What Map Is KAY/O Good On? A Complete Guide
KAY/O is a war machine built for a single purpose; neutralizing radiants. His power to suppress the abilities of his enemies cripples their capacity to fight back and thus securing him and his allies the ultimate edge.
Agent KAY/O was the first robotic agent to be added to the roster in Episode 3 Act 1 of Valorant. The robot seemed to be a jack-of-all-trades and a master of none. However, his effectiveness started to increase as players started to master his abilities.
KAY/O has become more and more meta, especially as pros realize that he counters everyone. His knife gets a lot of information and is also capable of suppressing and delaying, his mollies do the same, and his flashes are to be taken seriously as they are super strong.
Whenever a player learns a Valorant Agent, there are always some mechanics and tricks that can help you win more battles with them. The same goes for KAY/O! So, if you were looking to master the robot and gain command over him, then you have come to the right place.
In this article, we have mentioned some of the best KAY/O tips and tricks in Valorant so let’s get started!
KAY/O’s Abilities
Without going too far into KAY/O’s abilities, we will briefly describe them which are as follows:
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Frag
One of his abilities is the Fragment Grenade, also referred to as a molly, since it acts over time and is not just a one-time explosion. When you throw it, it creates a sphere where it pulses, and with each pulse, it has the ability to do damage depending on how close the enemy is.
The fragment will instantly stick to any flat surface on the ground so it can bounce off of walls, but once it lands, it will just stick.
2. Flash
You have two types of throws; a left-click throw and a right-click throw. The left click is an overhand where you can toss it much farther, whereas the right click is an underhand, which is really good for pop flashing or setting up for near or dodgeable flashes.
Left click will generally be used a lot more to support others or use for delay. The right-click will be used a lot more for yourself, or sometimes if you are in a smoke or stacked up with your team, you will pop flash out of a smoke and then swing out.
3. Zero Point
Zero Point is KAY/O’s Signature ability, also known as his knife, acts on a cooldown timer where once you use it, it will instantly start a timer where eventually you will be able to get it back again and can use it throughout the round.
KAY/O’s knife goes through walls, so throwing it against a wall will affect people in the radius that are on the other side of walls. Additionally, it tells you that people are suppressed, who is suppressed, and how many, so it is naturally seen as a good information tool.
4. Null Command
Null Command is his ultimate ability, and pressing the Alt key will activate this state where KAY/O will continually emit pulses similar to the Zero point or KAY/O knife. It will suppress anyone within the radius.
In case you get killed while your ult is activated before the final pulse, then instead of dying, you actually go into a down state where you have a significant HP of around 800. You can still stay alive and see the field of view you had before you died.
Moreover, your teammates are allowed to rez you within a certain amount of time. KAY/O ult is really good at delaying attacks. For example, if the attackers are pushing toward the A site and you were to activate your ult, all of them would be suppressed, making them unable to use their abilities.
Strong Maps For KAY/O
At a higher model and radiant level, especially toward the pro scenes, you will see KAY/O mostly run on maps like Ascent, Breeze, and Haven. It is not that he is bad on the other maps like Pearl, Fracture, Icebox, or Bind. It is just that most often, you will find other agents gain more value, and KAY/O’s knife does not gain as much, which is generally a big tipping point.
There is a significant reason why KAY/O is stronger on those maps so let us talk about Ascent first.
Ascent
Talking about Ascent, it has a lot of thin walls that allow you to get tons of value with your knife, shutting out a lot of information. He is a perfect tree player on Ascent as he flashes through any sort of aggression, so if they were to smoke out a tree, you could pop flash easily enough.
If they are to hit through a main and they smoke out the door after breaking it, then you are welcome to flash as well. This helps you to support any of your teammates while getting early information just by throwing a knife somewhere useful.
You might even hear an ult orb being grabbed, but the fact that you get this much information and the walls are so thin really provides this value.
Haven
All the fights will be relatively close, so your flash will always be effective. KAY/O is also really similar to Ascent on Haven, and the knives will clear a lot on the retake and be able to clear sewers.
Super aggro knives like his shut out all AMA and aggression by simply throwing it against the wall, and you will notice that in some cases, it covers all of a lobby. Haven is also a map with three sites, so it makes sense that you are playing retake a lot on the defending site.
This is because you have to spread out more thinly, and KAY/O’s ult is really good for retakes and sets up impressively well.
Breeze
For Breeze, it is less about the thin walls and more about the fact that you are playing against a Viper. Viper’s utility is super strong on Breeze because she needs her wall or her team needs a wall to get out onto pretty much any of the sites.
If Viper needs to stay unsuppressed to be able to keep her wall up, then that is a problem. This is because when on A rush, assuming that is a very common stratum Breeze, the Viper wall goes up, and people are flooding out.
In such a scene, if KAY/O throws a knife against that wall, it will suppress the wall, which will go down, allowing your teammates to have a free firing squad range on all the people who are running out.
In general, you will find that KAY/O is very strong against Viper just because of that fact, as he does not counter other smokers quite as hard because usually, when they drop the smoke, they don’t have to worry about it anymore.
Unlike Viper, if, for example, you are going a KAY/O that is ulted, the Viper would have to make sure that they stay out of the range the entire time the ult is up to ensure the wall stays up and all her smoke stays out.
