Season 12 of Apex Legends is underway, and it’s shaking things up with tons of new content. Offensive legend Mad Maggie has made her debut as a playable character, and along with her came big changes to Olympus and the new Control limited-time mode. But how does she stack up against the game’s existing legends?
While typical battle royales put players on a level playing field, Apex is different in that each character comes with a unique set of abilities and hitboxes. These abilities work alongside weapons to impact the outcome of the game’s epic, large-scale battle royale matches and intense Arenas rounds.
In this tier list, legends are being evaluated by the following three criteria:
- Legend kits: The advantages and disadvantages garnered from the active, passive, and ultimate abilities each legend has.
- Team compatibility: How well a legend’s abilities synergize with other legends’ skills, supporting their teammates’ survival and success.
- Map adaptability: How useful a legend and their abilities are on each map. Now that there are four unique maps in play depending on specific rotations, how well a legend can adapt to each map makes a big difference in their overall effectiveness.
Note that legends’ particular position in their tier is less important than the overall tier that they’re in. For example, two A-tier legends are much closer to each other in terms of potential than an A-tier legend and a B-tier legend.
With that out of the way, here’s our legend tier list for Apex, current as of season 12.
S Tier
Octane
For a long time now, Octane has been doing just fine. Better than fine, in fact. While not quite as powerful as he used to be, his passive health regeneration and the sheer movement potential afforded by his Stim tactical lift him above most legends. His Jump Pad ultimate is great for making a quick getaway or initiating a third-party fight.
Sometimes the biggest enemy in Apex isn’t other characters, but the Ring. Octane’s ability to quickly traverse large areas keeps him out of enemy sights longer and enables him to make a quick dash for the Ring when things get desperate, particularly on Olympus’ open meadows and across Storm Point’s peaks and valleys.
Octane is a good choice for solo play because he’s fairly self-sufficient. His kit benefits him more than anyone else, meaning if an Octane player gets matched with not-so-great teammates, they can easily switch their focus to keeping themselves alive. Even with a coordinated team, the mobility granted by Jump Pad is a great asset for everyone.
Wraith
Wraith, also known as “the streamer character” (alongside Octane), has always been a strong pick. Her Into The Void tactical grants her high mobility and temporary invulnerability, giving her the chance to reposition if she finds herself in a bad situation. Her ultimate, Dimensional Rift, gives a similar advantage to her teammates, letting them travel over long distances without taking damage.
Before its nerf in season five, Into The Void activated almost instantly, making many Wraiths disappear in the middle of fights to get to a more advantageous position. Post-nerf, she now has to move more slowly and channel for 1.25 seconds before the ability activates, making her slightly easier to hit and bringing her overall power potential down. While useful, Dimensional Rift can also be used by enemies, and there’s nothing stopping them from taking the portal and following her and her teammates across the battlefield.
Voices from the Void, Wraith’s passive, turns her into a pseudo-recon legend. A voice warns her if she’s in an enemy’s sights or if there are lots of traps or enemies nearby. While this is useful to Wraith, she has to ping or voice these locations if she wants the rest of her team to know. Wraith isn’t supposed to be a recon legend, so it makes sense that her enemy-finding abilities aren’t as strong as those of Bloodhound and Seer, but it’s nice to have the extra knowledge, particularly when there are only a few squads left.
Wraith works well on maps with a lot of buildings and obstacles she can hide in and around, like Storm Point and World’s Edge. Moving from cover to cover helps to make the activation time on Into The Void less potentially lethal for her, and placing her portal behind dense cover can also help her teammates. Despite a couple of nerfs, Wraith is still an all-around strong pick.
Bloodhound
Bloodhound is similar to Octane in that they’re strong regardless of whether they’re playing with a premade group or a squad of randoms. Bloodhound gives their team a significant amount of information about enemies’ positions. The lingering effect of their Eye of the Allfather tactical and the recon data provided by their Tracker passive are a great help to players looking to go in guns blazing.
