Apex Legends: The Problem with Hitboxes
The low-profile and fortified passives in Apex Legends being called to change by fans who believe certain Legends should not possess them.
21st Mar 2020 21:00
Apex Legends content creator TheGamingMerchant has discovered the exact pixel size of each of the legends’ hitboxes. Revealed on Reddit, and explored in more detail on his YouTube channel. The idea first came to him when researching Revenant’s ‘broken’ hitbox.
Hitboxes have long been a bone of contention within the Apex community, from the low-profile buff of Wraith to the 15% damage decrease on larger characters such as Caustic.
The image provided shows the pixels of hitboxes for each Legend, with Gibraltar coming in at an astounding 203,396, and Wraith at a mere 95,997. These discrepancies have been dealt with by Respawn Entertainment, in terms of Legends receiving less or more damage based on these numbers, but is it enough to properly balance these characters?
Low Profile
The low-profile passive ability applies to Wraith, Lifeline, Pathfinder, Wattson and Revenant, and increases incoming damage by 5% due to their small stature.
However, as we can see from the chart, Bangalore is coming in as the second smallest Legend, so where is her low-profile ability?
In a Reddit post from u/Nonstop_Noble, they ask this exact question. He went on to comment “[Bangalore] is certainly larger than the likes of Wraith and Lifeline, she’s about the size of Wattson and she is much faster with her passive factored in. If Wattson is deserving of the debuff without any speed boosts then I think Bangalore should be too. I mean Pathfinder is fast with his hook factored in and he gets the debuff. So shouldn't Bangalore get it too?”
Fortified
This passive applies only to Gibraltar and Caustic and reduces incoming damage by 15% and grants immunity from gunfire slowdown.
TheGamingMerchant’s chart shows Revenant as having a hitbox only 4000 pixels smaller than Caustic, yet the low-profile buff is being applied to his character. This refers back to many Apex fans complaining about him being over-powered or broken because of this.
The Legends rounding out the actual middle of the hitbox numbers are Bloodhound, Crypto and Octane, so no buffs or nerfs are necessary for their size and stature, despite some fans calling for Octane to join the Legends with the low-profile passive ability.
There appears to be no drawback to having a smaller hitbox, and many players don’t find the low-profile damage increase decreasing the success of playing with that Legend. The fortified buff, however, does cause some concern, as Gibraltar in particular also boasts a gun shield which has health of its own to shoot through before you get to his real hit points. This has been nerfed in recent updates, from 75 to 50HP, but many players still don’t feel this is enough of a nerf.
Revenant
Revenant has long been talked about on Apex forums as needing a nerf. The low-profile ability certainly shouldn’t apply to him and is something TheGamingMerchant has also discussed at length in a YouTube video.
His hitbox is clearly disjointed, so the backlash from fans is probably justified.
Respawn Entertainment has taken several steps to address discrepancies between these hitboxes, but clearly there is more work to do.
Update 09/04/2020 -
Since the recent patch for Bloodhound's Town Takeover, low-profile Legends will now take the same limb damage as body shot damage.
Images via Respawn Entertainment
About The Author
Katie Memmott
Katie is the former Sub Editor and Freelancer Coordinator at GGRecon.
