The world of Apex Legends is home to a rapidly changing landscape. Each time a new legend is introduced or a wave of buffs and nerfs arrives, character pick rates fluctuate based on the meta and who’s in demand.
In previous seasons, characters like Valkyrie have seen astronomical pick rates thanks to solid abilities and usability, only to fade away with time. It’s also traditional for a new legend to dominate the meta at the beginning of their season, but it gets more interesting as their power is tweaked and other legends are adjusted to compensate.
We’ve compiled all pick rates across Apex players in all game modes displayed by Apex Legends Status. These stats are accurate as of season 20. Here are the current pick rates for all characters in Apex.
All Apex Legends character pick rates
Pick rates for season 20 of Apex Legends are accurate as of Feb. 20, 2024.
| Ranking | Character | Pick Rate |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | Octane | 8.5% |
| 2nd | Seer | 7.4% |
| 3rd | Pathfinder | 7.3% |
| 4th | Wraith | 7.2% |
| 5th | Bangalore | 7.1% |
| 6th | Bloodhound | 5.7% |
| 7th | Conduit | 5.6% |
| 8th | Lifeline | 5.6% |
| 9th | Horizon | 5.0% |
| 10th | Revenant | 4.4% |
|
| ||
| 11th | Mad Maggie | 4.0% |
| 12th | Fuse | 4.0% |
| 13th | Loba | 3.8% |
| 14th | Mirage | 3.3% |
| 15th | Ash | 2.9% |
| 16th | Valkyrie | 2.9% |
| 17th | Caustic | 2.6% |
| 18th | Wattson | 2.5% |
| 19th | Rampart | 1.9% |
| 20th | Vantage | 1.6% |
| 21st | Crypto | 1.5% |
| 22nd | Ballistic | 1.5% |
| 23rd | Catalyst | 1.4% |
| 24th | Gibraltar | 1.2% |
| 25th | Newcastle | 0.9% |
The most-picked legends in Apex Legends season 20
Octane: 8.5-percent pick rate
Octane has always been one of the most popular characters at all skill levels in Apex, since he’s able to quickly engage or disengage from fights thanks to his unrivaled speed and team mobility from Jump Pad.
The new legend upgrades make Octane an even safer pick when he chooses to engage. The daredevil can return to pre-nerfed stim damage from his level two perk, and can freely engage and disengage from fights with his entire team behind him, thanks to having two Launch Pad charges from his level three perk, a luxury most legends can’t match.
Seer: 7.4-percent pick rate
Seer has risen back up to the top of the pick rate leaderboards, shooting from a less-than-one-percent global presence in season 19 to second place, but the new legend upgrades aren’t the secret to his success. With all four of his perks only serving to revert a portion of his past kit nerfs, players are flocking to the Ambush Artist for a completely different reason.
Season 20 features the Breakout Rewards challenge, where one legend every two weeks will be temporarily unlocked for all accounts, with Seer as the first character for the opening two weeks of the season. These legends will have challenges that reward battle pass stars and permanently unlock the legend. Players who complete all six legend challenges throughout season 20 will be rewarded the “Top Tier” Reactive Flatline skin.
Seer’s swing from least picked legend to second most popular comes from the combination of new players getting to enjoy the character’s free to play status, and collectors who want to finish their battle pass and claim another legendary skin for their vault. After week three, a new legend will be free to play, and Seer will likely find himself back at the bottom for overall pick rate.
Pathfinder: 7.3-percent pick rate
Pathfinder has remained a ranked staple since Apex’s initial release, and it’s easy to see why. Grappling Hook is one of the most versatile movement abilities in the game, and Zipline Gun allows his entire team to make game-changing plays with him, with season 20 boosting the power of his entire kit through the legend upgrades system.
Pathfinder’s initial level two perks may seem underwhelming, but provide the Skirmisher his old team utility of scanning Ring Consoles or Survey Beacons, allowing him to fill two class roles and even boost his ultimate charge thanks to his Insider Knowledge passive activating from any of his class interactions. Once Zipline Gun is ready, Pathfinder can safely swing into a fight, get an opening pick, and swing back out to safety, or even hunt down the remaining enemy players with ease.
Wraith: 7.2-percent pick rate
Old school Apex Legends players can celebrate Wraith’s return to form, with legend upgrades giving her all-around buffs to her entire kit, and bringing her close to what her season one glory days used to look like.
At max EVO level, Wraith remains the safest Skirmisher thanks to the cooldown reduction on her tactical and the reduced wind-up time before she phases out of harm’s way thanks to her legend upgrades, giving Into the Void’s its first ever buffs since season five. Team-oriented Wraiths can also protect their team with a buffed passive that triggers on nearby squads, or make more rotations per match with a lower cooldown ultimate.