Bloodhound is at their best when they’re rushing the enemy and taking them down quickly, which actually makes them a counter to slower recon legends like Seer. Their ultimate, Beast of the Hunt, lowers the cooldown of Eye of the Allfather to where it can be used multiple times within a fight, which gives their teammates a constant stream of enemy location data. Beast of the Hunt is also great for solo play in that regardless of whether Bloodhound shares the information with their teammates, they will always have access to it themselves, making them an enemy-tracking powerhouse.
Bloodhound excels on all maps, particularly in all maps’ late-game Rings, because of the utility of their abilities. Whether you’re hunting enemies through the cliffs of World’s Edge or chasing them across the manicured grasslands of Olympus, Bloodhound never stops being useful.
Pathfinder
Pathfinder’s greatest strength is his mobility. His Zipline Gun ultimate is one of the best repositioning abilities in the game, making it easy for him to get himself and his teammates out of sticky situations and tough fights. His Insider Knowledge passive fully charges Zipline Gun and lowers its cooldown every time he scans a Survey Beacon. All of these factors combined make him a great team player.
In terms of individual mobility, Pathfinder can either use his own ziplines or his tactical, Grappling Hook, to get around faster. It’s extremely versatile and gives him a lot of momentum, allowing him to make a quick getaway from bad fights. Grappling Hook is particularly useful on World’s Edge and Storm Point, where there are lots of objects to hook onto.
Pathfinder synergizes well with a team and gives his teammates a lot of entry and exit potential. While there’s risk inherent in scanning a Survey Beacon—if another team is nearby, they’ll know he scanned the beacon, giving them an idea of his position—and fans have been arguing for a buff or rework of Insider Knowledge for a while now, Pathfinder is still an excellent all-around legend.
A tier
Lifeline
Lifeline lands a spot in the A tier for her support capabilities rather than her offensive abilities. Her most powerful ability, Combat Revive, allows her to revive enemies using her D.O.C. drone, leaving her free to continue fighting. She can revive two allies at once this way, so if her team has managed to crawl to a safe position in the middle of a big fight, she can revive everyone and get them healing within a few seconds.
Lifeline’s tactical, D.O.C. Heal Drone, heals everyone around it for 20 seconds, up to a maximum of 150 health per player. It’s worth noting that the drone can also be used by enemies in the same way they can commandeer Octane’s Jump Pad or Loba’s Black Market Boutique, giving them a heal in tough situations. The ability also gives surprising utility to her teammates: they don’t have to carry as many syringes and medkits because of D.O.C., which frees up valuable inventory space for ammo, shield batteries, and other important items.
Lifeline works best on maps with tighter spaces and higher cliffs, like Storm Point (as long as she’s outside of a building) and World’s Edge. These maps provide better cover for the trail that her Care Package ultimate leaves; on more wide-open maps like Olympus, the trail can function like a beacon, pinpointing your location to other squads. The gear in her Care Package also isn’t always useful or tailored to your loadout, which can make a risky drop feel less worthwhile. These issues place Lifeline just below the best in our A tier.
Seer
When Seer first debuted in season 10, many players complained that he was oppressive or even “fundamentally broken,” which eventually prompted a response from live balance designer John Larson. While the nerfs toned down the scope of his abilities, he still remains a legend worth playing.
Seer’s tactical, Focus of Attention, is great for finding enemy hiding spots. The combination of its health bar and shield vision, enemy reveal, channel interruption, and silence makes Seer a powerful character to play against. On the offensive side, knowing which enemies to focus because of low health or bad position is a great boon for his team, and the disruption caused by the channel interruption provides a (short) window of opportunity to take out an entire enemy squad.
Seer’s passive, Heart Seeker, and ultimate, Exhibit, also grant teammates a significant amount of information. Seer is best played in a fairly stealthy manner, meaning he works best when he and his team sneak up on other squads and startle them out of their hiding spot.
Seer is best on World’s Edge and Storm Point, where he can find enemies hiding out in rooms and other cramped spaces. The large buildings and natural landmarks on both maps also help to hide his Exhibit, which would otherwise be seen a long way away. He’s also good on Olympus, as Heart Seeker can alert you to enemies in popular drop spots like Turbine, but it’s also easier to see him coming on the map’s wide-open spaces.
