Apex Legends Seer abilities, tips and tricks
Now that Seer has been nerfed, how strong are his abilities?
Want to learn how to master Seer and his abilities in Apex Legends? Seer made quite the entrance at the beginning of Season 10 of Apex Legends with his undeniably overpowered scanning abilities. Since then, Respawn have updated Seer with a nerf to every part of his toolkit - and so the question now must be: is Seer still a top-tier Legend?
Learn all about Seer's abilities below, along with his fascinating backstory and tonnes of useful, practical, and up-to-date tips and tricks to get the most out of this dangerous Legend.
On this page:
- Apex Legends Seer abilities
- Seer tips and tricks
- Seer Passive tips: Heart Seeker
- Seer Tactical tips: Focus Of Attention
- Seer Ultimate tips: Exhibit
- Apex Legends Seer backstory
Apex Legends Seer abilities
Seer has access to three abilities: Heart Seeker (Passive), Focus Of Attention (Tactical), and Exhibit (Ultimate). All three of them revolve around the detection of enemies nearby. He is also a Recon Legend, which means he is able to scan Survey Beacons dotted about each map to reveal the next ring location, just like other Recon Legends Valkyrie, Pathfinder, Bloodhound, and Crypto.
Each of Seer's abilities will be explained and discussed below. We'll also include details of the changes that have been made to his abilities since his release at the start of Season 10. But for now, Seer mains, don't worry: we still think despite the nerfs Seer is one of the very best Apex Legends characters. The trick, as with all other Legends, is understanding the limitations of each of his abilities.
Seer tips and tricks
Let's start by looking at the general strengths and weaknesses of Seer's toolkit. We'll go over the ability-specific tips and tricks below, but first here are some general tips and tidbits of advice to take into the Apex Games with Seer:
- Don't be trigger-happy with your abilities. As with many of the most powerful abilities in Apex Legends, it's easy to misuse both Seer's Tactical and his Ultimate ability. Learn below where and when to use these tools, rather than firing them off whenever you feel like it.
- Don't be tempted to play passively. Seer is not a pusher in the same way as Octane or Revenant. He can't close the gap quickly. What he can do, however, is cripple enemies who are on the backfoot and trying to recover. So to make the most out of him, you have to be aggressive and push hard and fast after using your abilities.
- Seer has no mobility or escape tools. The price of having such a powerful surveillance-oriented kit is that Seer has no way of getting out of trouble. That shouldn't stop you from playing aggressively, but it's worth bearing in mind. Positioning is key, as you'll know if you've read our Apex Legends tips and tricks page.
- Seer's head hitbox is a little larger than average. This is a minor thing, but it offers a tiny bit of a weakness. Seer's hat makes his head hitbox slightly larger than average. The whole hat isn't shootable, but a small part of it nearest the head is. And in a game where headshot multipliers are such a big thing, that's not a great trait to carry around with you, even if it does make you the coolest-looking Legend in the game.
Seer Passive tips: Heart Seeker
Description: Hear and visualise the heartbeats of nearby enemies when aiming down sights.
One of the most fascinating abilities we've seen in some time in Apex Legends, Heart Seeker gives Seer players a sort of radial heartbeat sensor around their crosshair whenever they aim down sights, forming arrows which point towards any and all enemies nearby.
These pulsing arrows grow larger as Seer aims closer to the target, allowing you to effectively pinpoint the location of an enemy, though not necessarily their distance from you.
Seer Passive tips:
- Heart Seeker detects enemies within a 75 metre radius of Seer. For context, that's about the max distance between two Wraith portals.
- Heart Seeker is meant to be used in conjunction with Focus Of Attention. Find the enemy's location by ADSing, and then fire off your Tactical to reveal and interrupt them.
- Seer can aim down sights even without a weapon.
- Heart Seeker works in 3 dimensions - above and below you, as well as 360 degrees around you.
- Every so often, do a sweep with your Passive to make sure no enemies are within 75 metres of you.
- If your crosshair is close enough to an enemy, then the arrow for that enemy will disappear, making it harder for you to pinpoint their location. This threshold is even larger than it once was thanks to Seer's recent nerf.
- You can toggle Seer's Heart Seeker effect on and off, to avoid visual clutter while fighting.
