Apex Legends: Alter Guide

A little bit punk, a little bit unhinged, and a whole lot of fun

The most recent season of Apex Legends brings everyone’s new favorite unhinged baddie Alter to the foray. This is the first character introduced to the Apex Games since we met Conduit in Season 19. Naturally, that means a lot of players are quickly trying to piece together just how to use this portal-spawning chaos creator. I’ve got a quick breakdown of her kit and a few tips to get you up and rolling.

Her Kit:

Portals are the basis of Alter’s abilities. Her tactical ability allows her to portal through most surfaces in the game. How you use those portals and where they spawn you on the other end are the biggest factors to consider when placing them. While it is hard to see in the heat of a firefight, there is a meter on her portal that will tell you the exact depth, as well as where the other side will place you. When trying to reposition this is vital information. Take a look at the clip below.

What you can gather from that is that her portal does not always place itself on a straightforward field. Luckily it put me up at an angle so I could slide away and heal. Keep that in mind when trying to escape or surprise your enemies.

A great aspect of this portal is you can use it to stop people holding positions on doors or near windows. Caustic got traps on a door he is watching? Put the portal on the wall and either push in OR if the audio cue causes the Caustic to move while near it he will get pulled through it and separated from his team allowing for an easy kill. Her portal also buffs via her skill tree so you could double down and make it return faster.

As you can see, the other part of her kit is called Gift From The Rift. This is a nifty bonus that allows Alter to grab items from a significant distance from death boxes. She can use this in several ways. She can pop in it and grab ammo or shields. Alter can call things out to her team in case they need it. The important thing to remember here is you can only grab one item and when you do it will make a visible purple trail back to you just like a Loba shop would.

Always Have an Escape Plan:

Alter’s Ultimate ability works incredibly similarly to Revenant’s original Ultimate. You place down the ability and an indicator shows on your mini-map depicting the range of use. It stays active for about 120 seconds in its base form. You can use her upgrades to make it last indefinitely but it still has that range limit.

What does it do, though? It calls you back to where you put it down, allowing you to escape and heal whenever necessary. The MAJOR drawback with it is the fact that it takes several seconds for it to activate. During that time you can still take damage and if you’re knocked, it will cancel the teleport. You can use it while knocked though, you would need to start the process over and you can not use a knockdown shield while trying to recall.

This is great for players who like to push fights but it can be tricky to nail the timing down since it leaves you vulnerable while trying to escape.

Weapons and Team Comp:

Unsurprisingly, Alter plays well for players on the more aggressive side. This makes her perfect for Solos mode, the current LTM in Apex. She excels at third-partying firefights, which is basically what 90% of what Solos is. Not to mention, with the extra life in that mode, you can feel free to brain-dead push a fight straight out of the gate.

If you’re like me and still prefer the classic trio mode, you can slot her in for almost any dynamic. Pairing her with Crypto and or Fuse works well. It can be cheeky as hell to pair her with Caustic. Place traps near her portal and get unsuspecting players to chase you and laugh as they suffocate, and the same could be said with Wattson walls. The slowing effect would allow for easy kills. You can even get hyper-aggressive and run Octane and Bloodhound with Alter. She’s fantastic anywhere.

What guns to run? We’re at a place in the game where 85 to 90% of weapons are viable. I have had major success running the Flatline with a Volt this season. I’ve been swapping it out with the R-99 or even the Wingman, which despite nerfs is still really good.

It is worth noting, however, that if you are running in Solos it is shotgun central. If you’re jumping in there, you’re better off with a Peacekeeper or Mastiff.

Alter is a great character that I would love to see get a buff to her ultimate. Despite not having a ton of time to play this season, she has been my go-to when I’m able to load in. I am incredibly interested to see how she stacks up in ALGS because she can be moderately useful in ranked.

How have you liked playing her? Did you discover a tip I didn’t bring up here? Let us know down below in the comments!