Apex Legends Wattson Guide: How To Best Use Her Abilities, Combo Tips And Tricks

Apex Legends has a large variety of legends with different skill sets, but no legend is better at defense than Wattson. There are three other defensive legends–Caustic, Gibraltar, and Rampart–but all three are designed to defend their allies by dealing damage to enemies and thus deterring them from approaching. Though Wattson can deal a little damage with her tactical ability, her kit is entirely designed around fortifying a position, neutralizing other legends’ abilities, and buffing her allies with regenerative body shields. She’s an entirely selfless legend, who gives everything to protecting her allies, at the cost of having no offensive abilities of her own. Here’s a rundown on how Wattson’s abilities work, how to unlock her, and more tips on how to best play as her.

How to unlock Wattson

Since Wattson was added to Apex Legends in Season 2: Battle Charge, you will need to unlock her with either 12,000 Legend Tokens (which are earned by leveling up and playing the game) or 750 Apex Coins (the paid currency.) The Legend Tokens are earned at a rate of 600 per level up, so new players will have to get up to level 20 before they can afford Wattson. Wattson (along with the other first 15 legends) can be unlocked by purchasing the Champion Edition of the game for $36 USD, which also comes with a few skins and some premium currency.

Wattson’s abilities

• Passive Ability: ​​Spark of Genius – Ultimate Accelerants fully charge Wattson’s Ultimate ability. Wattson can hold two Ultimate Accelerants per inventory slot. Wattson also gradually regenerates shields over time.
• Tactical Ability: Perimeter Security – Wattson can place electrical nodes that create a fence of electricity when connected. Enemies take damage and slow down when moving through the electrical field.
• Ultimate Ability: Interception Pylon – Wattson can place an electrified pylon that destroys incoming ordnance, like grenades and airstrikes. It also repairs the shields of anyone standing within range up to 250 shields. The pylon can be destroyed by enemies, but will last forever if not.

Wattson’s strengths and weaknesses

Wattson’s primary strength is fortifying positions. All of her abilities feed into her ability to lock down positions and keep her team safe from incoming attackers. Her Ultimate ability lets her regenerate her teammates’ shields and destroy incoming projectiles. This lets Wattson defend her teammates against Tactical and Ultimate abilities from other legends, like Caustic or Bangalore. Nullifying an enemy’s ability e can turn the tide of battle, especially in late-game rings where squads are close together and area-of-effect attacks are far more deadly. Wattson can also use her electric fences to not only defend her position from rushers but to also know if someone is flanking. Setting a fence at Wattson’s flank will let her know when enemies are coming, since the fences will either damage incoming enemies and send her an alert or be destroyed, which Wattson can see happen.

Wattson’s main weakness is that her abilities aren’t well-suited for being offensive. If your team decides to rush another team, neither her Ultimate ability nor her Tactical ability can really be used efficiently. Sure, Wattson can build fences and drop her Ultimate very quickly, but if you’re running into a fight, the moment those are placed they become difficult to move, especially during a fight. While the main component to winning team fights is gunplay, Wattson not being able to use her abilities in meaningful ways during offensive attacks is a big downside for her, and ultimately her biggest drawback.

Best legend pairings with Wattson

Wattson pairs well with legends who enhance her own strengths or make up for her lack of offensive power. For those legends looking to go all-in on defense, Caustic and Rampart pair well with Wattson. Caustic provides more defensive opportunities with his gas traps and Wattson’s Ultimate can be used to defend Rampart’s abilities from incoming explosives. The team will still have a bit of offensive capabilities with Caustic’s Ultimate ability, but this setup is primarily meant for hunkering down.

Wattson also pairs well with legends who have traversal abilities like Octane and Pathfinder. Both of these characters can use their Ultimate abilities to move the entire squad into a position, which Wattson can quickly fortify. Another offensive-focused legend who works well with Wattson is Revenant. Revenant’s Ultimate ability, Death Totem, lets his squad turn into shadows who are sent back to the totem after taking a certain amount of damage. Wattson can use both her electric fences and her pylon to defend the Totem from being attacked while the team pushes forward.

Best counters to Wattson’s abilities

Taking down an enemy Wattson usually requires a strong push from your team and some focused gunfire. The immediate concern with Wattson is that her pylon needs to be destroyed. It provides protection against projectiles and some shield regeneration, so taking it out is top priority. After that, some grenades or explosive-based Ultimate abilities can clear out Wattson fences and displace her from wherever she is holed up. After that, you need to rush the enemy squad before she can set the defenses back up. The other option is to rush in before Wattson ever had the chance to set up in the first place, since it can take some time for her to place all of her defenses.

Wattson fences can also be destroyed almost instantly by shooting the base of the pylons, so if the base is visible, take it out as quickly as possible. The other counter to Wattson is to just disengage from the fight. Unless it’s down to the final two squads or your team needs to push through where the enemy Wattson has set up, you can always just leave. Either the fight will be avoided entirely, or the enemy Wattson’s squad will attempt to follow, losing their defensive advantage. Crypto also presents a hard counter to Wattson, since the EMP blast from his drone can take out all of her defenses at once, forcing her to wait out her cooldowns and set back up.

Tips & tricks for Wattson

• Wattson can use her electric fence to let her know when enemies pass through a certain area, if she blocks the entire doorway.
• Wattson’s electric fence can be criss-crossed over the endpoint of ziplines or gravity cannons, so any enemy who uses them are damaged.
• With Wattson’s passive shield regeneration, you can save a shield cell by letting it recharge while exploring.
• If Wattson ends up in a small room with an enemy, she can place her electric fences fast enough to fill the room with electric tracks.
• You can use a Wattson fense to finish off a downed player, saving your grenades/bullets and avoiding the need to use a time-consuming finisher. Similarly, you can use the fence to trap a downed player if you want to come back and finish them off later and don’t want to give them the opportunity to wander off and get revived by a teammate

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