With Season 9 and the Legacy update for Apex Legends, new Legend Valkyrie has arrived with a high-mobility kit and recon skills that make her a great scout character. She is able to release a missile swarm, fly high above the ground with her jetpack, and can act as an improvised jump tower to rapidly redeploy the whole squad.
Valkyrie is the 17th Legend to be added to Apex Legends and arrived with the new permanent 3v3 Arenas mode and the Bocek Bow weapon. Valkyrie is also the daughter of one of Titanfall 2’s boss characters, Viper, and her kit takes a lot of inspiration from her father’s Northstar Titan.
Much like Horizon and Octane, Valkyrie is a highly mobile character thanks to her passive jetpack ability that allows her to rapidly ascend buildings without the need to climb or mantle. She can also deploy her Missile Swarm ability to lock down an area with stunning explosives and can set herself up as a special jump tower to dive into a fight or make a quick escape. To round out her kit, which combines the flight capabilities and missile armaments of the Northstar Titan from Titanfall 2, she also gets a few recon abilities to reveal enemy positions and more.
Passive Ability – VTOL Jets:
Valkyrie’s Passive Ability is already one of the best in Apex Legends. By tapping the jump button while in the air, Valkyrie players can activate her VTOL Jets to fly high into the sky. Players can use it for enhanced movement by getting over obstacles and cover, and climbing up buildings very quickly. The height that players gain from flying with the jetpack also allows them to scout large areas of the new Infested Olympus map, World’s Edge, and the Arenas maps.
Importantly, Valkyrie players cannot use any weapons or grenades while using the jetpack. The only thing Valkyrie can do while her jets are active is use her Missile Swarm ability. However, Valkyrie players can move and look around normally to get a full 360-degree view from the air. The jetpack also provides constant upward thrust, so Valkyrie players will keep going up unless they turn off the jets or hold the aim button to activate level flying which will hold players at steady height. The jetpack does provide a massive increase to movement speed to players can be quite vulnerable to snipers using weapons such as the new Bocek Bow.
The jetpack runs off its own fuel which is represented by a green bar on the right of the screen which will empty as fuel is used. When players activate the jetpack, a chunk of fuel will be instantly consumed, but regular flight will consume fuel at a constant rate. There is enough fuel for around 7.5 seconds of continuous flight from full to empty. When fuel starts to get low, the bar will turn red, and players will be able to hear the jets start sputtering. Fuel starts to regenerate after eight seconds and takes about 10 seconds to fully regenerate.
Another excellent use for Valkyrie’s jets is to break falls to avoid the recovery animation that prevents Apex Legends players from moving fully and drawing their weapons after falling from a great height. Just before hitting the ground, a quick double-tap of the jump button with briefly activate her jets and slow her down enough to avoid the movement penalty. Because Valkyrie cannot use her weapons while flying, this does mean that using the jetpack to break a fall will prevent players from being able to keep their weapons drawn, unlike Horizon with her Spacewalk Passive Ability.
Players can change how Valkyrie’s jets are activated from being the default ‘toggle’ option, to ‘hold’ instead. Switching to ‘hold’ means players will have to hold the jump button in mid-air to activate and maintain using her jetpack. Releasing the hold button will then deactivate the jetpack.
Mouse and keyboard players may want to try this out, but controller players should stick with the default ‘toggle’ option as this allows them to easily return their thumb to the right stick for airborne movement and aiming control.
Tactical Ability – Missile Swarm:
Missile Swarm is great ability for controlling enemy movement through zoning and stunning. The swarm itself is a barrage of 12 missiles arranged in a three-by-four grid. Each missile has a small blast radius and hits only deal 25 damage plus a little extra from stuns, but the entire grid covers a large area. Missile hits also inflict an Arc Star-like stun on enemies which massively slows their movement for a for a short time.
Valkyrie players can hold the Tactical Ability button to produce holographic targets that show exactly where the 12 missiles will hit, allowing for extremely fine aiming. Although, once the missiles have been launched, all Apex Legends players will then be able to see the missile targets, which means enemies can easily get out of the blast area.
