Apex Legends — Caustic Guide
Imagine this scenario: You’re running through the tight corridor in Bunker, trying to make your way to the next room upstairs where you can perhaps find a weapon to take on the opposing team that is inevitably coming after you. You find a weapon, but your teammate goes down outside. You go to revive him, and the enemy team comes over and takes you and your other teammate out, eliminating your squad. If you’ve played Apex Legends, you’ve gone through this bad situation at least once or twice at this point. It can be so painful to be sent back to the main menu because of something so disheartening.
Caustic is a way of saying no to this issue. He provides a way of preventing enemies from getting up to you, allowing you to get off the res on your teammate that could potentially secure your team the squad kill and keep you in the game. This requires some prior knowledge of the character as well as a few ways of dealing with the situation.
Firstly though, let’s go through his abilities. His main ability, Nox Gas Trap, sets down a trap that will go off either when shot or when an enemy steps near it. The gas it releases will daze an enemy, impairing their vision slightly as well as dealing damage to them. This damage builds up the longer they’re in the gas, increasing by one damage every half a second they’re in the gas. This means they will receive six total damage if they’re in the gas for three seconds, and three total damage if they are in the gas for two seconds. This damage will cap off at 10 damage every half a second. You have three charges of this, but can have up to six on the battlefield at any given time.
His ultimate, Nox Gas Grenade, throws a gas grenade that will create a large area of gas at its landing point. This deals the same amount of damage and has the same kind of effect as the Nox Gas Trap, but goes over a much larger area. This ultimate charges relatively fast, meaning you aren’t going to need ultimate accelerants to get it at a decent speed.
Finally, his passive Nox Vision lets you see an outline of enemies that are in the gas cloud as well as see while in the gas cloud. This only affects you though, as teammates will still get impaired vision if they walk into your gas cloud.
With the abilities out of the way, let’s get into strategy and how to use each of these effectively. The first thing you should understand about Caustic is that he’s not your traditional type of tank. Gibraltar is meant to shield his allies and provide cover for them, but Caustic is meant to provide setup for his team more than anything. You may feel at first that this doesn’t exactly make him feel like a tank and this is definitely an understandable concern. I felt the same thing when I first started playing him. When getting into him though, his gas can be used effectively to provide cover for your teammates as well as effective area denial.
When it comes to his Nox Gas Traps, you’re generally going to want to place these in key choke points between you and the enemy. With the earlier example, you might want to place them all in a straight line inside the bunker. You could also place them in different loot rooms to surprise unsuspecting enemies with a face full of gas. It really depends on the place you’re looting at the start, and what kind of rooms you could put them in. The best thing you can do is try and experiment with this until you find locations that work best for you. There is one glitch that you can do right now that lets you block any door with a gas trap. This will no doubt be patched but might be useful to trap an unsuspecting enemy (or enemies) so you can set up for easy kills.
When you aren’t in smaller locations, the gas traps and gas grenade can both be used to prevent enemies from pushing you. If you put these behind rocks or in hidden places across the battlefield, it can help your team fall back a bit better and reposition for better and easier kills. It can also provide you and them with the vital time needed to use heal items which can turn a fight around completely. This will require high levels of coordination with your squad. It is sadly also what you’re going to be dealing with 90% of the time which means you’ll probably want to play Caustic with a coordinated team of people. It can be done with two random players, but I can’t say you’re going to have the optimal experience.
That’s not to say that Caustic can only be used defensively though, he does have offensive capabilities too although they are much more limited. His gas grenade can prove to be of great effect against enemies that are in cover and can allow your squad to get on even ground with the enemy rather than at a disadvantage. Even the gas traps can be great too, as they can be quickly put on a downed enemy to keep them from being revived.
Another thing to keep in mind is where you’re actually placing the gas traps and how close they are to your teammates. An enemy triggering a nearby gas trap could make the battle an even matchup or even make you at a disadvantage due to the dazing affecting teammates. When done correctly though, it can provide great benefits against aggressive enemy squads and give vision to you which you can relay to your teammates, providing an easy amount of damage or even a down which could give your squad the advantage they need.
Make no mistake, Caustic is a character with a high skill floor and a lot of disadvantages that could make him look not worth having on your team. With the right player and the right group of teammates though, he can prove to be an excellent ally and provide a lot of benefits against certain squads that you wouldn’t get otherwise. If you enjoy area of effect damage characters or characters that have a high skill floor, I would absolutely recommend giving him a go when you can.