- Much like a heartbeat sensor, Seer's Heart Seeker senses enemies by sending out pulses every 1.75 seconds. This delay was increased from 1.25 seconds with the recent patch, making it harder for Seer to quickly do a full scan of his surroundings to ascertain whether enemies are nearby. You now have to take your time while scanning.
Seer Tactical tips: Focus Of Attention
Description: Seer summons his micro-drones to emit a delayed blast that goes through walls interrupting and revealing enemies. Cooldown: 30s.
Seer's Tactical on paper seems extraordinarily powerful, and really it is, but it's also hard to master. Focus Of Attention sends out a giant tunnel where Seer points, which goes through objects and terrain. After a moment, the tunnel will reveal all enemies within it for 8 seconds.
Affected enemies will also have their abilities, heals, and revives interrupted, and Seer and his allies will be able to see a health bar above every affected enemy's head for the full 8 seconds.
Seer Tactical tips:
- Focus Of Attention is easy to waste if you fire it off wildly. Use it in conjunction with your Passive for the best results.
- There is a 1.6 second delay between the tunnel being made and the effect being released, which gives enemies that much time to dive out of the way of the tunnel.
- You can hold down Seer's Tactical ability button without releasing, and you'll get the effect of your Passive, allowing you to find enemies more easily.
- The best possible use of Seer's Tactical is to interrupt a revive or a Phoenix Kit, which means it's best used when you're already on the offensive, after cracking or downing an enemy who is now behind cover.
- Health bars also reveal the Evo Shield colour of all affected enemies, which is useful for gauging their relative strength to your team.
- Focus Of Attention doesn't silence per se (not like Revenant's Tactical can, at least), but it does interrupt pretty much every ability in the game, from Valkyrie's Ultimate to Pathfinder's Tactical and much more.
Seer Ultimate tips: Exhibit
Description: Create a sphere of micro-drones that reveal the location of enemies moving quickly or firing their weapons within. Charge Time: 120s.
Exhibit allows Seer to toss his heart chamber a fair distance, which then creates a large sphere around itself for 30 seconds. During this time, all enemies inside the sphere who shoot or run have their whereabouts and footsteps highlighted to Seer.
It's worth remembering, however, that enemies that crouch-walk or don't move at all are invisible to Exhibit's sensors. The same is true of enemies in the air. So there is a fair amount of counterplay to this ability, but it's still a powerful tool in many situations.
Seer Ultimate tips:
- Enemies can shoot and destroy Seer's heart chamber to end the effect. The heart chamber has 135 HP - compared with Horizon's Black Hole at 175 HP.
- Two fantastic uses for Exhibit are: in the final circle, forcing enemies to play slow or be revealed; and just as you're about to third-party two enemy teams that are fighting each other.
- Revealed enemies are also shown on the minimap as red arrows, and the reach of the sphere itself is also shown on the minimap.
- The effect does not require line of sight, so it's a good idea to deploy the heart chamber behind some cover so it doesn't get destroyed so easily.
- While Exhibit is active, just above your Ultimate HUD element you'll see an "Enemies Detected" counter indicating how many enemies are currently being detected within the sphere, making it a great tool for improving your situational awareness.
- Don't just assume that once your Ult is placed you can see everyone nearby. Many enemies will turn stealthy when inside an enemy's Exhibit, crouch-walking or hiding around corners waiting for you. Stay vigilant, and don't take the sensory information as gospel.
Apex Legends Seer backstory
Seer was born as Obi Edolasim, on the planet Boreas. Born of a woman "bearing the mark of the moth", Seer's birth coincided with a catastrophe: a meteor hit a moon of Boreas, causing untold damage. Obi, with his glowing blue eyes and the unfortunate circumstances surrounding his birth, was seen as a curse and a danger by all except his family.
Obi quickly made a name for himself as a talented and creative individual. Eventually he became interested in the Arenas, where he unexpectedly became a crowd favourite thanks to his theatricality and his uniqueness. Slowly, Seer became a paragon of those "who were downtrodden, outcast, and forgotten", and by helping to give those people a voice he rose in prominence until he became a household name.
Naturally, it's the talk of the village now that Seer has moved from the Arenas into the even more prestigious Apex Games to fight, win, and grow his legend ever-further.
That's everything you need to know to appreciate Seer, both as a personality and as an extremely powerful surveillance and ambushing expert in Apex Legends. If you're wondering how best to kit him out, be sure to take a look at our Apex Legends best guns tier list, or our compilation of the best Apex Legends loadouts.