We need to have a conversation about Seer.
Counter-play in ability-based games is fundamental to the health of the game and its gameplay.
An enemy’s character ability should create a problem you can solve, rather than a situation where you simply have to accept the outcome.
Without counter-play, abilities rise above mechanical skill, and the game becomes more about pressing a button to guarantee an advantage, rather than changing the conditions in which a gunfight takes place in a balanced way.
In plain terms: it becomes very low-risk/high-reward, and this is poor game design.
Seer is the prime example of this principle being broken.
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What does healthy counter-play look like?
For example, Gibraltar’s bubble is a very strong tactical ability. When played correctly, it can completely change the momentum of a gunfight.
However, Mad Maggie’s entire kit revolves around being a direct counter to it. Her Drill and Wrecking Ball are both capable of penetrating/destroying the bubble.
Wattson, a fan-favourite defensive legend, is incredibly strong (and probably over-tuned despite her lack of presence in high-ranked lobbies outside of Competitive Apex). Breaching a competent Wattson’s position can be frustrating and stalling.
That is, until they encounter a Crypto — whose EMP can destroy all of Wattson’s fences and her Pylon ultimate.
When a Bangalore shoots her smoke during a gunfight, the player does not win the fight simply because of the smoke. They still have to utilise the smoke to showcase skill expression through aim, positioning, awareness and timing.
This type of ability provides an opportunity for outplay.
These are just a few of many examples of what healthy and balanced counter-play looks like.
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Notice something about these abilities
All of the aforementioned abilities are relatively simple in their respective roles.
In other words, these abilities primarily do one thing.
Some can be upgraded with the perk system — Gibraltar being a beneficiary of this with his electrified bubble at Blue Evo — but the fundamental purpose of the abilities remains straightforward.
Seer’s abilities, on the other hand, provide almost no practical way of countering his kit.
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Seer’s kit
Seer’s abilities excel in almost every area that is inherently problematic in FPS/ability shooters.
His kit revolves around scanning/WH which are already problematic.
His passive provides an endless source of information about an enemy’s whereabouts with no cooldown.
His tactical ability is technically a 5-in-1 ability.
Seer’s tactical:
• Stun-locks a player in place.
• Silences their abilities.
• Gives his entire team full-body/health-bar live-scan WH.
• Completely visually clutters the affected player’s POV.
• Provides Seer with a speed boost upon scanning an enemy.
And that’s before considering the fact that he has two charges in case he misses the first one.
Individually, these are all strong abilities.
Seer gets five of them in one tactical.
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The problem with fighting Seer
When fighting almost any other legend, players can reflect on “what could we have done differently?” if they lose a gunfight.
That works into skill expression. It can be used as a learning experience and help develop ideas for counter-play in the future.
For example:
“If we had a Pathfinder, we could have rotated here.”
Or:
“If we had a Maggie Ball, we could have pushed the Gibby team.”
These situations give players something they can learn from. It’s simply just “I was Seer scanned”.
You can make the argument that other legends have WH scan abilities too — Bloodhound (OG & rework), Sparrow, Crypto, etc.
But those abilities generally perform one primary action for outplaying an enemy team. For example, the WH abilities from those legends only provide location info and nothing else.
And while the existence of WH is itself problematic, the other scan-based legends retrieve that information in a far more balanced way than Seer.
With Seer, the information advantage is combined with a number of additional effects that directly interfere with the opposing player’s ability to fight back.
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Season 10 should have been a learning experience
Season 10 should have been nothing more than a learning experience for the developers responsible for game balancing.
And yet, here we are.
You can also make the argument that Seer is simply a difficult legend to balance correctly.
And that’s exactly because he is fundamentally broken.
The solution to this isn’t another small numerical nerf.
The solution is a full rework of his kit.
Many legends on the roster only counter one, or a few, legends with their kit.
Seer counters all of them.
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“Guns are way way more important than Legend kits. Apex is a gun game where abilities alter the context in which the gun game happens.”
— RV-ERIC (Apex Dev)
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TL;DR
When fighting a Seer, a player is faced with an unavoidable reality with no practical way of counter-play.
Abilities should create problems that players can solve — not outcomes that players simply have to accept.
Seer is the clearest example of where Apex has moved away from that principle, and his kit needs a fundamental rework rather than another minor adjustment.