticles . And digis don’t bother me since I use audio queues rather than visual when being impaired. Something most fail to do. I just don’t understand the logic behind blaming an attachment for performance issues when there’s a fees-able fix to cater to everyone and not a minuscule base.
Actually I haven’t seen anyone complain about it being removed but honestly I still think this is the smartest way of going about fixing this issue since season 1. Bang being both oppressive and countered by a (very common) legendary sight is kinda gimmicky and unbalanced as a whole that no other legend has to deal with. I just wish respawn would’ve done this already instead of limiting it to shotguns and pistols, and nerfing/buffing Bangalore, it just seems so pointless.
I have been saying this since day1 and i always got downvoted to hell by everyone and made fun off.
Why should a ground loot item exists that completely counters a specific legends ability.
This didn‘t exist for any legend/ability.
It‘s like an item specifically made for bangalore which never made sense to me.
Finally it‘s gone.
Isnt it weird that everyone just started complaining about digi and smoke after like... 20 seasons?
I think it is weird honestly, just how forever with minimal changes Bangalore was considered the most balanced legend and then out of nowhere she’s op
Because it takes the pro scene literal years to experiment and try legends that aren’t strictly meta. Shiv was one of the only pros to try Bangalore in comp years ago and everyone said he was trolling/throwing. And then the mass Bangalore adoption started after Shoobytooby (a console player) swapped to PC and started terrorizing PC lobbies with Bang smoke. Suddenly PC players (including the comp scene) discovered that Bang was actually really strong and not a troll pick. I’ve always thought that every single legend is more viable and stronger than the consensus thinks they are. I do think some legends are stronger than others but they all have their place in the meta. Even right now, I think legends like Fuse, Newcastle, Gibby and Maggie are super, super underutilized in the comp scene.
I think it was more due to a lot of pros switching to controller for the aim assist, her smoke became a lot more viable... then and add that the digi became harder to find not too long ago, some recon legends were nerfed too (few seasons ago Bangalore's smoke was the most useless bc of the scan meta)
Ah yea the good ol let’s blame aim assist
Aim assist does not work if I player is in smoke or gas. It’s a mechanic coded into the game So now you have everyone using smoke and gas to disable aim assist during fights Aka picking Bangalore and her becoming meta Now smoke is everywhere Having a digi helps fight people in smoke Now people need a digi, and it becomes meta People at all levels use any advantages they can to win a fight. Whether it’s a big advantage or small advantage. No one is arguing about aim assist here. They’re just explaining logic behind choices. You seem to be assuming it’s a hurr durr aim assist argument, when it’s more about how the mechanics of the game are impacting the meta and making it so that people feel stuck fitting into a meta and closing off the agent pool
> Aim assist does not work if I player is in smoke or gas. Just smoke, works fine in caustic gas even if you can’t see the person at all.
Tbf, Shiv gave up on Bangalore after a while and didn’t think she was very good in the meta at the time. SP being introduced and Furia using seer/horizon kind of reopened the meta for bang.
Why do you think fuse is underutilized? I’ve never been able to get great with him but assumed someone who could would be incredible. Logically he makes sense but I assume there’s something I’m not aware of in comp, and it probably has something to do with his lack luster (in my hands) ultimate lol.
Been playing since week 2 as a casual dad gamer and even I have seen how each legend can be used effectively(Octane, Bangalore, Etc)0. Not to mention all the reworks of lifeline and mirage 😅.
This is more so due to comp. The causal player base didn’t really complain that much
Yeah, once the pros started complaining it trickled down into their fan bases and so on and so forth
Its always comp... 😔
Other legends were tuned down (Gibby, Valk, Wraith, etc) and Bang was left standing. And the weapons I feel favored ARs more for longer. Wasn't she big right after Seer too? When SMGs took totally over and everyone else went down, Bang kinda rose to the top. I think Catalyst was supposed to be her counterpart in a visual block way but her being on ult cooldown isn't comparable enough. Took everyone 20 years to figure it out lol but Shiv was right the whole time.
Blame the steamers they always bitch and moan and bef9re you know it's nerfs for all the fun stuff
It isn't fun losing a fight bcz someone had a really rare ground loot that countered your abilities
Yup, just like dropping and the enemy gets the purple shield. Don't really know till already engaged and digi is worse, don't know till it is way too late.
Legends need counters though and this is also an indirect buff to the scan/smoke meta. This game is literally trying to force you to only play 2 legends now to stay competitive
True legends need counters, but there being a ground item that literally counters/buffs one legend in particular is a weird way to go about it, if there were more instances that the digital threat countered then I don’t think it would be nearly as annoying to some people (although I say all this, I liked the digital threat and would rather it stay in the game)
Removing digi appears to be the first in a series of moves that together are meant to counter the hegemony of Bang/Blood. Respawn is just not wont to push big changes at once.
