Skye is the 13th agent of Valorant and the first to arrive from Australia. Called in by Sage to help save the planet, she joins the Valorant Agents to show off her abilities.
The Aussie initiator has three talents that can be used to scout and disable opponents, as well as a team-wide remedy to get you back to full health after the battle is over. But the important point to note is that it takes a lot of time for her skills to be used, so you'll need to use your squad to capitalize on them as efficiently as possible.
The guide below will help you play Skye effectively on Icebox so that you can assist your team in getting those victories.
Skye’s Abilities:
Guiding Light:
It allows Skye to Equip a hawk trinket. Releasing Fire sends it forward, and holding fire can help you guide the hawk in the direction of your crosshair. It can be re-used when the hawk is in flight to turn it into a flash. It costs 100 credits apiece.
Skye’s Guiding Light is extremely useful since Skye can easily bend it around corners, providing you with even more control of where it detonates and the duration of its flight. If its flash blinds anyone successfully, the hawk even lets out a screech, giving the squad intel so that you can swing around the corner to get a free pick. With guiding light, Skye’s teammates are benefited in two ways: distraction, and intel.
Trailblazer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_hYP9R9NLk
For this Skye equips a Tasmanian tiger trinket. Upon firing it is sent out and allows to take control of the predator. Pressing fire when in control would make it leap forward, bursting in a concussive explosion that damages the enemies. This ability costs 200 credits.
Similar to her Guiding Light ability, Trailblazer can be released and controlled once it is made active. However, unlike the former ability, this uses a Tiger instead of a Hawk. Although its impact isn’t everlasting and is only for brief concussions, it's quick enough to clean out corners. The optimal usage will involve players using it to clear nearby corners, only to have a teammate moving behind it ready to pick up a free kill.
Regrowth:
This skill allows her to equip a healing trinket. Holding fire channels it healing all allies in range and line of sight. Until her healing pool is drained, this ability can be reused. But it’s worth noting that she cannot heal herself. This too costs 200 credits.
Sage mains have been suffering after the recent nerfs and are starting to question if the newly added Agent Skye can heal teammates. Well, the Regrowth ability answers their question providing an alternate option to players if they want to heal injured teammates. The ability is enough to cover much of the site; although, the recovery is much slower than the healing orb of Sage. If you're packed on a site and the opposing squad is constantly trying to push in on you, this should be just fine. This ability fits best in situations where teammates are wounded up badly from shock arrows, grenades, boom bots, etc. Gaining even the slightest bit of health can tip the scales back in your team’s favour.
Seeker:
Finally, as her ultimate, a load of seekers are launched. They're huge green blobs that are floating right towards your enemies, giving away their position. If these blobs hit someone, it’ll give them the near sight effect (which is what the players see when standing in Viper’s smoke, for example).
If you are low on the number of teammates, Seekers is outstanding for securing a plant, and it's also nice to pop before bursting on site. The idea that the Seeker drones are only about to get to work means you can concentrate on taking up gunfights and clearing corners. Seekers compel opponents to choose between holding their ground and likely dying, or to be on the backfoot providing Skye’s team advantage in either case.
Conclusion:
Skye can take advantage of Guiding Light and Trailblazer. Trailblazer allows Skye to both concuss and collect intel on where the enemy team is, given its right usage. Her ultimate also helps with this too but the main ability where Skye shines is with her Guiding Light ability. This ability beats every other flash and concussion ability in comparison to Reyna, and Breach mainly because of how many uses her ability has. The opportunity for movement, control and range with guiding light compared to any other ability making Skye all the much more helpful in a map with so many corners, angles and altitudes. Her healing site also allows her to keep her teammates alive, especially where players are left vulnerable from many sides. Her ultimate too comes in clutch especially when you have to pass through places alone without any backup, revealing players waiting in ambush.
Her utility kit is currently one of the best in the game, and with Sage extremely nerfed up at the moment choosing Skye, even as a healer, will be a wiser pick. Just because of how strong it is, it's worth taking the downgrade on weapons to get maximum utility when it comes to Skye’s kit compared to her counterparts. Nevertheless, her abilities can be difficult to use. To perfect the trajectory, her Guiding Light needs some time and practice. Furthermore, since Skye has a higher exponential learning curve using her more will hone and enhance your skills. You must still be careful not to injure yourself or your allies. Her talents will backfire with the slightest of mistakes. She can be one of the best Agents once you get used to her. Since she has been just added to the game, players haven’t learned how to counter her, giving you the upper hand in most scenarios.
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Cover image courtesy of Riot Games
Aashir Ahmed
2020-11-14 06:02:29