Apex Legends Tier List: Best Legends for Marked Split 2

Apex Legends: Marked Split 2 went live on September 15, and it brought one of the more substantial Legend balance passes of Season 30. Four Legends got real, multi-part buffs, two took nerfs, and the base loot pool shifted toward more healing. That's enough to reshuffle who's worth locking in for Ranked or pubs right now. This is our opinion tier list, built directly from the official Marked Midseason patch notes, not vibes or old data.

01What Changed in Marked Split 2

The patch notes, published September 14, split Legend changes into two camps. Conduit, Fuse, Catalyst and Bloodhound all received buffs; Axle and Seer were toned down. Respawn also explained the reasoning behind some of it in the Marked Midseason Designer's Notes, including why Catalyst needed a second look despite buffs earlier in the season and why the Seer tactical's turn-slow effect on enemies felt bad to play against.

Outside of Legends, the update leans on more healing items in the base loot pool and loot bin resets, a widened Weapon Assist pool covering every base weapon, and new anti-cheat detection for unauthorized controller hardware across PC, PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo Switch 2. None of that changes a Legend's kit directly, but it does shift what a squad can afford to run, which matters for a couple of picks below. You can see the whole roster and class breakdown on Respawn's own Apex Legends site if you want the full context before you queue.

Apex Legends: Marked Gameplay Trailer, uploaded July 28, 2026 ahead of the season launch.

02S Tier: The Best Legends Right Now

Conduit got the widest buff in the patch. Her Tactical now previews how much Temp Shield the barricade will generate, and her Ultimate deploys faster, can be toggled to fire jammers in a forward line, and spawns those jammers higher, closer together and quicker to activate. Two new Level 2 Upgrades stack on top: Concurrency lets the Ultimate refire with no cooldown within 10 seconds in a tighter formation, and Jammed Up gives a 25% larger radius plus a 10-second HUD jam on anyone caught inside. That's a full kit upgrade, not a number tweak, and it makes her one of the best Support Legends in the game this split.

Fuse is right behind her. His passive now grants 25% explosive damage resistance and highlights nearby ordnance within 30 meters, his Tactical gained a base Knuckle Jump with a faster return to guns and the ability to ADS while airborne, and his Ultimate raises faster, arcs differently for quicker landings and pops its mini-bombs sooner. Pyro Techniques' radius doubled and Reignition moved down to a Level 2 Upgrade with a different recharge rate. Fuse plays like an aggression Legend should now, and the numbers back it up.

Catalyst went from a niche Ranked pick to a genuine anchor. Her Tactical auto-reinforces doors, its cooldown dropped from 20 to 15 seconds, and the spikes are taller and now deal projectile damage. Her Ultimate casts much faster and no longer slows or blinds her own team, which was the single biggest complaint about playing her in a squad. The new Level 3 Upgrade, Ferro-Frenzy, adds more spikes at 50% smaller size with faster tick damage, which is a real answer to teams that just walked through her old wall.

Bloodhound is Season 30's focal Legend for a reason. Their Tactical scan lasts a full second longer and its fading snapshots persist longer too, so you get more usable intel per cast. Their Ultimate is where the real upgrade lives: cloak visibility inside the dome is reduced, and taking ring damage no longer drops the cloak, so you can hold a rotation through the ring edge without losing your only defensive tool. Between the kit and the season spotlight, Bloodhound is a safe first pick in any lobby.

03A Tier: Strong, Reliable Picks

Bangalore didn't touch the patch notes and doesn't need to. Smoke Launcher for cover, Double Time for punishing rotations, and Rolling Thunder for zoning a fight are still one of the most flexible loadouts in the game, and that consistency is worth an A-tier slot on its own.

Lifeline is quietly better this split purely because of the loot changes. Her D.O.C. Heal Drone and Combat Revive already made her the default support pick, and a base loot pool with more healing items in it plays directly into her strengths, since she's the Legend best equipped to spend all of it.

