Combat Strategies for Apex Legends Players

EACH LEGEND HAS A TACTICAL ABILITY THAT ONCE USED, REQUIRES TIME TO RECHARGE OR COOLDOWN BEFORE IT CAN BE used again. The Legend’S Unique passive ability always remains active and can be used as often as you’d like during each match. The Legend’s ultimate ability takes extra time to charge. You can, however, find and use a consumable Ultimate Accelerant item. It allows your Legend’s ultimate ability to recharge faster.

As a gamer, your first major decision at the start of each Apex Legends match is to choose your Legend.

Because each has their own specialty, along with three unique abilities, the Legend you choose will determine your role in your squad.

After each gamer has locked in their decision for which Legend they’ll control, the Your Squad screen is displayed.

Caustic’s tactical ability, for example, is called Nox Gas Trap. It allows him to set traps containing poisonous gas that enemies automatically activate when in close proximity. However, by shooting at the trap, Caustic (or any Legend) can detonate the trap from a distance. If you’re detonating the trap to inflict damage on enemies from a distance, this is useful. If you’re trying to protect yourself from receiving damage from a trap set by an enemy, shoot the trap from a distance before you get too close and detonate it.

While it’s an excellent strategy to keep controlling one Legend so that you become an expert working with that character, it’s equally important to understand what sets each Legend apart, so you’re able to put together and then successfully fight within a well-balanced squad.

You can’t rely on just your Legend’s unique abilities to win firefights or matches. Ultimately, you’ll need to utilize armor for protection, Health-related items to stay alive, and most importantly, build and use a well-rounded and powerful weapon arsenal. Shown here is a purple Body Shield that’s about to be picked up and worn by the soldier for protection. This is an important type of armor.

Mixing and matching your Legend’s unique abilities with the use of regular weapons during a firefight will give you the best advantage. Many gamers, however, forget to use their Legend’s unique abilities in conjunction with regular weapons because they get caught up in the excitement of a firefight.

During each match, a Legend has the ability move freely in any direction using the directional controls on your keyboard/mouse or a controller. In addition to walking, a Legend can run, crouch, interact with objects, pick up items, aim a weapon, fire a weapon, reload a weapon, toss a grenade, holster their weapon, Ping, use their unique abilities, jump, punch, kick, or climb, for example.

In general, and especially when your Legend is out in the open, avoid standing still for more than a few seconds at a time. When walking or running, avoid traveling in a straight line. Follow a random, zig-zag pattern and use the Slide-Jump maneuver periodically to make your soldier a tougher moving target to hit. Simply jumping up and down like you would in other battle royale games will make your Legend stand out and attract unwanted attention.

Whenever possible, use your surroundings to provide cover. You can crouch behind walls or objects to make your Legend smaller, more difficult to spot, and harder to target with weapons. On the left, the soldier is standing behind a wall of sandbags ready to shoot enemies in front of him. On the right, he’s crouching behind those same sandbags for protection.

Maintaining a height advantage during a firefight almost always puts you at an advantage, makes it easier to target enemies, and makes it harder for enemies to return fire accurately. You’ll discover all sorts of things your Legend can climb up on in order to achieve a height advantage.

A Body Shield is one type of armor your Legend can utilize. This type of gear is available in four levels, which determines how much additional shielding (protection) it’ll offer.

A level 1 (Common) Body Shield adds two bars (50HP) to your Legend’s Shield and has a white hue. A level 2 (Rare) Body Shield adds three bars (75HP) to your Legend’s Shield and is displayed with a blue hue (shown here). A level 3 (Epic) Body Shield adds four bars (100HP) to your Legend’s Shield and has a purple hue, while a level 4 (Legendary) Body Shield also adds four bars (100HP) to your Legend’s Shield. A level 4 Body Shield, however, also recharges completely each time you kill an enemy. It has a gold hue.

