Best Apex Legends characters: Apex Legends Season 18 tier list

While most battle royales put players on a level playing field, Apex Legends is different in that each character comes with a unique set of abilities and skills to use alongside weapons. These abilities work alongside weapons to impact the outcome of the game’s epic, large-scale battle royale matches and intense Arenas rounds.

Apex Legends character tier list (updated for season 18)

S-tier

Horizon

While Horizon’s dominance in the meta took a bit of a toll with nerfs from season 16, impacting her Gravity Lift, she’s still retained her strength and regained her top spot. All of her abilities are very useful, both in solo play and with teammates, as well as at all competitive levels. From Silver to Predator lobbys, she’s the most picked legend of all, according to Apex Legends Status.

Her Gravity Lift is still a strong way to get to the high ground, although she now has more than one contender in that area. Meanwhile, her Ultimate remains a solid way to engage a fight and prevent enemies from running away when you have the edge.

Revenant

Revenant is the first legend to get a full rework since Apex‘s release. His passive didn’t change much: he still crouch-walks faster and climbs higher than other characters.

On the other side, his tactical, Shadow Pounce, now launches him in a chosen direction instead of launching a projectile impairing enemies, previously. His Ultimate, Forged Shadows, is no longer a totem.

Now, it’s a boost that grants Revenant Reborn a shield of 75 health that recharges over time and when downing enemies. It’ll also reset the cooldown of tactical and shield, significantly enhancing Revenant’s solo fragging potential.

On one side, he lost some utility with that rework. But Revenant has also become the ultimate killing machine with it, which propelled his average pick rate to the top, according to Apex Legends status.

Now, you can engage safely with a regenerating shadow shield and snowball with knock downs. He’ll be the one going for the kills, accompanied by supporting teammates. It also makes him fun to play, which also made his popularity rise with the rework. The question remains on whether his dominance will survive upcoming seasons.

A-tier

Bloodhound

Information is invaluable in Apex, and Bloodhound is excellent at providing it. Bloodhound’s Eye of the Allfather tactical is a more user-friendly scan than Seer’s tactical, scanning in a much broader area at the cost of not doing the extra stuff that Seer’s scans do outside of revealing enemies.

Making up for that is Bloodhound’s ultimate. The Beast of the Hunt still turns Bloodhound into one of the most fearsome fighting characters, painting enemies in an easy-to-see red glow while everything else fades to black and white, and giving them a boost to movement speed.

Bloodhound remained untouched in season 18, and they’re still dominating the game due to their versatility. They still make it to the top of the list despite three whole minutes of cooldown to deploy the Ultimate, Beast of the Hunt, and its nerf from Season 16 where the tactical cooldown reduction was removed.

Like Seer, Bloodhound works in pretty much any team composition and on any map. You can even pair them with Seer; some of the ability combinations might be a little redundant, but the fighting power of Bloodhound still represents significant value. They’re undoubtedly the best aggressive option in the game at all competitive levels.

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. He finally got his revenge and topped ALGS pick rates and ranked lobbys in season 15 —but Respawn quickly cut this golden era to an end with nerfs on his tactical.

The Recon Legend remains strong, which earns him a spot in the highest tiers of the list, but he’s not as powerful as before. Seer remains a character who’s not easy to master, and his Ultimate can be countered quite easily, even though it features a large area of effect.

Seer is still good at collecting information, and he will make your life an absolute nightmare when you face off against him. He synergizes with just about any other legend, the new recon scans he gets are even more powerful than the old survey beacon scans for teams that want to look to fight, and he doesn’t suffer or benefit from map changes.

Newcastle

Newcastle is the best support legend in the game. His Passive ability is just too strong, allowing him to revive players while deploying cover and move around—not to forget the rest of his kit.

His main weakness is that his abilities can be shot down by enough bullets. Opponents might not think of it at average ranked levels, but he can fall off at the top levels of the game for that reason.

Castle Wall, the Mobile Shield tactical, and the knockdown shield Newcastle revives with can all be destroyed by bullets or ordinance. It makes it so that Newcastle requires additional cover to operate on a battlefield like defensive abilities from Wraith, Wattson, Bangalore, or Gibraltar.

If you play around him perfectly, Newcastle compositions can perform very well. But he requires very specific team comps around him to succeed.

