Let's talk about mobility and how it hurts Apex Legends' balancing

@PraetorOfOleaIt's not just Rampart, Caustic or Wattson suffering from this. Crypto, a prime example for a Legend with a great utility, technically a great-on-paper skillset, yet a tribal, mask-wearing kid outclasses him in every aspect. Fuse comes with a powerful Q, a very powerful and area denying ult, and almost anyone with a bit of mobility can just jump out of it. A single Pathfinder counters Caustic, Rampart, Wattson, Fuse, Crypto, Loba and Revenant. What do these guys counter? Themselves at best. Had a lovely match today that once again has shown just how broken mobility is. Dropped with someone in a duo squad and we got caught in the crossfire. I was crypto so I was able to pick up his banner from a 'safe distance'. I started running to the nearest respawn beacon. It took the enemy squad 20 seconds to catch up from 100 meters of distance. Lovely! It surely spurs you on to use Crypto.

Look, I hate bringing this up again but the game keeps showing me how Obnoxious the movement in this game can really be, especially when it's further boosted by abilities.

Third ring. One more squad alive. We had the advantage because we have been in the ring for a while now, and luckily were able to hold our ground ever since the game started. Since the last squad HAD to come from the direction we suspected, I placed down a row of 4 amped covers a little bit apart from each other to not clump up too much. All great and all. Squad came and we already downed someone from a distance of 50 meters. So that was good. Really, with one already down and still 2 amped covers up and sound, this had to be an easy round.

Yeah, about that...

Suddenly - infused with the power of God and Anime - Pathfinder zipped across all the 50 meters behind my defense - ignoring our only advantage - and downed two of us before we could take cover or create new cover. Luckily, our Valkyrie carried this fight and we ended up winning regardless. But still, what's the point of placing down defense and making sure your team is protected if the enemy team can just - you know - ignore it entirely like there is no defense to begin with?

You know, I don't have this ability. I can just place walls and a useless minigun that makes combat harder (not easier). Mirage can just send out decoys. Valkyrie can at least fly away real quick and get into safety and stun people. Luckily the enemy team only had Pathfinder. The rest was Loba and Caustic. Loba could have teleported away but that would have required some time. If there would have been an Octane and another Valkyrie, this fight would have looked way different from the very beginning.

@E9ine_ACMobility is generally a crucial stat in games. It's rarely even talked about because a lot of people assume extra speed doesn't do much. But it does make a huge difference whether character A is faster/more mobile than character B.

In scenarios where one character has to flee to stay alive, the faster one will always be able to catch up or run away, whilst the slower one will always be caught up on or can't keep up. If there is no compensation for the slower player, then every fight will be against you. The result is a frustration among the slower branch of players.

I can't compensate a character's inherited downside. I can place an amped cover behind me or even box myself in, but then we have the next issue: Grenades. Which ultimately counter almost every defensive legend. Defensive legends aren't even bad per sé. They just get hard-countered by every legend with mobility as you can get past their defense so much quicker. They will keep having their advantage. They can just run away with no way of us catching up. Some have to rely on their ability kit to be properly useful. But for as long as people can zipline, hover, fly or jump over all what Caustic, Wattson, Rampart and Fuse have to offer, they will never be truly fit for the game.

And as for why I consider the regular mobility as problematic is due to ADS and how every weapon retains pinpoint accuracy even in situations where it shouldn't be possible. With the exception of the Spitfire, the most used weapons are Volt SMG, R-99, Wingman and R-301. At least R-301 has a quality that I can appreciate... Accuracy. But all others are used for their ADS speed qualities.

@E9ine_AC 

A big majority of players have issues hitting you while strafing unpredictably. Your key movement for surviving is A, D, CTRL (or wherever your crouch button is) - If you spam all of that, your chances for survival are massively increased against the average player. There are of course professionals and Console players as well who don't have to give a single care in the world to keep their aim adjusted, the aim assist does that for them. But as for me, strafing players especially on longer distances are a pain in the * to hit. I mean really... When some sniper attacks me, he likely empties his magazine before he even lands a single hit. Exciting Gameplay!

But even if you manage to do well in a fight, there are no guarantees given (anymore) that you won this fight by proxy. Third-party aside, the amount of times someone got away because they were faster than me is astonishingly high. They even mock you by leaving a holo-spray behind.

Especially when you get into a situation in which you almost shoot someone down to maybe a slither of health and he gets away to a place that you can't reach quickly, it becomes all the more unrewarding for the person who can't keep up. This is what my Pathfinder days had been about all the time. Getting in and out of combat so laughably easy that it felt like cheating. It certainly compensated my lack of combat skill. The enemy team was lucky when they had a Pathfinder themselves so he could finish me off. Valkyrie and Octane are no exception. They can do all of this just as well. And if you run around with a Rampart for instance, how do you keep up? Your main advantage IS your defense. That's the whole gimmick behind Rampart.

The point is: If you have no mobility, you'll have a hard time in Apex Legends if you don't have the precision and movement skill to compensate. People will outrun you if they so happen to use Octane, Valkyrie, Pathfinder, Horizon and maybe Wraith. Though nowadays I see Wraith as a balanced character who I see not as often anymore. Octane and Valkyrie all the more.

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@E9ine_AC wrote:
All legends have their good and bad. Legends you mention standing no chance is highly wrong information as i have a friend who plays wattson. He has over 60k kills on wattson and demolishes anyone who he comes across. I have a friend with over 30k kills on rampart demolishes anyone who they come across. Its player skill level that makes the difference not abilities.

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Yeah, there are also people who can probably solo a squad with a P2020. There are also people who can probably win the 2k badge with only Sheila. I count them under exceptions, not the rule. That doesn't make those any better though, otherwise more people would run around with those. If I were to account the few exceptions of cases where a certain weapon or legend does very well, we might as well say that Pathfinder's passive is great because someone managed to zipline-gun out of the ring, immediately scanned for the next ring, next zipline gun out. Hey, that passive is really good!