Apex Legends Alter Guide for Beginners: Season 21
In season 21, a new character was released. Today, we present the Apex Legends Alter guide for beginners.
Table of Contents
The new hero of Apex Legends season 21 is Alter, she was released on May 7, 2024. If you’ve been wondering how to play Alter, you’ll find the answer here! In this guide, we’ll share useful information about her abilities, as well as tips and tricks for the new Apex Legend.
Who is Alter?
Most likely, Alter’s real name is YingLing Lui (雷盈灵); she’s Chinese. Besides that, we don’t know Alter’s age, we don’t know where she’s from, in fact, we don’t know anything for sure. Alter is an interdimensional traveler who enjoys observing or contributing to the world’s endings. Ironically, when she arrived at the Apex Games, Olympus from an alternate dimension appeared in the sky with her, crashing into Broken Moon’s defenses, making it even more broken.
Alter did what she wanted in different dimensions, often stealing things and deceiving people for fun, then going to the next dimension. Without facing the consequences of her actions, Alter lost any morality and responsibility. Alter said that she noticed one pattern: many destroyed worlds were ruined not by some random event but destroyed by the same person. We only know that all this is somehow connected with Horizon and that Alter and Horizon met many times in other dimensions.
Why Play Alter in Apex Legends?
Alter’s abilities allow her to be both a good entry fragger and an anchor character; it’s as if Wraith were actually good. In our tier list, Alter takes an honorable first place in the S-tier. This means that her abilities are strong and versatile enough to suit any playstyle and complement any team.
Apex Legends Alter’s Strengths
Alter and her squad can be mobile, rotate on the map quickly, aggressively engage in fights, and successfully retreat. Alter can also gather some helpful information using her Passive.
Apex Legends Alter’s Weaknesses
Alter is not very good in defensive positions; in particular, she’s more likely to break through them instead. When Alter leaves her Ult on the ground, enemies can destroy it at any moment. Teleportation also leaves her and her team in a vulnerable position as after shifting to the device, a rift remains at that place through which enemies can pursue her. If Alter has Caustic or Wattson in her squad, they can protect her Ultimate from enemies perfectly.
Alter Abilities
As mentioned above, Alter’s versatile abilities suit any playstyle. She’s both a great team player and a perfect solo. Alter is also suitable for both aggressive gameplay and more strategic, slow-paced ones.
Class
Alter is a Skirmisher Legend. This means that Alter can see the most valuable loot in the Care Package and ping it to the team as well. Additionally, if someone has already opened and robbed the Care Package, Alter can also see it, which allows her to gain important information about the enemies’ location.
Passive Ability: Gift from the Rift
Can remotely interact with a deathbox to claim one item. It cannot be a shield core.
Useful information:
- The range of the Passive is 75 meters. For comparison, the usual radius in which you can loot deathboxes manually is approximately 2 meters.
- The skull icon indicates deathboxes that Alter has not yet looked into.
- The color of the deathbox, as usual, matches the rarity color of the most valuable item in it.
- Alter can’t steal shield cores from deathboxes but can take shield cells and batteries.
Tactical Ability: Void Passage
Creates a portal passageway (Q) through a surface. The cooldown is 30 seconds.
Useful information:
- The portal activates for 1 second and lasts 15 seconds. Traveling through the Void also takes 1 second.
- The maximum range for placing the portal is 45 meters, and its maximum depth is 20 meters.
- While inside the Void, all players are immune to any type of damage except the Ring.
- Alter can choose not only the portal entrance but also the exit direction if holding the Tactical button.
- If Alter places the passage on the ceiling, the lower portal will create a pillar of Void energy leading to the passage. In this case, you will need to press the interaction button to enter the Void. It can be used as a quick climb to higher ground, similar to the Horizon’s Tactical.
- All players can see the outline of the entry and exit portals, including enemies.
- There is a warning indicator for an enemy portal being placed nearby, similar to the warning for thrown ordnance.
- While traveling through any Void, enemies will be highlighted in red.
Ultimate Ability: Void Nexus
Create a regroup point (Z) that all allies can remotely interact with to open a phase tunnel back to that location. Charge time is 3.5 minutes.
Useful information:
- Even knocked players can use Nexus and teleport.
