A Tier – Sova
Best Valorant Agents, Ranked
The meta is trying to shift away from Sova following a nerf to his owl drone and shock darts, but Sova remains a king at the very top of the tier list.
Thanks to his ability to illuminate enemy targets with both his surveillance arrow and owl drone, Sova offers important intel for his team, allowing them to catch attacking rushes before they happen or recon sites for enemies before his team enters. He is invaluable on almost every map in the game.
Sova is an Agent who is both fantastic to learn as a beginner and equally a useful part of any high-elo squad. He’s the eyes of the team, making it easier for both yourself and everyone else to spot targets. And when you want to strike back at targets, his Ultimate is a powerful offensive attack that can blow through walls. This can be used at the start of a round to gain a pick or more defensively to either attack or defend the spike plant/defuse.
Outside of games played on Split and Fracture where his darts offer less value, you won’t see many professional games at the pro esports level that don’t feature Sova. For this reason, he’s an easy S-Tier pick.
Sova Abilities:
- Shock Bolt – Fire an explosive bolt that emits a damaging pulse of static energy upon impact.
- Owl Drone – Deploy a pilotable drone that can fire a dart that will Reveal enemies who are hit.
- Recon Bolt – Fire a bolt that deploys a sonar emitter. The sonar pings tag nearby enemies, causing them to be revealed. Can be destroyed.
- Ultimate: Hunter’s Fury – Fire up to three deadly energy blasts that spear across the entire map. Each hit enemy takes heavy damage and is marked.
A Tier – Raze
Best Valorant Agents, Ranked
When it comes to purely offensive utility, there’s no Agent stronger than Raze. Her Boom Bot, Grenade, and Showstopper can kill multiple enemies in a single hit, which not only makes her incredibly strong in a duel but can force enemy teams away from pushing areas for fear of taking damage.
This allows Raze to control entire areas and win space for her team, whereas other duelists’ utility tends to help only at the individual level.
Raze’s most unique ability is her Blast Pack which boosts her (or another player) in a direction, either upward, sideways, or forward. This gives Raze the ability to reach areas of the map other Agents can’t, as well as quickly escape or fast-entry, similar to Jett’s Dash. In a pinch, you can even use it offensively to damage enemies or send them flying away.
The Blast Pack works best, though, in combination with Showstopper ult. It’s best used to elevate her into the air after bringing out the rocket launcher so she can better spot targets.
Raze is the meta duelist on Bind, but she’s also ever-more frequently being used on maps she was previously considered poor on, such as Icebox and Ascent. Perhaps only with the exception on Breeze, Raze is actually viable on more or less every other map.
Raze Abilities
- Blast Pack – Instantly throw a Blast Pack that will stick to surfaces. Re-use the ability after deployment to detonate, damaging and moving anything hit.
- Cluster Grenade – Fire to throw the grenade, which does damage and creates sub-munitions, each doing damage to anyone in range
- Boom Bot – Fire will deploy the bot, causing it to travel in a straight line on the ground, bouncing off walls. The Boom Bot will lock on to any enemies in its frontal cone and chase them, exploding for heavy damage if it reaches them.
- Ultimate: Showstopper – Fire shoots a rocket that does massive area damage on contact with anything.
A Tier – Omen
Omen is back! Finally, the Agent’s buffed utility following Patch 4.04 has, in combination with Astra’s big nerf, brought the mysterious controller into the meta. Omen can now smoke faster and for longer, while his teleports are also speedier.
Overall, Omen is an extremely versatile Agent who can be played somewhat passively as a controller or aggressively thanks to his teleport trickery. His greatest asset is that he can both smoke and flash. Further, both those abilities are arguably the most powerful of their type in the whole game — Omen’s smoke can reach almost anywhere on the map from any position, and his flash can travel through walls and blind entire teams.
Omen’s ultimate is still a little underwhelming since most enemy teams will be wise to his position after teleporting. However, it is occasionally useful for a quick rotation, and since Omen can see the area he’s teleporting into, it can actually be deployed simply to gain intel on the enemy’s whereabouts before quickly canceling.
Omen Abilities:
- Paranoia – Send out an Ethereal shadow in a straight line, Nearsighting anyone it touches.
- Shadow Walk – After a delay, dematerialize and teleport a short distance.
- Signature Ability – Dark Cover: Cast out a stealthed ethereal orb that bursts into an obscuring sphere of shadow at its final location. Can be charged to increase distance.
- Ultimate: From the Shadows – Select anywhere on the map to teleport and reform. When arriving, appear as a Shade, that will go back to your original location if killed. Once the teleport is complete, become Incorporeal for a short time.
Related: Valorant Agent Tier List on Attack of the Fanboy
A Tier – Brimstone
Best Valorant Agents, Ranked
After patch 4.04’s big buff, Brimmy with the stimmy is no longer a meme: he’s legitimately one of the best controllers in the game. His smokes now deploy faster, are larger, and last for even longer. But the big change is to the stim beacon itself, which now boosts player movement speed as well as the rate of fire. If you want to fast execute, Brimstone is the controller for you.
As with any controller, Brimstone is all about controlling the maps with his utility, blocking off sightlines with his smokes, and flushing enemies out with his Molly. The key difference with Brimstone in comparison to Astra and Omen is that his smokes have a limited range. It’s a disadvantage that doesn’t make him viable on some maps, but the speed with which his smokes deploy –now enhanced after the latest patch–, and their overall effectiveness at blocking lines of sight, make him superb for explosive executes.