A second essential piece of armor you want to find and provide to your Legend is a Helmet. These too come in four color-coded levels. A level 1 Helmet, with its white hue, is shown here. The purpose of a Helmet is to protect your soldier from headshots. Typically, a direct headshot causes the most injury (damage) to a soldier’s Health meter. A Helmet reduces the damage incurred.

A level 1 (white) helmet reduces headshot damage by 30 percent. A level 2 (blue) Helmet reduces headshot damage by 40 percent. A level 3 (purple) Helmet reduces headshot damage by 50 percent. Meanwhile, a level 4 (gold) Helmet not only reduces headshot damage by 50 percent, is also reduces the charge/recharge time for your Legend’s unique tactical and ultimate abilities.

The third type of armor, called a Knockdown Shield, is used to keep your Legend alive longer once their Health meter hits zero and they’re considered “knocked down.” While a soldier is in the knocked down state, by pressing the Fire button, you can activate their Knockdown Shield to provide extra shielding in front of them. This provides added protection from continued attacks until the injured soldier can be revived. It can also give them more time for squad mates to arrive and render assistance.

A level 1 (white) Knockdown Shield has 100HP. A level 2 (blue) Knockdown Shield has 250 HP. A level 3 (purple) Knockdown Shield has 750HP, while a level 4 (gold) Knockdown Shield also has 750 HP, and it offers the ability for the knocked down Legend to revive themselves during a 10-second period. For this self-revive feature to work, the knocked down soldier can’t be attacked or further injured during the Revive process.

As quickly as you can at the start of a match, boost your Legend’s defensive capabilities by finding and grabbing the strongest Helmet, Body Shield, and Knockdown Shield possible.

In addition to armor and weapons, a Backpack is an essential tool you’ll want to grab and use as quickly as possible at the start of a match. There are four Backpack levels, and each determines how much additional inventory your Legend can carry at once.

Like Armor and most weapons and ammo, Backpacks are color coded for easy identification. A level 1 (Common) Backpack, displayed with a white hue, adds two extra inventory slots. A level 2 (Rare) Backpack, displayed with a blue hue, adds four slots to your Legend’s inventory capacity. A level 3 (Epic) Backpack, displayed with a purple hue, adds six slots to your Legend’s inventory capacity.

Ideally, you want to equip your soldier with a level 4 (Legendary) Backpack, which offers six inventory slots. It has a golden hue. This item also cuts in half the amount of time it takes to utilize Health-related consumables. This feature alone is useful, because anytime your soldier uses a Health consumable it requires several seconds, during which time they’re vulnerable to attack and can’t use a weapon. You can see all of the Inventory slots and what’s within them by looking at your Legend’s Inventory screen.

Every Legend has the ability to use the game’s Ping feature. These are callouts that allow squad mates to easily communicate, without using their voice. Pings are particularly useful to gamers not using a gaming headset (with a built-in mic), but they can be used by all gamers to make communication between squad mates more efficient.

When a Ping is used, all of your squad mates will hear an audible announcement in their Legend’s voice (not the gamer’s voice). In some cases, a Ping will also appear as a text-based message within the in-game chat, or as a marker on the map and/or mini-map.

As you’ll discover, there are a dozen types of Pings that can be used at any time during a match. Learn the keyboard key binding or controller button binding associated with Pings to make them faster and more efficient to use.

• Attacking Here—Alert your squad mates that you’re attacking one or more enemies at a specific location and ask for assistance.

• Banner—Once your Legend has been killed, use this Ping to tell your squad mates that you’ve been eliminated from the match and share the location of your Banner. If the Banner is found in time, and brought to a Respawn location, your Legend could be brought back to life and returned into the match.

• Defending Here—Inform your squad mates that you’re currently defending a specific location and ask for their help.

• Enemy Here—Alert your squad mates that you’ve spotted an enemy and show the enemy’s location.

• Going Here—Tell your squad mates where you’re headed and mark that location on the map.

• Help—This Ping is only available once your Legend is knocked down. Use it to broadcast a message asking for immediate assistance.

