Season 17 of Apex Legends promises one of the biggest quality of life updates for a Legend class, Support, which will bring wide-ranging benefits to the entire team, which will drop tomorrow, May 9th, with the new season.

Pro player for North American organization NRG Esports Chris “sweetdreams” Sexton reacted positively to the new class changes while reading the Season 17 patch notes today, noting how the support class buffs could change the entire ladder landscape and potentially impact the highest levels of competition.

Previously in Season 16, Support Legends could craft ally respawn banners at any Replicator even if they had already expired, providing an alternate method for a team to fully recover from a lost battle. Now this ability has been extended to every member of a squad with a Support Legend, and not just the Support Legend itself.

Sweet pointed out the positive effects of the buff for ranked play Apex Legends Global Series where teams often have to cut losses or risk being eliminated entirely trying to recover their battered teammates.

Accordingly Apex Legends Stats, Lifeline, and Loba rank in the top 10 Global Selected Legends and account for nine percent of the player base. The ALGS underscored Sweet Loba’s prominence in North America, with NRG consistently leading the legend in Split Two to great success at the Edge of the World, finishing seventh in the NA Pro League and qualifying her for the Split Two London Playoffs. The roaming thief was the most-played support Legend across all regions and also finished Split Two’s regular season in North America with a nine percent pick rate.

The Season 17 patch notes also introduced the first character class change since the introduction of the new classes, bringing the total number of playable Support Legends to five. Moving from skirmisher to support category, Mirage offers additional protection by being fully concealed while interacting with natural or mobile respawn beacons.

In addition, all Support Legends received buffs to the rest of their class abilities. Scattered and marked on the map are Blue Support Caches, which contain additional healing and shield items for a team. Season 17 changed the support bin spawn logic and now guarantees a mobile respawn signal when allies are dead. Even if the mobile respawn signal is part of the daily or weekly crafting rotation, the support canisters will always spawn the survival item, guaranteeing a chance to revive all teammates at any stage of the game.

New players looking to try out the buffed Support Legends can access all characters in the newly improved Firing Range even if they haven’t unlocked them before Apex Legends Arsenal launches on all platforms on May 9th.