Apex Legends - Escape: who is Ash? History and strategies of the new Legend

Apex Legends - Escape

Each new phase of Apex Legends introduces a new character to the cast of warriors, making that Legend the face of the season. If for Ribalta the star was Seer, a very popular scout by the community, Escape finds its trump card in Ash, a robotic simulacrum as aggressive as it is tactical. A character of great charm that many players have already met in Titanfall 2: Ash is in fact a very important narrative point of conjunction in the history of the Frontier, and it is precisely his belonging to the world of Titanfall that also suggests the right approach to this new character. . So let's combine all the points about the new Apex Legends legend in this article dedicated to Ash's history and game strategy.

Ash's story

Ashleigh Reid dying, before become Ash As we had already told you in a previous special, it all starts with Dr. Ashleigh Reid, assistant to Mary Somers, also known as Horizon. Almost a century before the events of Apex Legends, eighty years to be precise, the Frontier was experiencing a profound energy crisis, as well as being the scene of a long war between the forces of the Rebel Militia and the IMC. Together with her team, Somers comes to the conclusion that the Brathium, a detectable element near a black hole, is the solution to the energy crisis of the Frontier.

Mary and Ashleigh leave for a collection expedition, from which only the assistant of Doctor Somers will return: Reid takes possession of the Branthium and comes back convinced that he has killed Somers, after having dumped it in the black hole. To take Mary's place in the team will be her son Newt, whose traces will be lost. During an assault on the laboratory led by Reid herself and flanked by the forces of the IMC, the doctor is fatally wounded, first cornered by Pathfinder, created by her own research team with the aim of handling the Branthium (highly radioactive if not contained) and impressed by Wattson's grandmother. Ashleigh becomes Ash the moment her brain is grafted into a robotic body to save herself.

Players learn all this collateral by following mainly the story of Horizon, which covers the portion of " human life "by Ash. The character, however, joined Apex well before the arrival of Horizon, when she was introduced as organizer of the Arenas, a mode that has now joined the classic battle royale mode of Apex Legends for several seasons. To awaken Ash thinks Loba, hired by Hammond Robotics: the corporation asks Miss Andrade to recover nine fragments of a simulacrum, containing valuable information. In return, the company agrees to deliver the source code for Revenant, another simulacrum (and other roster Legend) that killed her parents when she was only nine. Loba honors her pact and Hammond Robotics extracts everything it can from Ash, then dumps it into a dumpster.

Pathfinder literally picks it up from her waste, obviously oblivious to Ash's true nature . The MRVN instantly becomes attached to Ash, due to her synthetic nature, and lovingly rebuilds it. Part of the human memory belonging to Ashleigh resurfaces in the simulacrum and, having contacted the organizer of the Apex games, Kuben Blisk, Ash first becomes the organizer of the Arenas, and then finally joins the Apex games.

What happens between Ashleigh's death and Ash's reactivation during Apex games? To tell the story is the single player campaign of Titanfall 2.

Ash in Titanfall 2

Ash aboard his Titan Ronin in Titanfall 2 In Titanfall 2 we follow the adventure of the Militia pilot Jack Cooper and his Titan, BT. Coop and BT encounter Ash after meeting Kuben Blisk, leader of the mercenary faction Apex Predators. Among the ranks of this group the most trained and daring pilots served, including Viper, father of Valkyrie and killed by Coop. With an immortal body serving a brilliant mind, it isn't long before Ash and Blisk meet and she becomes the lieutenant of the Apex Predators. Cooper and BT meet her at two different times; initially the Pilot / Titan duo is trapped in a training dome that Ash uses to train the Apex recruits, and here we must admire the elegance of the narrative direction of the Respawn Entertainment team who, after years, has managed to connect different aspects of the character's personality.

Ash was born as a scientist, a woman accustomed to observing her experiments, and it is no coincidence that in her finisher in Apex Legends there is a mouse on her sword, a small guinea pig. laboratory that remembers its origins, and to which it seems to be fond of. As Lead Writer Amanda Doiron said, "By training and controlling the mouse, Ash shows in a way the control she maintains over herself, over her humanity." On the other hand, inserting her initially as the organizer of the arenas is very reminiscent of the first meeting of the dome of Titanfall 2. The second cross between Ash and Cooper will be a duel between Titan, where BT will have the better of the Ronin piloted by Ash. Another little curiosity: defeating Ash in the Titanfall 2 campaign unlocks the "Dust to Dust" achievement, while the motto used to launch the Legend in Apex Legends is "Ashes to Ash". Dust to dust, ashes to ashes.