Players will also need to compensate for the fact that the missiles take a couple of seconds to launch and fly to their target and that they land in a wave pattern, with the missiles furthest away from Valkyrie landing last. The missiles also travel in a large arc before striking the ground almost vertically. During this arc, walls, ceilings, and cover can easily obstruct the missiles and cause them to miss their mark so Valkyrie players need to be aware of their surroundings before accidentally stunning themselves by hitting a wall they are standing next to.
Missile Swarm has good range and can hit enemies easily at medium-to-long range. However, the minimum targeting distance is 12 metres, so Valkyrie players should avoid wasting their swarm on players that are up close and should instead focus on using their weapons or escaping to a better position with her jetpack. Missile Swarm can be used to great effect to initiate a fight by surprising and stunning an enemy team, or during a fight to control enemy movement by blocking off certain areas.
As previously mentioned, the Missile Swarm is the only thing Valkyrie can use while flying with her jetpack. Using the height advantage from her jetpack is also one of the best ways to use her Missile Swarm as players can precisely target enemies below. Players can take this a step further by deploying a Missile Swarm while in the air and then immediately cutting her jetpack to fall into cover. From there, players can either stay in cover or rush in on the ground with teammates to knock down stunned enemies.
Players should also know that holding down the tactical button during flight slows Valkyrie’s movement speed but substantially reduce fuel consumption and lock altitude. At the risk of being a very easy target, Valkyrie players can use this to greatly increase their flight time to cross large areas or gaps, especially if their Skyward Dive Ultimate Ability is not charged.
Ultimate Ability – Skyward Dive:
Using her jetpack jets at maximum power, Valkyrie can set herself up as a personal, superpowered jump tower to allow her and her squadmates to skydive and cover a vast distance. Skyward Dive is equally useful for landing on Olympus's tall buildings and claiming the high ground, or leaving a dangerous position to redeploy to a better area or to escape entirely and recuperate. It has a three-minute cooldown so it should be used sparingly to make sure teams have it ready for a big fight.
Activating Skyward Dive will put Valkyrie players in a state where they can look around but are unable to move. Squadmates can also interact with the Valkyrie player in this state to attach to her and join the flight. Meanwhile, the Valkyrie player’s screen is given a fighter jet-style green overlay, and a green bar on the right side will start filling up.
Once the green bar is full, Valkyrie players can ‘burn’ to launch them and any tethered squadmates vertically into the air at high speed. At the peak of the launch, Valkyrie will lead the dive to a new area as Jumpmaster, but squadmates can still detach and move around too.
Once a Valkyrie player has activated Skyward Dive, they can stay in the pre-launch state indefinitely and are also given the option to cancel the dive in exchange for 25% ultimate charge. Pinging in the pre-launch will also say “Let’s fly!” in the feed for teammates to see. Players also need to be aware of what is above them if they intend to use Skyward Dive, as it needs vertical clearance to be activated.
Skyward Dive also gives Valkyrie a passive recon ability that highlights enemy players within range with an inverted green triangle icon. Enemies on the ground will be marked on the map in the same way as map scans from Crypto’s Map Room on Kings Canyon too. Players could even use the ability to just scout an area for approaching enemies by circling an area and looking for highlighted enemies.
This ability also applies to the initial drop at the start of an Apex Legends match, allowing squads with a Valkyrie on board to easily see how many squads are around and where they are going. All players in the Valkyrie’s squad can also see the green icons and map markers. Valkyrie is also part of the Recon Legend Class along with Bloodhound, Crypto and Pathfinder which means she can also use Survey Beacons to find out the location of the next ring.
Valkyrie is quite a complex Legend, especially compared to Season 8’s Fuse, and has a clear learning curve when it comes to understanding exactly how her abilities work and how to manage resources such as jetpack fuel and Missile Swarm cooldowns. Overall, she is an excellent scouting Legend, and she can easily survey entire areas for enemy teams to rush or avoid during the match.
Her high mobility makes her great for aggressive playstyles that utilise close-range weapons. However, the height advantages she can secure through her jetpack and Skyward Dive mean she could also work well with more defensive Legends, such as Rampart, and use long-range weapons like the Sentinel with the Deadeye’s Tempo Hop-Up.
Apex Legends is available now on Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
