Bangalore is one of the more popular characters in Apex Legends. Her kit may be simple, but it is very effective and easy to play around with. She can be likened to Soldier 76 in Overwatch: they are easy to use but hard to master. These characters are also assault-type, with not much going on in the glamorous side of things. Recently, Apex Legends players are clamoring for some change in Bangalore’s kit since one of her skills can occasionally detriment her and her team. Nevertheless, Bangalore is a viable Legend in Season 11 of Apex Legends and one of the more popular picks in ranked and unranked.
Who is Bangalore?
Bangalore, or Anita Williams, is a professional soldier. She was the top of her class in the academy and the only cadet that could take apart the Peacekeeper shotgun, load it up with the Precision Choke hop-up and assemble it back together within twenty seconds – all while being blindfolded. She was born into a military family; all of her family members -parents and four older brothers – worked with the Interstellar Manufacturing Corporation.
While on IMS Hestia, Bangalore and her brother Jackson were attacked by unknown forces. The ship was bombarded, and the outer hull blew out a chunk of the ship. After crashing, Bangalore looked for her brother, to no avail. Her brother protected her and was sucked into the vacuum of space. She now participates in the Apex Games to raise money and hire a pilot to take her back home to reunite with her family.
In-game, Bangalore is a flexible and easy-to-learn Legend. She is defined by her versatility and her abilities both on offense and defense. She is an elusive runner and a devastating face-to-face fighter. Bangalore has three abilities in her kit. Her passive is Double Time. Her active skills are Smoke Launcher, Tactical, and her Ultimate, Rolling Thunder. Her kit makes her a great close-range gunfighter; along with Octane, Wraith, Mirage, Revenant, Horizon, and Fuze, she is an Offensive Legend.
Bangalore is one of the ‘free ‘Legends in the game. She has been in the game since its launch. Therefore, everybody had the time to practice using her. Yet, she is not easy to play successfully because one of her skills sometimes confuses her and her teammates.
Playing Bangalore: The Basics
Here are some of the basics to keep in mind while playing as Bangalore in Apex Legends:
- Dive in for the fight. Bangalore’s Passive and Tactical both allow you to fight in and fight out. It is a waste of the Passive skill if you are going to just turtle around and duck a fight. Due to this very reason, equipping a shotgun or a submachine gun is optimal for her as you have to fight in close range more often than not.
- It is okay to run away. There is no shame in getting out of a hairy fight. Bangalore’s kit also allows her and her teammates to scram when the going gets tough. Just get out the fight, heal up and / or replenish your shield, and dive in again (or find a better position).
- Smoking is good for your teammates health. Before you revive your teammates, blast the smokes to cover him or her and you from enemies. While the smoke totally covers everything in your vision, the location indicatior of your knocked down teammate is visible, therefore you can safely approach him or her. Beware of enemies like Seer and Bloodhound as they can scan out enemies behind the smoke.
- Bangalore friendly fires. Everyone already knows that the smoke covers up the vision of everyone including Bangalore herself. Her Ultimate, Rolling Thunder, although does not damage teammates, do stun them. Before throwing in the Ultimate, make sure that your teammates know that you are doing it, otherwise they might plunge into the area where the Ultimate is being cast.
- Listen to the incessant gun tutorials. In the game, Bangalore will assist you in learning about firearms. If you ping a gun, she will frequently recite some tips and wisdom nuggets about how the gun performs and how far is its range. This makes Bangalore the best Legend for beginning players in learning the guns. After the basics are covered, you may opt not to ping guns on the ground anymore as it will be far grating.
How to Use Bangalore Skills in Apex Legends
How to use Bangalore’s Passive Double Time
In-game Description:
Taking Fire while sprinting causes you to move quickly for a short period.
Bangalore’s passive is one of the most dependable passive skills available to any Legend in Apex Legends. There is not much to say about this ability: it is just a wonderful perk to have on your side when getting ambushed or during an intense firefight. When Bangalore is getting shot – hit or miss – and even within her area, she gets a 30 percent speed boost, which is extremely useful for avoiding danger and repositioning for a flank attack.
Below are some tips on how to take advantage of this Passive skill:
- Bangalore’s Passive triggers when being shot, regardless if getting hit or not. It does not even need to be a near-miss for Double Time to proc. This makes her invaluable in disrupting a surprise attack or getting close to sniping enemies.
