Caustic needs better perks or rework.

THANK YOU

I know there is a lot of hard work when it comes to balancing games, especially when there is more and more content to juggle. It can be a fine line between making characters overpowered and ruin the game or nerfed to a point of being forgotten about. So first and foremost a big Thank you to all the people who help created this game and continue to polish and refine it. Love the content, love this ability to voice my opinion and thoughts here and I hope you continue to come out with more ways to improve Apex Legends. I appreciate those brainstorm meetings and developers/coders so much and that being said, please consider somethings I have written below.

Lvl 2

Potent: Gas now significantly reduces the speed and visibility of opponents.

(Can be based off of how long victim is exposed to gas, 5 seconds of exposure can lead to 15s of decreased visibility even after leaving traps)

Unstable: Traps now explode when destroyed

(Shooting out traps will cause an explosion. Opponents take damage equivalent to quarter that of a frag grenade. The traps are too easily dismissed despite taking time to setup and finding the right location, there has to be a bigger drawback for those that trigger or attempt to clear the traps. The opponent only needs to spend one clip at most to destroy a trap and even if that means they have to reload, by the time you can take advantage of that they have move back to safety.

Strong Bonds: Traps are now fortified and cannot be destroyed.

(This would be a Lvl 2 perk, similar to early seasons of Apex the traps cannot be destroyed, only triggered or shot at the base however the downside might be the cool down for traps are increased slightly. An alternative would be the traps can be destroyed but armor of traps are increased to 230.)

Deep breath: Gas last longer (Whatever the duration of a trap, this perk will increase it another 15 seconds. Interesting thought would be trap can be charged/filled up to last longer, holding the gas already shows a different animation, might be worth experimenting with this.)

Gone with the wind: Gas does more damage and spreads further

(Can be separated into two different perks if it feels too overpowered. The idea would be to force players to choose from two enticing options. Damage is notably increased from something like 5 base damage then per tick stacking extra 2 damage so (5, 7, 9, 11...)   The spread of the gas would continue until the trap runs out. This would be a Lvl 3 Perk unless one of these benefits were removed.)

Lvl 3

Madness: Caustic’s gas effects everything.

1. ) Caustic gains a small and short speed boost when gas hits a victim.
2. ) Victims in gas have slowed reload time. (Think of how hard it is to do anything when people are maced or in the army doing a gas chamber exercise.)
3. ) Gas distorts vision of victim, they are now unable to differentiate between teammate and opponents (Can use mini map to help but because of overwhelming situation creates confusion and poor exit plans/strategy.

Double Trouble: Caustic gains an additional charge for ultimate.

Caustic’s Current Perks

Caustic’s current perks are interesting but suffer from a pattern of obvious choice selection. His Lvl 2 perk of Gas ultimate spread is a great idea but it doesn't really seem to make much a difference. The 50 percent might need to go to 75 percent spread to notice this and it may need to last a tad bit longer. I know there is a worry of having him or any champion too buff but this wouldn't break him trust me. I know he has an annoying ability but players need to remember every champ will have things that make them unique and it shouldn't be handicapped severely for it. For the throwing perk of something like 75 percent further, it doesn’t really do anything for him, nor does it seem like it’s actually that further, unless they recently fixed it. To get more distance I have to aim really high and block my point of view when throwing. This perk would need an additional benefit like gas spreads for longer duration or traps rise 50 percent faster. For his Lvl 3 perk, the healing option is amazing! I’m honestly shocked this is a thing and I want it to stay forever however I can’t really say the same for the Nox vision perk. It seems borderline useless, his gas needs to really spread more. There are too many limitations on his gas. They don’t last that long, they can be collapsed, destroyed and then there is the whole planning and timing of laying out his traps.

Caustic’s Situation

The current perk system is extremely welcomed and I noticed some seem to be repeated, some possibly as a place holders until a better fit is available and some that just don’t add to the champion. When given a perk option many seem so one sided that even new players would know the better choice. I think when given two options it should always be very hard to choose between them despite having a preferred play style.

I do like to play Caustic but he is probably my fourth favorite. Where he is concerned his effectiveness in open areas is little to none and even if that is suppose to be a draw back for this character, where it feels like he should excel, he does not. In close quarters his traps are easily detectable, avoided and now destroyed. In some cases people trigger his traps, take damage but easily walk out without paying much of a price. Even in the most ideal situations people walk through his traps and even then it’s still very possible to beat Caustic at his own game. These things said I put a list of ideas for possible perks for this character.

Side notes

*Increase traps rising speed and throw speed. Traps can also be thrown further and if thrown at enemy, has similar damage to a melee attack with small knock back.

* Traps are smaller in size, reduced to something like half size. Makes harder to hit bottom and collapse it. Still emits same damage, spread etc but now can’t be used as cover. Benefit might be he can place up to 8 or 10 of them and can hold 4 at once.

*Caustic skins are lacking, always seeing new skins for the same legends. Probably because they are more picked, Wraith, Octane, Bloodhound always getting love.

I’m sure my ideas might sound strange and I know realistic such changes to a character are hard to bring to light however I do welcome criticism. Many of these ideas would most likely need to be striped down a bit but I hope new ideas and content keeps coming, because it feels like this game is just getting started. I can’t wait to see in which ways all the other champions start interacting with the new perk system overall.