Apex Legends Average Player’s Improvement Guide

by SlightlySoggyBread

TL;DR

Revive your teammates. Sometimes backing off and healing up is better than long range firefights. Learn to use the Wingman. Love your grenades. Drop at high tier loot places. Feed Lifeline ultimate Accelerants. Don’t spam fire. PING!

Apex legends is the shit. I never enjoyed other battle royales like Fortnite or PUBG, but I really felt like Apex Legends clicked with me. Whilst I haven’t played it nearly as much as streamers and YouTubers, I felt like many of the guides on YouTube didn’t really tell me how to play, they mostly focused on Apex Legends’ uniqueness compared to other BRs (no fault of the YouTubers though). I have racked up a fair amount of games and even managed to get a handful of wins too, but as a very average player, I thought I would try help out the other average players who, like me, aren’t that experienced with FPS games and probably miss every shot 90% of the time.

(This guide isn’t intended for you god-like players who probably kill me instantly every time I drop in the hot zone, this guide is more for those of us who are frustrated that we keep missing everything.)

GUNS

Pistols – Let’s be real, with the exception of the Wingman (which I put in a category of its own ), unless you just dropped and desperately need a gun – ignore pistols. When coming up against shotguns and SMGs, pistols feel like those shitty water guns you get in Christmas crackers. Useless and really disappointing.

Wingman – If I had to put the Wingman in its own category, that should be an indicator of how good this gun is. Think Deagle crossed with Godzilla, the Wingman will beat your ass and make you call it Daddy – if you use it right. The Wingman is incredibly powerful in the right hands, and doesn’t take much skill to use ( since I can use it). Personally, I find that using anything more than a 1x scope is difficult to use, so a 1x digital threat is ideal. Extended mag just means you can shoot more, and if you can shoot more then you can kill more. But if you want your Wingdaddy to really carry your average ass, you want the skullpiecer attachment. The skullpiecer increases headshot damage, and the insane damage you can deal with a headshot can massively change a fight in your favour. The key aspect of the Wingdaddy is not to rapid fire. We average players aren’t great at aiming, so pause between each shot and actually aim. Just pulling the trigger as much as you can won’t get you kills, the recoil with throw you way off.

Shotguns – First off, the Mozambique shotgun feels like when 6 years old you got socks for Christmas from Grandma Ethel. Shit. To be fair to the Mozambique, it can be handy when you first drop, after all, it appears with shotgun ammo you can use. The Peacekeeper is the pump action shotgun of Apex Legends, I personally prefer it to the EVA-8 Auto because, as I mentioned earlier, rapid firing is one of the biggest mistakes we make. Being forced to pause between each shot with the Peacekeeper is a big help because it forces you to readjust, and once you get used to it you can start to easily win all shotgun fights.

SMGs – For us average players, SMGs can be a game-changing weapon, but spraying and praying often gets the better of us, and unless you are nose to nose with another player, you’ll want to aim down sights. The Alternator can be mostly ignored, it doesn’t offer anything that isn’t improved on by the other SMGs. The Prowler takes a little skill to use in my opinion, that or I’m just even worse than I thought. The Prowler is also much harder to use without the selective fire attachment, but once you can fire full auto it can a very powerful SMG. My personal favourite, and the weapon I try to keep in my loadout as much as I can is the R-99, it fires faster than my childish innocence left me, and paired with an extended mag can shred people with full shield apart. Again, using your sights and controlling your fire lets you deal insane amounts of damage and since it only uses light ammo, chances are you will never run out.

Light Machine Guns – You have probably seen streamers talking about Devotion, and rightly so, it can be very strong – but this guide isn’t for those of us who are good enough to use an LMG because let’s be real we can’t control our fire well enough to efficiently deal damage with either the Devotion or Spitfire. Since I try my hardest not to use any LMGs, I won’t attempt to advise you guys on them – but with practice, they can be incredibly powerful so check out some YouTube videos if you’re interested.

Assault Rifles – If you’ve played an FPS before, not much has changed with ARs. Apex Legends’ system means that guns are very accurate and your crosshairs don’t lie, so where you are aiming, you are shooting ( more or less). This means full auto is pretty useless at long ranges so using any of the ARs swapped to single fire mode is your best bet (press B on PC). In close to medium ranges swapping to full auto on the Flatline or R-301 means you can deal out a lot of damage CoD style so long as you have a little recoil control and you think about what you are doing. Like most shooters, firing in bursts until your recoil gets too wild is the way to go – and it just takes a little practice to get used to. The Hemlock fires in a 3 shot burst, and whilst it’s a bit more difficult to get used to, if you can consistently hit your shots you’ll find yourself getting that Apex Champion easily. Personally, I find the R-301 to be the auto firing rifle of choice over the Flatline, just because I would rather save my heavy ammo for a Wingman or Longbow.

