'Apex' Season 2 Tier List Character Rankings: Wattson May Surprise You
Ranking every playable character in the game.
by Corey PlanteApex Legends regained a huge amount of popularity with the launch of Season 2 on July 2, and Respawn’s battle royale is once again a Fortnite competitor. But how does the new combatant, Wattson, stack up against all the others?
Set firmly in the Titanfall universe 30 years after the second game, Apex Legends features a Hunger Games-styled squad-based competition in which 20 teams of three compete to be the last squad standing. “Apex Games” is the name of the competition, and the “Legends” are the competitors, hence the title Apex Legends.
At launch, Apex Legends gave players access to six playable characters with another two — Caustic and Mirage — available for in-game purchase. At the start of Season 1 in March, they added Octane, a new character who can run at high speeds. With the launch of Season 2, Respawn then added Wattson, a combatant who wields electrical power with her abilities. That brought the grand total up to 10 playable characters.
At the start of every match, members of a squad take turns picking characters. Because there’s no overlapping on a team, players are forced to flex to different Legends, so it helps to have a sense of who’s best and which combatants complement others.
For those purposes, here’s a tier list based on personal experiences and various opinions from across the Apex Legends community.
Apex Legends Season 2: Top Tier
- Tactical Ability: D.O.C. Heal Drone
- Passive Ability: Combat Medic
- Ultimate Ability: Care Package
Lifeline’s Heal Drone attaches to a nearby ally to heal them over time, which is great if they run out of health packs or if they’re actively under enemy fire. Combat Medic allows her to use healing items 25 percent faster and to heal downed allies quicker when protected by a shield wall. But Care Package is what really elevates Lifeline, as it summons a supply package that has three random pieces of high-quality defensive gear.
In many cases, those Care Package items will outclass just about any piece of armor that players already have. And because she’s really the only dedicated healer in the game right now, Lifeline is something of a must-have for any good team composition.
A good Lifeline will focus on healing allies after every confrontation and using Ultimate Accelerants as often as possible to call in a Care Package.
Bangalore — Professional Soldier
- Tactical Ability: Smoke Launcher
- Passive Ability: Double Time
- Ultimate Ability: Rolling Thunder
Bangalore is the Soldier: 76 of Apex Legends in that she’s a well-balanced offensive powerhouse who’s comparatively very easy to use for anyone with even basic first-person shooter experience.
With Double Time, Bangalore can sprint faster when under enemy fire, and Smoke Launcher fires a smoke grenade that can provide cover. Meanwhile, Rolling Thunder calls in an artillery strike that “slowly creeps across the landscape.” Like Lifeline, Bangalore gets a lot of worth out of her excellent ultimate ability, but all of her abilities stack very well, making her an excellent choice for skilled players looking to rack up kills.
In terms of sheer offense, there’s no better character in Apex Legends right now, and any squad with both Bangalore and Lifeline is off to a great start. Smoke Launcher is particularly useful with a short cooldown. As such, Bangalores should spam that to disorient enemies and provide cover for reviving downed allies.
Apex Legends Season 2: A-Tier
- Tactical Ability: Perimeter Security
- Passive Ability: Spark of Genius
- Ultimate Ability: Interception Pylon
Wattson’s primary tactical ability is Perimeter Security, allowing her to place down a series of nodes that automatically connect to form up to four electrified fences. These slow and damage any enemies that walk through.
Interception Pylon, her ultimate ability, deploys an electrified pylon that destroys incoming ordnance while also repairing damaged shields as long as it stands, protecting the area from grenades and ultimates from Bangalore or Gibraltar. Wattson’s passive ability, Spark of Genius, instantly recharges her ultimate ability with the use of a single Ultimate Accelerant, an item that normally lets the player charge up 20 percent of their ultimate ability meter. Furthermore, whenever she stands near an Interception Pylon (her ultimate), her tactical ability recharges faster.
Her toolkit is unlike any other in Apex Legends, requiring a more defensive mindset that’s less aggressive. Players should focus on holding down defensible interior positions, lining every entrance with one of her electric fences.
Wraith — Interdimensional Skirmisher
- Tactical Ability: Into the Void
- Passive Ability: Voices from the Void
- Ultimate Ability: Dimensional Rift
Wraith might be the coolest character in Apex Legends, with abilities that resemble Ghost from Ant-Man and the Wasp. That’s why she’s the most popular pick of any Legend.
Wraith can phase between dimensions to become temporarily invisible and invulnerable with Into the Void, except she won’t be able to see other players for the duration. Voices from the Void triggers a voice that warns her of approaching danger. Her ultimate, Dimensional Rift, links two locations with portals for 60 seconds, making for an excellent escape route for the entire team.
