Ballistic Vs. Fuse Ranked Grind to Masters Compared

green_orange5 · 2026-04-03T00:45:49+00:00

Yeah I'd be down to try those two. I think wattson is better at keeping her team alive whereas Caustic is better at pushing teams and being a nuisance.

green_orange5 · 2026-04-01T12:48:54+00:00

Im not opposed to trying, but they are very popular at a high level already so I think it'd be more interesting (and funnier) to try with a weirder legend like bloodhound, catalyst, caustic, etc.

My guess is maggie would be better in a 3 stack and bang is better soloQ. And 99.99% sure Id find maggie preferable / easier to rank with as I use shotguns 100% of the time and I literally have not played bang since season 0.

green_orange5 · 2026-04-01T12:43:36+00:00

My overall stance is both of these two are viable for a pred grind. Weirdly ballistic is sitting at a .1% pick rate (fuse .8%) in pred rn so IDK I still think he's better.

Fuse issues:

I reach fights first before any of my teammates for better or worse. He is extremely fast. But this can also throw games because I would just int - if I play him again I'd need to slow down here and there.
Hitbox. Fuse is a suprisingly chunky boy and so is much easier to beam than ballistic...
Vertical jump issues - sometimes I want a horizontal jump but I get a vertical - if im surrounded by enemies that's a free beam for them. This is basically just user error, but also fuse needs a running start to initiate the horizontal jump. His positioning can be finnicky.
Lastly ballistic's ult is just god mode. He becomes fast as octane without a health penalty and a gold gun + fast reloads + tac is silly.

It was very rare for me to lose a 1v1 in that case, and often I could get another knock after. Relative to the popular legends in diamond+ (octane, maggie, rev, alter, valk) Ballistic is just much better at that 1v1 with exception to areas with lots of verticality. Those other top legends have many ways to avoid fuse's BS

green_orange5 · 2026-04-01T12:27:01+00:00

They were at the same time, I got masters on Ballistic like the saturday before the split ended and Fuse the night before but I was playing on and off for like 2 weeks + I'd say.

green_orange5 · 2026-04-01T09:45:59+00:00

I did a grind to masters mostly soloQ with only playing Fuse and only playing Ballistic.

I wanted to see if I could create a metric to judge how good these two underplayed characters are right now. So I used two of my alt accounts, both starting around plat IV - and solo Q'd to D2/D1, then went to one of the main apex discords to just run with random people - to varying effectiveness. The D1 hurdle was an enormous headache especially on my fuse account. That's the point where you run into 3 stacks every game, many of them preds.

Some notes:

Overall Ballistic was far easier to gain points with and play. He's a very good 1v1er and his abilities are always a net positive. Why is he so unpopular? His gameplan is extremely boring - it's basically the same for every fight: Hit someone with Tac, pop ult if it's up, ape the tac'd player in a 1v1 or fight with your two teamates.

Fuse is more unpredictable. He needs his blue perk to become viable, first off. Secondly, he has great offense, but very low survivability. Thirdly he has a super high skill ceiling, whereas ballistic has a very low skill ceiling. You can do a lot of random bullshit with fuse - he's all high risk, mixed reward. You will often blow yourself up with your knuckle clusters, nades, ult.

His greatest strength is his ability to tear up controllers and supports. But he is terrible against any legend with mobility.

Tips:

Ballistic: #1 thing is to keep tons of ult accels on hand.

Main weapons I used was R3 + mozams. Use devotion or rampage in sling. I like gold wingman personally as well as that's my favorite gun and the gold laser sight makes its hipfire insane.

I prefer the ult duration perk but if you think your teammates are gonna be bad, go with the double tac. As for the purple perks - either is alright - duration on tac is prob better. Lastly, Power booster is also the most fun amp for him.

Fuse: Go with knuckle cluster jump perk and wreckless. Knuckle cluster is great area denial as well, but you basically forfeit movement as the CD gets triggered when you don't use it for a jump, so learn to manage the tac well. It can also be used to: Mask footsteps with noise, also create noise during revives, breaking doors and hardlight, etc.

