The Apex Legends Season 17 patch notes feature plenty of changes that have arrived top Respawn Entertainment's battle royale. The latest seasonal update for Apex Legends contains all kinds of new content for you to experience.
Season 17 sees the arrival of Ballistic as the latest playable Legend in addition to weapon mastery, a new progression system giving you the chance to earn plenty of exclusive cosmetic items.
Before we take a closer look at the Apex Legends Season 17 patch notes, check out our Apex Legends tier list for the best legends to use.
When is Apex Legends Season 17?
The Season 17 update went live on May 9 at 6PM BST. The update brought a brand-new battle pass packed with content in addition to huge ranked play changes aiming to overhaul the game's competitive playlist.
World's Edge map changes
Respawn Entertainment says World's Edge is healing in Season 17, resulting in significant changes to the map. Fragment looks significantly different, with the arrival of the Monument POI and the Apex Games Museum highlighting various milestones from previous seasons.
There's a high chance these changes will result in Monument acting as a prime hot-drop location so be sure to keep your eyes peeled for plenty of action when exploring the area.
All Apex Legends Season 17 content
Based on what we know so far, here's what you can expect to arrive in Apex Legends Season 17:
- Season 17 battle pass
- Legend and weapon buffs and nerfs
- New LTMs
- Bug fixes
- Quality of life upates
- New cosmetic items
- New collection events
Apex Legends Season 17 patch notes
Arsenal season map rotation
The following maps will be available for public matchmaking in the Battle Royale mode:
- World’s Edge
- Olympus
- Kings Canyon
Ranked update
Important TLDR:
- New matchmaking by hidden skill rating, with skill adjustments made on premade sizes to account for the competitive advantages gained
- New Scoring system that emphasizes winning the battle royale
- New Bonus system that conditionally rewards wins and compensates losses
- No more split reset, with a full seasonal reset started off with 10 provisional games
- Ranked will now require account level 50 to play
Weapon mastery
Weapon Mastery is our first new long-term progression system outside of account level! As we look to make Apex Legends more approachable for new players, this system incentivizes learning about the strengths and character of all our weapons. The goal is to deepen player engagement across the board regardless of who you main or which mode you prefer.
At the season launch, all players will start with every weapon at level 1 and can start progressing their weapon levels by using them in any game mode. Having a weapon in hand, dealing damage, securing kills, and fighting with style will all generate Weapon XP for that weapon. Every 20 levels, a weapon-specific trial will unlock for you to test your skill with that weapon and reward you for completion. Get your weapon to level 100 and finish all five trials to fully “master” that weapon and earn the final rewards. Each weapon mastery track will earn players weapon-specific badges, lifetime performance trackers, legendary weapon mastery banner frames, and a Legendary Weapon Apex Pack for each weapon.
New Survival slot item: Evac Tower
The Evac Tower is the latest loot item to hit the Outlands. This portable Jump Tower can shape the battlefield in your squad's favor by offering a quick escape or setting up a deadly assault. Harness the power of the skies, but be careful when you use it - players can destroy the Evac Tower and leave you high and dry!
Ping system updates
On the default Ping Wheel you will see 3 new pings:
- Avoid Area
- Enemy Audio
- Regroup
You will also see an expanded set of options when you are Downed or in Dropship for the initial drop into the BR.
Lastly, we’ve improved Pinging from the Map behaviors in the following ways:
- In-game objects that have map icons (Respawn Beacons, Crafters, Wildlife, etc) can now be Pinged from the map; creating accurate waypoints with callouts
- When pinging generic waypoints on the map they will have more accurate placement in World Space
Balance updates
Crate Rotation
- L-Star EMG enters the crate
- RE-45 returns to the floor
Weapon Crafting Rotation
- Alternator SMG enters the crafter
- Sentinel enters the crafter
- EVA-8 returns to the floor
- 30-30 Repeater returns to the floor
Gold Weapon Rotation
- Flatline, Triple Take, Spitfire, Mastiff, Volt
Loot Spawns
- Improved Vault Loot
- Increased chances of gold loot
- Added light mags to spawn pool
- Improved Cargo Bot Loot
- Removed small healing items, Mobile Respawn Beacon, White Armor, White Backpack
- Adjusted Large Healing and Heatshield spawns to allow for more desirable loot spawns
- Removed gold weapons from purple tier Cargo Bots but increased spawn chance in gold tier
Weapons
L-Star EMG [Crate]
- Added Disruptor Rounds: 60% damage increase against shields
- Base Damage Reduced to 16 (was 17)
- Projectiles now have passthrough: 60% damage retained
- Projectile growth increased
- Improved recoil pattern
- Removed barrel
- Ammo Stockpile: 324
- Reduced VFX brightness when hitting unarmored targets
30-30 Repeater
- Projectile size increased when fully charged
Triple Take
- Projectile size increased
- Improved hipfire spread
- Tightened bullet pattern when fully choked
- Ammo per shot reduced to 1 (was 3)
- Magazines sizes adjusted to match the new ammo costs
- Purple Mag: Increased to 10 shots (was 9)
R-99 SMG
- Removed 1 bullet from base and all magazines
- No Magazine reduced to 19 (was 20)
- White Magazine reduced to 21 (was 22)
- Blue Magazine reduced to 24 (was 25)
- Purple & Gold magazine reduced to 27 (was 28)
Charge Rifle
- Reduced shots per magazine to 3 (was 4)
- Reduced spawn rate
Legends
Catalyst
- Dark Veil
- Scan Highlights & Diamonds are no longer visible through the Dark Veil
Mirage
- Class changed from Skirmisher to Support
Ash
- Now gets slowed to weapon sprint speed instead of weapon walk speed when targeting with her tac
Assault Class
- Smart loot gains have been adjusted to reduce skipping an upgrade tier
- It will now be less likely to jump from White to Purple or Blue to Gold
- Optics are now given based on team rather than just Assault Legend who opens them
- Added special drop rate for Gold Optics
Skirmisher Class
- Care packages are now automatically pinged for the team on reveal.