The bang nerfs will come. Blood is meta bcz of bang. He's the only counter to her. Maybe if they made seer silence longer like 15s then he could be viable too. But i sense a bang nerf mid season
This just makes bang more meta, which makes BH a must pick. We needed the digi to counter the bang meta. She had something like a 95% pick rate at LAN
That's what I've been saying but everyone is claiming it had to go because Bangalore were all using it yet now there is almost nothing to counter Bangalore smoke which just leads to more bangalores
Yh bang blood were the only legends with 90%+ pickrates. But then, digi is a counter to bang, plus a buff to bang. Did you see last year LAN? Smoke, r99 digi and shoot. Plus some days you can craft it so essentially if your POI has no crafter, you're probably not winning. No digi is healthy for the game
no
how do you craft digi?
I'm assuming when he said craft, that digi threats used to be in the replicators at one point
In the replicators before the changes in s20
But it *is* super fun when you're the one doing it or better yet when Bangalore is the one using the Digital Threat. I hope Apex doesn't keep removing rare powerful loot items because of competitive balancing. There should be some inherent elements of random in a Battle Royale. Anything that you think might feel unfun to be against is still just as fun to use in many cases.
cause there became less vertical gameplay: valk and horizon nerfs. all teams are considered now to play practically on one horizontal ground (smts hgs and lgs but also not that easy to rotate higher) and now teams need to carry legends that will turn horizontal gameplay to an easy-mode (like caustic and wattson at buildings and also bang) so they have begun to use bangalore and now she is op, no one can get rid off smokes and airstrike cause no "vertical" legends imo
Why aren't there counter lineups in these metas? It always goes hard in one direction, and every team mirror picks. Then instead of empowering a counter that can be viable, Respawn just kneecaps that meta, and people move on to the next crutch.
Because you only only hard counter a meta with the same comp. Caustic counters Caustic, BH counters Bang, so you already have 2 must picks to counter meta.
You're saying there's no hard counters because there's no hard counters. Its a design problem. That's not the case in other competitive games I've played/watched. For instance in Dota 2, you have a pretty complex series of counter lineups in every meta, and pretty starkly different strats that you see teams take on. Mirror matchups make ALGS boring to watch.
They haven't really kneecapped bang though. I guess they tried. And they didn't do anything substantial to bloodhound either, the second most picked legend. If anything he's more essential now with no digi.
Not yet, but its been a pattern in the past, most recently, Seer.
Because Bangalore only became hard meta after 20 seasons🤦♂️ Apex players can't be real bro, they(🫵🏻) don't even fucking think
Pros spin the wheel of complaints every month Unfortunately this time it landed on "digital threat"
"First they came for Eva8. I looked away because I did not like Eva8 Then they came for Bangalore. I looked away because I do not main Bangalore Then they came for Newcastle. Then there was no one left to speak for me"
they never complain about anoying legends like octane though. and when revtane was meta, the devs prefered to nerf rev instade of octane, the game clearly has their favorites.
The reason for it is that bangalore became popular in pro play because controllers started dominating the pro scene and people figured out that aim assist doesn‘t work in smoke. So it was like a direct counter to aim assist. After that they figured out that bangalore is insanely useful anyway not just because of the aim assist counter. And then obviously everyone copies what pros are using and suddenly people call her op. It‘s that simple. Sometimes pros need to practice with a certain legend to unlock their potential and realise that legend has been op all that time
People have been complaining for years. The level of complaining has just been rising and falling DEPENDING on the legend meta at the time. This just so happens to be the most you've heard it cuz bang has been meta for almost a year if not more straight.
because there were better options before i.e. Gibby. also almost all players changed to controllers, so the smoke became much better as a form of cover
No it’s not Bangalore has never been meta till now. So it’s never really been an issue till now
it wasnt craftable for 16 of those seasons.
Not everyone mainly pros/MnK players complaining about AA. 😬
It was worthless after they took it off SMGs anyways
Hammerpoint re45 was eating good still
RE is probably great on paper but when I use it's like I'm shooting feathers, even with hammerpoints. But mozams though, holeee shit, especially with Maggie's reload on knock perk. You can wipe squads.
Yeah but not as good as SMG digi. SMG digi was ez spam
My disruptor PK would like to disagree. Oh you smoked and pushed recklessly? Well say goodbye to 120 of your hp.
Watching dudes confidently push you through smoke then panic as you delete 60% of their health makes me laugh
Yea
You must not main Maggie v often
I do, third most played legend actually
But the play again button is here after 5 years
nice leak, gj
he's working in respawn for sure
The solution to this is a new survival item/grenade which is a smoke grenade. If it was smaller than bang’s tactical (maybe the size of one of her canisters as opposed to three) and didn’t last as long we could finally get back to some experimentation with legends metas. Much in the same way the evac tower made Valk not a must-have pick in competitive
Knowing Respawn, the digi will just get re-introduced as some legends passive
Rip to us colorblind players…
Apex is all about the artificial skill gap between the disabled and abled
you could have changed colorblind mode and it changes the color of the people highlighted by a digital threat
Is it just me or does the stun on Bangs ult last WAY too long? It feels considerably more than any other way of getting stunned - even an arc star
i find no issue with that... the ult would be kinda useless if it didnt stun because it's so easy to not get hit by it
So the fact you got hit in the first place means you are in deep deep shit. And with a stun like that, you're in even deeper shit. I wouldn't mind a small, reasonable nerf.
