Valkyrie is the commando from Year Season 2’s Dust Line update. She has become a staple in Siege games across the skill gap and continues to be one of the highest picked characters today. The versatile nature of her ability allows her to change the attacker’s strategy drastically with some clever spots. Not only this, Ubisoft has given Valkyrie a loadout befitting her camera based ability, complementing her style of play greatly.

Ability - Gyro Cam MK2

The Gyro Cams, otherwise known as Black Eyes, are three distinctly blue spheres that can be thrown and stuck to most surfaces in the game (except for ceiling fans, for some weird reason). Once placed, you can use them like any other camera in the game, as can your teammates. The key differences are that they’re higher definition, they can rotate 360 degrees, and most importantly, they’re not always in the same place as is the case with default cams. This makes Valk a very big threat to an incoming attacker as a communicative teammate could be monitoring everything the enemy team is doing and the attackers would be none the wiser. While much of her kit is based around her cameras, let’s get into how her weapons synergize with her cams.

Loadout

Primary: Valk’s choices are between the MPX SMG and the SPAS-12 semi-automatic shotgun. While the SPAS-12 is geared towards a more “setup” oriented style of character, such as Pulse, the MPX is a more standard and reliable approach to playing Valk. The idea behind the SPAS, aside from being your average shotgun, is that with a well placed Black Eye, you could wallbang or floorbang more effectively. The caveat to this is that the SPAS only holds 7 shells, so you’re going to have to be accurate in order to seal the deal. The MPX can be used in a similar manner, but it often lends itself to a more defensive weapon. Sure, any bullets fire through soft walls, but why limit yourself to one style of play? Unless shotguns feel right at home for you, in which case, go nuts.

Secondary: Even if Valk did have another option to pick from when it comes to sidearms, there really wouldn’t be a contest as her one and only pistol is the D-50 “Deagle” and that’s all you could ever need. Now while many people, myself included, love this gun, I’m absolutely trash with it because the recoil is just so drastic. It packs a ridiculous punch, so if your aim is on point and you can control this bucking bronco, you are going to have a lot of fun with this gun.

Utility: Valk has the option of taking a deployable shield or a nitro cell into battle. While one is much more tempting, I do want to give credit where it’s due: the deployable absolutely has its uses. Giving you safe space to sit and look at your cams, obscuring doorways into objective, or even throwing off enemies as to whether or not it’s a Goyo shield; there are a lot of uses for deployable shields. The nitro cell is also useful, not only in the same vein as the SPAS-12’s “setup” mentality, but also for general fragging use. Whether you’re setting up a trap using a Black Eye or lobbing it into a group of enemies that you see from your bird’s eye view, it’s a handy tool to have.

Tips

• My number one tip for Valk players everywhere is to avoid marking attackers that aren't in a firefight. They’ll know you have vision on them and they will hunt down your cameras if they have the time. You should also let your teammates know this as they may instinctually do it and get your camera destroyed. Use your microphone to detail what the enemies are doing and hope the bright blue light of an active Black Eye doesn’t catch the attacker’s attention.
• As a small referendum to the above tip, marking enemies with your camera has its place. If your teammates are engaged with enemies on your camera, you are most likely safe to ping them, as they won't have the time to take out your Black Eye. This will give visual queues to your teammates, as well as hopefully get the enemy flustered.
• Players have been placing Black Eyes outdoors since the operator made it into the game, so while it’s common knowledge that Valk cams can go outside, you have to get creative on where to place them. The trees in the courtyard of Coastline is a great cam spot to see attackers on the roof or on the corners of Skyscrapers outdoor balconies. These can help not only callouts, but runouts should you get aggressive.
• This may seem like a bit of a cop-out of a tip as it was covered in the first, but you really need to communicate when playing Valk as that’s her greatest strength. By having that eye in the sky, she can and has completely derailed attacker strats just by one cam placement. If you’re looking to get better at giving callouts and learning not only map layouts, but general strategies, I cannot recommend this character enough.
  
  

As you can see, Valkyrie comes with some key benefits that completely change how the game is played. Not only this, she is a great character to play when you’re starting out because she teaches you the fundamentals of how to play for the team, rather than playing for yourself. So get creative with it and have some fun spying on the enemy team from the comfort and relative safety of the objective.

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