• Looting Here—When you discover a location with useful loot items to collect, use this Ping to inform your squad mates that you’re looting at a specific location.

• Someone’s Been Here—Warn your squad mates that an area you’re in is not safe because an enemy has clearly been there (and may still be there waiting to launch an ambush).

It’s also possible to Ping specific locations, ammo, enemies, weapons, equipment, weapon attachments, as well as some objects.

When Apex Legends first launched, the game included eight original Legends. The following is useful information about those original eight Legends. Check out “Section 9—Take Advantage of Apex Legends Battle Passes” for details about Octane, who was added a few weeks after Apex Legends first launched. He’s one of the Legends you need to pay for in order to unlock.

Once you choose to become an expert controlling a specific Legend, keep practicing with that character until you’re really good at using their special abilities in a wide range of situations and you’re able to nicely combine the use of traditional weapons with the Legend’s unique abilities.

After you’ve unlocked all of the available Legends from the Store, this message will appear. Don’t get too complacent, however. It’ll just be a matter of time before new Legends are introduced into the game—each offering new special abilities and fighting skills.

Bangalore is an attacker. She’s the perfect Legend to choose if you enjoy fighting, while staying very mobile. While she can be the lead soldier in a battle, she can also offer strong support to her squad mates, should the need arise. Be sure to equip Bangalore with an Assault Rifle and/or SMG to enhance her fighting abilities from mid-range. In close range, she has the ability to work nicely with Frag Grenades and Shotguns, for example.

Her tactical ability is Smoke Launcher. This smoke can be used to cloud an area, making it harder for enemies to see and find their way, or successfully see and accurately target Bangalore’s squad mates. Smoke can also be used to hide squad mates or divert enemy attention when a quick escape is required. Smoke Launcher can be shot into a confined space occupied by enemies to cause confusion and wreak havoc.

As you can see from the bottom of the screen, her passive ability is Double Time. This allows her to move extra quickly between locations. It’s useful when she needs to pass through open areas, because Double Time makes it harder for enemies to successfully target and hit her. This Double Time ability is also useful when the squad needs her to sneak off and then flank enemies while her squad mates approach from another direction.

Her ultimate ability is Rolling Thunder. This ability allows her to drop a powerful airstrike over enemy territory and potentially injure multiple enemies at once. At the same time that Bangalore uses this ability, her squad mates can provide additional weapons fire toward the target area, but from a distance. Keep in mind, there is a slight delay between when this weapon is deployed and when it detonates, so plan accordingly. Also, since Rolling Thunder is launched with a toss, keep in mind it can’t be sent too far off into the distance.

Bloodhound is a tracker. He’s a great addition to any squad, because he’ll help locate enemies. This knowledge can be used to plan and execute attacks, or to avoid enemies when you and your squad are outgunned or vulnerable. All of Bloodhound’s special abilities are based on tracking enemies, so use them wisely, especially when planning ambushes.

His tactical ability is Eye of the Allfather. Use this to pinpoint the location of enemies within close range, even if they’re hiding behind walls or within buildings.

His passive ability is Tracker. When used, footsteps appear in the area, indicating where enemies have recently been and in what direction they were traveling. This ability requires you to pay attention to the clues, so you’re able to follow the path of enemies in motion. Keep your eyes peeled to the ground so you can see the footsteps that Tracker reveals. Unfortunately, if the enemy that’s being tracked is able to take to the air (using a zipline, for example), their tracks will come to an abrupt halt.

His ultimate ability is Beast of the Hunt. For a limited period, this ability reveals the location of enemies in the area and allows Bloodhound to temporarily move faster. Ultimately, Bloodhound’s special abilities work best when he’s teamed up with Legends who have strong attack capabilities.

Caustic is a defensive Legend whose specialty is close-range combat. This makes him particularly useful during the End Game (the final minutes of a match) when the safe area is small and all remaining soldiers are in close proximity.

