The latest Apex Legends update was supposed to be the savior for Gibraltar and Caustic, but their new damage resistance buff has a seemingly unintentional shield nerf too. Players on Reddit have noticed that damage which used to be absorbed entirely by shields is now also chipping away at their HP bars, but only on the two characters who have the new Fortified passive perk.
Fortified is supposed to be a flat 10% reduction to all incoming damage for Gibraltar and Caustic. Respawn Entertainment gave them the new perk as a way to make up for their relatively large size, which makes them easier targets to hit than smaller characters like Wraith and Lifeline. Shields are supposed to be an extra layer of damage absorption on top of health; they don't do anything fancy like reduce damage by a set percentage, they just take hits until they run out.
That isn't how it's works right now for Gibraltar and Caustic. You can see in this footage from YouTuber Slaydra that, while playing as Gibraltar, a little bit of his health bar turns red and disappears even when he still has shields. That should be impossible.
Shield damage is still working as normal for other characters, so it doesn't seem like this is a sneaky tweak to the way health and shields work in Apex Legends overall. Maybe there's just a little missing end bracket or something in the code and the 10% damage the shields are rightfully not taking is being improperly funneled down to HP? I'm no code wizard nor a mathemagician so I don't presume to understand any of this beyond the fact that it ain't right.
It's mostly just annoying for now, since minimal damage gets through. It could even help you out if your enemy sees they're giving you HP damage and swoops in for the kill, not knowing that your shields are still halfway full or more. Apex Legends continues to vie for the title of most interesting glitches.
For a little crossover fun, check out this recreation of the Borderlands intro using Apex Legends characters. Or watch our video guide on how to win as Bloodhound, below.
