Here's how to play this electrifying Legend.
Our Apex Legends Wattson guide contains tips and strategy advice for using each ability to maximum potential.
If you’re a fan of defensive styles of play, Wattson is a great character for you to try. Her abilities are based on her passion for all things electric, and since her release, she has become a staple pick for her strong late-game defensive utility.
As well as this though, Wattson is no slouch when it comes to going on the offensive. Some solid utility means that she can move from location to location, building a nest egg wherever she goes and making it very challenging for enemies to push her position.
Wattson, being such a popular pick due both to her freshness to the game and her extremely high utility, is a Legend we wanted to put together a comprehensive guide for. We’ve got an overview of all this character’s abilities, along with plenty of tips to help you maximise her potential as well.
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Passive – Spark of Genius
Wattson’s Passive ability, Spark of Genius, allows her ultimate ability – Interception Pylon – to fully charge upon a single use of an Ultimate Accelerant. It also allows her to charge her Tactical ability more quickly when standing next to one of these pylons.
This is very useful on numerous fronts. It allows her to swiftly adapt to dangerous situations and ambushes, since she can get her Ultimate ready in a matter of seconds. Ultimate Accelerants can also be offloaded in her direction to ensure your team is always primed for an attack.
Wattson’s passive also gives you the freedom to regularly push forwards and scout out new hideouts to hunker down in, as you can set up your pylons and Perimeter Security barriers wherever you go.
A straightforward tip for maximising this Passive’s utility is to ensure your team stocks up on Ultimate Accelerants. Communication is key here, whether it be through voice comms or the ping system. This is relevant to any time you have a Wattson on your team as well – help her so she can help you.
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Tactical – Perimeter Security
Wattson is similar to Caustic in some respects, and her Tactical ability, Perimeter Security, is a perfect example. It can completely wall off choke points during a firefight, and prevent enemies from barging through them for fear of taking damage and getting slowed down.
Place your electric fences in front of doorways and other areas you don’t want enemies charging in to, as it’ll force them to think twice about their next move. Especially effective during the end game, this tactical ability vanishes momentarily when you or a teammate steps through it, meaning you can live without fear of zapping yourself.
You can pick up and move the pylons around if you so desire, but ensure they are out of sight of the enemy as they can be easily destroyed with just a few taps of the trigger.
Players have made some outrageous traps and fortifications using these barriers. For example, Reddit user Thechaosclown created a very sneaky trap in the entrance to Bunker which caught their opponents off guard. It’s definitely worth taking a look.
You can also ensnare enemies attempting to camp by blocking doors and exits with your barriers, in the hopes it’ll force some rash moves from them, or you’ll simply trap them in a situation from which they cannot escape – win, win.
Ultimate – Interception Pylon
Wattson can change the course of a fight with her Ultimate. She places an electrified pylon that destroys incoming explosives which also repairs body shields.
It should be noted that this Ultimate does not discriminate between friendly and enemy ordnance, so if a friendly Gibraltar is dropping an airstrike on your location, it might be a good idea to hold off on placing your Interception Pylon until the rain of missiles has come to an end.
Wattson has a maximum of 3 placeable Interception Pylons, meaning you can set it up in numerous places on the map or cover a wide area to ensure safety from enemy ambushes. Combined with her Perimeter Security, it’s a very strong ability as it both actively defends an area against attack and charges her Tactical ability, allowing for swift coverage of any new zones your team wants to defend.
With Wattson, communication with your team is even more important than usual. Because her abilities benefit the whole team – they can pass through your security gates and charge their shields next to your Interception Pylon – you need to make sure your squad knows where they are and when they’re being placed. This could be a matter as simple as pinging it when you place it down, or calling out through voice chat when the Pylon is available.
One thing to keep in mind with Wattson’s Ultimate is that it doesn’t just recharge her team’s shields, it also recharges enemy ones too. This means you’ll often want to gather your team around it and defend against incoming attacks as a squad. Placing one in the middle of a battle won’t do you much good, especially because they’re susceptible to damage and can be destroyed with a few well-placed shots.
Wattson’s series of abilities arguably synergise with each other better than any other Legend in the game. Spark of Genius allows Ultimate Accelerants to immediately charge her Interception Pylon to full, which in turn recharges her Perimeter Security fences and makes her able to set up defences faster and more efficiently than anyone else.
One final tip to help you use Wattson’s abilities to the fullest; stock up on Ultimate Accelerants! You don’t necessarily want to fill your inventory with grenades and the like, since friendly ordnance is cut off by Wattson’s Ultimate anyway, so save a bit more space for this ability to make full use of her Spark of Genius.
