Pathfinder's grapple rework "isn't purely a buff" after all, says Apex Legends dev

3 years 6 months ago

Pathfinder mains have had a bit of a rough year so far: ever since the patch in May increased his grapple ability cooldown from 15 to 35 seconds, the days of flying through Apex Legends battles with ease have become rather distant. So when the recent Aftermarket update patch notes mentioned a change to how the cooldown worked, many Pathfinder players thought their luck was in - until they saw the reality in practice.

The recent change altered Pathfinder's grapple cooldown so it would be measured based on distance travelled, with a longer grapple resulting in a longer cooldown. With the game measuring the grapple "from the moment you leave the ground to when you're on the ground again and not sliding at crazy high speeds", this means you're now less likely to be punished for accidentally shooting your grapple too early (which happens to us all). But should you want to use your grapple to slingshot and slide out of trouble, the seconds can really stack up.

Just take a look at the evidence below, in which a player effectively racks up a 42 second cooldown just for sliding on his bum after a grapple. This is because the cooldown timer only begins when Pathfinder has reached "sprint speed", and anything above that speed will not trigger the cooldown. For many players, this feels a little different to the 35 second "maximum cooldown" for long distances they were expecting from the recent patch notes, even if that's technically still true.

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