Conduit: 7.6-percent pick rate
Bangalore has already stood as one of the most popular legends on the ranked ladder and in the global competitive leagues, thanks to providing safety for her entire team with Smoke Launcher and a way to dislodge bunkered down enemies with Rolling Thunder. Her legend upgrades aren’t flashy when compared to other characters, but they make her kit even harder to fight against.
Bangalore’s biggest power spike is in her level three upgrades. Cover Me accurately pings enemies who trigger her passive for the entire team like an Ash passive, since it lets her know exactly where to shoot, even in the deep cover of smoke. Refuge is just as valued, as Smoke Launcher is already used defensively to grab crucial revives and reset fights, and the added health regen allows Bangalore to regenerate up to 50 HP, at the cheap cost of a 30-second cooldown ability, saving limited health consumables in end-game situations.
The least-picked legends in Apex Legends season 20
Crypto: 1.5-percent pick rate
Ironically, Crypto has surged in pick rate with season 20 as the only legend in the bottom five to have a positive change in the global standings after Breakout’s release week, thanks to a variety of reasons.
Season 20’s increase in EVO needed to level up provides the Surveillance Expert a new utility niche: scanning Survey Beacons quickly without having to stand still and sit through a lengthy animation. With each map scan providing EVO to his entire team, Crypto opens up the potential to level up his shields quickly and find fights with an overwhelming health advantage thanks to his ultimate also providing safe and easy damage.
Crypto needs to stand still or hide away to gain these advantages, however, while all other recon legends can actively scan and move, engaging directly in the fight with their team. Despite all of the positive changes, Crypto’s slower and more methodical playstyle keeps him at the bottom of the global pick rates.
Ballistic: 1.5-percent pick rate
Ballistic has continued to slip down in popularity ever since his season 17 debut, as his unimpressive legend upgrades pale in comparison to his contemporaries in the Assault class.
Ballistic’s level two upgrades are the most underwhelming in the entire game. He can gain either the Skirmisher care package insight passive or the ability to see ammo for his current weapon types in death boxes, despite already carrying extra ammo as an Assault legend.
Smart Bullet receives two nice perks in an additional charge, or tripled lifetime, but continues to serve more of an annoyance to enemies more than an actual threat, since its kill power stays unchanged at a total of 50 damage: 20 for the initial impact and 30 for players who overheat their weapons.
Compared to Fuse, where a single Knuckle Cluster can deal up to 70 damage on a single enemy stick, or Mad Maggie, who can even down enemies with a single Riot Drill charge of 160 damage, Ballistic’s direct damage impact on a fight pales in comparison, with this key weakness exaggerated in the season 20 meta, where more teams are taking their first fights with lower leveled shields and shorter TTK.
Catalyst: 1.4-percent pick rate
Catalyst previously dominated the ALGS pick rates for her versatility in offensively engaging fights, or defensively cutting off deadly angles. Heading into season 20, most legends walked away from the patch notes with new buffs to parts of their kits, but Catalyst got the shortest end of the stick, with all four perks only reverting a small part of her overall nerfs in the past two seasons.
Her level two EVO upgrades separate her season 19 nerfs and give players a choice between her old tactical cast range, or the old number of Piercing Spikes she can simultaneously have on the map. Level three presents a longer ultimate length or lifetime, traits which were nerfed word for word in the season 20 patch notes, and leaves Catalyst as a shell of her former self, leading to her massively decreased pick rate.
Gibraltar: 1.2-percent pick rate
Gibraltar’s playstyle of protecting his teammates by bunkering down with Dome Shield and Defensive Bombardment have always served as a good baseline for Apex’s Support class, but his lack of mobility and reactionary playstyle keep his pick rate at the bottom, despite receiving a choice of legend upgrades.
Respawn leaned heavily into Gibraltar’s role as a team anchor for his selection of perks, as he can revive allies with 50 HP instead of the standard 20, and change the uptime and size of his Dome Shield, giving him more incentive to hang back and play for safe team revives. This passive style of play does not resonate with the majority of the Apex community, as Skirmisher and mobility legends continue to dominate the upper half of the leaderboards.
Newcastle: 0.9-percent pick rate
Newcastle initially enjoyed a surge in pick rate thanks to the third return of the Three Strikes LTM, but found himself once again at the bottom of the global pick rate leaderboard once the event ended.
Newcastle’s upgrades are great quality-of-life changes, but they continue to exaggerate his biggest strengths and weaknesses. His perk selection isn’t bad, as reviving allies with regen that can take them to full health, or increasing the health of all his creations improve his ability to reset fights in his team’s favor.
However, like Gibraltar, Newcastle must take time to setup his defenses or wait for an ally to go down to properly make use of his full kit, leaving the Heroic Defender in the dust, with his pick rate dropping even lower upon season 20’s release.
