With so many Legends in Apex Legends, and with the rate of each new release, it can be hard to find a complement to your team. There are a lot of Passive, Tactical, and Ultimate abilities to look over; many of which can make the difference between winning and losing in a lobby. We are compiling the full list of currently released Legends, what makes each of them special, and how to best use their abilities.
Each Legend comes with their own niche personality quirks, quips, and backstories which influence the playing experience, but the focus with this article is how to play them and the in-game character abilities and tactics. Each Legend can be broken down into five different character classes: Assault, Controller, Recon, Skirmisher, and Support. We will break down these – as of time of writing – twenty-six (26) Legends into their main play styles and how they like to foil other teams, starting with the Assault Class and going through each character in order of their release. So, what are our tips when choosing a character in Apex Legends?
Assault
Bangalore
Being the first, and for a time only, modern-day Assault class Legend, Bangalore remains quite a unique character despite how simple she is in premise. The ‘Professional Soldier’ is more like a first-responding riot warden than guerilla-tactics veteran, with her Tactical ability Smoke Grenade obscuring enemy line of sight. Keen-sense opponents may not be too bothered by it, but since Season 20 Bangalore has been able to regenerate health by upgrading her Tactical, so her longevity is better than ever. She can fire this during any action except melee, including when healing, shooting and reloading, so it makes for a keen escape plan or ambush foil.
Speaking of escape plans, her Passive ability Double Time is an incredible tool for defence when needed, as running for cover in dense-populated environments is simple and effective. Her Ultimate ability is powerful too; Rolling Thunder can make whole sections of an engagement dangerous to be around. If Bangalore sets off her Ultimate over a downed enemy, it makes her opponents choose whether it’s even going to be worth the effort reviving their fallen friend if they might go down too.
Fuse
Fuse is Apex Legends’ ‘Bombastic Explosives Expert’, and fitting then is the simple yet effective Grenadier Passive ability he has. More grenades, fast grenade interaction, toggleable grenade power, and even a better thrown-wall bounce makes Fuse perhaps the best grenadier in Apex Legends. His carrying capacity is the best in-class, and his Tactical ability known as Knuckle Duster acts as a cluster-bomb that is great for mid-range or out-of-sight enemies.
Fusae’s Ultimate, The Motherlode, can be tricky. It will not damage his teammates, but Fuse and his enemies can easily be set on fire in tight quarters or choke points. Like Bangalore’s Ultimate, it is great for cordoning away downed enemies from their squad and combining The Motherlode with even more grenades or another Knuckle Duster makes any well-oiled squad panic and burn or blow themselves up. Just be careful when handling Fuse, and make sure to familiarise yourself with choke points and corners where you can, as to not trap yourself with your enemies.
Ash
Ash might be Assault class, but her abilities are quite reflective of the others. She is a great instigator, much like her nickname, but requires some thinking power to fully utilise her. For instance, her Passive ability Marked For Death allows her to check death boxes and see if that squad is still up and around, as well as knowing generally on the map where everyone is dying. This can fill your squad in on key regional information to help with survivability. Her Tactical snares opposition, even in midair, to a speed of 60%, which can work on fleeing enemies and area denial, but since it moves slowly and targets one enemy at a time, it can be a risk.
Her Ultimate, though, is very versatile. Creating a portal for your teammates with Phase Breach is excellent as an ambush or recovery option, and walking backwards through the portal means that enemies who follow will be turned around completely without an idea of where you are. As disruption, it can be a difference maker, and as a movement engine there aren’t many like it in the game.
Mad Maggie
Mad Maggie is the ‘Rebel Warlord’ of Apex Legends, outfitted with gas-guzzling tech options to scatter enemies. Being a warlord, her abilities involve invoking sudden and space-choking effects such as her Wrecking Ball Ultimate. This rolling explosive can bust through doors, bounce off of walls or ceilings, stun enemies on contact, and create speed boosts for your team. Be careful that if you are keeping a low profile that enemies don’t track the pads with you and get an upper hand.
Mad Maggie’s Warlord’s Ire Passive allows quick visual confirmation on enemy movements when injured, and shotguns are more effective with her movement speed and damage output. Highlighting enemies is made even easier with Mad Maggie’s Riot Drill Tactical, which can disperse cover-taking squads and flush them out for a sudden firefight. Mad Maggie is a great ambusher and tracker, though unless you love shotguns, her passive can be situational.
Ballistic
The ‘Refined Gunslinger’ and emcee of the Firing Range, Ballistic, can be finicky to use. His Passive is certainly good, with Sling allowing for the carry of a third weapon. You can gun-mule a weapon for a downed teammate, steal away another tech choice for the late-game, or simply have another primary option. This weapon will also become legendary quality when he activates his Ultimate, Tempest, which can increase nearly every key weapon interaction and make ammo infinite for a short time.
