Kairi “Valkyrie” Imahara descends from the skies as the newest and 17th Legend to participate in the Apex Games.
The smart-mouthed new character skydives her way into the 9th season of Apex Legends with ties to a character from Titanfall. She is the daughter of deceased Titanfall 2’s Northstar Titan pilot, Viper, and hopes to stand on her own as an accomplished pilot.
Taking inspiration and material from her father’s titanfall mech suit, the winged avenger built her own jetpack with enhanced VTOL and flight cores. Finally taking flight, she rules the skies by bombarding enemies from above with her deadly aerial strikes.
The cornerstone of Valkyrie’s skillset is her passive ability VTOL Jets. Propelling herself into the air, the ability grants Valkyrie additional mobility and the advantage of the high ground. Unfortunately, her ability to use guns, healing and grenades are embargoed when she ascends. Players can still use their weapons in the air after a brief delay by toggling her VTOL Jets on and off.
Additionally, Valkyrie’s tactical “missile swarm” is an upgraded version of Fuse’s ultimate “Motherload”. Launching waves of missiles to zone out and debuff enemies, her abilities serve more as a crowd control ability than as an ability focused on damage. Respawn even described her tactical as a “mini Bangalor ultimate”. Valkyrie’s tactical can also be combined with her VTOL Jets to reign terror from above.
Acting as a mobile jump tower, Valkyrie’s ultimate “skyward dive” allows her teammates to launch into the air with her before skydiving back down. Allowing the team to easily reposition themselves or travel towards the next safe zone. The only downside to this ability is the long time it takes for her ability to charge take off. Good players would even be able to easily shut her down before she even takes flight, if she is too heavily exposed.
These novel abilities of Valkyrie have left the fanbase polarised. Concerns of power creeping terrorise half of the community who believe the new character to be overpowered. While the opposing camp is fearful that the predictable flight patterns and inability to use her guns freely while flying might have crippled Valkyrie. While Valkyrie’s tier position is still up in the air, her kit is still fun to experiment and play around within the “Play Apex” game modes (as long as no more bugs surface).
Nonetheless, the introduction of a new legend and weapon in the latest update has helped improve and expand upon the evolving gameplay of Apex Legends, and that can only be seen as a win for the community.