Seer has a lot of utility, but his more defensive style doesn’t match up with the fast-paced run-and-gun play style that’s in vogue right now. If you’re playing Seer, you’re probably going to get left behind by your faster, more offensive teammates. Because of this, he’s relegated to our A tier.
Valkyrie
The poster character for season nine, everyone expected Valkyrie to be a damage-based legend. Instead, she’s a recon character, following in the footsteps of Bloodhound, Pathfinder, and Crypto. Despite the recon moniker, she can deal a fair amount of damage and disorient enemies with Missile Swarm, her tactical. While Missile Swarm covers a large area and is great for engaging, it can’t be used in buildings or in areas with low overhangs, hampering her ability-based damage potential.
Valkyrie’s other abilities are more suited to the recon class. Her passive, VTOL Jets, is good for achieving high ground and getting the jump on enemies, but it’s not great for getting away, since Valkyrie is difficult to steer while she’s in the air and she can’t shoot.
Similarly, her Skyward Dive ultimate allows her to reposition her entire team, giving them a Jump Tower-like boost from anywhere on the map. While it’s good for getting inside the Ring and moving forward, it’s not great for escaping enemies, because the team can’t shoot while they’re in the air and Valkyrie has to channel briefly before taking off. It’s also useless if her teammates are far away from her: they need to be nearby to take advantage of its flight. Finally, like using a Jump Tower, it’s easy for enemies to see Valkyrie and her team flying in the sky, making her group akin to sitting ducks when they land.
Valkyrie is equally powerful on all four maps, as they’re all enormous in size and the large-scale repositioning granted by her ultimate can be a powerful tool. But all of her abilities have big enough hang-ups that they keep her grounded in our A tier.
Fuse
Fuse is a frequently-overlooked character with a lot of damage potential, which is a shame considering how much fun he is to play. His Grenadier passive allows him to stack two of the same grenade in one inventory slot, giving him a small amount of inventory management potential. Even so, shooting grenades farther and faster isn’t always advantageous, particularly on Olympus, a wide-open map. Knuckle Cluster, his tactical, is basically another grenade, though with a larger area of effect.
Fuse’s ultimate, The Motherlode, allows him and his teammates to see the position of enemies caught inside the ring of fire. This was a welcome buff a few seasons ago and really helps with pinpointing enemy locations, especially if you don’t have a Wraith or a recon legend on your team. Unfortunately, The Motherlode is still finicky to aim, and it’s not great on maps with a lot of indoor spaces like Storm Point. (Like Lifeline’s Care Package, it needs vertical clearance.)
Fuse can be impactful in a variety of situations, particularly with the area denial that all of his abilities give him. He’s also great as a sniper, especially with the extended grenade range that Grenadier gives him. Unfortunately, like Seer, Fuse is held back by the current run-and-gun meta, and he loses some of his effectiveness on maps like Storm Point and World’s Edge.
B tier
Ash
Ash arrived during season 11 to jeers of “Wraith 2.0.” Indeed, this offensive legend’s abilities are reminiscent of Wraith, but Ash has some tricks up her sleeve that are all her own. Unfortunately, they’re not that great.
Ash’s passive, Marked For Death, sounds a lot more powerful than it actually is. It allows Ash to scan death boxes and pinpoint that squad’s killers on the map temporarily. The markers don’t move, and you can only scan each box once. Ash can also see the location of all death boxes on the map, showing her where fights are happening. While this is designed to push Ash and her squad forward into fights, it’s usually not that impactful—most of the death boxes you find in a game are old, and the killer squad is usually either dead or hanging out a long way away from your position.
Her tactical, Arc Snare, is a thrown projectile that snares onto the first enemy that breaches its area of effect. An enemy that’s caught can’t move outside of a small radius without being dragged back toward the center. The movement decrease isn’t as dramatic as Horizon’s ultimate, and snared enemies can still move and shoot, making it feel worthless on occasion.
Her ultimate is the ability that most brings to mind Wraith. Called Phase Breach, it creates a one-way portal that lasts for a limited amount of time. Unlike Wraith’s portal, Phase Breach can be used to transport teammates straight up into the air, instantly granting high ground or better positioning.