Ballistic is only going to use his Ultimate once every few encounters, however, and his Tactical simply isn’t as good as gunning down oncoming enemies or swapping to another character. Whistler can overheat a key opponent in their squad if they have a great primary, but you aren’t always going to get a good long look at the complexion of other teams when focused on your own survival. Play Ballistic for his Passive or Ultimate, and if you can pull off Whistler, then maybe you might find a diamond in the rough with him.
Controller
Caustic
Caustic is a character who can achieve quite formidable survivability if played correctly. Immune to the Nox gases he can deploy as a Tactical or Ultimate, he can also gain access to Formidable, which he and other Legends discussed below can unlock to decrease body-shot damage and slow-down. Caustic can be great in limiting enemy vision, providing passive damage, setting traps, and becomes incredibly advantageous to have in a small play area such as the end game or a tight space. Other Caustics are immune to his gas attacks, and the Nox gases can disrupt your team’s plays, but a well-communicating team can absolutely take advantage of a late-game Caustic to squeeze out a tightly-packed enemy squad.
Wattson
Wattson might be the best to consistently activate her Ultimate if the game-state allows it. The ‘Static Defender’ gets her name through her employment of electrically charged defences set up by her Tactical and Ultimate. Her Perimeter Security can be used as a deterrent, even if a weaker one. Enemy squads are unlikely to willingly take the damage or debuffs from the fence if they have the choice, and it doesn’t affect her teammates or herself.
Her Ultimate is a perfect counter to ordinance or thrown weapons and can recharge shields wherever she goes. Providing a boost to shield recovery compliments Wattson’s own passive recovery, and her ability to store additional Ultimate Accelerants – the item that allows you to restore your Ultimate. Wattson, however, can recharge immediately with one, meaning that in theory Wattson will always have her Interception Pylon with her despite it being static.
Rampart
Rampart is set apart from the other controllers by being an excellent assaulter and versatile at any range of fire-fight. Her magazine sizes, reload speeds, and overheat when using LMGs or her Ultimate make her a great covering-fire option. Speaking of Rampart’s Ultimate, ‘Shiela’ as she is known makes her a powerhouse, though a slow-ramping and overheating one. ‘Shiela’ adds a lot of damage and defensive buffs but also leaves Rampart as an easy target for sudden encounters or drawn-out gunfights. Despite this combat focus being quite simple and powerful, her Tactical is an amazing defensive tool too, with Amped Cover also providing increased output and freedom of placement wherever it is needed.
Catalyst
Apex Legends’ ‘Defensive Conjurer’ is a great manipulator of the battlefield, able to set traps for any situation. Catalyst’s Passive allows her to reinforce doors and broken walkways with obscuring ferrofluid, making defensive holdouts or sudden counterattacks easier. An even better visually impairing ability is Dark Veil, her Ultimate. Be sure to place the wall correctly, as it takes time to build and enemies can circumvent it if you aren’t careful, but forcing them through it practically blinds them and makes them easy targets as they become slowed. It will not block fire though, but it won’t block yours either by that sentiment. Her Tactical is also great for laying spike traps around doors or choke points, or ambushing enemies as you rush in. These traps linger until you die, so be prepared to have a target on your back when you set them.
Recon
Bloodhound
Bloodhound is a fantastic short-distance tracker. Their Tracker Passive marks red or grey (new or old) enemy footsteps, and their Tactical scans the environment for any traps or enemies you might be missing in a cone directed in front of you. Bloodhound’s Ultimate can also bypass smoke and gas, increases speed, highlights enemies, and sends their White Raven out to the nearest enemy to mark them for you. The Ultimate does make noise, but activated a far-enough distance away or with an aggressive squad, the ‘Technological Tracker’ has always been a strong pick for new players and a consistent information gatherer for their team.
Crypto
Crypto’s main ability is arguably his Tactical, and it is his most complicated. His Surveillance Drone is a remote activated drone that sweeps the area for audio and visual clues at a distance equal to his entire mini-map, and if you and your team are mic’d up it is a cakewalk pinging and communicating enemy locations. Crypto can issue an EMP charge from the drone too as his Ultimate, making him able to fight whilst piloting it. The downside is that Crypto cannot do anything but heal when piloting the drone, and so relying on teammates is crucial, especially in a two-person squad. Frenetic games do not benefit Crypto, but with a strong defensive lineup he can give crucial info to his squad.
