This is a serious guide in order to understand and play as Crypto, one of the hardest legends to master in Apex Legends.
 
 

Introduction

You clicked this post because you noticed that Crypto barely sees play in Casual, but yet you notice how common he is in Ranked mode (especially in Master and Apex Predator) and sometimes sees competitive play in the E-sport scene.
 
 
Or maybe because you hate the defense legends and you want to beat them quickly or you main gets picked often that you want a second main, if those are your reasons then here’s my list of tips.
 
 
 

Crypto’s Drone and the controls

• A1: H or Down in the D-pad: You recall the drone, is also the only way to heal it since it has 60 HP.
• A2: Hold tactical button: You deploy your drone and exit the drone view immediately.
• A3: WASD or the joystick if you use controller: You move and rotate the view of your drone.
• A4: Hold the Jump button: You quickly gain height.
• A5: Hold the crouch button: You quickly lose height.
• A6: Hold the ADS button: While you move your drone, it keeps the same height.

 
Note #1: Always slide or hold the crouch button when switching to drone view, so Crypto remains crouched while droning.
 
Note #2: Crypto can recall the drone at any time while doing any action, EXCEPT when reviving a teammate who is down, trying to use self-revive with the gold knock-down shield or using the Charge towers – [reddit.com] , as those actions will interrupt Crypto.
 
 
 

What you can do while in Drone-view

• B1: The giant banners that are located in the map will now show how many squads are nearby, if you ping the banner, it will tell your squad how many squads are nearby to Crypto’s position (not to be confused with the drone’s position).
• B1.1: The range of the Banner radar is approx. 200-meter radius, in order to know that distance, draw a circle in your mini-map and put Crypto in the center, to get an idea of how close they are.
• B2: You can press the interaction button to open supply bins, open Care packages, and open and close doors.
• B3: You can open the Vault door in World’s edge and Olympus instantly if you have the key in your Inventory.
• B4: You can ping stuff while using the drone but still you can’t see clearly which hop-ups you are looking unless you ping them.
• B5: You can also use the ping wheel, in order to give more accurate pings than any other legend.
• B6: You can interact with Survey Beacons instantly, instead of doing the normal way that takes 7 seconds.
• B7: You can grab your teammates banners if they are dead, (Something that many players are still unaware), but make sure that you have to dodge bullets by doing so.
• B8: You can use the Respawn Beacons and the Mobile Respawn Beacons instantly, instead of being exposed during 5 seconds in the open.

Note #1: in the tip B6, you should face the drone correctly in the survey beacon, otherwise it doesn’t work.
 
Note #2: While in Drone view, both of your guns get reloaded automatically, some take more seconds than others.
 
 
 

Drone placement

C1: The best hiding spots are inside the tree’s leaves and bushes; the drone will still scan your enemies.
 
C2: Place the drone above and behind the enemy while they are distracted, so they don’t focus in shotting your drone.
 
C3: You can place it in a spot where if they want to shot it so badly, they will take damage by your squad firing at them.
 
C4: The drone takes no damage from the Ring, which means that is a good hiding spot since it has an orange glow in the enemy’s POV.
 
C4.1: Another good hiding spot, is when you are running from the ring and you decide to escape through a tunnel/cave/choke point, you can deploy the drone there, and it will scan any squad who also took the same route as you and avoid surprise attacks.
 
 
 

How the Drone’s scan works

• D1: It will highlight doors, supply bins, traps, and Care Packages that are nearby.
• D2: It will also scan Loot-ticks, but they are treated as enemies.
• D3: It scans every Mirage’s decoy; however, it will treat every decoy as a real enemy.
• D4: Mirage is immune to scans while reviving (and the enemy that’s getting revived) or using respawn beacons.
• D5: It will not scan enemies if there’s Caustic’s gas, Bangalore’s smoke, or a Gibraltar’s Dome in the way.

 
 
 

The EMP

• E1: You don’t need to be in drone view to use the EMP, you can also press the Ultimate button while your drone is out.
• E2: The EMP can destroy/disable/damage the following:

 

Destroys	Disables (for a period of time)	Damages
Rampart’s amped cover (only the top part)	Rampart’s Turret (when placed in the ground)	Every Body shield equipped by the enemy (50 Damage)
Gibraltar’s dome of protection	The Tridents in Olympus and Storm Point (5 seconds)	Every Body Shield in the ground (50 Damage)
Lifeline’s drone (the one that heals only)	Blurs the vision and disables the mini-map of your enemies.	Octane’s Jump Pad (100 Damage)
Caustic’s gas traps		Every Legend that took Revenant’s ultimate (50 Shadow Damage)
Mirage’s decoys
Loba’s black market
Wattson’s fences and her pylon
Seer’s exhibit
Horizon’s black hole
Crypto’s drone
Cargo’s bots

 

• E3: Because of what the EMP does in the table, is a great tool to kill squads quickly when your squad makes a coordinated push.
• E4: If you hear an enemy squad rushing towards you, just quickly deploy your drone and EMP yourself, while you take shield damage, you know that you ruined their push.
• E4.1: The best situation to EMP yourself is when your body shield is broken, so you can recharge you shields while the EMP does his job.
• E5: The range of the EMP blast is the same range of the drone scan (30-meter radius).
• E6: You can put your drone in a hiding spot or behind cover since the EMP blast goes through buildings/cover, so it never gets destroyed.
• E7: Thanks to the EMP, Crypto is the easiest legend to evolve your EVO shield by hitting as many enemies as you can.

