If you’re a Horizon main looking at the Apex Legends patch notes for Season 14, you will have felt slightly aggrieved, with a couple of nerfs being dished out to the bonnie lass’ ultimate. However, we’ve got some bad news for you, as the pain isn’t going to end there.
A few hours after the release of the patch notes, Respawn put out a follow-up tweet with a rather glaring omission regarding Horizon’s ultimate nerfs. On top of those outlined in the original notes, there is also a third (and for more significant) nerf to her Black Hole that has certainly got Horizon mains talking. “One more change that didn’t quite make it into the patch notes: Horizon’s Black Hole is now susceptible to friendly fire/damage,” Respawn tweets.
Couple this with the fact that the NEWT at the centre of the Black Hole is now easier to take out by enemies after being made weaker, and you’ve got an ult that can now quite easily be wiped out by both the opposition and even your own squad.
This also basically nullifies the common strategy in Apex Legends of throwing a lot of explosive utility at a Black Hole to collectively damage the enemies being sucked towards its centre, as the risk of blowing up NEWT with your own explosives is now ridiculously high. While Arc Stars, Thermites, and the like will still damage those enemies, you’ll have to weigh up whether it’s worth wiping out the ult in the process.
This means teams will probably have to be more precise with the damage they deal to opponents that are being dragged about by Horizon’s ultimate.
While Apex Legends ranked Season 13 finishes with Horizon as the most-picked legend in Master and Apex Predator rank, she is only the sixth most popular legend across all ranks and modes, showing that only the very top players have been truly compelled to pick her.
It’ll be interesting to see how all of these changes to her ultimate affect her pick rate – and how far she’ll slide down our Apex Legends tier list.