Caustic is one of the Legends you must pay real money to unlock. This can be done using 12,000 Legend Tokens or 750 Apex Coins (approximately $9.99 US). This Legend’s ability to set traps makes him useful for maintaining control over a specific area or region. Traps can surprise and injure enemies as they’re coming through doorways or hiding in enclosed spaces.

His tactical ability is Nox Gas Trap. Set a trap that’ll injure enemies who get caught in the toxic gas cloud upon its detonation. The trap will activate when an enemy approaches, or it activates immediately upon being shot at. Unfortunately, if it’s shot by an enemy from a distance, the trap can be destroyed before it causes any damage. These traps work best when they’re placed in hidden locations or in spots where that can’t be spotted until the enemy is too close to do anything about it.

Consider using a Nox Gas Trap to block a doorway and potentially trap an enemy within a room or structure. His passive ability is Nox Vision. While his enemies are stuck in a cloud of toxic smoke, Caustic can see through the gas and not be injured by it, so he can quickly approach enemies and launch a potentially deadly assault while their vision and mobility are impaired.

His ultimate ability is Nox Gas Grenade. When this unique grenade is tossed, the area where it lands will quickly be filled by a cloud of toxic smoke. It’ll visually impair enemies while causing harm to their health. This weapon is best used when it’s tossed into a confined space where enemies are inside. It can also be used to block a pathway or route that an enemy was planning to follow, forcing them to make a detour.

Gibraltar is a defensive Legend. Once this guy chooses an area to defend, he’s often able to hold that spot and ward off enemies—with your help, of course.

His tactical ability is Dome of Protection. This ability allows Gibraltar to create an impenetrable energy dome to protect himself and his squad mates. Use it to prevent damage from an incoming attack. The drawback is that those being protected on the inside of the dome can’t use their weapons to fire out toward enemies.

His passive ability is Gun Shield. This is a pop-up shield that appears in front of whatever gun Gibraltar is holding. It only offers protection in front of Gibraltar. Unlike the Dome of Protection, this shield can’t withstand unlimited attacks. Eventually it deactivates if it takes too much damage. When using this shield, watch your back and sides, since they remain vulnerable and unshielded.

His ultimate ability is Defensive Bombardment. This weapon is somewhat like Bangalore’s Rolling Thunder. It launches up into the sky, deploys, and then bombs the area below. You can theoretically deploy it above you when being attacked, and then use the Dome of Protection to protect yourself and your squad while your enemies take damage.

Lifeline is a healer. Having a healer as part of a squad is always a good idea. When a squad mate needs health-related help, Lifeline can come to the rescue! She can also serve as a support soldier in firefights when additional firepower is needed, assuming she’s well-armed with weapons and ammo. When traveling in a group with a squad, Lifeline should stay in the middle or back.

Her tactical ability is D.O.C. Heal Drone. This can be used anytime during a match to heal squad mates and boost their Health, even if they’re not yet knocked out. Once used, it takes about a minute to recharge, so use it wisely, when it’s needed to keep your squad healthy and fit for combat.

Her passive ability is Combat Medic. When used properly, Lifeline can position herself just right and heal a squad mate while generating a protective shield around herself and the Legend she’s healing. This healing method works about 25 percent faster than a typical Revive.

Her ultimate ability is Care Package. When initiated, this ability calls for a Drop Crate to be delivered that will contain a useful item. First choose where the Care Package will land. Next, wait for it to arrive.

Mirage is an attacker and an expert when it comes to deception. He is one of the Legends you must pay real money to unlock.

Acquiring Mirage is done using 12,000 Legend Tokens or 750 Apex Coins (approximately $9.99 US) from the Store. Mirage is the ideal Legend to choose if you like confusing your enemies, sneaking around, and being a bit mischievous, as opposed to confronting enemies with head-on attacks.