Seer
Seer has ebbed in popularity for a long time, though previous patches have made him peak and trough in usefulness. In theory, his Tactical Focus Of Attention is a great silence tool and reconnaissance option, but its activation is very slow, and its range isn’t the widest. His Ultimate is even more tricky to use, and quite avoidable. Exhibit forces enemies to move quietly or risk being pinged, but revealing an enemy is obviously less important than survival if they are up close. His Passive works if you are trying to see if reviving a downed ally is worth it, or if there is an ambush nearby, but aiming down the sights restricts movement and vision and other characters commit more to their team’s game plan than Seer does. He may be the most difficult to recommend currently, though hopefully future patches will return him to relevancy.
Vantage
Vantage and Echo make for a pair dedicated to sniping and long-range encounters. Echo can help Vantage relocate easily, and he cannot be killed. He might give away that there is a Vantage in the area, but as snipers tend to do, Vantage should be placed in difficult-to-reach locations to best-achieve solid defensibility. Aiming down the sights, unlike with Seer, benefits Vantage’s playstyle and so her Spotter’s Lens can ping key information to your team on dark, obscured or long-distance areas. Vantage’s Sniper’s Mark Ultimate can mark enemies for extra damage too, but the laser can give you away if you aren’t careful. Vantage also generally has a better placement of long-range shots with a bullet-drop indicator, and so if you fancy building a sniper loadout for your next game, Vantage and Echo are a safe and stable choice.
Skirmisher
Pathfinder
Pathfinder’s main abilities revolve around rapid movement, including a Zipline Gun Ultimate and a Grappling Hook Tactical. His Passive allows him to Ultimate more often through scanning care packages, and so Pathfinder can set up many quick travel options for teammates to outflank, outmanoeuvre, or escape enemy squads. Pathfinder is best used to skirt around enemy squads, however, and his Zipline Gun is a quick and easy way to get himself killed if used to directly engage an enemy. Learning where and when to place zip lines and when to grapple other players comes with experience, but the limit of movement is limited only by the environment and the imagination of Pathfinder players.
Wraith
Wraith, like many day-of-release Legends, is an easy pick-up-and-play if you can get your head around her Ultimate. Dimensional Rift makes two portals, allowing for creative assaults or escapes – though remember that anyone can use them. It allows for immediate recovery of a downed player, an extra dimension if backed into a corner, and the ‘kidnapping’ of an enemy squaddie. With a small delay, Wraith’s Tactical Into The Void makes her immune to all damage for a short time, but you will still be vulnerable when she is activating it, so make sure you are behind cover or have enough health. Her Passive is incredibly user-friendly, too, with audio signals regarding enemy inputs that make avoiding ambushes very easy.
Octane
Octane’s movement is a lot more self-centric than Pathfinder’s, but no less useful. His Passive recovers his health after a short delay, allowing him to regenerate between fights or rejuvenate himself after being downed. He can catapult himself through the air off of his Launch Pad Ultimate, and his Tactical simply increases his speed wholesale at the cost of a bit of health. Octane suits a rapid, aggressive play style and complements a quick moving or healing-centric squad well.
Revenant
The ‘Synthetic Nightmare’ isn’t so from an ease-of-use perspective, but his movement options can take a little getting used to. Revenant’s Tactical allows him to leap across moderate distances depending on the charge, and up walls if needed. His Passive aids with this, making scaling walls quicker. Verticality doesn’t always lend itself to decent vision, but tracking high-elevation/low-health players or shooting from a vantage point is made easy by his Assassin’s Instinct. His Ultimate is best used proactively, as Forged Shadows grants him additional health and, in tandem with his Tactical, make him a staple of any high-aggression team complexion.
Horizon
The ‘Gravitational Manipulator’ gets the name from excellent verticality control, not unlike Revenant, but not just centred on herself. Gravity Lift affects her and her enemies, making it a good movement and disruption tool right out-of-the-box. Even if she rises to a dangerous height, or traps herself whilst floating, her Passive allows her to gain more manoeuvrability and grants her falling damage reduction. Lateral movement can also be manipulated with Black Hole, Horizon’s Ultimate, pulling players away from cover and into dangerous hazards such as Caustic’s Nox. Horizon compliments a Controller-centric squad as she almost functions like one herself.
Valkyrie
Valkyrie benefits from flight and aerial-based abilities, best summarised through her Skyward Dive Ultimate that launches her and her teammates into the air to rocket them into the air. Combined with Valkyrie’s Passive, she can gather information very quickly on enemies she is flying over, and has great manoeuvrability whilst in the air. If a teammate has a particularly strong Recon ability, it makes for an excellent scanning tool and if the ring is closing in, it makes for a great repositioning option. Her tactical fights with this aerial theme, as the rockets launched whilst flying make it hard to spot and stop Valkyrie before she disrupts enemy game plans.
