Apex Legends: Valkyrie Guide (Best Tips & Tricks)

Unlike other legends Valkyrie has three passive abilities alongside her tactical and ultimate. Apex Legends Valkryie’s abilities are:

Passive

• Recon: Scan survey beacons to see the next circle’s location.
• VTOL Jets: Press space while in the air to engage Jetpack. You can switch between hold and toggle mode in the options menu.
• Highlight Enemys: When skydiving, nearby enemies are highlighted for Valkyrie and her squad for a few seconds.

Tactical

• Missile Swarm: Fire a swarm of mini-rockets which damage and disorient the enemy.

Ultimate

• Skyward Dive: Press once to prepare for launch. Teammates can interact with Valkyrie to join the launch. Press again to launch into the air and skydive.

VTOL Jets
At first glance, Valkyrie’s passive looks a strong one. Allowing her to fly up high to buildings and survey the battlefield from up high. While she’s able to save a lot of time doing so, she’s very slow while doing it. Not only will this make her a prime target for snipers, but the jets are also very loud, giving other parties in the area knowledge of your team’s position. An important note here is that Valkyrie is unable to use her weapons while in flight, so you won’t be getting any sick airborn no scopes. This will also stop you from using your weapon for a short time when landing, so try not to overuse the passive in firefights.

Then we get to Valkyrie’s additional Passives. First is her Recon Passive which all Recon characters get, which allows her to scan a Survey Beacon to reveal the map’s next ring location. Second is far more interesting and powerful: while skydiving (whether deploying from the dropship at the start of the game, or using a Geyser or Jump Tower, or using her Ultimate), she and her teammates will gain some additional Titanfall-esque HUD elements which allow them to highlight enemies within range that they have line of sight with.
This highlighting is more like Crypto’s Passive than Bloodhound’s scan: Valkyrie can’t see enemies through walls with this ability, but she’ll see a green triangle around any nearby enemy that she can see, allowing her team to position themselves effectively while dropping.

Tips

• Valk’s Jetpacks will only start recharging 5 seconds after you hit the ground. This is true whether or not you use up all your fuel.
• Get into the habit of only using your Jetpack for short bursts. It’s often not worth spending it all to fly high into the sky.
• You can quickly toggle your Jetpack on and off in order to bounce along at roughly the same height through the air. A bit like mid-air bunny-hopping.
• Use your Jetpack in a tiny burst to quickly momentum-shift. You can use this as part of many other movement techniques, such as backwards-sliding, tap-strafing, and bunny-hopping.
• You’re an easier target while flying than you are while falling. Don’t expect to be hard to hit if you keep using your Jetpack.
• When fighting in close range around cover such as a tree or pillar, you can fly high upwards and continue to dodge around the cover before falling down upon the enemy, or escaping.
• You can’t pull out weapons or use items while flying, but you can fire your Cluster Missile.
• Holding down your Cluster Missile (but not firing it) will drastically cut down the rate of fuel consumption while flying. Useful for wrongfooting an enemy during a fight or escape attempt.
• When high in the sky, cut off your Jetpack with a small amount of fuel left. Just before you hit the ground, use Jetpack again to cushion your landing and you won’t suffer from any fall stun.

Cluster Missile (Cooldown: 30 sec)
Valkyrie’s Tactical is clearly meant to synergise very nicely with her Passive glide. Cluster Missile will unleash – you guessed it – a cluster of 12 missiles towards the targeted area on the ground in a 4×3 grid pattern. These missiles don’t deal much damage but they act in the same manner as Bangalore’s Ultimate rockets, stunning and disorientating anyone hit for a short while.
The damage potential is more comparable to Fuse’s Knuckle Cluster than to Bangalore’s or Gibraltar’s Ultimates. But the slow and disorient effect makes it extremely potent at halting a push, putting an enemy team on the defensive, halting a revive, and so on.

Tips:

• Enemies hit by multiple rockets will be dealt 25 damage for the first rocket, then 3 damage for every additional rocket (2 for Fortified Legends). The stun effect is refreshed with each instance of rocket damage, but it doesn’t stack.
• Whether in the air or on the ground, you can fire your rockets and then immediately turn away and move while they’re still firing. The rockets will still end up where you targeted.
• The rockets land and explode a row at a time, just like Bangalore’s Ultimate. So if you need an immediate effect, try to land the first row directly on the enemy.
• The stun and disorient effect is less potent than an Arc Star. It’s more like the effect of Crypto’s EMP Ultimate. You’ll need to act very quickly to capitalise on the stun.
• While Cluster Missile can be fired a surprising range, there’s very little point using it at this range. You need to be close to the target in order to capitalise on the effect, so unless the enemy is one-shot, save your Tactical for closer-range engagements.
• Holding down your Cluster Missile (but not firing it) will drastically cut down the rate of fuel consumption while flying. Useful for wrongfooting an enemy during a fight or escape attempt.

Skyward (Charge Time: 120 sec)
Skyward forms the linchpin of her playstyle as the ultimate third-partyer. This team-repositioning ability will act as a mobile Jump Tower: wherever you are on the map, as long as there is nothing between you and the sky, you can propel your teammates up into the air and initiate a skydive.

Skyward allows for some incredibly powerful repositioning, and it synergises well with Valkyrie’s passive highlighting of enemies while skydiving. The downside is that you’re fairly vulnerable while flying straight upwards into the air, much like a player escalating a Jump Tower; and if you’re damaged during the wind-up phase of the Ultimate, then the ability will e cancelled and your charge level set back to 75%.

Skyward rivals Octane’s Launch Pad as the ultimate tool for getting in and out of trouble. There’s also great benefit in the idea that a team won’t be able to easily follow you if you use it to escape, because it doesn’t leave anything behind that the enemy can use (unlike Octane’s Launch Pad).

Tips:

• Once you reach the height limit of Skyward, you will initiate a skydive where you are the Jumpmaster. Like normal, your teammates can peel off from you and land separately.
• The height you reach as Valkyrie in Battle Royale is approximately 120% the height of the average jump tower. But in the Arena, your max height is capped to be significantly lower.
• If one or more of your teammates doesn’t hook up to your Skyward Ultimate, be aware just how incredibly split you can become if you don’t stick to them. Skyward isn’t the best tool for going on one-woman flanks, because it’s just too overt, much like Loba’s bracelet.

Valkyrie has been designed around her ability to fly, unlocking unique abilities while skydiving. Using her visor, Valkyrie is able to locate nearby enemies similar to Bloodhound’s Eye of the Allfather ability. It’s not all sunshine and roses, however, as Valkyrie is extremely vulnerable while flying. With the addition of a brand new Bocek bow to the game, players will be looking for any opportunity they can get to snipe any unarmed flying objects.

Learning how to play as Valkyrie will take some time, as her skill ceiling is sky high (pun intended). While she has some fairly obvious downsides if you use her abilities incorrectly, Valkyrie has the potential to earn a top spot on our Apex Legends tier list.