Ash is fine. She’s just not as powerful as Wraith, who continues to dominate pick rates. Wraith has more dodge potential, while Ash is more strictly offensive. Outside of the portal, she lacks mobility, and her snare doesn’t have enough damage potential to offset that lack of mobility. She’s good situationally, but generally, there are better choices.
Mad Maggie
Mad Maggie, Apex’s newest legend, came in with a bang, but she has already dropped to one of the lowest pick rates in the game. While her speedy damage-dealing abilities seem as though they’d be tailor-made for the run-and-gun meta, she just isn’t as consistently fast enough or easy enough to use as many of our higher-ranked legends.
Her passive, Warlord’s Ire, temporarily highlights enemies you’ve damaged and allows Maggie to move at full speed while walking, running, and aiming down sights with a shotgun. It would be better if any of the game’s shotguns were in our S tier for weapons. The temporary highlight doesn’t hold a candle to the scan abilities of recon legends like Bloodhound and Seer, one of whom you probably have on your team anyway, making this ability somewhat redundant.
Her tactical, Riot Drill, is difficult to aim and doesn’t do a lot of damage even when it lands. It has a small area of effect, so enemies only need to move a little to avoid being damaged by its flames. Her ultimate, Wrecking Ball, damages and stuns enemies in its path. It also creates nodules on the ground that anyone can run across to gain a temporary burst of movement speed. Wrecking Ball is more powerful in hallways and buildings, where it’s tricky to avoid it. On open maps like Kings Canyon and Olympus, it’s not nearly as good. Wrecking Ball is also hard to aim and moves very unpredictably.
As season 12 draws to a close, Mad Maggie is going out with a whimper. Her abilities just aren’t easy enough to use or consistent enough to warrant a higher spot on our list.
Bangalore
Bangalore is Apex’s jack-of-all-trades. She’s a great character for new players to get started with and remains a solid character in most situations, but she doesn’t excel at anything in particular. Her Double Time passive gives her a fair amount of mobility in fights or when being sniped, and her Rolling Thunder ultimate is good for large-scale area denial. Rolling Thunder is particularly strong on Olympus, which has fewer indoor areas where enemies can run and hide from the barrage.
Bangalore’s strongest ability is her tactical, Smoke Launcher. The ability, which has two charges, builds on the area control given by Rolling Thunder by obscuring a small area of the map for both enemies and allies. This allows Bangalore to rush enemies, make a quick escape, or even crawl into a corner and heal if necessary. Enemies are less likely to enter the smoke because they know there’s a good chance they’ll be ambushed, particularly if Bangalore or her teammates have Digital Threat optics equipped on their weapons. On the flip side, Smoke Launcher (and Bangalore herself) are countered by Bloodhound and Seer, both of whom can see through her smoke.
While Bangalore is good situationally and is a great team player, her abilities don’t stand out from your typical battle royale player abilities, and that’s by design. She can do a little bit of everything—mobility, area control, pure damage—but her lack of focus hampers her as much as it strengthens her.
Horizon
Horizon was a powerhouse as recently as season eight. The mobility and positioning granted by her Gravity Lift tactical allowed her to hover high up in the air for 10 seconds, taking potshots at enemies and making her almost impossible to hit. While the amount of time she can hover at the top of Gravity Lift was significantly nerfed in season nine, it’s still a great way to get the jump on enemies or gain the high ground, one of the game’s biggest positional advantages.
Speaking of positional advantages, Horizon’s passive Spacewalk also helps with that. Upon hitting the ground after jumping from a high point, most legends have a moment of slowness before they can start moving at full speed. Spacewalk removes that hangup, allowing Horizon to reposition quickly and quite literally hit the ground running.
Horizon’s weakest point is her ultimate, Black Hole. At the center of the hole is Horizon’s N.E.W.T. robot, which can be destroyed by enemy players while the black hole is in place. Black Hole is bulky and unwieldy to aim, N.E.W.T. can be destroyed very easily, and the ability’s cooldown is fairly high, all of which make it difficult to use effectively. The nerfs to Gravity Lift and Black Hole’s weaknesses bump Horizon down into our B tier.
Loba
We really struggled with where to put Loba. On one hand, the ability to swipe nearby items with her Black Market Boutique essentially gives her teammates pick of the litter on what weapons they want, particularly if her team lands in a hot loot zone. The recent buff to her tactical, Burglar’s Best Friend, gives her a wider variety of areas that she can teleport to.
