The Apex Legends Iron Crown Collection Event will begin in a few short days, giving players a chance to grind for the title of Apex Champion in a limited-time Solos Mode.

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One of the biggest challenges of Apex Legends Solos revolves around whether there’s enough character balance to prevent lobbies from being comprised of only one or two different characters. Recently, TheGamer shared its top Apex Legends character picks for players grinding toward wins in Solos. Now, it’s time to run down the characters that won’t stand a chance without major buffs.

Bloodhound

via: Respawn Entertainment

Bloodhound, the game’s mysterious gender non-binary tracker being, is arguably one of the most interesting characters in the entire Apex arena. However, their Tactical Ability is questionable for Solos, and their Ultimate Ability is simply not useful in this mode.

The Respawn team buffed the character’s Eye of the Allfather Tactical Ability for Season 2, adding adjustments that improved its potential to briefly expose hidden enemies and follow their movements. This tactical is useful in a team play situation, as teammates can also learn enemies’ locations and hone in on them as a group. However, the fact that this tactical exposes the player’s own whereabouts fully counters any potential benefits in Solos.

Bloodhound’s Beast of the Hunt Ultimate Ability poses even greater challenges. The ability, which highlights enemies in red and also gives players a speed boost, is extremely noisy.

While not ideal for team play, coordinated teams can still use this noisiness to their advantage. A loud Bloodhound can provide a distraction to opposing teams, allowing the non-Bloodhound players to quickly pick off enemies as they reveal themselves.

However, a Bloodhound running their Ultimate in a Solos game becomes a moving target. The noisy ultimate means multiple enemy players will hear the character, allowing them to team up on the Bloodhound from all different directions.

Gibraltar

via: Respawn Entertainment

There’s an argument that Gibraltar needs a buff in the game, period, but the character’s lack of potential in a Solos mode makes the reasoning especially obvious.

Gibraltar already has one of the largest hitboxes in the game. This makes him much easier to hit than characters with smaller hitboxes, such as Wraith and Lifeline. Pair that with the fact that both his Gun Shield and Dome of Protection abilities give away his location, and it presents real challenges in competitive Solo play.

Gibraltar, as well as Caustic, both have Fortified Passive Perks that allows these characters to take 15% more damage and also prevents the movement slowdown that other characters get upon taking shots. Developed as a response to their under-utilization as players gravitated toward stronger characters, this still hasn’t done much to increase Gibraltar’s popularity with gamers.

The fact that the Gun Shield can absorb extra damage in combat is huge, but unfortunately, few choose to exercise this advantage in combat. It takes a moment to materialize and once it’s done rendering, it’s extremely visible, even from far away. Pair this with the fact that players can only use it when aiming down sights, and it’s simply not effective in medium- or close-range gunfights.

In team play, the Dome Shield can be useful to protect players from incoming damage, giving them space to revive teammates and to avoid Gibraltar’s bombardment should a player choose to use it. However, in Solos, in spite of any protection, its high visibility makes Gibraltar a target by drawing attention from other players. Because it’s so short, Gibraltar can only move so far away from it before it times out. Because it gives away his location, the use of the shield leaves him vulnerable to snipers, counter-strike attacks, and so on.

It’s also worth noting that in Solo Mode, one would expect far more 1v1 fights than in team play. As such, Gibraltar’s Defensive Bombardment isn’t as useful as it is in team play due to the fact that it’s unlikely anyone would want to use this on just one enemy. The end game could pose a rare exception, as this stage will have multiple opponents in a steadily-shrinking ring.

Mirage

via: Respawn Entertainment

A few months ago, Respawn buffed Mirage’s Ultimate Ability by making him completely invisible during its use, as opposed to rendering the character’s outline while active as it had previously. As of Season 2, players also have the option to uncloak from the invisible state as they wish. These were all welcome changes.

However, the big Mirage challenge is that six months in the game, Mirage’s decoys aren’t bamboozling anyone anymore.

Every person who plays Apex Legends with regularity is aware that, upon being knocked, Mirage leaves a decoy behind and has a few seconds to reposition. Solos will render this ability mostly useless, except possibly in the case where Mirage has a Gold Knockdown shield that allows them to self-revive. But even so, an enemy would likely see this character in a downed state and, in order to finish the kills, chase the character until they materialize. Therefore, it seems unlikely that the Encore! Passive Ability will have much use in Solos.

The bigger concern is Mirage’s Psyche Out Tactical Ability, which allows the character to deploy a decoy. This once-useful skill became less useful in recent months as people who play the game frequently can easily tell a decoy from an actual Mirage character simply by the way it moves.

Sometimes, in a 3v3 team play situation, Mirage players can get away with this in the confusion of a fight, where bullets, smoke, and gas all contribute to the chaos. In a 1v1 Solo Mode situation, it’s hard to say that the decoy will do much beyond allowing the enemy to infer a Mirage’s location based on the direction the decoy runs.

Octane

via: Respawn Entertainment

Octane does little that other characters don’t do better. Players have come up with some creative uses for the Launch Pad Ultimate Ability, but ultimately, gamers can reposition themselves just as quickly and even reach higher areas using Pathfinder’s zip line and grapple.

While the Swift Mend health regeneration ability is helpful, it works slowly as compared to Lifeline’s health drone. Additionally, hiding and healing with a Med Kit is typically much more useful than waiting for full health regeneration after taking damage.

Octane’s Stim Tactical Ability gives players a 30% speed increase, but it requires health to use and, like Bloodhound’s Ultimate, it’s noisy. Contrast this to Bangalore who can move more quickly when taking damage and doesn’t make additional noise leveraging this ability. Typically, a Bangalore can also hide their exact whereabouts in smoke for an added layer of protection. And, while Octane’s on-demand speed boost can be useful in situations, such as getting loot at the start of the game, the 10% health reduction may not be worth it to the average player—particularly when players can use Pathfinder’s grapple for similar purposes while taking no health loss.

Independently, these skills are valuable. However, the character currently doesn’t possess any traits that provide true strategic advantages for Solos.

RELATED: Apex Legends Solos: The Best Characters

One of the main things these characters have in common is that their abilities frequently give away their exact locations at range, either through sound or visual cues. Contrast that with characters like Wraith or Bangalore, whose abilities serve to obscure their locations, and it’s easy to see why the characters outlined above are inferior choices.

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