New Apex Legends survival item is direct counter to Valkyrie in Season 17
Apex Legends Season 17 will introduce the new Evac Tower survival item to the battle royale, which the devs hope will promote less reliance on Valkyrie.
Apex Legends Season 17 is bringing some exciting new content and updates to the game, including major Ranked Leagues changes, a weapon mastery system, and the new Legend Ballistic.
As well as all this, players will be getting a new survival item known as the Evac Tower. This new item is essentially a portable Jump Tower, allowing players to relocate when in a dire situation. For those who utilize Valkyrie, this may sound familiar.
Every season players expect to see some buffs and nerfs for Legends to mix up the meta, but in Season 17, the devs have decided to counter Valkyrie by introducing this new survival item.
In fact, during an Apex Legends Season 17 press meeting, the devs explicitly stated that one of the intentions behind the introduction of the Evac Tower was to allow for more diverse team compositions and reduce the reliance on Valkyrie for rotations.
Teams without a Valkyrie can now pick up and use an Evac Tower to help them rotate out of bad positions, using it similarly to the Skyward Dive Ultimate. That said, the devs did mention that Valkyrie’s Ultimate is still more powerful and the Evac Tower can be shot down.
In a sense, this is a sort of indirect nerf to Valkyrie, as although her Ultimate will still be more effective, it’s no longer unique, as players can use an Evac Tower to a similar effect.
We’ll have to wait and see just how much this impacts team compositions and whether or not Valkyrie’s pick rate will drop off as a result of the new survival item.
Until then, make sure you also check out all of the changes coming to World’s Edge and the Firing Range in Apex Legends Season 17.
Image Credits: Respawn Entertainment