Wraith

Wraith saw some of the most significant changes to her ability kit in season 16, and while it hasn’t completely returned her to “strongest legend in the game” status, the buffs have certainly made her a very good character to use. Chief among these changes is the distance she can travel with her portal ultimate: it’s now able to go twice the distance it did in season 15, and Wraith players get speed boosts the longer they go while setting the portal.

The change reinforces what Wraith is best at: scouting out positions to play and transporting her team safely through tricky situations and crowded final circles.

If you have characters in your squad without movement abilities or shields that can result in them getting picked off while rotating from one spot or another, Wraith is a great choice to pair with them.

The reason Wraith still isn’t quite as good as she once was lies primarily in her tactical ability, Into the Void. The long charge time for the ability when using it while not setting a portal remains, making her not very useful as an entry fragger. It can still be used to get out of sticky situations, sure, but it’s also easy to get over-aggressive and be punished for it when an enemy pushes you during the tactical animation. That, in addition to somewhat useful, somewhat lackluster passive and class perk abilities make her very good, but not quite great.

She’ll be most useful on maps like World’s Edge, where lots of buildings and manageable gaps between cover make her strongest.

Catalyst

Many people expected Catalyst to be better on launch than she was. She wasn’t very popular at launch, but as players figured out how to play around her kit, she gained strength over time. It ultimately led the developer to nerf her in season 18, increasing her ultimate cooldown by 30 seconds.

As it stands, Catalyst’s Dark Veil can be a game-winner late in the game, but she usually needs some help from her team to get to that point.

As a controller, Catalyst can now use Ring Consoles to find future rings, and it helps set up the rest of her abilities. Her passive ability is arguably stronger than her tactical: Barricade lets her reinforce and rebuild doors, giving her the ability to turn even a partially destroyed building into a stronghold. She can also use her Piercing Spikes tactical to help hold down positions and set up her team for a win.

Catalyst is a legend for creative players that want to outplay enemies with mind games and take up the best possible positions for wins but isn’t terribly useful in compositions with legends that want to run enemies down and fight a lot.

If you’re playing Catalyst, you’re trying to make it into the last couple of rings, and you want to play her on maps with plenty of buildings and doors to use, and not on a map like Kings Canyon, for example. Just remember all that when your teammates lock in Octane and Pathfinder before you decide to bring Catalyst out.

Pathfinder

Finally, some love for everyone’s favorite robot. Pathfinder was one of the strongest characters in Apex at launch, but slowly and steadily lost power thanks to nerfs to his grapple cooldown and other Recon legends gaining his passive. Pathfinder’s new passive is… arguably worse than the old one that seemingly everyone had, but he still has the most fun movement in Apex, and season 16 also gave him a huge buff to his ultimate.

Pathfinder’s Zipline Gun was always useful for transporting him and his squad, but was steadily outshine by movement options that made players invulnerable, like Wraith and Ash portal. As the Apex playerbase steadily improved at the game, it also became far too easy for players to shoot enemies right off of them. Season 16 addressed these concerns by allowing Pathfinder to shoot his ziplines considerably further, while also significantly increasing the speed on which players travel on them.

It doesn’t return Pathfinder to the top of the meta, but it does make him much more useful on every map except for Broken Moon, whose zip rails make his ultimate feel a little useless. And he remains a great legend for solo players in pubs who aren’t really worried about collecting wins and playing strategically. Go and hit that grapple-no-scope-Kraber trick shot.

B-tier

Bangalore

In many ways, Bangalore feels like a perfectly-balanced character. She has utility that’s useful, but not oppressive—especially now that it features a four-minute cooldown. She’s good, with clear ways she can be countered, and also can use her own abilities creatively to counter others. She fits well in most team comps and is fairly useful on most maps.

Bangalore got a sizable upgrade with the Assault ability to store extra ammo and access the new red loot bins scattered across the map, which can almost fully kit out a weapon with just one bin. The rest of Bangalore’s abilities are simple but effective: a smokescreen tactical ability to provide visual cover, the Creeping Barrage ultimate to deny space and potentially deliver big damage, and a passive that boosts her speed when she’s being shot at.

None of these abilities are foolproof or overpowered, but they can all be quite useful. Bangalore most obviously synergizes with Bloodhound, who can see through her smokes when using the Beast of the Hunt ultimate, and usually pairs well with other legends that can transport her around the map more quickly.

She’s decent on all maps, but is at her best when she’s outdoors where her ultimate can actually take effect. Her main strength, overall, is versatility.

