Apex Legends Fuse analysis guide — Abilities, advantages, and shortcomings

Tactical: Knuckle Cluster

Fuse’s Knuckle Cluster Tactical is basically a sticky grenade. It’s fired at the same velocity as standard grenades and imbeds itself into most targets before letting off a series of small airburst explosions. As of Season 9, Fuse has two charges for this ability and the cooldown timer for each charge is 25 seconds. Readying Knuckle Cluster also takes about a second for Fuse to do. Just hold down your Tactical key or button to ready Knuckle Cluster as if you’re going to fire a grenade.

The damage Knuckle Cluster does isn’t huge, but it makes up for it with a wide damage radius and the regularity at which you can deploy the grenades. You can stick enemies with Knuckle Cluster for 10 damage and can expect about 50 total damage (5-10 damage at a time) from the full explosive effect. You won’t always get that level of damage though, because Knuckle Cluster tends to send enemies fleeing. However, that can work against them if you stick them and they run towards their teammates.

At any rate, Knuckle Cluster comes in handy for a large number of scenarios. Right off the drop, you have an extra tool to do damage aside from melees. You can also use Knuckle Cluster to deter enemies from picking up loot during hot drops. Just be careful, because it will hurt you too.

Once you get going in a match though, Knuckle Cluster continues to prove useful. As already mentioned, it’s a good area denial tool. It only lasts for three seconds, but that is sometimes enough for you to halt an enemy push. It’s best used as an offensive tool though, which is basically Fuse in a nutshell.

I found Knuckle Cluster perfect for forcing enemies out of cover in the middle of firefights. It’s loud, disorienting, and easier to fire than regular grenades. You can also use it to quickly fire at a weak enemy that you need to finish off. When it comes to pure aggressive behavior though, Knuckle Cluster is perfect for sieging enemies in small rooms. The wide area of effect means it’s usually going to do damage. Pair that with some additional grenades and the enemies in the room are sure to go kaboom. Knuckle Cluster will also destroy a standard door. No more awkward moments of kicking in doors only to be shot up the moment it breaks.

We cover some more details on Knuckle Cluster in our separate guide on how Fuse interacts with other Legends. For now though, let’s move on to Fuse’s Ultimate.

• Passive: Grenadier
• Tactical: Knuckle Cluster
• Ultimate: The Motherlode
• Usefulness and shortcomings
• Conclusion