Apex Legends devs eyeing Bloodhound nerfs to keep tracker in check

Bloodhound has been a staple on everyone’s Apex Legends line-ups since Day 1. However, Respawn are keeping an eye on the tracker to see if any nerfs are needed in Season 9, primarily looking at their scan’s power in ranked play.

Chances are that you’ve queued up with a Bloodhound more times than not in Apex Legends. The tracker has been a core part of many squads since the game’s release, with their intel-gathering being second-to-none to this day.

The Season 6 buffs to Bloodhound only strengthened their place in the roster.

With the shortened Eye of the Allfather cooldown while Beast of the Hunt is active, and reduced activation time, it became incredibly powerful.

Bloodhound is now one of the most picked Legends in Apex, according to the devs, and that has put them in their sights for a potential nerf in Season 9.

“I’ve been keeping an eye on Bloodhound. Seems rare to come across a squad without one in my experiences in ranked, and they have the third highest pick rate at the moment,” developer John ‘JayBiebs’ Larson admitted on Reddit.

The first change Respawn are looking at is a big change to their power in ranked: assists from scans. Being able to farm kill participation for points by just scanning enemies ⁠— not even firing a bullet ⁠— means most Bloodhound players can avoid losing RP in every game.

Before they actually touch the rest of their kit, they want to test if removing the assist will nudge their play rate down.

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“I’d be curious to see how much that may dip if we removed assists from scans. I know it’s a super-powerful ability regardless, but I’m curious if it’d move the needle at all before looking at nerfing the ability itself,” JayBiebs said.

Season 9 is just around the corner ⁠— less than a month — and Respawn has already made their intentions clear about Lifeline, Loba, Revenant, and more.

Bloodhound would be joining that ever-growing list of Legend changes, but exactly what the devs want to do isn’t locked down just yet; we will make sure we update you once any and all changes are finalized.