Valorant’s latest addition is Skye, an agent who uses her band of beasts to trail-blaze the way through hostile territory.

She offers different ways to hamper enemy agents, and her power to heal her teammates shows that she can offer support when needed.

Skye is still more than two weeks away from being launched, but we already know all of her abilities and ultimate, so it’s time to analyze their strengths and weaknesses based on what we were able to test in Riot’s early access build for Act III.

Guiding Light

Skye equips a hawk trinket, which allows her to control a Hawk that takes flight. Players can control the Hawk similar to Jett’s Cloudburst. And Skye can detonate the Hawk, which will flash anyone within line of sight. The Guiding Light ability has three charges and only costs 100 credits.

Pros:

Guiding Light is probably the most unique flash in the game because of the way players can control it. Instead of it being cast from a fixed distance, players can actually send it far forward and blind enemies from a far distance.

Cons:

However, the Hawk can be shot down by the enemy team, which means it isn’t a guaranteed flash like the other agent flashes in Valorant. It also requires practice to master because it is fairly difficult to control and the risk of flashing your teammates is very high, especially if you’re flashing from a far distance.

Verdict:

Guiding Light is a very dangerous skill to use for someone who’s still trying to learn how to play Skye because you run the risk of flashing yourself and your team right when you’re going for an entry play. But once you get the hang of this ability — and because it has three charges and only costs 100 credits — you’ll be able to make high impact plays by entry flashing or even defensive flashing your opponents when they decide to make their move.

Trailblazer

Skye equips a Tasmanian tiger trinket that lets her take control of a predator. While in control, players can have it leap forward exploding in a concussive blast and damaging directly hit enemies. The ability only has one charge and will cost 200 credits.

Pros:

Skye’s Trailblazer ability is perfect for scouting and stunning opponents who’ve decided to hide behind cover. The summoned beast moves fast so it can gather crucial information in a short span of time, but players can still maneuver around it.

Cons:

The main weakness of the ability is that it has limited vision, and even at full speed, players can maneuver around it. And based on the early access build we were able to try out, it doesn’t take a lot of shots to kill it. However, Riot has said that they have yet to finalize how much health Skye’s summoned abilities will have.

Verdict:

The Trailblazer ability is a combination of Sova’s Owl Drone and Breach’s Fault Line. It can scout out enemy agents from a safe distance, and when it does land on an opponent, they’re damaged and stunned with similar effects from the Fault Line ability.

Regrowth

Skye equips a healing trinket that channels an area of effect to heal her allies that are within range and in line of sight. The Regrowth ability has a total of 100 healing points, and Skye can keep healing the allies as long as it isn’t depleted. The ability costs 200 credits.

Pros:

This makes Skye the second agent in Valorant that can heal teammates behind Sage. And while Phoenix and Reyna can only heal themselves, Skye will not gain any health points back when she uses Regrowth on herself.

The Regrowth ability is perfect for the latter stages of the round when you happen to regroup with your team after initiating on a site and planting the spike, or even when you’re about to retake a site with whoever is left on your team.

Cons:

And before you say the ability is too overpowered because it can heal up to four members of your team when activated, this will require your team to rotate to wherever Skye is on the map. And while she’s using Regrowth, she doesn’t have her weapon equipped and will be completely vulnerable. And on top of that, she needs to be within line of sight of the teammate she is trying to heal, which could force her to be in a vulnerable position.

Verdict:

We believe because of the Regrowth ability, Skye will be asked to play very passively by her teammates, similar to how Sage is played. This is also why we believe Skye will be played as an anchor type agent who shouldn’t take entry gunfights.

Seekers

Skye equips a Seeker trinket that will send out three Seekers to track down three of the closest enemies. And when a Seeker reaches and hits a target, it near sights them. Seekers only require six ultimate points before she can use it.

Pros:

Skye’s ultimate gives her team the positional advantage when used. She and her teammates can use this information to close in on their opponents. And from the early access Act III build we were invited to, it takes a lot of shots before you can take down the ultimate. And once the ultimate lands, it has similar effects to Omen’s Paranoia wherein the opponents are blinded and their minimap will be blocked off for a short period of time.

Verdict:

We expect Skye’s Seekers ultimate to be very effective once she’s released if the user finds the proper timing on when to pounce on the tracked opponent. The ultimate also has a wide range. For example, the ability might not reach an enemy team from opposite ends of spawn points, but it will reach opponents more than halfway across the map.

Conclusion:

At first glance, Skye looks like an overpowered agent. Her skills are highly effective, but they’re also very difficult to pull off. And she will often be left in a vulnerable state because she needs to control almost all of her abilities, which means she will be played as an anchor agent.

She is definitely an agent that has a high skill ceiling, but based on what she can accomplish with the abilities she has, we firmly believe she can challenge Sova’s title as the best initiator in Valorant.

We also believe Skye’s best map will be Icebox. There’s so much high ground area for her to use Guiding Light that can flash opponents from a safe distance. There are also way too many corners to clear in Act III’s new map, and her Trailblazer ability will allow her to scout these dangerous spots for her team.

Skye’s abilities are easily countered by just shooting them down, so in maps like Bind and Split, the enemy team will be able to pre-aim narrow entry points. And she could also do well in Ascent, especially when the team is trying to take mid control.

READ MORE: Riot reveals new Valorant map Icebox