Gibraltar is unglamorous but dependable. Dome of Protection still wins fights in doorways and on point, and Defensive Bombardment still punishes teams that push into it. Nothing changed for him this patch, and he didn't need anything to remain one of the safer holds in the game.

Alter rounds out the tier as a flex pick. Her portal and dimensional-rift tools give a squad rotation options most Legends can't match, and while she didn't get a Split 2 buff, nothing above her on the patch notes made her worse either.

04B Tier: Solid but Situational

Horizon still has one of the best mobility kits in the game between the gravity lift and her black hole Ultimate, but she's competing with several Legends that got direct buffs this split, so she slides from a default pick to a situational one.

Crypto brings real value with his recon drone and EMP, especially for scouting and disabling enemy tech, but intel alone doesn't compete with the aggression buffs Fuse and Catalyst just received.

Loba's Black Market Boutique and bracelet teleport are excellent utility for looting and repositioning, though nothing about Split 2 pushes her past a solid, dependable third pick.

Ash's Phase Breach Ultimate is one of the best rotation and third-party tools around, and her Tactical marks a clear path to a fight, but she's unaffected by this patch and gets outclassed by the S-tier kit upgrades above.

Seer is the other Legend that changed this split, and not for the better. His Tactical no longer applies a turn-slow to enemies it hits, which Respawn's own designer's notes say was intentional because the effect felt frustrating to play against. His scan and Ultimate are untouched, so he still gathers intel well, but the crowd-control edge that made him a Ranked lock is gone.

05C Tier and Below: Needs Work

Caustic's gas traps remain a build-around pick rather than a flexible one, and a loot pool that's handing out more healing items softens the damage-over-time pressure his kit relies on.

Ballistic's kit is entirely about weapon uptime and reloads, and with no changes this split, he's simply outpaced by Legends whose whole kits just improved.

Axle takes the clearest step down of the split. Tactical launch speed dropped from 750 to 700, and the Ultimate lost a third of its HP (200 to 150), had its cooldown pushed from 90 to 120 seconds, saw its knockback arc widened with reduced height, and had its stun duration cut from 1.5 seconds to just 0.25. Respawn did add a new Drone Deployer Upgrade that can bring that cooldown back down to 90 seconds, but it costs an upgrade slot to undo part of a nerf that hit almost every part of the kit. If Axle was your main going into Split 2, expect a rougher lobby until you adjust.

06Best Duos and Trios for Split 2

Tier placement matters less than how two or three kits actually work together, especially with a loot pool that now rewards squads who can use everything they pick up. A few pairings stand out this split: Catalyst plus Gibraltar turns any building into a genuine hold, since reinforced doors and a Dome of Protection cover each other's weaknesses. Conduit plus Lifeline stacks Temp Shield generation on top of Combat Revive and the extra healing in the loot pool, which is close to a stall-proof backline. And Fuse plus Bloodhound gives a squad both the tracking to find a fight and the explosive pressure to end it fast once Bloodhound's cloak buys the opening.

How to build your Split 2 legend pool

1. 1Build around Conduit, Fuse, Catalyst or Bloodhound so at least one pick in your squad benefits directly from a Split 2 buff.
2. 2Run Lifeline or a heavy heal loadout to take advantage of the larger healing pool in loot bins and resets this split.
3. 3Match a hold Legend like Catalyst or Gibraltar with a rotation tool like Ash or Alter so your squad can both defend a point and disengage from it.
4. 4If Axle is your main, grab the new Drone Deployer Upgrade first to claw back some of the Ultimate cooldown the patch removed.
5. 5The wider Weapon Assist coverage means more of your squad's guns count toward it, so don't force a specific weapon just to trigger the perk.
6. 6Let the tier list settle once players have logged real matches on the September 14 changes instead of locking your pool on day one.

None of this is set in stone. Split 2 is brand new, and rankings like this one settle over the first few weeks as players find the edges of these kits in real matches, not patch notes. Treat this as a starting point for your own pool, not a substitute for playing the Legends yourself, and check the patch notes directly if a number here ever looks off after a hotfix.