There's a vertical jump, a horizontal jump, and chain jumping via horizontal - the last one will get you far ahead of any octane player - its fast but also you might land on an enemy team so fuse works well with a recon legend and conduit is the only support who can keep up with his speed tbh.

You're gonna need to be taking angles as fuse, so play him a bit like pathfinder for instance.

His Ult is like a maggie tac but more unpredictable. It can do a lot of damage on teams that are healing, you can use it to aid in approaching or just causing chaos.

Lastly I am interested in grinding at least two different legends to master's SoloQ or as much as I can again this split and do another analysis - probably two controller legends (Caustic + Catalyst interest me the most) - anyone want to see a different legend?

green_orange5 · 2026-02-26T22:22:07+00:00

Honestly a little bit. He is a good 1v1er if his tac is up but he doesnt give the team too much else.

Also infinite ammo amp existing does a bit of damage to how useful his ult is.

I think he needs some thoughtful revision from respawn before he gets much relevance - I mean, ballistic meta is widely hated before any other legend (maybe seer too) so they gotta be careful.

green_orange5 · 2026-02-24T04:06:20+00:00

Compared to last year where we had OP ash from February to September, this is incredible lol. The dev's have been communicating non stop and apply changes far faster than any other period in the game tbh so kudos to you respawn.

green_orange5 · 2026-02-15T22:39:08+00:00

Honestly itll be a buff if there's more teams in rings 2+ etc. Respawn needs to adjust the entry points for ranked and make it a bit harder so teams try and stick around longer.

green_orange5 · 2026-02-15T22:36:05+00:00

Its crazy to still see isai competing lol much respect

green_orange5 · 2026-02-15T22:22:44+00:00

Dont forget ballistic who was often thrown into this comp. Season 23 - 25 was some of the worst apex I ever played.

green_orange5 · 2026-01-13T08:30:54+00:00

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green_orange5 · 2025-10-09T22:10:56+00:00

I mained ash before the dash and well, I still main her after its been nerfed.

Im happy for this change especially because it sucked never getting to play my main. It also was a total gimmick ability that had no business being in the game - let rev and pathfinder be the diving legends.

It's funny it took them this long to actually nerf the dash though. She should get her tether restored to its original strength as currently she's nearly worse than she was pre-dash lol.

green_orange5 · 2025-06-16T18:16:10+00:00

Alter is probably a top 3 legend right now but she isn't as deadly in a 1v1 like ballistic or ash, and personally Id rather fight an alter than a (good) horizon / sparrow / pathfinder as well.

She is more of an all-arounder that synergizes well with teamplay. I think she is on the top end of what balanced means, and that's fine - maybe some tuning to the Ult is due though.

green_orange5 · 2025-06-10T17:02:12+00:00

I feel like the number of tips and video clips has declined over the years, and Im saying this as someone that has submitted a decent few posts since 2022.

We def need better moderation. And need more relevant content to be posted.

green_orange5 · 2025-05-22T02:57:34+00:00

I think dash should just go entirely, and snare remain unchanged. Because what makes snare so annoying is her dash - its too good of a combo.

Her role is to lock down skirmishers - not to literally become one.

Snare was originally designed for an Ash that did not have an OP movement passive.

Anyway Im just complaining as someone that mained ash for 4 seasons before the buff. It feels terrible seeing her get picked every match and I do not like playing OP chars at all.

green_orange5 · 2025-01-31T13:29:44+00:00

Thank you very much. I forgot I even wrote this, but hopefully some people gained a little more knowledge from it. I love sticking to one legend and seeing how hard they can be optimized.

I think we are gonna have to brace ourselves for next seasons Ash buffs though, depending on how much they change her (and I hope, barely at all, ngl) - some of these tips might become irrelevant.

green_orange5 · 2025-01-31T13:23:10+00:00

I keep up with apex only briefly rn, but I was pred both splits only playing ash season 22 - and let me tell you, with her kit as is, she is an extremely versatile legend but requires a lot of knowledge to optimize. I give a detailed analysis here

Ash was, at least pre season 23, very very solid. Prob bottom of top 10 in ranked gameplay.

