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Apex Legends Ash abilities, tips, and backstory explainedIs Ash going to dominate Season 11 of Apex Legends?
Is Ash going to dominate Season 11 of Apex Legends?
Want to know about Ash’s abilities in Apex Legends?The upcoming addition to theApex Legendsroster will arrive next week, along with a brand new map, the new CAR SMG, and a host of weapon and Legend balance changes. Ash is turning a lot of heads thanks both to her complex and fascinating backstory and to her powerful and versatile array of abilities.
Below we’ll walk you through how each of Ash’s abilities work in detail, so you can get off to a great start with her once Season 11 drops. We’ll also detail Ash’s backstory for those who need to know every last detail about this dangerous new Legend.
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Apex Legends: Escape Gameplay TrailerWatch on YouTube
Apex Legends: Escape Gameplay Trailer
Apex Legends Ash abilities
Like all the previous Legends in Apex Legends, Ash will have access to three abilities:Marked For Death (Passive), Arc Snare (Tactical), and Phase Breach (Ultimate).Taken together, these abilities make for a very diverse skillset, giving her the ability to track enemy locations, disrupt their movements, and reposition her entire team to push an advantage or to escape danger.
At first glance there’s quite a lot of overlap between Ash’s skillset and certain other Legend abilities, such asBloodhound’stracking capabilities, orWraith’sown Interdimensional Portal Ultimate. But as you’ll see below, Respawn have taken a lot of time to inject some interesting depth and balance into each of Ash’s abilities so that overall she should feel like an entirely unique Legend. She’ll be powerful, for sure - possibly even one of the verybest Apex Legends characters- but hopefully we won’t see a repeat of Season 10’s release, where the new Legend (Seer) immediately began to utterly dominate the meta.
Ash tips and tricks
Before we delve into how to use Ash’s individual abilities to great effect, let’s go over some general tips and tricks to bear in mind when playing as this powerful and versatile Legend:
Ash Passive: Marked For Death
Description: Recent deathboxes appear as pings on Ash’s map. Interact with a deathbox to mark surviving attackers (once per box).
Marked For Death is Ash’s suitably morbid take on receiving information on enemy whereabouts, as it revolves around player deaths. Whenever an enemy dies anywhere on the map, Ash will receive a ping on her map notifying her of its exact location. The icon fades away over time, but it should be enough to give her a decent idea of where fights are occurring throughout the entire match - a deceptively strong tool in Apex Legends.
The other half of her passive allows her to interact with any deathbox she finds. Doing this will mark on her map the precise location of that deceased player’s killer and their teammates, if they are still alive. She can only interact with each deathbox once in this manner, but it gives Ash some solid tracking capabilities that should minimise downtime between fights - or allow her team to avoid fights until they’re in a better position.
Ash Passive tips:
Ash Tactical: Arc Snare
Description: Throw a spinning snare that damages and tethers the first enemy who gets too close. Cooldown: 25 seconds.
Arc Snare offers a decent bit of damage on a low cooldown and heavily punishes players who are out of position. When used, Ash will throw an arcless projectile through the air in the direction you’re pointing, at a fairly slow pace (meaning enemies can dodge it if they see it coming). This projectile will latch onto the first enemy in its range, dealing damage and tethering them to the ground immediately below them.
Ash Tactical tips:
Ash Ultimate: Phase Breach
Description: Ash uses her sword to tear open a one-way portal to a location within line of sight. Charge Time: 120 seconds.
Unlike Wraith’s Portal, however, Ash’s Phase Breach is one-way only. No return trips. The initial portal stays open for a short while after Ash goes through, allowing her teammates (or enemies) to follow her if they wish; but none can return the way they came.
Ash Ultimate tips:
Apex Legends | Stories from the Outlands - “Ashes to Ash”Watch on YouTube
Apex Legends | Stories from the Outlands - “Ashes to Ash”
Apex Legends Ash backstory
Ash’s backstory is perhaps the strongest link we’ve seen so far between Apex Legends and Respawn’s other FPS venture,Titanfall 2. It’s also one of the most complex origins yet, and intertwines with many other Legends' backstories in quick succession.
After this point, there are some gaps in Ash’s story that Respawn have not yet filled in. At some point after her reawakening, perhaps years later, Ash was destroyed again, but her body was again recovered and came to be hidden under Slum Lakes in Kings Canyon. Blisk recovered Ash’s all-important head and, no doubt as part of some hare-brained plan, threw it into a spherical energy field which looks rather like the Rift on Olympus. This caused Ash’s head to be split into 9 pieces and scattered across Kings Canyon. Seeking the simulacrum for themselves, Hammond Robotics commissionedLobato recover the 9 pieces, which she did as part of a limited-time in-game quest in Season 5 of Apex Legends.
That’s everything we currently know about Ash in Apex Legends, her history, and the abilities at her disposal. If you’re looking to match her strength with the right array of weapons, be sure to check out our list of thebest guns in Apex Legends. For everything else, your best bet is to start with ourApex Legends tips and tricks guide hub.
