Best legends for ranked in Apex

There are several game modes players can enjoy in Apex Legends, but one stands out as a favorite among fans: ranked. The game’s ranked battle royale mode is clearly one of its most popular, testing players’ mechanical skill, tactical strategy, and luck. 

Alongside the more fun experience ranked can provide, with players typically taking the mode a bit more seriously than an average match, there’s also considerable prestige and personal satisfaction gained by racking up RP and moving up the ranked ladder. For that purpose, not all legends in the game are created equal.

As of season 14, the ranked meta contains plenty of diversity, and it’s a good sign of the game’s health in terms of character balancing that players can use so many different characters at various levels of the game. That’s not to say all of the game’s legends are equally useful, though. Plenty of characters are better than others when it comes to moving up to the next rank.

Whether you’re a solo-queue warrior looking to make the most out of your random teams or you have a dedicated three-player squad you’re trying to improve with, here are the best legends for ranked in Apex.

Best characters for ranked in Apex Legends

Bloodhound

Bloodhound may have fallen out of favor among the pros, but they’re still one of the best legends for the average player in a variety of ranked situations. They’re incredibly easy to use, with most of their abilities being fairly straightforward, but they can still provide invaluable information for both you and your team in ranked.

As Bloodhound, your job is to perform two roles: gather information and frag out for your squad. The information part is fairly simple, given all of Bloodhound’s abilities do that. Scan beacons for future ring information or use your passive and tactical abilities to track down enemies and reveal their positions to your team and you. Knowing where enemies are, even through walls, is incredibly powerful in Apex. With Bloodhound, you don’t even need to necessarily be talking to your team if you’re a solo-queue ranked player who tends to mute the randoms you’re paired with. Just hit those scans and show your team where the enemy is.

Of course, the Beast of the Hunt ultimate is also very powerful, allowing you to scan more often, see enemies more clearly, and gain a speed boost, making you harder to hit and better at chasing down enemies. This is not an ultimate to save. If you have it and your team is going into a fight that’s even close to being even, use it. Bloodhounds in ranked should also save a spot in their inventory for an ultimate accelerant or two since fights can happen in quick succession and getting your ultimate back quickly can be the difference between winning and losing a match. And in a mode where you’re grouped with people who should be at or around your skill level, and most fights should be fairly even, take every advantage you can get.

Valkyrie

Yes, Valkyrie was hit with considerable nerfs in season 14, but that doesn’t mean she’s still not one of the best legends in the game. The name of her game is versatility, and Valkyrie can do just about anything for her team. The best Valkyries can get the most out of every part of her kit.

As a recon legend, Valkyrie can scan beacons for future ring information and scout areas below her while she’s flying around. She combines those abilities with her ultimate, Skyward Dive, and becomes a legend uniquely suited to getting her team in the best possible positions. Sure, her ultimate is no longer the get out of jail free card it once was since it’s now much easier to shoot her and her teammates out of the sky, but she can still get her team out of tight situations with the right cover and land them in far better spots. In this way, Valkyrie players serve as vital cogs to macro plays, helping her team navigate safely to an ending zone and finding the best possible spots for her team to grab a win while also revealing enemies at the same time. If you’re losing plenty of early fights in ranked and losing RP because of it, try picking Valkyrie and safely navigating to where it looks like games will end. It might not be the most exciting way to play the character, but it’s a more consistent way to gain RP for players who feel stuck in a cycle of dying off of drop and being third-partied.

She’s also still useful for her firepower, though, with her Missile Swarm dealing damage and acting like a cluster of mini-arc stars. Take advantage of stunned opponents or use the rockets to down enemies that are low on health but have snuck behind cover. You can even use her VTOL Jets to challenge enemies on higher ground. Just don’t start flying straight up the second you get into a gunfight: you’re easy to shoot when you’re hovering in the air.

Seer

Like Bloodhound, Seer is incredibly useful in ranked and can be powerful for random teams and pre-made squads. Using his abilities to their best effect takes a little bit more nuance than Bloodhound, however, even though the two have similar ability kits.

Seer doesn’t carry the same fragging power as Bloodhound does with their Beast of the Hunt, but Seer’s abilities can be even more useful. His Heart Seeker passive allows him to detect enemies’ presence and location if you use it right, even through walls. As Seer, you should constantly be ADSing as you enter new areas and check your back to see if any enemies may be waiting for you or trying to sneak up behind. Combined with the Exhibit ultimate, no team with Seer should ever be surprised when it comes to a fight. That’s important on a map like Storm Point, the upcoming ranked map in season 14, or the rumored new map in season 15, where there are plenty of places to hide. As long as you’re communicating with your teammates, your team should be able to get the drop on any team you’re playing.

