Apex Legends Rampart Buff: Is she tough enough now?
Respawn Entertainment are bringing another in-game event to Apex Legends, but do we also need another Rampart Buff? With the introduction of the Chaos Theory event, there were some changes… But was this enough?
Rampart is one of the newer Legends to drop into Kings Canyon and it’s safe to say that she’s been popular with the fans. She’s as quirky as the rest of the cast and a fantastic addition to the world’s wonderful lore. However… She isn’t actually a popular pick in-game.
Apex Legends’ meta doesn’t seem to have changed much over the last couple of seasons and that makes us all wonder the same thing… Does Rampart need another Buff in the next Apex Legends update?
The Last Apex Legends Rampart Buff
It’s only been a couple of weeks since the last Apex Legends title update and there was a pretty important Rampart Buff in that update.
It might not seem like a lot, but here’s the snippet of the Patch Notes below:
- Explosives damage Amped Cover normally, instead of inflicting 200 damage.
- Explosives damage Sheila normally, instead of inflicting 175 damage.
There was also a “Dev Note” with this change which pretty much just stated that the increased Grenade Damage against Rampart’s equipment wasn’t really necessary. You can check it out below:
” Walls should be beefy and powerful once built. Before Rampart shipped, we were worried that her nests would be too oppressive and so we gave enemy players the option to quickly clear them out with grenades. This wasn’t necessary, as it turns out, so we’re removing increased damage from grenades against Amped Cover and Sheila.”
It seems like a bit of a stretch to call this update a “Buff” for Rampart, in truth. It’s more of a “Balancing Change” or an “Anti-Nerf”. Rather than being at a disadvantage as a Defensive Legend, she should be on-par with Gibraltar and Caustic, right?
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The Pick Rate says otherwise…
Current Rampart Pick Rate
If we look at the current Legend pick rates in Apex Legends, we see an all-too-familiar pattern that seems to completely ignore this Rampart Buff.
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As it stands, these are the following Pick Rate percentages* for Apex Legends’ Legends in-game:
- Bloodhound – 14.4%
- Lifeline – 14.2%
- Wraith – 12.1%
- Octane 11.5%
- Pathfinder – 9.8%
- Bangalore – 9.2%
- Horizon – 6.6%
- Gibraltar – 5%
- Loba – 3.3%
- Mirage – 2.8%
- Revenant – 2.7%
- Caustic – 2.5%
- Fuse – 2.1%
- Crypto – 1.5%
- Rampart 1.2%
- Wattson – 1.1%
*These statistics were found on the Apex Legends Status site, which takes results on over four million players over the last 24 hours.
As you can see, Rampart is one of the least-picked Apex Legends Legends despite her recent buff. This is a consistency that doesn’t really change and hasn’t done for at least the last month and a half (looking at the Apex Legends Status stats).
There are some changes for the other Legends following the latest update, though. Caustic has dipped massively and Octane has shot up almost 2% over the last few weeks. However, Rampart is consistently at the bottom despite her shield-making abilities.
We don’t want to make obvious comparisons, but Gibraltar’s toolset is somewhat similar to Rampart’s; however, he is around four-times more likely to be picked in an Apex Legends lobby despite getting nerfed in the last update.
Octane, Wraith, Pathfinder, and Bangalore all have the mobility to make them effective counters to Rampart in her current state. We know “Shiela” can be devastating in the right situation, but that’s just the issue. Rampart’s Ultimate Ability is too situational and it may seem balanced on paper, but it’s too easy to counter in the current meta where fast-paced offensive gameplay dominates all.
Do you think Rampart deserves another buff in the next Apex Legends title update? We think that they should go as far as re-working her ability toolset. It worked for Torbjorn in Overwatch, right?
