Valorant KAY/O Guide: Anti-Enemy Skills

Kayo’s abilities are very much focused around the abilities of your foe – that is, preventing them from being used! Don’t underestimate the power of limiting them just to their guns. Not only that, his utility is great for cracking open sites and winning gunfights. In this guide, we’ll teach you everything you need to know to make the other team look more like bots than Kayo himself!

Frag/Ment

• Cost: 200 credits
• Duration: 4s
• Damage: 25-60 per tick (outer-inner explosion radius), 1 tick/s

Frag/Ment is like a combination of a grenade and a molotov, as it deals damage through as many as 4 explosions, spaced a second apart. This makes it much stronger than a classic single-detonation nade. It may help to understand how best to use it to think of it like a molly as it has a very similar function.

When the other team is about to push, Kayo’s nade is the perfect way to slow them down. Sure, they can push right through, but they’ll be deliberately making themselves easier to kill as they do so, as they’ll likely take damage multiple times. It can be very effective when thrown on the other side of a smoke, providing they were preparing to flash out of it, as they might miss the sound cues of the explosions and get hit by them without expecting it.

You can use the nade to clear out angles, such as cubby on B site Ascent. Make sure to hold the angle for a couple of seconds after you’ve thrown it – if there is an enemy there, they’ll be forced to leave, and you can get an easy pick with the help of the damage already dealt!

As a general rule, you should prepare to watch wherever you’ve just naded, so you can take full advantage of your opponents having less health. The last thing you want is for them to make it to a Sage on their team and get healed, neutralizing the work you did.

It doesn’t hurt to combine it with some spamming either – you could try to wallbang or spam a smoke if you’ve naded the other side of it to deal the last few points of damage needed to get kills! Take care which weapon or angle you use to spam though, as the Vandal leaves tracers which could be used to pinpoint your location, so you could get counter-spammed and die because of it.

You should also be cautious when using the frag/ment in situations where you have an enemy trapped in a particular spot. While it seems like a great time to nade them if they’re hiding from you, their only option in those scenarios is to swing you, and you could get unlucky with timing. It’s usually better to not wait too long before trying to force them out with a nade unless they’re deliberately wasting time, such as in a post-plant defense.

Like a molly, you can win rounds after planting the spike by preventing a defuse with a well-timed grenade. You could force an opponent off the spike, make them easier to kill through a smoke, or, if you’ve wasted enough time already, prevent them from even having a chance to start defusing.

You don’t really need to learn line-ups for this goal, although it doesn’t hurt to know a couple of spots you can hit from afar. If you learn them for default planting positions, you can even use them on defense to deny or delay a bomb plant.

Flash/Drive

• Cost: 250 credits, up to 2 total
• Windup: 1.6s (primary fire), 1s (alt fire)
• Effect: 2s flash

As the name suggests, Flash/Drive is a flashbang grenade which can blind players for up to 2 seconds. This ability is one of the main things that makes Kayo an initiator. It’s up to you to be on the frontlines to enable entry onto a site, or be prepared to throw a carefully lined-up flash that will allow your team to gain control.

Aim your Flash/Drive so it lands behind where you intend to peek. This means it will catch your opponents but not you, so you can get a good timing by pushing just as they turn the flash. This way, you don’t need to wait until it detonates as you can be sure you won’t flash yourself!

You want to make sure that you flash with a purpose – denying vision is incredibly powerful, so you don’t want to waste your utility. For this reason, try to limit using it to when you’re sure it’s going to catch an enemy. The usual routine is to start by shoulder or jump peeking to be sure of the enemy location (and that they are definitely there!), then flashing out and swinging to take the engagement. This will give you much more value.

In general, a right-click flash is better than a left-click as it detonates much faster, so your opponents have less time to react. Of course, the disadvantage is that it doesn’t travel as far, so you can’t flash further away from you. However, since you need to be prepared to swing as soon as it goes off, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing! A right-click flash out of a smoke can prevent you from having to waste time waiting for it to fade – just ensure that your teammates are ready to push with you as soon as the flash pops.

Zero/Point

• Cost: Free
• Windup: 1s
• Cooldown: 40s
• Effect: 8s suppression

Zero/Point is a crucial part of Kayo’s toolkit as it can render your opponents almost helpless, or at the very least set them at a huge disadvantage. Did the enemy Raze or Jett just ult? Is Chamber peeking an aggressive angle in the hopes of teleporting away after getting a pick? Or is the other team preparing to flash onto a site? Simply suppress them and for the next 8 seconds they have to completely rethink their plans.

Kayo’s knife also gives you valuable information as it tells you exactly who has been suppressed, so you can not only see how many enemies are near but also feed the info back to your team to help you keep track of who is where. You can prepare to counter play their abilities too since you know what to expect.

Try to vary the locations you throw your Zero/Point as it is breakable for the first second before it activates. It’s a good idea to have some general locations that you know will reach angles you’re hoping to clear, but if you use the same spot every time, the opposition will learn where they are and pre-aim it, rendering it useless.

To get the maximum effect from this ability, don’t instantly knife at the start of rounds. While you gain info if no one is detected, the other team could easily be defaulting, or rotate quickly anyway, and you’ll have to wait for it to recharge before being able to suppress them. You want to time it for when a push is about to come so you have the util advantage if they go ahead with an execute, or buy more time for your team to rotate.

You should also be wary of revealing your position when you knife, particularly if you’re lurking or playing separately from your team. It’s quite likely that you’ll be pushed if you knife when someone is close to you, so be alert and ready to take engagements.

Null/Cmd

• 7 points
• Windup: 3s (stabilization), 1.55s (revive)
• Duration: 12s (overload), 15s (downed)
• Health when downed: 850hp
• Buff: +15% fire rate, +10% reload speed, +10% recovery speed
• Effect: 4s suppression per pulse

Kayo’s ultimate ability has a number of effects, the two main ones being that you can be resurrected by any teammate after dying, and that it sends out pulses of suppression catching those nearby.

It doesn’t last the full round, so make sure you time your ult carefully to get the most value out of it. When attacking, ulting just before you push is a great way to get easier access. For example, you can completely counteract a Killjoy setup as all of her abilities will go offline, preventing her from anchoring the site.

It’s important to consider your positioning to make sure your suppression pulses are reaching the areas you need it to. Stick with your team and stay aggressive; don’t fall back to watch flank or you’ll have a lesser impact.

While it sounds powerful, the revival aspect of the ult isn’t used as much as you might expect. This is because it requires you to have died in a safe location where a teammate can afford to be defenseless for a few seconds.

Conversely, you can be used effectively as bait when in this position! Enemies will be forced to peek if you’re being rez’ed, or might be distracted trying to shoot you when downed. And of course, if you’re successfully brought back, you can bring the numbers back in your favor.

That’s it for our Valorant KAY/O guide – now you’re ready to neutralize your enemies and gain the advantage in every engagement! If you found it useful, be sure to check out our site for more guides like this!