How to play Wattson in Apex Legends

Build. Your life depends on it.

Image via Respawn Entertainment

Apex Legends’ static defender is here to lock down every building in sight and deny enemies the ability to advance.

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The calm and collected Wattson, who has spent her life watching the Legends compete in the Apex, is uniquely-suited to controlling specific areas of the map, and is sure to be a useful tool in any party of three’s efforts to win a match.

A defensive fighter, Wattson’s kit revolves around setting up areas of protection for her team to zone away opposition, strangling potential choke-points and, of course, frustrating foes.

Wattson won’t be for everyone and is far better at supporting teams. So if you find yourself as the run-and-gun type, or just want to enjoy a firefight, Wattson won’t be for you.

Passive Ability: Spark of Genius

When Wattson uses an Ultimate Accelerant, instead of recharging her Ultimate part-way, it instead recharges it fully, no matter what percentage her ultimate ability is at the time she uses it. Additionally, Wattson can carry two Ultimate Accelerants in an inventory slot, instead of just one, which can come in handy if a teammate needs their ultimate quickly.

Wattson also received an extra passive in season eight, granting her the ability to regenerate her own shields passively after avoiding taking damage for six seconds. Wattson’s shields will regenerate on their own at a rate of one shield health every two seconds. It’s slow, but if players aren’t in any danger of fighting, they can save on batteries and shield cells by just letting the passive shield regeneration do its thing.

Tactical Ability: Perimeter Security

Wattson can drop nodes that, when placed next to each other, create an electrified fence that damages and slows enemies.

Obviously, these gates are meant to be placed in choke points or even in front of doors to stop an enemy from getting in or, at least, slowing them down. Individual nodes can have two fences attached to them, meaning Wattson can place down several nodes to create a longer fence or double back to previous nodes to create a dangerous nest of fences. Wattson can have 12 nodes active at a time. If players use more than 12 nodes, the first node placed will automatically break, and any fence attached to that node will deactivate. Fences last until the nodes connecting them are destroyed.

Players that run into these fences are stunned and take damage from the fence itself. This makes fences great for holding buildings and blocking doorways, but also for surprising enemies exiting ziplines or Wraith portals. The one drawback to these fences is that they’re extremely noticeable, so look for places to put fences where enemies will least expect them.

Wattson Ultimate: Interception Pylon

Wattson’s ultimate does many things at once. It creates an electrified pylon that can destroy incoming grenades and even mortar-like ultimates from other players, including Gibraltar, Bangalore, and Caustic’s ultimates. It heals ally shields within the pylon’s radius at a rate of five shields per second. This ability has a pool of 250 shield health available for each pylon.

Finally, the pylon also significantly reduces the cooldown rate of Wattson’s tactical ability, meaning she can place down many new fences at once when she’s near her ultimate.

The pylon is permanent until an enemy destroys it, so placing it out of any enemies’ line of sight is extremely important. The pylon only has 150 health, so a few well-placed shots from an enemy team can open up Wattson’s squad to enemy grenades once again.

Wattson excels when she doesn’t have to move very much. Since all of her abilities are static, she becomes extremely strong when she makes it into the final rounds of a match and can lock down an are for her team to play. Because of this, she’s best paired with legends that can help transport their squad around the map, like Valkyrie, Wraith, and Ash.

For players with tactical minds and an eye for the endgame, Wattson is a great character to seize control of the best spots on a map.

Author
Image of Adam Newell
Adam Newell
Assigning Editor. In 2015, Adam graduated from the University of Aberystwyth with a bachelor's in Media and Communications. Working in the industry for over ten years. If it has anything to do with Nintendo and Pokémon chances are you will see me talking about it, covering, and likely not sleeping while playing it.
Author
Image of Adam Snavely
Adam Snavely
Associate Editor and Apex Legends Lead. From getting into fights over Madden and FIFA with his brothers to interviewing some of the best esports figures in the world, Adam has always been drawn to games with a competitive nature. You'll usually find him on Apex Legends (World's Edge is the best map, no he's not arguing with you about it), but he also dabbles in VALORANT, Super Smash Bros. Melee, CS:GO, Pokemon, and more. Ping an R-301.