Cover-Credits:
Skye has always been in a weird spot in Valorant due to her situational utility. At the recently concluded Valorant Champions Istanbul event, she was picked around 21% of the time and most of the pick rate was driven by her popularity was driven by her viability on Bind. Out of the 172 matches that were played at the event, she was picked 36 times and 22 of those picks were on Bind. She is easily outclassed by other Duelists in other maps and Riot Games is making some changes to her kit which might make her versatile.
Skye’s Guiding Light is getting a massive buff
Skye’s Guiding Light was highly situational and she does not see meaningful play outside of Bind. In the new public beta environment, Riot Games revealed that Guiding Light’s destructibility was too punishing when she tried to throw them at a longer range. By increasing the top-end output and rewarding Skye for bending her birds into the right spots, the change will enable more teamwork and differentiate her Guiding Light from other flashes in the game.
Here are the changes in the new update:
Guiding Light (E) flashbang scaling paradigm changed
The max flash duration of Skye's Guiding Light now scales from 1.25s to 2.25s over a .75s charge up after being cast
Guiding Light can no longer be shot and destroyed
New VFX, UI, and sounds added to communicate new gameplay intent
There is another change that tweaks the unequip delay out of Guiding Light increased from 0.75s to 0.85s. Guiding Light being invulnerable makes it a much more versatile tool instead of a situational one.
With other agents getting their flash abilities nerfed and Skye receiving some tweaks to her kit that make her E ability a whole lot stronger, she might finally be used more frequently. These changes are intended to increase the total teamplay output of Skye in coordinated play, and decrease some of their efficacy when played alone. With a delay being added to the ability, there is also a high skill ceiling when it comes to using Guiding Light.
Some of the changes are currently in the Public Beta Environment and they should be available in the live version of the game in the coming weeks. The next patch is expected in mid-October, which is when the new flash changes and other progression updates should go live along with Skye’s buffs.