- This includes empty Care Packages that have already been looted by another team
Support Class
- Support Bins will now guarantee at least one Battery in one of the Secret Compartment slots
- Support Bins will now award MRBs if your ally is dead, even if you don’t have their banner card.
- Legend Banners can now be crafted by ANY player who has a Support Class Legend in their Squad
Mixtape
- New Podium screens for Gun Run and Control
- Display a message in the Kill Feed if Leaver Penalties are disabled for the match due to an unfair match
- Control and Gun Run will indicate the team's MVPs on the intro podium
- Control and TDM have updated loadouts (Crate Weapon changes and updates based on weapon meta/pick rates/kill rates)
- Gun Run and TDM now have XP Bonuses for Match Completion and Match Completion after Join in Progress
Control
- Map rotation: Barometer is out, Olympus: Hammond Labs is in
- Weapon Evo Change: No longer Evo weapons automatically when a new Rating Tier is reached. Players now reach the new tier and their weapon will Evo when the player holsters and then unholsters their weapon in any form (reload, weapon switch, manual holster, rides a zipline, performs a skydive, etc)
Gun Run
- Weapon Track update for new crate weapons.
- Added an additional XP bonus on the last weapon knife kill
Team Deathmatch
- Map rotation: Skulltown is out, Phase Runner is in
Bug fixes
- Prowler: fixed ADS while crouching
- IMC Armories: fixed spectres taking too much damage from arc stars
- Fixed Duos showing NBR challenges instead of BR challenges
- Fixed comms wheel not being usable when a game is over
- Fixed players glitching inside of loot bins
- Fixed spectators not receiving audio queues for all types of launch pads/jump pads
- Fixed flickering of banners during victory and end of match screens
- Scoreboard is saved when a game is finished now, not post-podium sequence
- Lifetime Stats numbers no longer overlap for more than 7 digits
- Various lobby ultrawide UI improvements
Legends
- Ash:
- Steps are no longer louder if heirloom is equipped
- Fixed UI loop when crouch inspect is canceled early
- Ultimate will now persist for the entire duration even if Ash dies while it is active and while players are still traveling through it
- Bloodhound: White Ravens already in flight can no longer be scanned for free Tacticals and Ult charge
- Caustic: Fixed traps destroying when placed near closed doors that are then opened
- Crypto:
- Drone can no longer be accessed after being knocked
- Drone no longer occasionally teleports behind a wall after you throw it
- Fixed drone sometimes spawning in the middle of the world when thrown into a wall
- Loba:
- Fixed visibility issue with Black Market when Bangalore’s smoke is behind
- Amount head peeks over cover while crouching adjusted to match other Legends
- Mad Maggie: Improved reliability when hitting objects that the ball will damage or destroy
- Octane: Removed the double jump hint from the Launch Pad in cases where it would incorrectly show as an option (e.g. after a Pathfinder grapple)
- Rampart: multiple cover walls can no longer be placed in the same spot on a Trident
- Seer: Dummies in the firing range will now have the same footstep behavior as other players when moving inside of Seer’s Ultimate instead of behaving like other AI (Prowlers, Spiders)
- Valkyrie: Ultimate cooldown no longer set to 75% after being canceled while in Death Totem protection
- Wraith:
- Fixed ultimate being usable while ziplining
- Mythic finisher “Whiplash” no longer pushes players outside of play area
Modes
- Mixtape
- Fixed shields dropped by killed enemies being empty
- Fixed players leaving a match will no longer try to join the same match if its join-in-progress window is still active
- Team Deathmatch
- Fixed grenades not dropping on player death
- Fixed Estates map image displaying the night variant of the map in the Lobby
- Control
- Fixed Custom Match Observer issue where it was difficult to close the Map Screen if an Observer had it opened before players spawned in the match
- Fixed teammates death icon not appearing on the map if the map wasn't open when the teammate died
- Fixed ordnance not auto-equipping to the ordnance slot if the player spawned out of bounds
- Fixed reserve ammo counter not displaying when switching weapons from Rampart or Vantage's
Quality of life updates
- Removed Auto-Taunt Prompt on Enemy Killed
- Can now ride ziplines while playing the banner pickup animation
- Bullet impact VFX on snow reduced
LiveAPI improvements and documentation
This season will have some updates to the LiveAPI based on player and developer feedback. These include improvements to existing functionality and messages, new events, and extensive additions to documentation including some examples in Python.
- Support for Secure WebSockets (WSS) server connections
- Configurable SSL verification, to allow self-signed certificates
- Request validation through pre-shared key mechanism that can be specified through `cl_liveapi_requests_psk`
- Newly added game event broadcast delay that affects only real-time WebSocket connections, configurable through `cl_liveapi_ws_event_delay`
- Additional documentation and snippets added to events.proto file
- Includes sample values, code snippets in Python and expected API behavior
- Change for API request acknowledgements not behaving as intended
- Introduction of the RequestStatus message for more detailed explanations
- Fix for 4KB message payload truncation seen mostly when using JSON data format
- Fix for PlayerRevive event where the revived player field was incorrectly typed as a string instead of a Player message
- New WarpGateUsed and ObserverAnnotation events
- Downgrade of most uint64 fields to uint32 to ensure serialization as numbers and not strings in JSON
- All timestamp fields remain as uint64. Developers should take note when using JSON data format instead of Protobuf.
There you have it, that's all there is to know about the Apex Legends Season 17 patch notes. For more, check out our Apex Legends weapon tier list revealing the very best guns to use.