On the other hand, Loba is just a little too selfish for team play. Her passive, Eye for Quality, allows her to see nearby epic and legendary loot through walls. While a benevolent Loba player might ping the things they don’t want or need, others might not, leaving their teammates to scramble to find better gear. In coordinated play, she’s better, but the fact that there’s a purple shield nearby means nothing if she can’t get to it before another team does.
Loba is best on dense, loot-filled map areas—think Solar Array or Icarus on Olympus or Containment on Kings Canyon. Depending on where her team lands, her effectiveness can vary dramatically, making her a little too situational for good general play.
Mirage
Mirage should be more fun than he is. His bombastic personality makes it seem as though his abilities are as larger-than-life as he is, but that’s unfortunately not the case. His passive, Now You See Me, is good for reviving teammates, particularly in the dense environment of World’s Edge. Mirage also turns invisible for five seconds when he’s downed, but that doesn’t matter if his teammates are nowhere to be found.
His tactical, Psyche Out, and his ultimate, Life of the Party, essentially do the same thing. Controlling the decoy directly in Psyche Out is nice, as it can be used to potentially draw enemies away from his team’s location. Life of the Party is good if you’re in a tight space with a lot of enemies, but the decoys frequently stop moving or get caught on walls, making it easier for enemies to find the real Mirage.
Mirage is best on open maps like Olympus and Kings Canyon, where he can put a decoy around a corner to lure out an enemy and push them. He’s also good for enemy-dense situations where it’s easier to bamboozle other players. By himself, though, he’s just not quite strong enough.
Rampart
Rampart is truly a base of fire. Her passive, Modded Loader, increases mag size and reload speed for LMGs. She can make it nearly impossible for enemies to push a given location or building by pairing her Amped Cover tactical ability with her ultimate, particularly if she blocks every single entrance.
Her greatest strength—holding a particular area—is also her biggest weakness. There’s nothing stopping enemies from circling around the building she’s defending and using another entrance or jumping over a barrier to get behind her. Once enemies are inside and the entrances are blocked by Amped Cover, it’s just as hard for her teammates to get out as it is for others to get in, essentially handing her teammates their death in some situations.
Like other legends in our B tier, Rampart can be good, but she’s too situational to be consistently good. If she happens to drop in an area where there are no LMGs, she effectively has no passive until she finds one or fires up her minigun. If her team gets caught in low ground or can’t find a building to hold or a wall to back up against at the end of a match, her power potential goes down even further. It’s not a good look for her.
Revenant
Revenant is Apex’s resident sneaky boy. For a damage-based legend, his abilities are surprisingly support-based. His passive, Stalker, allows him to climb walls higher and faster than his teammates. His Silence tactical prevents enemies from using their abilities, and Death Totem gives his team a chance to rush enemies without dying.
There are better stealthy legends than Revenant. Like many of the characters on this list, he falters in the open environments of Olympus, particularly because there are fewer buildings and obstacles for him to climb and because it’s easier for enemies to see him coming. He does regain a little strength on Storm Point, as it’s easier for him to reposition on the map’s many tall POIs. The area of effect of Silence isn’t that large, so unless he hits an enemy directly, it’s generally pretty easy to avoid. Death Totem can be destroyed by enemies, so unless Revenant places it in a very hidden spot, its assistance will likely be removed fairly quickly, particularly at higher-level play.
If you’re looking for a sneaky stalker, Seer is a much better choice thanks to his power, information, and all-around utility. While the Revenant-Octane meta can be oppressive thanks to the combination of their mobility, Revenant just isn’t able to stand up on his own.
Caustic
All of Caustic’s abilities are tied around his gas, which significantly hampers him. The traps from his tactical, Nox Gas Trap, are easily seen and destroyed by enemies, particularly on Olympus’ wide-open fields. The traps were recently nerfed in that enemies can now destroy them after they’ve been triggered, stopping the gas flow. Caustic himself also struggles on Olympus, as there are a variety of ways an enemy can simply walk out of the area of gas.
