Apex Legends Lifeline abilities, tips and tricks

Want to learn how to best support your team with Apex Legends' resident healer, Lifeline? You’ve come to the right place. Lifeline has remained one of the most popular and characters in Apex Legends since its launch and it’s not hard to see why. Keeping your team healthy and well resourced is often key to victory in Apex Legends, and there are few better at it than Lifeline.

Learn how to play as Lifeline with the top tips in our Apex Legends Lifeline guide for Season 10. We'll go over each of her abilities in turn, and how best to use them to increase your team's chances of winning a match.

On this page:

• Apex Legends Lifeline abilities
• Lifeline tips and tricks
• Lifeline Passive tips: Combat Revive
• Lifeline Tactical tips: D.O.C Heal Drone
• Lifeline Ultimate tips: Care Package
• Apex Legends Lifeline backstory

Meet Lifeline – Apex Legends Character Trailer

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Apex Legends Lifeline abilities

Lifeline has access to three abilities: Combat Revive (Passive), D.O.C Heal Drone (Tactical), and Care Package (Ultimate). Lifeline also has an unlisted ability that allows her to open secret compartments on blue lootbins. Each of these abilities is about keeping your teammates alive as well as replenishing and improving resources. Lifeline is a Support Legend putting her in the same class as Loba.

Lifeline's abilities center around healing and equipment, able to be used to benefit not only your teammates but yourself as well. As of Season 9, her Passive no longer deploys a shield in front of teammates she revives. But she can still use her D.O.C. Drone to revive them instead of doing it herself; she can now revive both her teammates at once while still remaining free to move around and defend against enemies. She’s one of the best Apex Legends characters, and no one will ever be upset to have a Lifeline on the team.

Lifeline tips and tricks

Let's start by looking at the general strengths and weaknesses of Lifelines 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 Lifeline:

• Ultimate Accelerants belong to you. If there is a Lifeline on your team, then all Ultimate Accelerants should probably go to her. Her ult is likely to be the most powerful for your squad as a whole, and also the most lengthy to charge.
• Look for every opportunity to make use of your abilities. While you can play independently as Lifeline, you are the primary healer of your group and you must check on your teammates during fights to see if anyone needs your assistance.
• Don't be greedy with Care Package loot. A rising tide raises all boats. Don't hoard all your Care Package loot for yourself. Just because you call it down doesn't mean it belongs to you. Share with your teammates.
• Out heal the other team. Lifeline has many ways to extend her team’s health pool, be it her tactical or by having found lots of healing before a fight. In a war of attrition, you should be able to out-resource a team, especially if it is a long-range fight. If you want the lowdown on the options you could utilise in such a fight, check out our Best Guns list for Season 10.

Lifeline Passive tips: Combat Revive

Lifeline's Passive allows her to simply tap a knocked teammate to deploy her Drone to revive them, leaving Lifeline free to continue fighting. It's a powerful ability, and one which she can use on both her teammates at once if they're knocked; but obviously you'll have to be careful where and when you decide to revive, because there's nothing to protect Lifeline's allies while they're being revived.

Still, being able to provide covering fire while they are brought up can not be overestimated.

Lifeline Passive tips:

• You can cancel a revive-in-process by interacting with the knocked ally, allowing them to defend themselves with their Knockdown Shield in case they come under attack.
• It's normally inadvisable to stray far from your allies while they're being revived, so you can cancel the revives if needed. But if your allies are well-hidden, then getting some distance and distracting the enemy team is a useful tactic - as long as you stay alive.
• Lifeline synergises extremely well with the Gold Backpack, which gives revived teammates extra Health and Shields. This is particularly powerful in the Apex Arena mode, where you can buy a Gold Backpack every round for relatively few Crafting Materials.
• Be aware, Revenant can be a menace with his Silence ability. If it hits a reviving player, it will cancel the revive, and if Lifeline is silenced, she will have to manually revive teammates.
• Provide covering fire. A reviving teammate is exceptionally vulnerable to getting downed immediately, so you need to use your able body and your active fire to keep enemies from knocking your team again.

Lifeline Tactical tips: D.O.C Heal Drone

Lifeline's Heal Drone is a fairly reliable and useful source of healing for the entire team. Using this ability will deploy a drone that automatically heals nearby allies and enemies alike for its 20-second duration. It allows players to save Syringes and Medkits for more dire circumstances, and to passively heal while shooting or looting.

Lifeline Tactical tips:

• If you're low on Shields and Health, use the Tactical and pop a Shield Battery, and you'll recover both Health and Shields simultaneously, allowing you to get back into the fight faster.
• Season 9 buffed the Heal Drone, increasing the heal rate from 5 to 8 HP per second, and reducing the deploy time of the Drone by 33%.
• Your Drone will heal enemies too if they are close enough, so it's best used at medium or long range if in combat.
• Your Drone will die to two ticks of damage from being outside the Ring, so don't think you can use it to survive outside the Ring.
• The amount of healing provided is split between all sources. So if three people are using the Drone at once, it will heal three times slower than if just one player was using it.
• Lifeline's Drone can absorb shots (and therefore act as cover) in the heat of battle. Bear in mind however that it can be destroyed fairly easily.
• The drone has a long cooldown, so be aware when using it after or during a fight. Don’t be in a position when you should have saved it but have it on cooldown when you need it.

Lifeline Ultimate tips: Care Package

Lifeline's Care Package is her signature skill, and it is potentially game-changing in a very similar manner to Loba's Ultimate. Use this ability to deploy a Care Package near your location. The Care Package takes 15 seconds to land, after which it can be opened and the three high-quality pieces of loot inside can be taken.

As of Season 9, the Care Package contents will guarantee upgrades to your existing gear. So if you already have Purple Armor, you have a very high chance of getting Gold Armor, and so on.

Lifeline Ultimate tips:

• Be careful where and when you decide to call down a Care Package, because although it doesn't show up on the minimap like normal Supply Drops it is still very visible and acts as a beacon marking your location for nearby enemies.
• Of the three items in a Care Package, one will be a healing item, one will be a weapon attachment, and one will be a piece of gear. You cannot find weapons inside Lifeline Care Packages.
• You can be crushed (not knocked but killed) beneath a descending Care Package, so be careful.
• You can climb atop a Care Package, so clever placement of it will enable you to reach hard to access areas.
• Care Packages can be used as cover if need be, as they cannot be shot through.
• Calling down a Care Package should be a team move, not a solo move. Share the loot amongst your team, and stick together while near a Care Package.
• It’s a great way to get a recently respawned teammate some decent loot as they land.

Apex Legends Lifeline backstory

Born on Psmathe, Ajay Che has a strained relationship with her family. She is the heir and daughter of two rich war profiteers, a business she wants no part in. Once she understood the devastation her family had caused colonised worlds, she left to join the Frontier Corps, an organisation that aims to bring humanitarian aide to those that need it.

She has since distanced herself from her family’s legacy and is dedicated to helping others. However, that pursuit has taken her to a strange place: she's signed up to the Apex Games in order to share her winnings with the Frontier Corps. She’s out there, tearing apart opponents in bloodsport for charity. It's very thoughtful, really.

She also has an interest in drumming, having learnt from a band called The Flyer Liars, who she helped crew for. Also, Octane is her best friend. In fact, she was even kind enough to give him his bionic legs, after he blew his own off trying to break a Gauntlet record.

Congratulations! You are now an expert at playing Lifeline. Can you feel all that newfound knowledge and experience pulsing through your synapses? For full details and opinions on all of the characters together, take a look at our Apex Legends characters guide for everything you need.