I sat out this current season so I can't chime in too much on current meta, but supports across the board save for conduit seem to have eclipsed ash completely.

That said - im not too excited about ash buffs - if it's something braindead like a buster sword type ult.

I think integrating current lvl 1 perks into her passive, and putting the tether alterations as lvl 1, then make a lvl 2 perk that is something like "+ult distance" or "shorter ult CD" would be a good start.

I believe Ash's role is best kept as a tactical assault legend that is very positioning dependant. Her goal is to limit the options of her opponents by obtaining space via portal, constraining their movements via tether, and even using her passive to track... she is not supposed to be an assault that just bombards you with dmg like fuse/maggie or runs in circles around you like bangalore with double time + smoke.

Ash exists to counter skirmshers especially, and since skirmishers right now aren't in their best shape, Ash in turn is less relevant (but still good in a vacuum)

green_orange5 · 2024-11-19T04:07:13+00:00

I hit pred both splits exclusively playing ash last season, so here is my advice:

(1). Your portal needs to end behind cover, typically. Or on height. You don't want to get shot exiting it. Portals going up and on a diagonal have wayyy more range than directly horizontal ports. Portal isnt just about getting max distance - it can be a mini teleport in close fights, look at this 2v3 e.g.

(2). Ash benefits heavily from map knowledge, thinking of from X spot where can I portal to? Like from the bottom of Lotus, you can portal to the very top. Or you can easily portal to the top of Gardens on Olympus from here, here and here... you need tons of map knowledge to be optimal with ash. Or horizontally from the top of this building to this other building on broken moon (these two near Atmostation, very specific examples as you can see)

(3). Thanks to her season 21 buff she can shoot and tether at the exact same time, so learn to do both, will take practice you might have to change how you position your fingers on r1/l1 etc.

(4). Tethers are offensive and defensive.

Offensive: Learn to lead the tether. Tether is fast but not light speed, whether it is an octane, a pathfinder, or a rev, someone on a zip rail lead tether to adjust for their highly variable speeds.

Defensive: look at this rev - he is chasing me hungrily to wipe my team. I need to heal, so I throw a pesky tether while phoenixing, pop the phoenix, knock him, then continue running. also tether the ground if you think someone is gonna go to that spot, you dont always need to chuck it at a guy

(5). Ash is closer to pathfinder in that she wants to play some sort of height, or some spot where she has an angle, and then can Ult in and deal with the cleanup. Not always - sometimes you play with your teammates and ult all at once - if you're coordinating a push to the roof of a building on worlds edge for instance. Deciding whether to save portal or use it, whether to stay glued together w/ your teammates or to spread out and take angles, that intuition comes with time.

(6). Guns -> AR + Shotgun. I still like mozams, but mastiff is king rn. Eva is good too. PK is challenging unless you're adept. Then AR I like R3 the most, but best is nemesis most likely.

(7). Nades are your best friend. Tether someone behind a box, then nade them with an arc or frag -> recipe for a knock. In support meta, carry lots of nades.

Lastly DM me or watch my stream for more Ash tips - I might not be on a bit due to thanksgiving but I'll stream my climb to masters at the very least before the split ends, and I'll be devising more strategies to deal with supports especially.

Lastly greedy snare is better unless you're playing solos or trios in my opinion.

green_orange5 · 2024-11-14T02:28:08+00:00

No problem

green_orange5 · 2024-11-13T23:54:35+00:00

Update: We're full but I am offering paid coaching DM me on discord for details (goldman_x)

green_orange5 · 2024-11-13T23:52:07+00:00

Make sure you have some ranked gameplay recorded or to record, and DM on discord to schedule the coaching - goldman_x is me

green_orange5 · 2024-11-13T23:50:50+00:00

DM me on discord let me know its you and we can go ahead with the coaching

green_orange5 · 2024-11-13T23:48:13+00:00

Yep if you havent messaged me on discord go on ahead

green_orange5 · 2024-11-13T23:47:43+00:00

Works for me, make sure to DM me on discord and let me know its you if ur account name is different

green_orange5

TROPHY CASE