Wattson

Wattson is probably the best controller legend to use defensively, as her fences can be used to hold down buildings and outdoor spaces alike, and her Interception Pylon ultimate denies enemy ordinance from flushing her team out. She can use Ring Consoles to see future rings, and in general provides almost everything you want from a defensive legend. Her kit is strong because each of her abilities enhance the other.

The main issue with Wattson is that players can struggle when playing her in solo play. If her teammates don’t take advantage of her area control tools, she can become useless and stuck in her own trap. While Caustic, Catalyst, and Rampart all have ways to use their abilities to advance and move forward, Wattson usually needs to be carried in that department by her teammates.

That price is worth it for teams that like to get to the final zone and win games through superior positioning, and her passive allowing her to stack two ultimate accelerants in one inventory slot in addition to those accelerants fully charging her ultimate no matter what percentage it’s at is also very useful for a team. But she’s a bunkering character through and through. Why is she in B-tier, then? Because she’s really great at bunkering.

Caustic

Caustic has gained some popularity since he gained the ability to see the next ring’s location in season 16, but he tends to be overshadowed by Wattson in top play. She will have more tools to control an area and to play defensively. Still, the gas boy remains a powerful legend, especially on maps that include a lot of closed spaces and when playing solo.

Caustic is all about playing around his gas, using his tactical traps to close off doors and chokes to opposing players and with the ultimate Gas Grenade in his back pocket. While he damages and slows enemies caught in his gas, he also gets to see them more clearly through the visual clutter that fills the screen.

And what sets him apart from the rest of the controller class is the ability to use his kit offensively: a well-placed Gas Grenade can secure a kill from afar or be a powerful tool to push into a building that another team is already in. He excels both at holding positions and can also be very useful to breach those same positions, too.

Generally, Caustic performs best with a character that can transport him quickly around the map, like Wraith, Valkyrie, Pathfinder, or more. But when you get him in a composition that synergizes well and on a map like World’s Edge or Olympus with plenty of buildings, he shines.

Valkyrie

Finally, the era of Valkyrie’s dominance has ended. Not because she received yet another nerf, but because of the release of the Evac Tower item. This does pretty much the same thing as her Ultimate, but with a shorter delay. Her passive remains useful when using it, though, which still makes her solid in the game. She’s just not a must-pick anymore.

The Valkyrie that exists in Apex now is a little bit slower in her passive, no longer can get ring information, and is more vulnerable in her ultimate. But she’s still an excellent character for rotations and fighting, especially when there’s a floor or two above her that she can quickly escape to should she drop down on an unsuspecting team to open a fight.

Valkyrie is good with most other legends you pair her with and is vital on a map like Storm Point with its tall mountains and a litany of choke points.

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. 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 that very much 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.

Fuse picked up a very useful buff with season 16’s assault class perks, and he’s great at breaching positions, even if The Motherlode is much harder to use indoors or anywhere where those low ceiling clearance, like the buildings and caves on Storm Point and World’s Edge.

Still, he’s a useful character if you build around him with a legend that can get him out of trouble with a movement ability, or with someone that can set up some of his ordinances like Horizon.

Loba

With the season 16 changes, Loba can finally, firmly be classified as a “good” character. She’s always been very situational, as her greatest value to a team lies completely in her ability to find extra loot through the Black Market Boutique ultimate. The teleport tactical can get her out of sticky situations and her passive enables the loot goblin in everyone, but her ultimate was the reason most people played her.

Thankfully, the support class perks finally give Loba a that certain something to make her useful for most teams. She has access to even more healing loot now that she can open the secret compartment of blue bins, and she’s the support character most likely to be crafting banners after slipping away from a fight, considering she’s the only one with a consistent movement ability.

She’s still not phenomenal, but she’s useful enough that she can fit into basically any team composition, plays well regardless of the map, and has the extra boost from the Support class perks.

Mad Maggie

Much like Fuse, Mad Maggie is a solid assault option that can deal serious damage if she’s helped by her teammates by transporting her around the map and setting up her Riot Drill tactical. While Fuse is a character more useful at long distances (lending him to the long sightlines of Storm Point and Kings Canyon), Maggie is better on maps where it’s easy to get up close and personal (like Olympus, World’s Edge, and Broken Moon).

Why? Because Maggie is a brawler with her passive, Warlord’s Ire. It makes her faster while wielding a shotgun, while her Riot Drill and Wrecking Ball ultimate (which gives her even more of a speed boost) are great at wreaking havoc indoors. She even received an indirect buff with the nerf of SMGs in the meta.

