Apex Legends Increases Circle Damage in Elite Queue to Counter Campers

Last week, Apex Legends’ Elite Queue went live alongside the Legendary Hunt limited time mode. This new game mode aims to provide a better experience for competitive-minded players. It does this by only allowing access to players who finish within the top five of their last match.

Seems simple enough, right? Well, it turns out players have been exploiting the game’s circle mechanics to guarantee their spot in the Elite Queue. To counter this, Respawn has altered the damage values of the circle, making it harder to “out heal” the incoming damage.

“In an attempt to curb behavior of camping outside the circle to wait out the match and get Top 5 in the Apex Elite Queue, we’re trying increasing the damage caused by being outside the circle in the Apex Elite Queue only.”

The first circle now deals 15% damage per tick, and the second circle 20% per tick. Each subsequent circle does a whopping 25% damage per tick. This percentage is in terms of health, meaning that after the third circle, players outside the play area will get eliminated in a matter of seconds.

To put that into perspective, the first circle used to deal a mere 1% damage per tick, the second circle 2% per tick, with the maximum being 10% at the fifth ring. In simple terms, players who get stuck outside the zone even for a few seconds will die a painful death.

Note that these changes only affect Apex Elite Queue matches, and regular lobbies will remain unaffected.

As far as competitiveness is concerned, this was an extremely important change. Since its release, the Apex Elite Queue has been filled with Lifeline players stocked up on healing items hiding in some corner of the map and out healing the circle just to place top five. Players trying to play the game normally were having a hard time finding opponents.

Alongside a dedicated ranked mode, Apex Legends season two will bring a new character called Wattson. Read up on her backstory and her shocking abilities here.