Ash and his trained mouse during a finisher in Apex Legends Ash is defeated on Typhon by Coop and BT, who snatch the simulacrum from the Ronin's cockpit and shatter the torso, but leaving the head intact. Ash's wreckage is then recovered by Vinson Dynamics, an event that justifies Ash's presence as team leader of the VD faction in Titanfall 2 multiplayer. After several years, Blisk, now without his trusty Apex Predators and without a war to fight. , decides to start another successful business, the Apex games; before embarking on this new venture, he takes possession of Ash's robot head and throws it into an energy portal. What this mass of energy was is unclear, but the result is that the simulacrum's skull is transported to an alternate dimension and fragmented into nine pieces, scattered across King's Canyon. This is where Loba's quest will start, which we told you a few lines earlier.

Ash's life has certainly been long and full of accidents: the simulacrum has been rebuilt over and over and what emerges, What's more, the interesting part of the story at this point is that Ash is clearly split into two distinct personalities. To have the upper hand is certainly the most calculating and petty part, that of the mercenary who fought the war on the Frontier. In the personal phrases of the character then, many have been included relating to his past as a Pilot, which highlight how Ash feels superior to all the other participants of the Apex games (and also reinforce the concept in Apex Legends that, in war, those who counted indeed, they were the soldiers authorized to use the Titans). Every so often, however, the more human part of Ash tries to emerge: Ashleigh is still there somewhere, probably eager to make amends and to tell Horizon what happened to Newton.

How to play Ash

A Ronin and his Pilot in Titanfall 2 The elements in common with Titanfall 2 are, in our opinion, crucial to embracing the right game strategy for those who use Ash. As mentioned earlier, Ash was a Pilot, specifically a Ronin Pilot, a particularly lightweight Titan model made for close combat. We are talking about a Titan equipped with a rifle with four rounds of bullets (capable of bouncing off the walls) and a phasic sword; the direct confrontation is inevitable with the Ronin but his extreme fragility leads him to be an easy target in the fray. This is compensated by a great mobility but above all by a phase jump: once performed, the Titan disappears in a phase trail to reappear a few meters further, depending on where the player has directed the jump. We are not talking about a free repositioning in the map but limited to the visible horizon.

How do you say? Does it remind you of anything? The Ronin's phase shift is exactly Ash's and, as such, should be used. It is certainly a great way to quickly escape from a fight, but even more useful to leap behind the enemy for an ambush, taking your team with you. The rift that Ash can create with his phasic blade remains open for a few seconds and anyone can jump in, just like Wraith's leap into the void. Ash's is a power with marked tactical characteristics but, in times of difficulty (such as the closing ring) it is useful as a vehicle to transport the team out of trouble.

Ash's phased sword is the same of the Titan Ronin of Titanfall 2 A tactic used by many players of Titanfall 2 is to combine the phase jump with the self-destruction of the Titan: if the robot takes too much damage, before being destroyed, the player can decide (by enabling the option in the Titan's ability customization) to eject and activate the Titan's self-destruct. With self-destruction imminent there is nothing better than jumping into the midst of enemy Titans with the phase jump, activating the emergency ejection and seeing your own Titan detonate in the midst of the enemy team! Obviously you can't replicate this specific tactic in Apex Legends but the idea of ​​moving quickly through the fray, perhaps covered by a Bangalore smoke screen, attacking quickly and punctually and then lifting the curtains before the fault closes, is an articulate team tactic, but devastating if done well.

Ash's other two abilities, the electric trap and his passive ability, should not be forgotten. The electric trap is perfect in combination with the phase jump: we are talking about a shuriken that generates a low intensity electric field, therefore with a not so offensive nature (since you can safely survive the damage inflicted) which however traps and slows down all enemies in the range of action. There is no correct way to chain the two abilities: you could surprise enemies with a phase jump, stun and trap them with the electric trap and quickly finish them mercilessly, or you can first slow them down with the trap and then catch up with them from behind. You could also throw the trap and finish them off with a sniper or, again, throw it during the escape from the closing ring in the hope that the team close to you will get bogged down and the ring will do the dirty work for you.

Don't make the mistake of underestimating Ash's passive ability Obviously all these strategies are useless without having some primary information; trivially, you can't plan an ambush without knowing where the targets are. By accessing the death chests, Ash can track down on the map (if still alive) the team that won the kill, and here there are two scenarios: you can hunt down the opposing team or evaluate to circumvent the problem and take another. road, so as not to cross it. The choice must clearly be made on the basis of various factors, first of all the position of the ring and the closing time, but not only; arriving at a point where there has been a massacre and seeing that one team has managed to KO two others is an important fact about the ability of the opponents, who could have the better of a direct match. how Ash will be used by Apex players. The hope is always that players will remember the true goal of Apex games: the last team left alive wins, not the single player with the most kills in the stats.

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