Snipers – Apex Legends is not a long range game. Most firefights will happen at close to medium range and hitting shots with a sniper on incredibly agile targets such as Wraith and Pathfinder is incredibly difficult. But if you can hit those shots – you can change the tide of a battle before it even starts. First up is the G7, and for a light ammo semi-auto sniper it is very strong. If you can slap an extended mag in this, at medium range you will shred through anyone out of cover – provided you hit your shots. Whilst you probably should take other snipers over the G7, if you want a medium to long range weapon and already have a shotgun or SMG, it’s a good choice. The Longbow is a G7 on steroids, but ultimately my favourite sniper is the Triple Take. The Triple Take is like flex taping 3 Longbows together and shooting heroin. It’s very strong and insanely fun to use, whilst it’s not the greatest for picking people off at stupidly far ranges – it’s amazing at medium range and if you can hit headshots you can almost take an entire squad down in one clip. Taking snipers often seems daunting for those of us with shitty aim, but Apex Legends feels a lot easier to improve it – so don’t be afraid to not ping that Longbow you found and take it for yourself, after all, we need to practice and who cares if a 12-year-old kid says you suck. He’s still a virgin.

Supply Pod drops – Supply Pods can drop two unique weapons. The Mastiff shotgun and the Kraber Sniper Rifle. The Mastiff shotgun is insane and sliding around a corner and headshotting an unsuspecting Gibraltar for an instant kill feels better than peeling that protective film off a new monitor. The Kraber is equally impressive, and if you have the aim a single shot can put a squad on the back foot for the rest of the fight. The only downside to these weapons is the limited ammo you have, so be sure to make every shot count.

GRENADES

Oh boy, I love Apex Legends’ grenades. There is no better feeling than throwing an arc star into a supply ship and killing an entire squad. Long story short, don’t ignore your grenades – they can provide you with an immense tactical advantage, especially when you are pressing someone after downing a member of their squad. Incendiaries are good for zoning enemies into where you want them, or just delaying their movement slightly. Frags can clear rooms or push hostiles out from behind cover, and Arc stars can set up a room for your squad to storm like my arse on Mexican food.

PUSHING

Pushing enemy squads can win or lose you the entire firefight, so it’s important to know when and how to do it. Keeping in mind our crappy decision making and even worse aim, you can’t just run in when your adrenaline peaks. Try to get a pick first, forcing them to either commit to the fight or back off and revive/heal. If they have a Lifeline, reviving is much faster and protected by a shield so make sure to frag or arc star over the shield or cover before making your push. Even just a grenade in the right area can give you an advantage. Don’t rush rooms with snipers – we aren’t streamers there is no chance of us getting that 360 no scope kill, just use a shotgun or SMG.

I can’t stress enough the importance of NOT finishing enemies in the middle of a fight. Yes, I know your finisher looks really cool but when you are in that animation, you are completely open to fire from the enemy side. So literally anything else will finish the job faster, and with a smaller chance of you getting shotgunned in the back.

Being pushed – if you have decided to back off to heal up, so long as you have gotten some damage in, the enemies will probably be wanting to heal too. There isn’t really much to say here, right now not too many players are really using grenades, so unless you’re in the top ~5, your biggest worry will be being rushed. Use doors to your advantage, and if you have a Caustic, Gibraltar, or Bloodhound – use your tactical to give you an edge against anyone attempting to rush you. Just having knowledge of where enemies are is a huge help, which brings us on to the next point…

PINGING

You play Apex Legends, so you know how amazing the ping system is. So far most players don’t use their mics, which is perfectly fine of course and thanks to the ping system mean you no longer have to talk to communicate effectively. Pinging helps your team. That’s it. Ping good gear you don’t need, ping attachments, ping enemies, ping supply ships, ping my dad leaving me, ping where you want to go, ping supply Pods. PING SHIT. Knowing what people are doing helps you and your teammates so much for making decisions or back you up. Knowing where your enemies are before or after a fight gives you a drop on them and lets your teammates know what’s going on. If an enemy disappears behind cover, ping it! Downed and the enemies are hiding behind a rock, ping that shit. Whatever you are doing – ping it.

