Apex Legends characters guide: who’s the best for you?

Apex Legends took the gaming world by a storm when in came out, surprising many with its astonishing success so far, with over 35 million players, no wonder why you would want to get into the action

The new free battle royale game includes many characters to choose from, so that may be confusing for beginners, and that’s why we present to you this guide.

Bloodhound

• Role: Technological Tracker
• Passive Ability: Tracker
  • Foes leave behind clues for you to find.
• Tactical Ability: Eye of the AllFather (35s cooldown)
  • Briefly reveal enemies, traps, and clues through all structures in front of you.
• Ultimate Ability: Beast of the Hunt
  • Transform into the ultimate hunter. Enhances your senses, allowing you to see cold tracks and move faster.

Bloodhound is an aggressive Legend who seeks to equip the player with as much tactical information as possible. Their passive and tactical abilities both allow the player to track down and/or get the drop on enemies, while Beast of the Hunt, their ultimate, gives them massively increased speed for a short time and allows them to easily see enemies and their tracks.

Bloodhound is a surprisingly versatile character, who can be played at a very high skill level but who also is excellent for beginners due to their enemy positional awareness and the escape provided by their ultimate. Just be aware that Eye of the AllFather also gives away your position to nearby enemies, so use it with caution.

Gibraltar

• Role: Shielded Fortress
• Passive Ability: Gun Shield
  • Aiming down sights deploys a gun shield that blocks incoming fire.
• Tactical Ability: Dome of Protection (20s cooldown)
  • Throw down a dome-shield that blocks attacks for 15 seconds.
• Ultimate Ability: Defensive Bombardment
  • Call in a concentrated mortar strike on a position you mark with smoke.

Gibraltar is Apex Legends’ big tanky Legend whose shields provide an extra layer of defense not just for themselves but for their teammates as well. By far the best thing about Gibraltar is their passive Gun Shield, which gives them an extra layer of protection beyond what any other Legend receives while aiming down sights. For best effect, equip Gibraltar with a sniper and watch enemies try to deal with this new shielded long-range threat.

Gibraltar’s Defensive Bombardment ultimate ability is slow-acting but easy to use and deals damage in a very large area of effect, which is useful for flushing enemies out from behind cover, whereupon you can pop your shields, giving your team the upper hand in the ensuing firefight. Just remember that Gibraltar’s passive shield takes a moment before flickering on, so it’s not responsive enough to save you from the quicker sharpshooters out there.

Lifeline

• Role: Combat Medic
• Passive Ability: Combat Medic
  • Revive knocked down teammates faster while protected by a shield wall. Healing items are used 25% faster.
• Tactical Ability: D.O.C. Heal Drone (60s cooldown)
  • The Drone Of Compassion (DOC) automatically heals those near it over time.
• Ultimate Ability: Care Package
  • Call in a droppod full of high quality defensive gear.

Lifeline’s abilities all revolve around healing and reviving teammates, and equipping everyone with enough gear to hopefully survive until the end of the match. What’s nice is that unlike many support classes in similar games, Lifeline’s passive also helps herself, allowing her to use healing items faster and therefore spend longer in the fight.

She can hit as hard as anyone, but due to her reviving strength should aim to be the last of the team left standing, so don’t use Lifeline as the tip of the spear. Keep her at longer ranges, though still near the rest of her team. Use Care Package as early as you can to provide high-quality gear for everyone, and do the same with the D.O.C. in order to keep your team standing as long as possible.

Pathfinder

• Role: Forward Scout
• Passive Ability: Insider Knowledge
  • Scan a survey beacon to reveal the ring’s next location.
• Tactical Ability: Grappling Hook (15s cooldown)
  • Grapple to get to out-0f-reach places quickly.
• Ultimate Ability: Zipline Gun
  • Creates a zipline for everyone to use.

Pathfinder is a versatile Legend with a very high skill ceiling that is still being discovered by the playerbase. His passive ability is very situational and not all that useful, but his low cooldown Grappling Hook is absolutely marvelous for initiating, escaping, and getting unexpected angles on enemies. For this reason Pathfinders make for great snipers, but also excellent close-range combatants. Not only that, but the Grappling Hook can pull other players towards Pathfinder, which opens up a wealth of new clutch combat opportunities for players with quick reflexes.

