Apex Legends' Havoc Loses Its Identity In Season 4 Among The Many Changes To Energy Weapons

Like Season 2: Battle Charge and Season 3: Meltdown, Season 4: Assimilation adds a new character and weapon--Revenant and the Sentinel sniper rifle--to Apex Legends and also makes numerous balancing adjustments. Among those many adjustments are some big changes to energy weapons. Most notably, the Havoc seems to have been screwed with the changes made to the gun in Season 4.

The Havoc assault rifle was Apex Legends' first new weapon, added to the game before the start of Season 1: Wild Frontier. The firearm set itself apart by being the only weapon to support two different hop-up attachments: the Select Fire and Turbocharger. With Select Fire equipped, the Havoc could change between an assault rifle and a sniper. Meanwhile, the Turbocharger removed the Havoc's windup time, allowing you to quickly dispatch opponents at close- to mid-range with the gun's overwhelming bullet output.

However, as seen in the patch notes, Season 4 removes the Turbocharger attachment from Apex Legends--much how Season 3: Meltdown removed Skullpiercer and Disruptor Ammo (and no, sadly, Season 4 does not bring either of those two back). The Havoc and Devotion were the only two Apex Legends weapons that supported Turbocharger, though the Devotion isn't affected by the change. The Devotion and L-Star have been switched (the L-Star is now a standard energy weapon that can be found anywhere and the Devotion is now a golden energy weapon found in Care Packages) so the Devotion comes with a Turbocharger already. The Havoc is not as lucky.

This sucks for the Havoc in two ways. For one, the gun is no longer unique--the core of its identity was that it could transform in two different ways. And second, the Havoc's default fire isn't all that good. It needs a Turbocharger to be competent in the late-game. To make up for the nerf, Respawn has buffed the Havoc in other ways (most notably, reducing the horizontal recoil).

These changes should make the Havoc easier to control, but it remains to be seen whether this is enough to keep people going back to the energy assault rifle. If you want a long-range energy weapon, the Triple Take is a better option. Likewise, now that it's a common gun that you can loot anywhere, the L-Star makes for a stronger close-range option. It's difficult to discern where the new Havoc is now supposed to fit into Apex Legends' meta.