- Void Nexus lasts 120 seconds.
- The teleport action takes 3 seconds. Traveling through the Void takes up to 6 seconds, depending on the distance and the obstacles.
- The maximum range for teleporting is 200 meters. Alter and her team can see a purple circle on the minimap, which shows the current Nexus radius.
- Players can only teleport to one Nexus once. When looking towards the Nexus, players can see small character icons showing who has already used it.
- After someone teleports to the Nexus, a Void rift remains there. The rift appears after 6 seconds of the player’s teleport and lasts 10 seconds.
- Both enemies and allies can teleport through the rift. Alter’s teammates can use it to save their teleport token.
- Enemies and Alter herself can destroy the Nexus.
- After traveling through the Void, the weapon will be holstered.
Alter Legend Upgrades
Starting with Season 20, each Legend received four upgrades available in every Battle Royale game. It’s two additional skills per match.
Level 2 Upgrades
- Ultimate Cooldown: Reduces Void Nexus’ cooldown to 3 minutes
- Void vision: Highlight persists after tactical phase. See enemy health bars after exiting your portal.
In addition to the new Season 21 feature that always highlights enemies red in the Void of any source, Alter can also see their health bars, which is extremely helpful.
Level 3 Upgrades
- Unending Nexus: Void Nexus no longer times out.
- Tactical Cooldown+: Reduces Void Passage’s cooldown to 20 seconds.
While an infinite Nexus seems like an attractive option, it’s rarely practical in reality. So, we recommend choosing the Tactical cooldown reduction, which will give you almost infinite Tactical charges, considering that it lasts 15 seconds itself.
Tips and Tricks to Play Alter in Apex Legends
Utilize Tactical
Learn to use your Tactical and place portals on different surfaces and in different directions. You can also bamboozle enemies by placing a portal but not using it to enter from the other side. Void Passage allows you to ignore Wattson, Rampart, and Catalyst’s Tacticals, as well as Conduit’s Ult, but not Caustic’s abilities.
You can also use Alter’s Tactical to kidnap enemies, similar to Wraith’s Ult. Also, if an enemy is chasing you, you can leave a portal on the floor as a trap in front of the door and close it. This will not give them a chance to knock down the door or camp you there. Or vice versa, if the enemy is blocking the door for you, you can simply place a portal nearby.
You can place a portal in the closed Explosive Hold on Kings Canyon, as well as into the Vaults at World’s Edge and Olympus, and rob them, but note that it causes the alarm and may alert nearby enemies. In addition, crouching before using the portal and jumping before exiting the Void will significantly boost your jump height.
Use Abilities Strategically
While Alter is fun to play, and you can just spam portals and go to enemies’ faces, it’s better to use her abilities to your and your team’s advantage. For example, you can determine the enemies’ location and third-party them by newly appeared deathboxes with your Passive. You can also loot deathboxes through walls if you enter them via Passive first but then get within two meters of them, which will trigger manual looting even if you’re behind the wall.
Don’t forget to promptly leave the Nexus in a safe spot approximately 100 meters from the expected battle or before pushing the enemies. Alter’s Ult can not only help you successfully retreat from a dangerous situation but also reunite with your teammates if you get separated. You can also use Alter’s Tactical to rotate around the map and take shortcuts.
Alter Loadout Recommendations
Since Alter is primarily an entry fragger, it’s best to use weapons that can quickly deal a lot of damage, such as Shotguns or SMGs. However, Alter’s Ult allows her to take an anchor role, covering teammates from afar. In this case, Marksman Weapons and Sniper Rifles will come in handy.
Loadout examples:
- R-99 SMG / C.A.R. SMG + Peacekeeper / Mastiff
- R-301 Carbine / VK-47 Flatline / Nemesis Burst AR + 30-30 Repeater / Sentinel
- HAVOC Rifle / L-STAR EMG/ Alternator SMG + Wingman
Conclusions
Now you have Alter’s abilities explained, so she is no longer a mystery to you, except for her identity. Alter is especially good in a squad with Caustic, Fuse, Bloodhound, Lifeline, or Newcastle.
Share in the comments what new you learned from this guide and what Legend you would like to see next!
Comments