This fatal flaw renders both his passive, Nox Vision, and his ultimate, Nox Gas Grenade, mostly worthless on Olympus. Being able to see through the gas and control where it lands doesn’t matter if enemies are easily able to escape it. The gas also doesn’t do a significant amount of damage, and like Bangalore’s Smoke Launcher, enemies with Digital Threat optics can see through it, making its obfuscation less powerful.
While Caustic can be decent situationally, his lack of effect on Olympus, the relative selfishness of his abilities, and his defensive playstyle make him a worse version of Rampart.
Gibraltar
Gibraltar is something of an enigma. Though he isn’t picked often and is frequently thought of as a liability in lower tiers of play, in the world of Master and Predator-level play, Gibraltar has meta-defining power. The same kind of quick-fingered, quick-thinking plays that involve weaving in and out of his Dome of Protection tactical to avoid enemy fire are what make him so maligned in lower ranks yet revered in higher ranks.
Gibraltar’s ultimate, Defensive Bombardment, acts as disruption and area denial for an extended period of time, similar to Bangalore’s ultimate. It, however, suffers from the same problems that hers does: if it’s used on a map with a lot of buildings, like World’s Edge and Storm Point, it loses part of its effectiveness. His Gun Shield passive just isn’t powerful enough to make up for the lack of utility for his teammates, nor does it provide enough protection with his Fortified perk to make him a viable solo pick.
If you have a coordinated team and know how to use him, Gibraltar can be a game-changer. In most situations and modes of play, though, he struggles from the same problems that most of the defensive legends do: slow play, a lack of mobility potential, and dependent upon his teammates.
C tier
Crypto
Until this season, Crypto consistently had the lowest pick rate in the game, according to unofficial data published by Apex Legends Status. He’s gone up in usage since receiving both a buff and an heirloom, but he’s still hanging out near the bottom of the list. This should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with his playstyle. Unlike mobile legends like Octane and Pathfinder, Crypto is designed to be played slowly and defensively, which makes many players call him boring.
Like Seer and Bloodhound, Crypto can give enemy location data to his teammates via his Surveillance Drone. He can park his drone somewhere to give constant vision of an area, but the area revealed really isn’t that large. If his team doesn’t want him to die, they have to stay near him to protect him, which often feels like it’s slowing forward momentum. In a game designed to push players towards smaller and smaller areas of engagement, Crypto plays like the complete opposite of that philosophy.
It almost seems as though Crypto needs an entire rework and ability change to really be effective. His EMP doesn’t do enough damage to be effective, and his passive, Neurolink, is worthless unless he’s actively using his drone. There’s a kernel of a good idea in Crypto, but it’s buried underneath slow and plodding ability design.
Wattson
Like Crypto, many players have been calling for a power increase for Watson for a while now. She finally received a buff at the beginning of season 11, but players are saying it wasn’t enough to lift this legend into the playable tiers. We agree.
Wattson is an unholy mix of Crypto and Rampart, with neither of the perks that those two have. The best way to play her is to choose a small area and defend it with her Perimeter Security electric fences. But as the match progresses and the Rings get smaller, having to move frequently with her team lowers her power potential significantly. Her fences are more dangerous than they used to be, but they’re still easy to maneuver around unless you get very unlucky in a tight ring.
Her passive, Spark of Genius, is minimal. Ultimate Accelerants fully charge Wattson’s ultimate, she can carry two in a single inventory slot like Fuse’s grenades, and she recharges shields slowly after not taking damage for six seconds. Unlike Octane’s health regeneration, Wattson’s shield regeneration rate isn’t high enough to make a real difference.
Her ultimate, Interception Pylon, can be useful in certain situations. It slowly recharges the shields of her entire team as long as they remain in its radius and absorbs incoming grenades and air strike-based abilities. While this may seem powerful, consider that Wattson is designed to guard interior spaces—otherwise, nothing prevents enemies from simply running around her walls. If her team is already inside a building, they’re mostly blocked from incoming grenades and airstrikes. Furthermore, having to remain within the Interception Pylon’s small area of effect is a big hamper to mobile legends like Octane and Horizon. Wattson’s low power potential and conflicting abilities land her in our C tier.
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