His tactical ability is Psyche Out. Use this ability to create a hologram of Mirage running in a straightforward direction, starting from a location you select. Simply look in the direction where you want to create the hologram and activate it. Use it to distract an enemy, lure an enemy into a location, or as a lead Legend when your squad is pushing another. The more creative you are when using this ability, the more useful it’ll be.

Even during freefall, Mirage has the ability to send out clones to confuses the enemy about where his squad plans to land. Simply select the Use Decoy command during freefall to launch the clones. His passive ability is Encore! Anytime Mirage gets knocked down and then an enemy approaches to attack, this ability allows him to create a holographic decoy and then cloak himself for five seconds. When the hologram of Mirage runs off, the hope is that the enemy will follow, leaving the real Mirage safely behind where he can wait for a squad mate to revive him.

His ultimate ability is Vanishing Act. When activated, Mirage deploys a group of holographic clones that run in different directions, while at the same time, the real Mirage is able to cloak himself and travel in another direction altogether. The nearby enemies will waste time and ammo shooting at the holograms, while the real Mirage is hopefully able to escape undetected. The drawback is that if you see a bunch of Mirage holograms, as the opponent, you should know to just ignore them and wait for the real version of Mirage to reappear.

Pathfinder is a healer and a robot. He’s not at all menacing from an appearance standpoint, but he should not be written off as a weakling. While he can perform decently in a firefight when he is properly armed, this is not the Legend you want leading a squad into combat.

His tactical ability is Grappling Hook. This is a great tool for quickly escaping out of areas in a Spider-Man–like way. He simply needs to launch his Grappling Hook onto a higher up wall or ledge, for example, and then he’ll be catapulted to that location quickly. This can also be used to grab onto an enemy and pull him toward Pathfinder (causing damage in the process).

His passive ability is Insider Knowledge. In this case, the ability can be used to preview where the next safe circle on the map will be, providing this information to his squad before others have it. This is a particularly useful skill to use toward the end of a match, when you need to get into position and be within the safe area as the final battles ensue. To use it, Pathfinder must first locate and hack into a Survey Beacon (shown here). These are labeled on the map, but only when you’re controlling Pathfinder.

His ultimate ability is Zipline Gun. After creating a zipline almost anywhere, all Legends can then ride it to quickly reach another area. This is a great tool for providing an escape route from an area, or to quickly relocate the squad to another region. When soldiers are riding a zipline to get from one place to another, they become rather difficult targets for enemies to lock onto and hit. First select and aim the Grappling Hook where you want the zipline to end. The starting location is where Pathfinder is currently standing.

Once it’s created, any Legend can ride the newly created zipline. To grab onto and ride a zipline, stand below it, look up at it, and select the Ride command.

Wraith is an attacker. Thanks to her unique abilities, she’s the Legend to choose if you want to sneak around and be able to launch ambushes and surprise attacks on enemies. What sets her apart is her ability to create a teleport that any Legend can then use to get from one pre-set location to another almost instantly. Choose to control Wraith if you want a soldier who can move fast and stay stealthy.

Her tactical ability is Into the Void. It allows her to move very quickly and become almost (but not completely) invisible while on the go.

Wraith’s passive ability is Voices of the Void. When there’s an incoming attack, this ability allows her to sense it and dodge it, often without any injury being inflicted. It’s almost like having a psychic ability where a mysterious voice warns Wraith of impending danger.

Her ultimate ability is Dimensional Rift. Using this ability, Wraith can create two portals—an entrance and an exit—that any Legends can instantly pass through in order to instantly transport from one place to another.

Wraith’s portals last about 60 seconds, during which time they can be used as often as they’re needed. Ideally, you want to place one rift in a safe location before a battle, and then place the second in the middle of the firefight if Wraith or her squad mates need to make a quick escape. The drawback is that enemies can also use Wraith’s portals. Thus, you may benefit from guarding the exit and being ready to attack those who come through. Either that or consider placing a trap near the portal’s exit.

SECTION 2

MEET THE LEGENDS