Every single character in Respawn's Apex Legends, ranked.
By Vikki Blake
9 min readPublished on
Now that we've spent some quality time with Apex Legends' season 5, it's time to decide the winners and losers of the free-to-play battle royale's recent tweaks and improvements.
Here's our definitive list of Apex Legends' full character roster, ranked and tiered from best to worst. Mileage may vary – some players aren’t down with Wraith at all, while others find Crypto to be a fantastic ally – but after intense debate, fighting, and a little yelling, this is it. Buckle up, Legend.
Of all the Legends, Gibraltar's the one you'd most want to go out for a drink with. A cheerful soul who loves his home-cookin', Gibraltar's imposing form means he's Fortified and can withstand more damage than most. His passive ability – a gun shield which gives him an additional 75HP – makes him a formidable foe in a firefight. Similar to Bangalore's ultimate, he can call in a mortar strike when things get tough, as well as throw up a protective dome around his squaddies – a godsend if you're frantically trying to revive someone. Go, Gibby!
Pathfinder
Tactical Ability: Grappling Hook
Passive Ability: Insider Knowledge
Ultimate Ability: Zipline Gun
Okay, so, Pathfinder isn't quite the badass he used to be, but despite his season 5 nerf – his grapple hook's cooldown was boosted from 15 seconds to 35 seconds – there's still a lot of love for the adorable robot. His passive, Insider Knowledge, enables you to hack beacons across the map for an early hint on where the circle is headed, and his ultimate – a zipline gun – helps Pathfinder and his team to traverse the map speedily, or reach a previously inaccessible point up high. Even his tactical can be a game-changer, allowing him to move freely around and reposition quickly in combat. Small, sweet and perfectly formed, he's agile,supportive and remains an S tier Legend.
Wattson
Tactical Ability: Perimeter Security
Passive Ability: Spark of Genius
Ultimate Ability: Interception Pylon
Wattson is one of those Legends that's lethal in the right hands… but few players know how to use her properly. While she's less impressive on the bigger World's Edge map – it's much more common for the circle to end outside here – the tools at her disposal are quite extraordinary. Though often compared to Caustic's nox canisters, her tactical electric fence is a little better, because it will still damage other Wattsons while Caustic's gas is ineffective against other Caustics. Her passive means she will see her ultimate fully charged from a single accelerate – impressive – and her ultimate not only protects nearby allies from projectiles like grenades but it also gradually repairs shield damage, too. Find a good place to hide with limited entry points, and the combination of Wattson's skills make her almost unbeatable.
Wraith
Tactical Ability: Into the Void
Passive Ability: Voices from the Void
Ultimate Ability: Dimensional Rift
There's a reason Wraith boasts the highest pick-rate of the entire roster. A must-have in ranked matches, Wraith's unique abilities give her an astonishing upper hand in tight situations, even when the circle's closing in. Her passive alerts her if she's in the sights of any enemy players and she’s fast with a small hitbox. She's the complete all-rounder, offering supportive, defensive and offensive tactics to every match. To be honest, we don't see her dropping from S tier any time soon.
Loba might be the newest kid on the block, but she's already making herself pretty indispensable. Her tactical only benefits her – like Revenant she can get out of a tight spot speedily with her jump-drive bangle – but her passive enables her to see high-tier loot at great distances, ensuring most Loba-loaded teams are well-equipped early on. Her ultimate is where she really shines, though, enabling her to open a portal that brings all the loot in the immediate vicinity to a central point. Not only does this mean you can load up with the best loot quickly and safely, but it also means she can help bring ammo and healing directly to you if you're hunkered down in the middle of a firefight. Loba can even dissolve the shop as soon as you're done, preventing enemy players from stocking up too.
Lifeline
Tactical Ability: D.O.C. Heal Drone
Passive Ability: Combat Medic
Ultimate Ability: Care Package
It's hard not to love Lifeline. A key support Legend on any team, Lifeline's healing drone helps teammates conserve their well-earned healing items. Her ability to shield herself and a fallen comrade – which is a little less effective than Mirage's stealthy cloaking – makes her an important ally. Admittedly, her care package doesn't do much towards the end of the game if the team's already decked out in Legendary armor, but the blue supply crates carry an extra couple of items exclusively for Lifeline. She's consistently been one of Apex Legends' most popular, well-balanced characters and, even though some of the newer characters have more extravagant abilities, you can rarely go wrong with Lifeline on the team.
Mirage
Tactical Ability: Psyche Out
Passive Ability: Encore!
