Best Valorant Characters – TIER List Closed Beta

Barry
April 21, 2020
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Valorant is undeniably dominating talk amongst gamers at the moment, and with it peaking at 1.6 million co-current watchers on Twitch recently, it’s impossible to ignore. One question in everyone’s mind is that of the best agent in Valorant; a tough question due to the complexities of the game. This article will simplify the question, highlighting each agent’s strengths and weaknesses, and dividing them into different tiers to help you pick.

S Tier Agents

Raze

Raze can be found at the top of Valorant agent rankings across the internet, perhaps signalling that she is OP (over-powered). The main reason why Raze places so firmly in the S tier is not only the explosive nature of her abilities, but their ease of use and versatility.

Her Blast Pack ability is an explosive throwable which can be placed and later detonated by the player, making for a great defensive trap or offensive weapon. It boasts super high damage and a large area of affect, often taking out multiple targets with ease.

Her Boom Bot and Paint Shells abilities are similar, too. The first is a deployable robot which tracks enemies and explodes autonomously, and the second a simple cluster grenade. Again, they both do considerable damage with large areas of effect, making them simple enough to be useful in almost any situation. Additionally, Paint Shells is Raze’s signature, meaning it costs nothing.

Finally, Raze’s ultimate is (you’ve guessed it) an even bigger explosive; a rocket launcher, to be exact. While it only comes with a single shot, it deals so much splash damage that it’s hard to not take a couple of people out.

Sage

Sage is primarily a support agent, which for some may be unappealing to play, but in terms of making a strong team she simply cannot be forgotten about. She is the only agent in valorant with abilities that allow you to heal your allies; a role which is undeniably useful

Firstly, you get one free Healing Orb ability at the start of each round; this allows you to heal your teammates or yourself to max health in just a couple of seconds. Similarly, her ultimate ability will allow you to resurrect a teammate. It doesn’t take much imagination to see why this can win you games.

Sage also has a couple of neat throwable abilities which can hinder your opponents: Slow Orb and Barrier Orb. Respectively, these create a large area in which players are slowed, and a solid wall which no one can pass through. Both of these are fantastic for buying you some time to get your allies back to full health. Your teammates will love you!

A Tier Agents

Brimstone

Brimstone strikes a balance between support and offence, and is one of the two agents who uses the minimap to deploy abilities. He is an awesome all-rounder.

Sky Smoke is his signature, and will let you create clouds anywhere on the map, offering fantastic tactical potential. Stim Beacon gives a more direct buff to your allies (and Brimstone too) through creating a field in which they will receive an increased rate of fire; this really aids a push in that crucial moment.. Together, these supportive abilities allow for great benefits to your team, in both offensive and defensive ways.

Incendiary is a far simpler, purely damage based ability. It may just be an incendiary grenade launcher, but it’s worth noting that it has great range, and quite a wide area of effect too, making it great for holding down areas. Brimstone’s ultimate calls down a laser anywhere on the map, which deals super high damage and lingers for a long time too. The fact that you can call it down anywhere gives this ultimate buckets of potential.

Breach

Breach is another all out attack agent, boasting four great offensive abilities. However, it must be said that he lacks the explosive power of Raze.

The signature ability for this agent is Fault Line. This is an area of effect attack which stuns opponents in a large line in front of Breach. What’s great about it is it goes through walls, and is aimed via the minimap. Unfortunately, you’ll have to charge it up for a disappointingly long time to get a reasonable range, although the stun which your opponent receives lasts a vital three seconds

Breach’s two main abilities, Aftershock and Flash Point, are both charges you place on a wall to affect players on the other side. Aftershock deals heavy damage, and Flash Point is a long lasting stun. Both of these can be great, but are more challenging to use effectively than more simple damage based abilities.

Breach’s ultimate is his best ability; Rolling Thunder is much like Fault Line, but it’s area of effect is far greater, and doesn’t require any charge time. The stun it deals is also more intense, and lasts longer. There’s no doubt that this is a round winning ability.

Phoenix

Phoenix has a varied pool of abilities, all of which promise potential, but are more difficult to use than most.

Curveball, is a simple throwable stun with a twist. It can be thrown with a curve to the left or right, making it a challenge to aim well. If you conquer this, however, you’ll have great success in stunning opponents around corners.

The Hot hands ability (Phoenix’s signature) is simple but effective, as it has no curve, and deals lingering damage in an area on impact. Blaze, however, creates a large damage dealing firewall. This is valuable, as it can be used to completely block off certain parts of the map, but is also tricky to aim and use effectively. It’s also good to know that Phoenix is healed from the damage of this ability!

