Apex Legends Season 14 introduces a new Legend to the roster rounding out the current pool to 22. Vantage is a young sharpshooter with her abilities leaning towards a more Recon-focused play style that rewards synchronizing with your squad mates. With Vantage out and playable, here’s everything you need to know on how to play Vantage, as well as a few tips and tricks to know ahead of playing her.
Apex Legends Vantage Explained
The first thing to note is that Vantage is a Recon character meaning she can scan Survey Beacons to show the circle’s next location, similar to Pathfinder, Bloodhound, and Valkyrie. If those types of characters appeal to you, then look no further as Vantage is the character for you.
Going back to the opening paragraph of this guide, Vantage’s abilities revolve around gaining useful information for your team while offering a neat mobility technique to aid that goal as well as giving her an ultimate that can be used passively or aggressively. Gather information with her passive ability to then communicate with your team if an engagement is worth taking or not. Conversely, her ultimate allows you to initiate the fight as long as you communicate with your team that this is a fight worth taking.
All Vantage Abilities
Let’s focus on Vantage and her abilities that will aid your chances of conquering the opposition. Per her character reveal, Vantage’s abilities are:
Passive Ability- Spotter’s Lens
Vantage’s passive ability plays heavily into her sharpshooter talents and Recon nature. When unarmed or when aiming down the sights with a weapon that has a 2x or greater magnification scope, Vantage will gain vital information on the opponent she’s scouting. This includes who the Legend is, in case you’re having trouble identifying them, the quality of Evo Shield the entire opposing team has, as well as providing bullet drop information.
Tactical Ability- Echo Relocation
Vantage’s tactical ability is very similar to Loba’s tactical “Burglar’s Best Friend.” Vantage sends her bat companion Echo to a location, and from there, Vantage can jet pack launch herself forward to Echo’s location.
Ultimate- Sniper’s Mark
Vantage’s ultimate ability allows her to bust out her signature sniper rifle in a manner eerily similar to Valorant’s Chamber.
Sniper’s Mark equips Vantage with a custom sniper rifle to essentially give her a third weapon. The sniper comes fitted with a 3x-8x magnification and five bullets to hit your target with that increase in damage dealt after consecutive shots. The base damage for the sniper is 50 to the body, while hitting a second shot will deal 100 damage.
On the flip side, a headshot grants 75 damage, while a second headshot will deal 150 damage. Hitting a foe with a shot from Sniper’s Mark will apply a “Mark” debuff to foes with a “Marked” target taking 15% more damage from other sources.
Tips and Tricks for Playing Vantage in Apex Legends
Now that you know her abilities, here are a few tips and tricks to keep in mind when you’re in the field.
Besides granting you health information and team composition, Vantage’s Spotter’s Lens passive has a unique little twist to it that may play into your benefit depending on your loot. As mentioned, scanning foes only works if you have a 2x or greater magnification scope equipped or when your weapon is holstered. However, scanning foes while unarmed will give you a 3x magnification boost versus the standard 2x or greater, depending on your scope. So, in some cases, it’s best to scan opponents unarmed for the added visual boost or if you don’t have a good enough scope.
When using Echo Relocation, there’s a couple of things you should know about Echo’s limitations. The bat will fly up to 40 meters away from you, with 55 meters being the max distance you can be from Echo before it automatically flies in closer to you.
Tapping the tactical ability button/key bind will allow you to reposition Echo, while holding the tactical button/key bind will launch you towards Echo. Once you launch, you can double jump at the apex of the launch for a nice boost or to strafe in midair, similar to Octane’s jump pad. Finally, in order for this ability to work, you must have a line of sight of Echo, meaning you can’t run backward and expect to launch in reverse to Echo.
Use Echo Relocation as a way to get in or out of a sticky situation. Echo will stay in a location, so if you’re going for a tricky revive on your teammate or going in for some loot, hold the ability button/key bind to jettison out of trouble, much like a Wraith or Loba would.
Vantage’s Ultimate is a perfect combination of all of her abilities, but it comes with a catch. You can activate her Ultimate at any time; however, the bullets charge over time, meaning if you use Sniper’s Mark as soon as it’s “ready”, you’ll only have one bullet. Her Ultimate takes 3 minutes and 20 seconds to fully charge; this can be offset by carrying Ultimate Accelerants with you to speed up the charge.
It might benefit your team to carry a Wattson with you as she is the only Legend who can stack Ultimate Accelerants. Also, when using Sniper’s Mark, be sure to coordinate with your team as targets you hit will receive bonus damage from your squad, leading to an easier time clearing out the opposition.
That’s everything you need to know on how to play Vantage in Apex Legends. As the new season is off to a hot start, be sure to check out the trailer featuring the new battle pass, the reworked Kings Canyon breakdown, or how to unlock Vantage in case you don’t have her unlocked yet.