Alter
The time-of-writing newest Legend added to the game, Alter is best used to maximise or minimise distance between her squad and an enemy. Her Ultimate is especially useful for recovering downed teammates or teleporting away even when knocked around. Void Passage, her Tactical, is a wall-breaching tool that is perfect for indoor ambushes even despite its situational nature, but make sure you give the breach enough time and as little space as you can to maximise its potential for surprise attacks. Her Passive gives feedback on distant death boxes, such as when it is being looted, or looting remotely or from cover. With teammates who can cover a lot of ground quickly, or who benefit from sudden assaults, Alter is a nice complement.
Support
Gibraltar
Gibraltar is an excellent damage-mitigator, with the ability to lay-up a Skirmisher or Controller with his excellent defensive options. Deploying his Gun Shield Passive protects him in any firefight, making his output and survivability better across the board. His Defensive Bombardment Ultimate can cause friendly fire, but it forces enemies to relocate or persist through large amounts of damage if the two teams are hunkered down in combat together, and employing it to deter enemies from reviving downed teammates is a great option. His Tactical has the potential to be his best ability, however, with his Dome of Protection being a fantastic if conspicuous escape or defensive measure. Gibraltar is not the best offensive character in Apex Legends, Support characters rarely are, but the ‘Shielded Fortress’ has enough versatility in every situation to influence the flow of battle.
Lifeline
Arguably the game’s poster child if the training modes are anything to go by, and rightfully so since Lifeline is outstanding even in the very competitive Support class. Her Ultimate almost immediately upgrades the team’s gear, and in the early game if Lifeline can pull off multiple Care Packages it can boost her team well-beyond the other enemy squads in the lobby in terms of loot rarity and firepower. Lifeline’s drone is equally fantastic at reviving recently downed or injured party members and providing a consistent, reliable healing option. Lifeline is easy to play, benefits any team no matter the playstyle, and keeps everybody alive. No squad is weaker with a Lifeline.
Mirage
Mirage excels at disorienting enemies, making him a blast to play and annoying to try and stop. His decoys employed through his Tactical and Ultimate respectively make it difficult to track which one is the real Mirage, and can lead to misdirections that allow your team to get away safely or prepare a flanking attack. His Passive ability, in a chaotic or crowded environment, is incredible. His invisibility, though sometimes difficult to maintain, makes using respawn beacons and reviving downed players a cakewalk and can set a team up perfectly for a counterattack if used right. For teams that don’t need advantage, or ones that benefit from surprises, Mirage is a great play-extender.
Loba
As demonstrated with Lifeline, loot rarity-increasing abilities are in-demand in Apex Legends, and having a Support who can make everyone around them better is an obvious draw to any character. Loba remains the most played Legend at the time of writing because of this, and it is very easy to see why. Combined with a competent group, any nearby loot can be instantly teleported to your inventory with Loba’s Ultimate Black Market Boutique. It keeps the team together, upgraded, and lures enemies in to try and replicate the Loba player’s upside to stay relevant in the lobby. Loba’s Eye For Quality Passive is superb as a reconnaissance tool and as a gathering tool, revealing enemy loot pickups and increasingly rarer gear nearby. She even has a recovery tool to help with movement with her Tactical called Burglar’s Best Friend, which it is arguable if she even needs to remain one of the most essential characters to have in an Apex Legends squad.
Newcastle
Newcastle plays similarly to Gibraltar and is just as good at protecting allies. His ability to create shields with his Tactical and Ultimate, though the latter functions more like a blockade, restricts movement channels and setting up counter-attacks or escape plans. Though his Castle Wall has an HP pool, it is massive and more than enough to distract enemies in choke points or crowded areas. His Passive can drag downed players with him as he revives them too, meaning long-range encounters have far less danger whilst there is cover around, and he can pull teammates out of hazards.
Conduit
Justifying picking Conduit over each of the other undeniably fantastic Support choices can be a tall order, but that doesn’t mean that the ‘Shield Healer’ of Apex Legends isn’t a good choice herself. The last character in this article has her playstyle centred around her Tactical, Radiant Transfer. Shields regenerate faster, and she is quicker to help those out of its range with her Passive too, meaning re-engaging an enemy after taking damage is less risky. Finally, her Ultimate is a neat disruption tool with multiple jammers being called forth to cause passive damage and speed reduction. Conduit is a solid choice for any range, though in crowded areas she comes into her own and stands up at the lofty heights of the rest of the Support class legends.