Run It Back is Phoenix’s ultimate, and offers a second life. When used, you’ll place a marker at which you’ll return to with full health upon death. This is fantastic for scouting, and for executing a rush in the dying seconds of the round.

Cypher

Cypher is a support agent who supplies his team with surveillance of the enemy team; something which cannot be underestimated.

Cypher’s signature ability is Spycam. This ability lets you deploy a stationary camera, which can also fire tracking darts. It has great potential, but you completely have to give up control of Cypher when doing this, abandoning your teammates, and leaving yourself vulnerable.

Cypher’s main two abilities are valuable too. Cyber Cage allows you to create a zone in which your enemies are blinded and slowed. Trapwire is perhaps Cypher’s best; it creates a trap which, when triggered by an opponent, will stun them and also reveal their location. This is superb for thwarting flanks and counter attacks

Neural Theft is Cyphers ultimate, and is also crazy good. When used on a dead enemy, you’ll be able to see the last location of the rest of the enemy team for a second. This ultimate is always useful, and makes winning the round a breeze.

B Tier Agents

Sova

Sova is a lot like Cypher, although slightly more offensive. While he is still perfectly usable, his abilities are a clear step down in terms of practicality.

His signature is Recon Bolt, and offers a bow which, when fired, reveals players in the line of sight of the bolt. This is great, but has a flaw, because enemies can render it useless by destroying the bolt.

Sova’s Owl Drone ability is an awful lot like Cypher’s Spycam, and has the same flaw, too. Unlike cypher, you have to pay 300 credits for it, making it one of the most expensive abilities in the game. Sova does have one good ability in Shock Bolt, which is a simple and reliable explosive projectile.

Thankfully, the ultimate for this agent is highly powerful, and is certainly his best aspect. Using it will give you a bow with three damage dealing, location revealing shots. What really makes this ultimate is that it can penetrate walls, giving you potential to dispatch enemies without them ever seeing you.

Viper

Viper is based around slow acting poison damage, and with enough practice can be powerful.

Toxic Screen is Viper’s signature, and allows you to make a wall of toxic gas. This is great for holding down areas, and it has a useful feature where you can turn it on or off temporarily, allowing you to save it for when it’s most needed.

Snake Bite is simple and effective, allowing you to launch a canister that creates a large area that slows and damages enemies over time. Poison cloud is more intriguing, as it allows you to place a gas dispenser which lasts the entire round; like the Toxic Screen ability, it has a fuel tank, so you can save it for clutch moments. When activated, it creates a huge cloud which deals non-lethal damage to both health and armour.

Viper’s ultimate, Viper’s Pit, again creates a massive cloud of gas. Additionally, It reduces the maximum health and vision of enemies inside, and it also highlights them for easy targeting.

Jett

Jett’s abilities are mostly movement based, and although they can be good, she lacks utility, meaning that she’ll often lag behind.

Her signature ability is Tailwind, which will immediately make you dash, even from standing. This can be useful for evasion, as well as flanking. Similarly, her Updraft ability allows you to propel yourself high into the air. This is not only great for evasion, but useful for getting on top of otherwise unreachable objects, and attacking from unsuspected angles. She also has an ability called Cloudburst, which is a regular but useful projectile smokescreen.

Jett’s ultimate is decent, too. When activated, it will give you 5 throwing knives, which are pixel accurate (even when jumping and running), can be thrown in quick succession, and can kill in one headshot too. What makes this ability even better is that all your throwing knives will be replenished on a kill.

Omen

Unfortunately for Omen, you will find him at the bottom of most tier lists. While his abilities are sufficient for him to be placed in B tier, they do lack a certain flare.

Firstly, his signature, Dark Cover, is another throwable smokescreen ability. It is a great example of one, with impressive rage and a lengthy duration. The ability Paranoia is also fairly uninspiring; it allows you to fire a projectile which impedes the vision of enemies it touches. The good thing about it is that it can go through walls.

Omen’s last two abilities are both teleports. The regular ability, Shrouded step, allows you to teleport to a location you can see, which could be great, but it leaves you vulnerable for a short moment immediately after usage. His Ultimate, From The Shadows, is much better, and has a lot of potential. It allows you to quickly teleport to any location on the map, granting some fantastic opportunities for a surprise attack. One problem with it is that it makes a sound which can reveal you, so it needs to be used wisely.

Summary:

While Valorant is in Beta, and is therefore very likely to undergo massive changes, hopefully this list has given you a good idea of the strengths and weaknesses of each character in the current build. All of the agents are definitely worth experimenting with to see if they fit your style of play, but keep in mind that as of now there is quite a clear hierarchy. Stay tuned for more content on Valorant!