Apex players are completely dropping one ‘useless’ character in season 24

Not all characters in Apex Legends are created equal, and different legends getting their time in the sun means others need to wait in the shade. Or in this case, the gas.

Caustic has seen sunnier days in Apex, and his pick rate in the game currently proves it. He’s sitting at just 0.6 percent in all modes currently, according to Apex Legends Status, which makes him the second-least picked legend in the game. Only Seer has a worse pick rate currently, and it gets even worse at higher ranks of the game, where Master and Predator players are only picking Caustic 0.2 percent of the time. That’s a steep drop of about 30 percent over the last week or two in those ranks.

The reasons for Caustic’s decline are many, but the one at the forefront of many players’ minds is simply that his gas just doesn’t damage or even slow people down like it used to.

“He’s useless, his ult and tactical barely do any damage, don’t slow you down or impair vision,” one player lamented on the Apex subreddit, which has been flooded with complaints from Caustic players over the past week. “The only use he has is pressuring a team that’s already close to death and blocking doors with his traps.”

Caustic’s gas damage was nerfed all the way back in season 21, which was nearly a full year ago. That damage went from a ramping uncapped number for players who remained in his gas to a max of 10 damage per tick, which allows players to stick around and fight in the gas for much longer. But the decline in Caustic play wasn’t sudden, but a steady drop that only really flatlined at the beginning of the season. So what gives?

While Caustic hasn’t changed much since the Upheaval update, the game around him sure has. Season 24’s sweeping changes to the Assault class gave Assault legends the ability to reveal enemy health bars to their team on cracks, which effectively renders Caustic’s gas utility for blocking vision useless. In addition to that, those assault characters also get a speed boost on cracking enemy shields thanks to the new Battle Surge passive perk, and characters like Ash can now zoom around in a fight without needing to worry about the slow from Caustic’s gas.

In short, the changes made to make Apex a much faster game in season 24 don’t really jive with Caustic’s current kit, which is designed to help make fights slower and guarantee your team the ability to reset if one of your teammates gets knocked.

And even if you do manage to get that reset off, characters like Lifeline or Newcastle are far more proficient at guaranteeing revives—and Lifeline is currently the second-most picked character in the game.

It doesn’t seem like life is going to be getting much easier any time soon for Caustic, as Respawn has already revealed that the Skirmisher class is due for a revamp next after the big Assault and Support class changes, and then the Recon class after them. Both are classes that can make Caustic’s life a living hell thanks to the mobility provided by Skirmishers and the vision through smoke that Recon characters can give to their team. Unless some larger buffs come in specifically for Caustic, it might be time to drop him completely if you haven’t already.