Wattson is the newest addition to Apex Legends, having been added for the game's second season. Wattson is another (kind-of) trap-style character, somewhat along the same lines as Caustic, but with a slightly different flavor. If you're already familiar with Caustic's sneaky style, Wattson just may be for you.
She is going to appeal most to players who like to set up shot in urban environments and hunker down, but she can be made to work in just about any situation. Here are some of the basics to get you started with Wattson, along with some more in-depth strategies worth taking a look at once you've got those down.
10 HOW TO UNLOCK
Firstly, Wattson isn't free. She can be purchased in a variety of ways, either by buying the Season 2 Battle Pass, with 12,000 Legend Tokens, or with 750 Apex Coins.
Wattson isn't necessarily going to appeal to every playstyle, so it's worth reading up on her abilities to decide if you want to play as her if you don't already own the Season 2 Battle Pass. That's a fair amount of currency, after all.
9 BIO
Wattson's real name is Natalie Paquette. She's a twenty-two year-old engineering genius from the planet Solace. She's the daughter of the Apex Games' lead electrical engineer Luc Paquette, who she followed in the footsteps of.
Her father died the day the Apex Games' modified Containment Ring was revealed, which was developed by Natalie herself. She now fights in the arena that she had a hand in designing.
8 BASICS OF PERIMETER SECURITY
Wattson's Active Ability is Perimeter Security. Wattson can set twelve separate nodes at the same time, and each node can connect to another, forming an electrical fence between them. This fence deals ten damage to enemies each tick they happen to be inside the fence, and stuns them for one-to-two seconds afterwards. These nodes can be picked up, and her stock of them recharges over time.
Laying down any nodes past twelve will destroy the oldest existing node, but with twelve possible nodes, Wattson can cover a wide area with her fences. These nodes can be shot, blown up, or destroyed with Caustic's Nox Gas. Wattson can make use of enemy Wattson's nodes, and her fences stay in effect even after she dies.
7 IN-DEPTH ON PERIMETER SECURITY
These fences really are a beautiful tool. There are so many different situations in which these fences give your team an upper hand, and there are situations in which you can make sure the nodes are virtually impossible to destroy. Almost every doorway in the game has room on each side, allowing you to place each node out of view of the other side of the door. This enables the fence to cover the doorway while keeping the actual nodes themselves out of sight so enemies can't just shoot them.
The ability to connect these nodes to each other means you can spiderweb across a building, creating diagonal intersecting lines that make it legitimately impossible for an enemy to pass through freely. With these fences out, enemies are likely going to have limited sight-lines to work with, so as long as you understand where enemies will be forced to attack from, you should be in for an easier fight.
6 BASICS OF SPARK OF GENIUS
Wattson's Passive ability is Spark Of Genius. This enables her Perimeter Security uses to recharge at a rate of one node every four seconds instead of one every thirty seconds, provided she's in range of one of her Interception Pylons, which is her Ultimate Ability.
Spark Of Genius also enables a single Ultimate Accelerant to fully recharge her Ultimate Ability.
5 IN-DEPTH ON SPARK OF GENIUS
Bottom line of this ability is: keep a stock of Ultimate Accelerants on you. Yes, it's going to limit the amount of throwables and/or ammo you can carry, but trust us, Wattson's Ultimate Ability is worth it.
Most other Legends don't have much use for Ultimate Accelerants, but if you do have other team-mates that need them, just coordinate and divvy them up amongst yourselves.
4 BASICS OF INTERCEPTION PYLON
Wattson's Ultimate Ability is her Interception Pylon. These Pylons have a multitude of uses. It will recharge shields at a rate of five-per-second. It also destroys incoming enemy ordnance.
This includes Caustic's Gas Grenade, Arc Stars, Bangalore's Rolling Thunder, and Gibraltar's Defensive Bombardment. The Pylon can be destroyed by enemy gunfire.
3 IN-DEPTH ON INTERCEPTION PYLON
The Interception Pylon is, quite possibly, the most useful Ultimate Ability in the game. Pairing this up with a dozen Perimeter Security Nodes ensures the nodes won't be destroyed by a grenade, forcing enemies to deal with them from the inside of the electrical-fence gauntlet. Provided your whole team is inside the range of the Pylon and inside a building, there should be no real need to use shield cells/batteries, unless the enemy is pushing into the building (which will be problematic for them if your team has a well-placed Perimeter Security).
Slapping one of these down the moment you hear Gibraltar's Ultimate Ability start up can be a squad-saver, and an already-placed Pylon can waste a Bangalore or Caustic's Ultimate, as well. Ensure the Pylon is placed somewhere the enemy isn't going have any easy line of sight onto it, and it's going to be an invaluable tool for keeping enemies at bay. One very important note, however, is that Wattson's Interception Pylons affect everybody in the same way. Enemies in range of the Pylon will also gain recharged shields, and if you throw ordnance that passes inside the Pylon's range, it will destroy it.
2 WATTSON OVERALL
Wattson is one of the strongest characters in Apex to date, provided she's being played on a team that has a certain playstyle.
Teams that like to set up shop in buildings and let enemies come to them are going to find Wattson a favorite, likely edging out Caustic in most scenarios (since Wattson's Perimeter Security doesn't negatively impact the team nearly as much as Caustic's Gas Canisters can).
1 WATTSON TEAM COMPOSITIONS
Wattson can accentuate a lot of different team compositions. Paired with a Caustic, they can make a building or a whole section of an urban environment a real pain to slog through.
Pair that with a Lifeline, and you have a team that can hunker down in a building with almost constantly recharging shields and health. Other than Lifeline and Caustic, any character that does their best work in urban environments will do, such as Bloodhound or Wraith.