 
Note #1: If your drone got destroyed while trying to use the EMP, the EMP doesn’t get wasted, but you have to wait 40 seconds to do it again.
 
Note #2: The EMP also stuns, blurs the vision, and blocks the mini-map of your teammates, so it requires timing and good drone positioning to avoid hitting them.
 
Note #3: Make sure to ping every Wattson’s Pylon, in order to prevent your teammates to waste their grenades and ultimates before you EMP the Pylon.
 
 
 

What Crypto should always carry

• F1: Start to use any mid/long range weapon, since you are often right behind your squad after doing an EMP push.
• F2: Carry 1-2 Ultimate accelerants, since it should be enough to recharge your EMP when needed.
• F3: As your survival item of choice, the Mobile Respawn Beacon is useful thanks to the B7 and B8 tip.
• F4: A couple of Ordnances should help, since you can throw them at the enemy squad if they are trying to heal after you EMP them.

 
 
 

Situational tips

• G1:
   
   
   

   
   
   
  , and
   
   
   

   
   
   
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• G2: You can troll an enemy squad by hovering above their position and attract every enemy squad towards them.
• G3: Use the drone to hug the face of the enemy if you have nothing to defend yourself and your teammates are dealing with him.
• G4: Since your drone has 60 HP, you can used it like an improvised Gibraltar’s Gun-shield to block shots for you.
• G5: If you EMP yourself way often, a Golden Body shield may be better so you can heal faster with shield cells.

 
 
 

Your best teammates

• Octane: His jump-pad is quite useful to make crazy and offensive mid-air EMPs – [reddit.com] .
• Wraith/Ash:Their ultimates are quite useful to quickly get into battle after you used the EMP.
• Pathfinder, Horizon, Valkyrie: Those legends have a tactical or ultimate which are useful in repositioning.
• Loba: has a Black market to pick ultimate accelerants and mobile respawn beacons quickly.
• Wattson, Rampart, Caustic and Gibraltar: Those legends can deploy stuff and delay pushes if you need to drone for a little longer.

 
 
 

Things you should avoid

• H1: Don’t stay out in the open and standing up while using your drone.
• H2: Staying in drone view for long periods of time and not helping your team in gunfights.
• H3: Avoid closing the doors while the drone is in the way, because they can destroy it.
• H4: Avoid placing the drone inside the caustic gas, since it takes damage.
• H5: If you deploy the drone while crouching too close to a wall or cover, there’s a chance that it gets stuck for a couple of seconds.

 
 
 

Crypto’s Strengths

• J1: You prevent surprise attacks, if you place a drone in an unguarded spot, you will be able to save your team from unexpected attacks and third parties, especially in a game who suffers from a lack of audio.
• J2: It’s good a taking 1 squad at the time, thanks to the B1 tip (the banner ping) and the EMP, you can attack 1 squad knowing that the third party will be too late to arrive.
• J3: You are the best at scanning survey beacons because of the tip B6 for being instant, and you don’t get exposed to the ring or gunfire.
• J4: You are the best at respawning, thanks to the B7 (grabbing banners) and B8 tip (respawning your team quickly), Crypto is the only legend who can do these tasks easily and your squad has a better chance to survive matches way longer than usual.

 
 
 

Crypto’s Weaknesses and tough matchups

• K1: Taking damage, since taking damages forces the game to stop controlling the drone, taking constant damage without cover prevents you from doing any plays with your drone.
• K2: A lack of movement/escape ability, which makes crypto the weakest legend at getting third partied if your squad took too long in killing the enemy squad and you still haven’t retreated.
• K3: Your drone is noisy and visible, so not only they can hear the hovering noise, they can hear your drone interacting and unlike seer and bloodhound, the drone needs to see the enemies to scan them and doesn’t have wallhacks, and not having a spot to hide your drone means leads to the next weak point.
• K4: Your drone can get destroyed, which means you have to wait 40 seconds to use your abilities again.
• K5: A good Wattson, since she’s aware of your drone and the EMP, she can quickly deploy another pylon and fence the building asap.
• K6: A good caustic, since he probably knows that his Caustic traps can’t be destroyed by an EMP if triggered, and probably ordered his teammates to trigger every single one.
• K7: A good Gibraltar, since they are waiting for you to deploy the EMP, in order to safely use the dome, so force him to use it.

 
 
 

Other useful stuff

idaspin made Interactive maps about Apex Legends – [apexmap.online] , click in “Rat Spot” in the top right, and it shows videos teaching you in how to reach them, just in case you need to hide and use the drone to grab your teammates banner in a safer position.
 
 
 

Conclusion

Crypto is one of those legends that when new players use it for the first time, it gives them a bad impression since it feels that you are playing two legends but you can only control one at the time, and requiring a substantial amount of micromanagement and map knowledge causes him to be really unpopular.
 
 
Luckily, I made this guide in order to help you take advantage of his strengths and avoid his weak points and maybe one day, everyone will start to understand Crypto’s playstyle and how powerful he is when using all his potential.
 
 
One last thing, Crypto’s drone actually has a name and his name is Hack, but he only mentions it in the Lore and not in-game.
 
 

 
 
I hope you enjoy the Guide we share about Apex Legends – Best Gameplay Tips for Crypto; if you think we forget to add or we should add more information, please let us know via commenting below! See you soon!