Ultimate Ability: Vanishing Act
Mirage hasn't always been A-tier. His most recent buff in season 5 definitely bumped him up from a zero to a hero. Now able to fully control his decoys, Mirage no longer deploys duplicates that run face-first into a wall, and his ultimate makes it that much more difficult to figure out which Mirage is the real one. That said, it's his passive that players really love. Not only can Mirage turn invisible when he's reviving a fallen teammate, but the player he's reviving will temporarily disappear, too. Couple that with a similar trick when activating a respawn beacon and Mirage is now one of the most valuable Legends on the roster.
A professional soldier, Bangalore is all gun no fun and takes her time in combat super seriously. Her tactical ability – a smoke grenade – enables her to stealthily dodge tricky situations under the cover of smoke, and her passive ability, Double Time, allows you to weave through enemy fire with a burst of speed. Rolling Thunder, Bangalore's ult, calls in an artillery strike but it takes a little while to deploy and can be thwarted by Gibraltar's dome shield. That said, she's a pretty solid, all-round Legend, and a good choice for someone new to the game. She isn't quite special enough to reach top tier, though.
Bloodhound
Tactical Ability: Eye of the Allfather
Passive Ability: Tracker
Ultimate Ability: Beast of the Hunt
Bloodhound – though great on paper – was pretty ineffective for a while. However, they received a significant buff to the range of their tactical ability, Eye of the Allfather, making it much easier to track and locate enemies hiding nearby. Bloodhound’s passive lets you to see the footsteps of nearby competitors for 90 seconds after they've retreated which means, not only do you have a head's up that you're on the heels of an enemy team, but you can track which direction they went in – a huge advantage if there's only a handful of opponents left. Their ultimate, Beast of the Hunt, lasts 15 seconds longer than it used to and focuses Bloodhound's vision, enabling them to see competitors across great distances. It is, however, incredibly noisy, so any nearby players that didn't know you were nearby definitely will once you pop it.
Caustic
Tactical Ability: Nox Gas Trap
Passive Ability: Nox Vision
Ultimate Ability: Nox Gas Grenade
Caustic doesn't care about you. Caustic doesn't care about anything. With a noxious gas obsession, you could say he’s a little eccentric. On the battlefield, his abilities aren't quite far-reaching enough to make much of an impact, as any team with a Wraith (which is all of them, let's face it) will get a head's up when his canisters are nearby. His passive is sometimes useful but it's just not powerful enough. Given that his ultimate, a noxious gas cloud, is confined to a small area, big boy Caustic just seems to be all cons with minimal pros.
Revenant
Tactical Ability: Silence
Passive Ability: Stalker
Ultimate Ability: Death Totem
Respawn has tweaked his abilities to make them a little more robust, but Revenant is another Legend that looks great on paper and doesn't quite succeed on the battlefield. His tactical, Silence, prevents competing Legends from using their own abilities, sure, but it has a surprisingly small AOE. Though there have been buffs to increase the amount of life downed comrades spawn with if they make use of the Death Totem, savvy players have learned to camp the totems. His Stalker passive isn’t totally useless, but doesn't help your teammates. While Pathfinder and Wraith can bug out quickly, leaving a means for their squaddies to follow, Revenant's a lone wolf who can't help anyone but himself.
The ability to grab a fallen comrade's banner remotely should have been a game-changer on its own, but Crypto's drone is so fragile – and noisy – it usually doesn't stay in the air long. With a colossal cooldown time to boot, you'll rarely get to use it more than a couple of times per match. He's also completely vulnerable when using the drone, so if you're playing with randoms who aren't big team players, you're likely to get wiped out before you've even got the thing in the air. Finally, his EMP Ultimate certainly sounds impressive, but it doesn't do anywhere near enough damage. Consequently, new boy Crypto doesn’t have much to offer right now. Here's hoping a buff comes soon.
Octane
Tactical Ability: Stim
Passive Ability: Swift Mend
Ultimate Ability: Launch Pad
Look, people like Octane. He's funny and he's nice enough. But what does his speedy sprinting do for anyone other than him? At best, he's a convenient point man to get the first shot; at worst – particularly if you're playing with strangers – Octane is usually the ninja looter who sprints ahead and snags the best drops for himself before the rest of the team arrives. Yes, his jump pad can be shared with his teammates, but it can also be shared with enemies too and, unlike Loba's shop, it can't be dismantled or removed after use, either. With little else to offer the team, Octane's abilities are disappointingly self-serving.
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