Brimstone’s Orbital Strike ultimate is, of course, his most powerful asset, and you can get creative with its use. You could, for example, instantly take out an entrenched enemy position, or you could save it for a post plan situation and activate it when the enemy is attempting to defuse.
Brimstone Abilities
- Incendiary – Launch an incendiary grenade that deploys a damaging field of fire.
- Stim Beacon -Target a nearby location to call in a Stim Beacon, giving all players near it Rapidfire.
- Signature Ability – Sky Smoke: Use your map to call in orbital deployment smokescreens that obscure vision. Click to set the locations, and confirm to launch.
- Ultimate : Orbital Strike – Use your map to target a location, launching a devastating orbital strike that pulses for high damage over several seconds.
A Tier – KAY/0
KAY/0’s arrival to Valorant’s roster wasn’t an immediate hit, but a buff to his utility soon after his launch made him much more powerful. A subsequent buff then made his molly even stronger than before, damaging players through walls and reducing the need for precision lineups. And then Riot Games pulled the plug and dialled KAY/0 back; he’s since been nerfed so that his right-click flash is less potent. Even still, we think KAY/0 is still among the best initiators in the game. He’s not quite S tier anymore, but he isn’t far off.
KAY/0’s strength is, of course, his ability to suppress enemy utility using his Zero Point knife, which also has a dual purpose in that it gathers intel as well. This, in combination with a flash that can be used either aggressively or as a support for teammates, makes KAY/0 powerful for sight entries. His ultimate takes suppression to the next level, nullifying utility in a radius around him while increasing his own rate of fire. If KAY/0 is downed, he can be revived, Fortnite-style! His suppression continues all the while…
On defense, his intel gathering is useful for obvious reasons, while his flashes and frag/ment molly are useful for slowing enemy pushes. Altogether, KAY/0 offers a unique set of attributes to any team composition, and he’s viable on every map in the game. All of this makes him easily still an A-tier agent.
KAY/0 Abilities
- Frag/ment – EQUIP an explosive fragment. FIRE to throw. The fragment sticks to the floor and explodes multiple times, dealing near lethal damage at the center with each explosion.
- Flash/drive – EQUIP a flash grenade. FIRE to throw. The flash grenade explodes after a short fuse, blinding anyone in line of sight.
- Zero/Point – EQUIP a suppression blade. FIRE to throw. The blade sticks to the first surface it hits, winds up, and suppresses anyone in the radius of the explosion.
- Ultimate: Null/CMD – INSTANTLY overload with polarized radianite energy that pulses from KAY/O in a massive radius. Enemies hit with pulses are suppressed for a short duration. While overloaded, KAY/O gains combat stim and can be re-stabilized if downed.
A Tier – Skye
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Skye has been knocked down a little over the past 12 months from what was at one point a near S-Tier status. Her flash was nerfed not once but twice, most recently in Patch 5.07 which reduced the flash time on birds that haven’t traveled very far but increased on ones that do. The result is an Agent that actually fits her concept much better now. Skye is very much a support Agent who flashes for teammates, not a secondary duelist as she more or less was at one point.
In comparison to other initiators, Skye packs a more varied belt of utility than other Agents like KAY/O, Fade, and Sova. Not only do her flashes blind enemies but they actually telegraph their location with a voice cue that Skye’s entire team hears. Her Trailblazer, too, is a fast-moving scout similar to Sova’s drone that can actually inflict damage and stun, while her ultimate ability also seeks out enemy positions. Skye also benefits from her ability to heal teammates, which makes her unique amongst the initiators.
Indeed, Skye arguably possesses the most diverse range of utility in Valorant, capable of supporting and playing aggressively in equal measure, which makes her an A-Tier choice.
- Trailblazer: Summon a controllable Wolf that can concuss and damage enemies by pressing Fire when active.
- Guiding Light: Send a Hawk forward or around corners, with the ability to flash enemies it encounters by pressing E again.
- Regrowth: Heal allies in proximity, but does not heal Skye. Reusable until depleted.
- Seekers: Send out a trio of seekers that find enemies and nearsight them.
A Tier- Neon
Best Valorant Agents, Ranked
Valorant’s speedy duelist has found herself sprinting up the meta tier list in recent months. Now able to slide sideways and backwards, as well as a redesign of her ult that makes it more powerful when aiming for the head, Neon has become a meta choice on maps like Fracture and Breeze. Once thought of as a bit of a useless addition to the roster, Neon is fast becoming a favorite among duelist players across ranked and pro play.
The most useful part of her kit, which has come as a bit of a surprise, is her stun. It’s extremely fast, bounces off walls, and can be fired twice to quickly take space from enemy teams. It’s been successful in recent professional esports competitions such as Champions, sometimes proving a series decider for the teams who have a talented Neon main on their side.
Neon Abilities
- Fast Lane – FIRE two energy lines forward on the ground that extend a short distance or until they hit a surface. The lines rise into two walls of static electricity that block vision and damage enemies passing through them.
- Relay Bolt – INSTANTLY throw an energy bolt that bounces once. Upon hitting each surface, the bolt electrifies the ground below with a concussive blast.
- High Gear – INSTANTLY channel Neon’s high power for increased speed. When charged, ALT FIRE to trigger an electric slide. Slide charge resets every two kills.
- Ultimate: Overdrive – Unleash Neon’s full power and speed for a short duration. FIRE to channel the power into a deadly lightning beam with high movement accuracy.