- Apex Legends is the game that encourages moving instead of camping. Hence, Double Time is perfect in both defense and offense. Bangalore must be used as a hyper-aggressive troublemaker.
- You can make use of its reactionary nature by moving out into the open and provoking some enemy fire, just so your Passive procs and you obtain the speed increase to aid in repositioning or pushing into enemy positions.
How to use Bangalore’s Tactical Smoke Launcher
In-game Description:
Fire a high-velocity smoke canister, which explodes into a smoke wall upon impact.
The first thing to understand about Bangalore’s tactical ability is that it has a cooldown of 30 seconds. Secondly, there are two charges with your Smoke Launcher – you can see two bars next to your Tactical ability icon that represents your current number of charges. Each of these charges is expended and filled up individually, and with each use, you shoot a grenade that explodes on impact, creating a massive screen of smoke that you cannot see through unless you are Bloodhound or have a Digital Threat sight.
Below are some tips on how to take advantage of this Tactical skill.
- The smoke lasts for 20 seconds. This means there is a 66% uptime (This basically means how long of a period your the smoke goes up versus how much time it is on cooldown) when you use both of the smoke charges. This is why it is important
- Digital Threat is the number one attachment that every Bangalore player must seek. This attachment allows the Bangalore to see through her own smoke. It is also nice to have another teammate with a digital threat, but that would be incredibly lucky to find another one in the same vicinity. Gutting out enemy squads is a great way to farm some Digital Threat. Bloodhound can also scan through teh smoke and his Ultimate absolutely negates the smoke. That said, Bloodhound is the best ally and at the same time, the worst enemy, if you are playing as Bangalore.
- The smoke explosion actually does a meager 10 damage, not really much and totally negligible.
- The smoke is also the best way to get out of bad situation. In fact, most of the times, this is used to cover your squad from long range attacks.
- The smoke can also be used as cover when you are healing up or replenishing your shield. Just be sure this is during an active battle, otherwise, you are just giving up your position when you smoke up without actual reasons.
How to use Bangalore’s Ultimate Rolling Thunder
In-game Description:
Call in an artillery strike that will sweep across the landscape slowly.
Bangalore’s Ultimate ability enables her to toss a canister, and wherever that canister lands, an artillery strike blows it up to smithereens. Rockets will rain down in a zig-zag manner across a vast area where the canister falls, spreading out in the direction hurled. Each rocket that has buried itself on the ground will detonate after four seconds, stunning and causing 40 damage to any enemy, ally, and even Bangalore herself. This Ultimate has a three-minute cooldown.
Bangalore’s Ultimate tips:
- Prioritize using Bangalore’s Ultimate as a defensive tool rather than an offensive weapon. It is best utilized to retreat or reposition, or to impede the advance of an opponent team especially if it is another squad that you are not fighting.
- Do not use your Ultimate without your teammates knowing. Again, it does not damage your teammates, but it still stuns them.
- If you want to utilize your Ultimate offensively use it as an engagement, because otherwise, the missiles will land too late to be effective.
- The rockets will launch from the canister and then spread outward. So, instead of placing your canister directly on top of the enemy, place it between your team and the enemy team; otherwise, the enemy would be able to quickly escape the AoE by pressing towards you.
- The missiles cover a 6-meter square and can travel up to 70 meters ahead of the flare.
Bangalore versus Other Legends
The best allies for Bangalore are Bloodhound, Seer, and Crypto. In that order, Bloodhound’s active and Ultimate skills allow him through everything, even Bangalore’s smoke. This is why he is the best ally for Bangalore. Also, she is her greatest rival.
Seer is the more powerful legend in terms of scanning when compared to Bloodhound. He is a weaker fighter than Bloodhound, who has his Ultimate, The Beast of the Hunt, which adds speed and reduces the cooldown of his active. However, he will most likely receive a nerf after this season, just like Bloodhound Seer’s entire kit is to scan Legends in an area.
Crypto is also not affected by the smoke because of his drone. However, unlike Bloodhound and Seer, Crypto must actively control the drone to utilize its scanning ability. He is reduced to an audience for him to be effective.
Bangalore is unique because all Legends that work best with her ultimately cancel her out if they are her opponents except Crypto, of course, as he is less effective as a scout when battles are going on. Finally, Gibraltar’s dome shield and Watson’s Ultimate Pylon disallows her canisters to operate. So try to run down these Legends first before attempting to use your own Ultimate.