Maggie has never been terribly popular with the Apex community, possibly because of her voice and reputation is so closely tied to some deeply unpopular LTMs back in season eight, but she can be very useful in a fight. Her ability kit can looks complicated to master, but it’s very versatile and can make you win challenging fights.

Crypto

Crypto represents something of a conundrum for Apex: he’s quite strong in many ways, but his necessary playstyle of hanging back and piloting his drone, often while his teammates fight, make him a situational pick and a character that’s not fun to play for many.

Still, players can get significant utility out of Crypto and his drone, Hack. He can scan enemies for teammates whether Crypto is moving the drone around or not, as well as check champions banners for information on how many squads are around his team, collect teammate respawn banners from a distance, and even use the drone to activate his ultimate, EMP.

Yes, this requires Crypto to often hang back and play away from his squad while they take more active positions on other squads. That will be a dealbreaker for many players. But considering how strong EMP is, deleting many shields, ultimates, and other abilities from characters like Wattson, Caustic, and Gibraltar, he might be worth trying out for yourself if you find yourself consistently losing gun battles and want to find a different playstyle to even the playing field.

Gibraltar

Gibraltar received some love with season 18’s changes, his ultimate being reduced from 180 seconds to 90 seconds only. In addition, the rise of shotguns in the meta have made close-range combat more viable, and Gibraltar will shine in that regard, with an ultimate perfect for engage and his Dome Shield to protect his push.

In addition, his ultimate remains one of the most useful in the game. It requires overhead clearance, but Defensive Bombardment can easily secure kills on enemies or deny space to a team pushing forward. It’s a crucial ultimate that can turn the tide of a game if placed correctly.

Other than that, Gibby’s just another shield character. Useful situationally, but easier to hit than pretty much every other legend and countered by Maggie’s Riot Drill and Wrecking Ball or Crypto’s EMP. What he gains in compositional flexibility, he loses in having less shields to throw out than Newcastle.

C-tier

Ash

Ash, a robotic simulacrum with a crack in her faceplate and wearing her trademark hood, looks straight ahead. — Ash is struggling in the meta. Screengrab via Respawn Entertainment

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.

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. Ash also sees deathboxes appear from recent fights on her map. While this can be useful for finding where fights are happening, most of the death boxes you find in a game are old, or else are being used to find a fleeing enemy whose teammate already fell, and aren’t much of a threat to you anyways.

Her tactical, Arc Snare, is a thrown projectile that snares the first enemy that breaches its area of effect. An enemy that’s caught can’t move outside of a small radius, and it can be useful for setting up teammates with grenades or other damage-dealing abilities for big damage. The issue with that ability is that it’s not easy to land, as enemies can usually dodge it easily.

Her Phase Breach ultimate is halfway between Wraith’s portal and Octane’s jump pad, creating a one-way portal that lasts for a limited amount of time that can transport her and her teammates (and any enemies that might be chasing them). It’s half the distance of Wraith’s, which makes it less useful of a rotating tool, but remains strong to escape due to its short deployment delay.

Ash is a pretty good character, but she’s far more situational than Wraith and her tactical is a bit lackluster compared to other legends. Octane mains that want more out of their legend abilities should consider switching to her, but Wraith mains should stay put.

Ballistic

Ballistic is the latest assault legend to release in Apex, allowing him to get more loot from bins and to carry more ammo. He’s precisely all about ammo and boosting the team’s weapons with the Sling mechanic. It’s an additional weapon Ballistic can use —albeit without attachments.

His tactical, Whistler, sends a projectile that heats the enemy’s weapon when it hits them while causing light damage. His ultimate is called Tempest and will boost the Sling weapon by granting it a gold upgrade, with increased reload speed, armed movement speed, and mostly, unlimited ammo.

Ballistic has strong potential with the right gear, but players will have to choose wisely how to spend his resources. The legend isn’t very versatile, and it makes him less easy to pick up than some other assault legends like Bangalore or Fuse. In addition, his tactical can be easily dodged and while his ultimate is aggressive, it doesn’t allow to control an area, contrary to those of other assault legends.

Upon release in season 17, Ballistic was a popular pick in the game. He was pretty strong, too, until players got used to his kit and started countering him more easily. Then, the developer hit him with the nerf hammer in season 18, by reducing overheating duration of weapons with his tactical Whistler.