The Zipline ultimate is a quick and useful way of traveling longer distances as a team, though bear in mind that the Zipline stays forever and anyone can use them. You can also jump and turn around in order to change directions will on the Zipline, and – very importantly – you can aim and shoot while travelling. All this combines into a complex class with great potential that can slot into nearly any team without too much trouble.

Wraith

• Role: Interdimensional Skirmisher
• Passive Ability: Voices from the Void
  • You hear a voice when danger approaches. As far as you can tell, it’s on your side.
• Tactical Ability: Into the Void (20s cooldown)
  • Reposition quickly through the safety of the ‘void’ space, avoiding all damage.
• Ultimate Ability: Dimensional Rift
  • Link 2 locations with portals for 60 seconds.

Wraith’s abilities are very mobility- and stealth-focused, with her main strength being the tactical ability which allows her to enter a state where she becomes (mostly) invisible and moves faster for a short while – though be aware that you cannot fire and also can’t see enemies while this effect is active. But this, combined with her passive, which whispers when you are being aimed at, allows her to easily re-position herself to counter incoming threats ahead of time.

Her Dimensional Rift ultimate takes some planning to use effectively, but I’ve certainly seen it used to great effect, allowing an entire team to quickly re-position themselves for a devastating surprise attack on an enemy team or to escape a difficult situation with ease. Overall Wraith is an excellent initiator and escaper, and if you were to pick any class to play as a solo without a team, it would be Wraith.

Bangalore

• Role: Professional Soldier
• Passive Ability: Double Time
  • Taking fire while sprinting makes you move faster for a brief time.
• Tactical Ability: Smoke Launcher (25s cooldown)
  • Fire a high velocity smoke canister that explodes into a smoke wall on impact.
• Ultimate Ability: Rolling Thunder
  • Call in an artillery strike that slowly creeps across the landscape.

Bangalore is less of a damage-dealing tank than you might expect, though her abilities give her some excellent support and utility power, and she can slot into any team without too much effort. Her Double Time passive is just really nice to have, allowing you to escape further damage that much quicker; and you can synergies this with a well-timed Smoke Launcher shot to quickly flank an enemy or escape from a difficult position.

Her ultimate is another slow-use and situational area-of-effect power which requires you to deploy a beacon at surprisingly close range in order for it to occur, which limits its utility. But if correctly placed it can deal significant damage to a shielded enemy team, forcing them to abandon their cover and flush them out into the open.

Caustic

• Role: Toxic Trapper
• Passive Ability: Nox Vision
  • You gain threat vision on enemies moving through your gas.
• Tactical Ability: Nox Gas Trap (12s cooldown)
  • Place up to 6 canisters that release deadly Nox gas when shot or triggered by enemies.
• Ultimate Ability: Nox Gas Grenade
  • Blanket a large area in Nox gas.

Caustic is one of two Legends which must be unlocked using in-game resources or currency in order to play with them. He is of course immune to the effects of his Nox gas (he’d be pretty useless if not), and his abilities all revolve around spamming an area with gas to sow confusion and force enemies into or out of specific areas.

For this reason he is a great flanker and initiator in fights, though his canisters can also sow confusion among your own team members, so it’s important that you communicate everything you see with your Nox Vision passive.

Mirage

• Role: Holographic Trickster
• Passive Ability: Encore!
  • Automatically drop a decoy and cloak for 5 seconds when knocked down.
• Tactical Ability: Psyche Out (14s cooldown)
  • Send out a holographic decoy to confuse the enemy.
• Ultimate Ability: Vanishing Act
  • Mirage deploys a team of decoys to distract enemies, while he cloaks.

Mirage is the other Legend locked behind an initial in-game paywall, but once unlocked he is unmatched at distracting and confusing enemies. All his abilities revolve around stealth (and holographic decoys, each of which can be used in specific ways). His ultimate should most definitely be saved for escaping from difficult situations, as it is very difficult for enemies to track you after you’ve cloaked and spawned several copies of yourself on the same spot as you.

It’s a shame that Mirage lacks more diversity in his powers, because as things currently stand he isn’t much of a team player. But his decoys, if used correctly, can distract enemies long enough to rack up a great deal of kills over the course of a match.