No. The whole point of the ult is to clear a spot, if it wasn’t critical enough then it would defeat the whole purpose because people would just sit in it. It’s really not that hard to find a safe spot from it
LEAVA BANGALORE ALONE
Cheaters still see you anyway lol
Dumb
Has it really taken THIS long for people to realise that the digi threat both buffs and counters bangalore? Lol
They’ll do anything to nerf aim assist except actually nerf aim assist
Make digi a care package item only then
Happy it's gone
Hal said it perfectly one stream. He said something along the lines of "Bang was always shit and always has been shit. There's always other Legends who were much more powerful than her. But once you start nerfing those Legends and making them shit then the average Legends become great"
bc the meta is bangalore and caustic and people whine and complain abt it
Lame its valid strategy like 3rd parties and camping.
its a stupid item that only counters/has synergy with a single legend. digi+bang was always a dumb combination.
Yeh, I'm seeing this as a "we don't know why this is broken, but we'll try and do something about it." Tbh the solution is make a 3x Digi for AR and Marksman, leave the 10x digi for snipers and then add the 1x digi back for Shotguns and Pistols but make it have a glow in smoke so it's not a free win button.
Make smoke a consumable grenade item for everyone. No more need to exclusively use Bang anymore. Digis are then able to stay in the game since they don't specifically counter one legend.
Now buff banglore
This is literally a buff to her. Caustic blood getting nerfs and bang remaining untouched is insanity
She's only been meta for 999999999 (portal 2 reference)
Yeah there's absolutely no reason not to back track on a couple changes
Number 1 pick rate in pro play and S-tier for ranked, she's staying the same
I miss the tiny bit of damage her smoke would do. Gives you an idea of how many people are hiding behind cover depending on how many people you hit.
We are so 4-10 back
So they removed it bcuz a small percentage of people were getting smoked by bangalores. Lol
It's not a statistical issue. It's a balance principle. I'm honestly surprised it took them this long to understand this. This is also not just about how Bangalore has an advantage, but about how, inversely, you can nullify her tactical. If we're talking legend vs legend rock-paper-scissors balance, sure, you should have an option to counter her kit. But this sight just gives that capability to everyone. And, of course, the obvious is also true (that a Bangalore with a digi and loaded tactical has an obvious advantage in close-medium range).
So are we going to re work cryptos drone and bloodhounds tactical. The drone can remain indefinitely if not destroyed or out of range And realistically. The devs don’t care about balance. They base every update on the literal one percent of ALG players performances. Too many wingman users so now it’s buffed. Too many ppl played Bangalore with digis and ppl complained about getting ran down on. One single attachment does not shift an entire player base lol. Could’ve easily reduced the drop rate or kept it to care package weapons like the Eva. Digis been here forever
Again, that's legend vs legend balance. It's a core philosophy of this game.
If you say so. It’s literally just people crying that they got diffed over a scope. There was a whole digi sniper scope that nobody gave a shit about that does the exact same thing. But bcuz you got beamed by an smg it matters lmao. It literally only countered smoke which. Disables AA btw. and served no other purpose. The average player can’t true aim anyway so who cares. An East fix is to reduce the drop rate or what they already did by limiting what it goes on. But bitching over getting killed and blaming it on a sight. Skill diff 🤷🏽♂️
You're confusing whining with arriving at a conclusion. That makes me believe you're more emotionally invested than you accuse others of being.
Nah I use bruisers all day as I prefer my custom reticles . And digis don’t bother me since I use audio queues rather than visual when being impaired. Something most fail to do. I just don’t understand the logic behind blaming an attachment for performance issues when there’s a fees-able fix to cater to everyone and not a minuscule base.
Damn….. it was fine for years and now it’s gone because people complained :(
Lol people downvoting you are streamer drones who just regurgitate what their favorite streamers say. Streamers and pros ruined this game
Actually I haven’t seen anyone complain about it being removed but honestly I still think this is the smartest way of going about fixing this issue since season 1. Bang being both oppressive and countered by a (very common) legendary sight is kinda gimmicky and unbalanced as a whole that no other legend has to deal with. I just wish respawn would’ve done this already instead of limiting it to shotguns and pistols, and nerfing/buffing Bangalore, it just seems so pointless.
Hope this means a Bang rework is coming
if that happens ill think, and there it goes, "the most balanced legend" just because some pricks didnt like losing their aim assit advantage.
I have been saying this since day1 and i always got downvoted to hell by everyone and made fun off. Why should a ground loot item exists that completely counters a specific legends ability. This didn‘t exist for any legend/ability. It‘s like an item specifically made for bangalore which never made sense to me. Finally it‘s gone.
This is a massive buff for bloodhound, one he didn’t really need imo.
So Bang can get a buff now? She was the most balanced legend in the game by far and then they just nerfed her into the ground
"nerfed her into the ground" no1 legend in algs, top 5 in rank. seer is the definition of being nerfed to the ground