Lifeline

Since her revive ability has been significantly changed, Lifeline never returned to the forefront of Apex‘s meta. She’s generally played 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. Meanwhile, her Care Package ultimate is called down quickly and can outfit your team with some extra healing items, better shields, and other useful things. But it’s not nearly as useful as Loba’s market.

Lifeline also benefited from the support class perks added to the game in season 16, which allow her to craft teammate respawn banners even if their timer runs out. It doesn’t make Lifeline substantially better, as her abilities mean she’s usually in the thick of a fight and not a legend that can easily escape if things go south. But she remains a decent pick, and one that can even provide a bit of a counter to Seer, since her Combat Revive is the only revive in the game that Seer’s tactical can’t interrupt.

Mirage

Mirage is a great character for confusing enemies and possibly pulling out some impressive plays by virtue of misdirection, but his abilities don’t really add much to basically any team composition. In a team-oriented game like Apex, Mirage is the character that least synergizes with basically every other legend ability in the game, creating a legend that is basically for solo players and those that like to meme.

Yes, Mirage can be useful, and he became a bit more popular with season 16 buffs. But he can also be easily countered and has fell off since, especially with Revenant overshadowing him with his rework.

The trickster does little to help a team outside of drawing attention to his clones. That can win a fight or two, sure, but it also attracts third parties that can easily devastate his squad. He’s not quite a liability, but he’s also not useful enough to be worth playing unless you just really love Mirage and his personality. His abilities are map-proof, so that’s at least a small plus to him.

Vantage

Vantage was probably stronger at launch, when most players were unsure how to play against her. Her ultimate, Sniper’s Mark, deals 50 initial damage on the first hit, which doesn’t feel like that much damage to many players. It’s the second consecutive shot, which deals 100 further damage to the body, that can really mess up an enemy team and their plans.

As time has gone on, however, Vantage has felt less and less useful. Her passive allows her to gain info on enemy teams and their shields, but capitalizing on that information requires a coordination that the majority of players simply don’t possess with their teams. Too frequently, Vantage simply ends up in situations where she lays down an opening shot or two, but then cannot capitalize on that damage, or is too far away from her team to help them with a fight out of her sight, putting the squad at a handicap.

When coordinated with her team, Vantage can still be a very good legend, especially on a map like Storm Point with its long sightlines. But it requires lots of communication with teammates and near-perfect timing with her Echo Relocation tactical to join a teamfight in time for her squad. Otherwise, she’s just a spectator as her teammates fall.

Rampart

Rampart’s weakness is mostly in how slow and obvious she is. Her tactical, Amped Cover, and her ultimate, Sheila, have significant wind-up times and are very clear for any and all enemies to see. Her Amped Cover is also very easy to destroy, making it most useful for blocking doors or being placed in windows for her teammates to fire through.

Compared to Wattson, Caustic, and Catalyst, Rampart is significantly worse at quickly establishing positions, as well as actually defending those positions when she actually gets set up. She can be used more offensively, but all of her attacking utility lies in Sheila. If enemies double-team her or can maintain distance in the fight, that’s not much of a threat, either. And her passive ability’s usefulness almost completely relies on how strong light machine guns are in Apex‘s weapon meta. At the moment, they’re ok, but not as strong as other options.

Romping around with a minigun can be fun, but there are just better options than Rampart on every map. That said, she gained a bit of strength with season 18 due to the return of Rampage LMG to the floor.

D-tier

Octane

Octane is quite weak, and has been for a while. That might come as a surprise to you, considering how popular he is. Here’s the secret: it doesn’t matter that Octane’s weak, because he’s a perfect weak character.

The main reason Octane isn’t great is because he’s so individually focused. Octane is a character for going fast and running directly at enemies. He provides a tiny bit of team utility with his Launch Pad ultimate, allowing his teammates to rush forward with him, and that’s about it. His Stim tactical gives him a significant speed boost at the cost of his health, which he can then regenerate thanks to his passive.

He is a one-vs-one machine that just wants to get close to an enemy.

The reasons he is weak are the same reasons he’s popular. He’s easy to understand and he’s good at winning a fight. Even though his Launch Pad is laughably weak on bigger maps like Storm Point, World’s Edge, and Broken Moon, it doesn’t really matter that much to Octane players because it’s still fun.

If you’re mostly interested in getting into fights and not taking winning too seriously, pick Octane! He’s great for that. If you want more out of your legend, find someone else.