These abilities are difficult to use effectively, so Wraith isn’t for novice players. But in capable hands, she can be an effective member of any squad.
Bloodhound — Technological Tracker
- Tactical Ability: Eye of the Allfather
- Passive Ability: Tracker
- Ultimate Ability: Beast of the Hunt
Shrouded in mystery, Bloodhound looks like some kind of cool hawkmaster-type hunter, and all of their abilities make them an excellent tracker. While useful, their abilities feel less essential than others and require a higher skill threshold.
Eye of the Allfather essentially scans the surrounding area and reveals any hidden enemies or traps within structures. Tracker allows them to see enemy footprints on the ground with a timestamp of how recent, making it useful when in larger structures where an enemy could be nearby. Beast of the Hunt is slightly more offensive, allowing them to move faster and actively highlight nearby enemies.
A good Bloodhound should move and act like a hunter, finding and tagging enemies so the entire squad knows where they are. While allies provide cover fire, Bloodhound can make quick executions.
Apex Legends Season 2: B-Tier
- Tactical Ability: Stim
- Passive Ability: Swift Mend
- Ultimate Ability: Launch Pad
Octane’s active Stim ability costs 10 percent of his health to increase mobility by 30 percent for 6 seconds. (This boost is comparable to Bangalore’s Double Time, which activates when she’s under enemy fire.) Losing health might seem counterintuitive at first, but Octane’s passive ability, Swift Mend, automatically restores his health over time. This effectively rewards reckless behavior and allows Octane to move faster than any other player. Octane’s ultimate ability is Launch Pad. He deploys a pad that allows anyone to bounce high into the air.
- Tactical Ability: Grappling Hook
- Passive Ability: Insider Knowledge
- Ultimate Ability: Zipline Gun
Pathfinder’s toolkit as a robotic scout sounds very cool on paper, but in practice, his Grappling Hook feels almost a little too realistic. He shoots out the grappling hook and pulls himself to the destination, but it’s very easy to feel his heft, so it takes some getting used to. Insider Knowledge lets the player know the Ring’s next location. Players should use this to get to the center of the Ring first so they can defend that location.
Zipline Gun creates a zipline that the whole party can use, which is handy towards the end of matches when teams might need to move quickly. But when other characters can do so much more with that ability slot, it doesn’t feel that special.
Pathfinder recently had issues with his hitbox that have since been patched with the big Season 2 update, so as the dust settles on this new update, he could slip up in the rankings a bit.
Mirage — Holographic Trickster
- Tactical Ability: Psyche Out
- Passive Ability: Encore!
- Ultimate move: Vanishing Act
“Holographic Trickster” is a great way to describe Mirage’s playstyle, as it involves disorienting opponents with moves like Psyche Out, which sends out a holographic decoy. Encore! does the same thing whenever Mirage is knocked down while also cloaking him, and Vanishing Act sends out a team of decoys and cloaks Mirage.
All of these abilities make Mirage a rogue that should focus on confusing enemies and flanking them for quick kills with shotguns. He can function in the frontlines, but his flanking maneuvers are where he shines the most.
Apex Legends Season 2: C-Tier
- Tactical Ability: Dome of Protection
- Passive Ability: Gun Shield
- Ultimate Ability: Defensive Bombardment
In parties looking for balance, Gibraltar might actually wind up being a very popular pick, as he’s basically the only tank. He’s fairly well balanced with a really interesting toolkit, but his slow speed and larger size make him an easy target.
Dome of Protection deploys a dome shield that blocks attacks, which is very useful to protect downed allies. Gun Shield automatically deploys a front-facing shield when Gibraltar aims down the sights. Defensive Bombardment is similar to Bangalore’s ultimate in that it calls in a concentrated mortar strike.
These are pretty generic abilities that don’t offer anything special. For anyone who’s adept at traditional gunplay, Gibraltar can be a solid pick.
- Tactical Ability: Nox Gas Trap
- Passive Ability: Nox Vision
- Ultimate Ability: Nox Gas Grenade
Not only is Caustic a premium character that must be purchased using in-game currency, but the first trapper-type Legend leaves a lot to be desired, mainly because the Nox Gas he tosses around doesn’t do quite enough damage. Because he’s the only villain available so far, he’ll be desirable by all the Reaper and Junkrat mains that migrate from Overwatch to Apex Legends.
Nox Gas Trap is a trap that deploys toxic gas within an area once triggered, and the Nox Gas Grenade does basically the same thing. Caustic’s passive Nox Vision just allows him to see through his own gas while also rendering him immune. So it’s a little underwhelming, especially because the traps are pretty visible right now.
These rankings are subject to change, especially as Respawn updates the game over time with nerfs or buffs to specific characters.
Apex Legends is currently available on PC via Origin, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