REVIVING

Apex Legends is a team game, and 9 times out of 10 you will lose a 1v3 – so stick with your team and keep them alive. If someone is downed and in a position that means someone is definitely hiding around a corner with a shotgun – that one’s on them, wait them out and kill the enemies after they come out of cover or flush them out with grenades. It’s possible your downed teammate will get killed, so when you can grab their banner and get them to a revive point, but make sure to leave some loot for them as they will of left everything in their cache. Sometimes breaking away from a fight and grabbing someone’s banner and running away is the best choice you can make, and with a little loot RNG – you can come back with a 3 man strong squad for round 2.

DROPPING

You want to drop somewhere with high tier loot, it’s just not worth going anywhere else. Sure you might die in the higher tier zones, but if you don’t you’ll come out stronger than you would elsewhere, and fighting at the very start of the game is much easier as there are only so many shotguns and SMGs at each location. The high tier loot locations are – Artillery, Repulsor, Swamp, Relay, Bunker, Runoff, Airbase, Pit, Thunderdome, and Water Treatment. All of these locations are good options, although I don’t recommend Water Treatment because I don’t understand where any of that shit is. My personal favourite is Bunker, because the confined corridor makes it easier to shut down mobile enemies.

The actual method of dropping is kind of hard to explain, but there are other Reddit posts that explained it well and to be honest I don’t understand it.

CHAMPIONS

Bloodhound – Hungry for kills? Play Bloodhound. Bloodhound’s increased vision means you can locate enemies before they can locate you, however when you trigger your tactical ability, everyone else can see that orange circle expanding out from you – alerting others to your position, so use those unseen few seconds to your advantage. Bloodhound also synergizes well with Bangalore’s smoke – since you can see through it you can score some sneaky kills.

Gibraltar – Take Winston from Overwatch and give him guns and missiles. You’ve got a personal shield while aiming, a dome shield for your team, and an ultimate that rains missiles on enemies. There isn’t much to say here, I normally opt for more mobile orientated champions so I’m not really a Gibraltar expert but you can soak up a lot of damage and break fights using your tactical shield. Just dropping it between you and the enemy forces them to go step through the barrier, giving you a clear shot.

Lifeline – Feed her Ultimate Accelerants. Her ultimate calls down a defensive care package to stock you guys up with armour and scopes. Her tactical heal is very strong, and means you no longer need to carry around 2 stacks of syringes. Seriously, why do you have 2 stacks of syringes? Lifelong also revive faster, and with a shield so try to delegate reviving to her just to get your teammates back in the fight quicker and safer.

Pathfinder – This robot is my favourite and probably my best champion. Swinging around buildings like Spider-Man is great, simply look at the way you want to swing after you hit your grapple. It takes a little getting used to but once you master it, you can pull off some insane plays. You can also hit your grapple onto players, pulling you to them – setting you up for a shotgun headshot. Your passive is relatively useless, it’s a nice addition and can help you get the edge over everyone else, but don’t go out of your way to use it. Your ultimate can get your team into the zone, into a fight, away from a fight, to a supply drop, anywhere. It’s a zip line that goes both ways, I like to use it to zip to a supply drop, loot it, and zip back so I don’t get picked off. The possibilities are endless.

Wraith – Wraith is relatively straight forward, invisible/invulnerable tactical, portal ultimate, and her passive can let you know about that pesky Bloodhound sneaking up on you like Mr X. I find that her portal is very situational, but I have seen it used to bait out enemies into a firefight.

Bangalore – Bangalore is your average FPS character. Your tactical smoke can break up fights, or hid you while you heal or revive. Your ultimate is good for little other than zoning in my opinion, its good to break up squads or force them into buildings to take cover. Her passive is very useful, especially if you drop with others and don’t find a gun first. Getting away at twice the speed is very hard to catch up with if you aren’t a pathfinder.

Caustic – Check out this comment for an in-depth guide, courtesy of BCR_Dredge. I don’t own him yet. But from what I’ve seen, he can make cover inaccessible to hostiles, potentially lining them up for a Bangalore or Gibraltar air strike. His gas obscures both ally and enemy vision, but only damages enemies, so can create a hard advantage in confined spaces. However, in open areas, Caustics abilities provide very little in firefights ( I think, don’t quote me on that).

Mirage – Playing against Mirage is like playing on LSD. That said early game Mirage is rather useless. Unless he has the firepower to force an enemy to back off, his decoys do little other than let him tickle someone back with a pistol. But once you have stronger weapons, where a couple of shots will force them into an early retirement, using decoys to bait out enemies can push the battles in your favour. The invisibility that comes with your ultimate pairs well with a powerful shotgun like the Mastiff.

If I missed anything, tell me. I’m away from my PC but still thinking about Apex Legends so decided to try to help others who, like me, aren’t that gifted get as excited with the game as I am. Honestly, I love this game so much, good job Respawn.