His tactical ability will also scan enemies through walls, but it requires more judicious use than Bloodhound’s scan. Since Seer’s Focus of Attention also cancels heals, revives, and temporarily silences abilities, players should look for situations where they can make the most of these ability benefits. Instead of instantly hitting the Focus of Attention when a team is near, try to save it for when you know an enemy is healing behind cover or trying to revive a teammate. In ranked, where people tend to play together as a team more, this can give your team invaluable time to advance and secure the rest of the kills on the enemies instead of letting them reset.

Fuse

Fuse has never been an incredibly popular legend on the level of characters like Wraith, Octane, or Pathfinder, but it’s time to give Apex’s demolition man his due. Because of his ease of use and the sheer amount of damage he can inflict on enemy teams, he makes for an excellent choice for many squads in ranked.

There are essentially two steps to playing Fuse: picking up grenades and then using those grenades. Since his passive allows you to carry twice as many grenades as normal legends and lets you launch those grenades further than anyone else, you should be taking advantage of that. Prioritizing arc stars will be big here since they stick to the first surface they hit. Fuse’s passive makes him better at sticking opponents than anyone else.

Need more damage? Doubling up Fuse’s knuckle clusters will flush out any enemy. His Motherlode ultimate can keep squads all tucked into one space. No cover is truly safe against an enemy Fuse and being able to deny enemies safe cover is vital in ranked, especially toward the end of games. He’s not really an entry fragger, with his lack of movement abilities, but he can punish teams from distance or mid-range. Look to force teams away from cover with your grenade arsenal and then pick them off as they move to their next hiding spot. And remember, there’s no such thing as too many grenades.

Bangalore

Bangalore is an ideal mix of solo-player potential and team-benefitting abilities wrapped up in an easy-to-use package. Her passive is possibly the most simple and useful one in the game: when she gets shot, she speeds up instead of being slowed down. You shouldn’t need to be told how good that is for Bangalore players, particularly in a ranked setting where players are around the same skill level.

Her smokes are also great for denying enemy information. You don’t want any snipers in the area dealing with you, so smoke off areas that your team is trying to move through, or produce smoke in front of you if a fight is getting messy or you need to revive a teammate after a fight is over. These smokes get less useful at higher ranks, where almost all teams will have a recon character that can see right through your smoke. But for most players, the tactical ability can be very useful.

While her Creeping Barrage ultimate may not result in highlight reel kills and damage, it’s a great tool for denying space and time to enemy teams. Getting hit with its stun and slow can be a death sentence, so enemies will be forced to run for cover whenever they see the ultimate falling from the sky.

Vantage

Want to switch things up? Try out Vantage, a recon character who is not as powerful as Bloodhound or Seer but can carve out a nice spot for herself in well-coordinated teams. Vantage is all about planning out a fight ahead of time. Using her Spotter’s Lens passive, Vantage players should be relaying exactly what armor levels an enemy team has, how many players they have alive, and what characters they’re using, if possible. Especially on maps like Kings Canyon and Storm Point, which just so happen to be season 14’s ranked maps, long sightlines allow Vantage to see enemies and plan out fights long before they happen.

From there, Vantage thrives on off angles, laying down opening damage for her squad before using her Echo Relocation tactical to close the distance and join close-range fights quickly. If you’re hitting your Sniper’s Mark shots, your team should capitalize on the damage buffs you’re giving them on the characters you hit. Again, communication is key here and calling out marked enemies will really help your ranked squad.

She might be a little bit harder to coordinate with random teams as opposed to other characters, but if you like the feel of her Sniper’s Mark and are a good shot with it, Vantage can be very powerful.

Horizon

Horizon is another character that can take a bit more coordination to use well, but she can easily make a team a powerful fighting squad capable of quickly wiping any enemy that stands in front of her.

The centerpiece of Horizon’s kit is her ultimate, Black Hole. While it got a bit of a nerf with how it now is damaged by friendly fire, it’s still good at the simplest play that it sets up: throwing grenades at it once it deploys. As Horizon, tell your squad when and where you’re going to throw your ultimate and have your teammates throw grenades at the Black Hole as soon as you use it. While it’s easy to destroy the Black Hole, most players will still get pulled in by the initial gravity pulse before they can shoot the ultimate out. If your team has thrown their grenades immediately, they can still inflict massive damage on a team caught in the Black Hole.

Otherwise, Horizon’s kit is all about movement. Use her Gravity Lift for you and your teammates to gain height and become much harder for enemies to hit, with your ability to strafe in mid-air and benefit from a lack of fall stun thanks to her passive. Obviously, those abilities are good on most maps, but they’re especially good on maps like Kings Canyon and Storm Point, where you can use them to erase significant height disparities. Good Horizons can cruise around the map, seemingly floating away from the enemies trying to chase them before unleashing a devastating ultimate when coordinated well with her squad.