Apex Legends dev reveals scrapped Valkyrie changes as players demand nerf

An Apex Legends dev has revealed that Respawn planned a nerf for Valkyrie but decided to scrap it given how it would shake up the meta.

Ever since Valkyrie was first introduced to Apex Legends back in Season 9, the Winged Avenger has proven to be a popular choice with fans of the battle royale. However, she’s completely taken over the top level meta recently.

It is now difficult to drop into a game of Apex and not see at least a few teams running a Valkyrie in their composition, mostly because of her Skyward Dive Ultimate and how she’s able to get a free reposition after taking flight.

There have been plenty of calls for her to receive a nerf, given how she’s taken over the meta, but Respawn have been hesitant to do so. Though, they had planned a change that would have knocked her down a peg or two.

Valkyrie nerf scrapped by Apex Legends devs

After shutting down the idea of an “anti-scan” character, Respawn’s John ‘JayBiebs‘ Larson was quizzed on the idea of a nerf for Valk as she has become a “compulsory” pick in-game.

“So funnily enough, we were close to pulling the trigger on removing beacon scan from her,” Larson replied. “At least remove that so she’s not an auto pick in comp, right? But on second thought, we realized it may be counter productive.”

The Apex dev noted that players would simply get around that nerf by combining Valk, Gibraltar, and any of the scan legends in a trio. “So we figured we could go back to the drawing board while we let this comp split play out with more legend diversity,” he added.

While players would, no doubt, prefer to see Valkyrie nerfed sooner rather than later, the fact that Respawn have been toying with changes should be good news.

It remains to be seen as to how, and when, she’ll eventually be nerfed but it feels safe to say that it it is coming before long.