Among all of Apex Legends' playable characters, Rampart has always struggled to establish relevancy. The legend launched in an under-tuned state and no changes since have persuaded Apex Legends players to give Rampart another chance. That changed briefly this past week when Rampart received a sudden buff, but it was quickly reverted. A bigger change for Rampart may still be coming, however, if a new Apex Legends leak is to be believed.Apex Legends leaker Shrugtal shared details regarding a buff for Rampart, or more specifically her Amped Cover tactical ability, that "didn't make the final cut" for the battle royale's most recent update. Whether or not it would make Rampart as capable as her counterparts in Apex Legends is another matter entirely. It, at the very least, would significantly improve her Amped Cover ability to a point of being dramatically more useful in combat.Two key areas are changed for the Amped Cover tactical ability as part of the delayed changes. The first is the simplest and most important. The initial building health for Amped Cover is being improved from just 40 all the way up to 120. Amped Cover builds health over time, which made it susceptible to destruction if targeted immediately upon employment. This counterplay has been too strong, however, especially if Amped Cover is used in combat. The health change should make Amped Cover more usable in action.
The three remaining changes all focus on another important aspect of Amped Cover, which is how quickly the device deploys. The upper arm shield's delay is being cut from .25 seconds to .1, the front armor deploy duration is being cut from .5 seconds to .3, and the placement delay is being cut from .5 to .3. While no single change will necessarily feel like a big change to Rampart players, together, the overall device will deploy significantly faster than before.
Respawn's intent should be obvious based on these four changes. It wants Rampart to be able to be ready for combat faster, whether that's in combat or in preparation for combat. Plus, if Rampart does come under fire, it wants Amped Cover to be usable as a quick defensive mechanism.
Why the Rampart changes weren't added to the game in the recent patch isn't clear. Perhaps the changes need more time in testing before going live, or perhaps the changes were deemed too strong and need to be tuned a little bit more. The changes could come through in the next patch, but even if they don't Rampart fans will be pushing for Respawn to follow through with buffs that they've waited for way too long.
Apex Legends is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
