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Bring your enemies low with Iso: A VALORANT Agent Guide
Master the skills to eliminate your foes one by one on the VALORANT arena and turn the tide with our Iso guide!
Like all other duelists to have joined Valorant, Iso comes equipped with a unique set of signature abilities and utility to do one job and execute it masterfully. That is: win duels while picking off enemy players. Iso brings four special skills that augment a duelist’s playstyle and the way they use their weapons’ properties is innovative on both offense and defense.
To start, Iso’s signature ability is an empowering buff named “Double Tap” that allows Iso to enter a ‘flow state’, granting him increased reload speed and, if successful, a temporary personal shield that absorbs damage from any instance once. The wording on this shield’s capabilities is key to understand because it isn’t just a flat HP shield that can be whittled down overtime. It’s actually a one time invulnerable shield that can defend Iso from any instance of damage which ranges from one bullet to the head to a rocket launcher shot.
While Double Tap sounds like an amazing skill it requires some work to make full use of it. Not to undercut its pros but it definitely has some cons we’ll speak on later. Speaking of undercutting, Iso’s “Undercut” ability allows him to send forth a bolt that passes through any walls or terrain, affecting any victims caught in its path with a vulnerability debuff. Iso also has some contingencies in place when things get dangerous. With his “Contingency” ability, Iso can generate a moving wall that blocks line of sight similar to Harbor’s “Cascade” wall. The difference is that, instead of slowing enemies that are caught in its path, Iso’s vision blocker not only blocks line of sight but also bullets.
Last but not least, Iso’s ultimate “Kill Contract” leans heavily into his one on one personality and utilities. Once it’s prepared, Iso can summon the closest enemy caught in its AoE and himself into another dimension for an intense 1v1 battle, as if Iso is cursing his enemies into a domain of his own.
Iso's Double Tap is more than meets the eye
© Riot Games
Double Tap (E Ability)
Iso’s “Double Tap” ability comes with some intricacies beyond providing a reload speed buff and amazing damage absorption shield. These eccentricities lie in not only activating, but maintaining, this ability as the shield and the reload speed buff can be refreshed with every duel Iso finds himself in. Double Tap has two charges and costs 150 credits during the buy phase.
Once Iso activates Double Tap, he gains the reload speed buff and a focus timer appears on the player’s HUD. The timer shows how long Iso’s flow state lasts naturally without refreshing it by getting eliminations. To refresh the timer on Double Tap, you must shoot a purple orb which spawns from an enemy who is defeated (by either Iso or a teammate after Iso has damaged them) while the ability is active. Along with the refresh, shooting this purple orb generates the damage shield for Iso.
The shield will last for the duration of Double Tap’s flow state timer so long as Iso doesn’t get damaged from any source of damage (enemy shots, abilities, deployables, or grenades). Interesting tip: fall damage does not cause the shield to break so keep that in mind if you’re ever standing on Heaven and decide to aggro or rush an enemy while your shield is active.
While Double Tap is an excellent tool, enemies that are aware of its mechanics can prevent Iso from making full use of them. For example, since Iso has to shoot the purple orb to get the shield, we know that there will be a brief moment where he will be focused on shooting the orb thus making him vulnerable to a double swing, peek or push around a corner. Even if Iso has a reload speed buff, he still has to reload or decide to continue and shoot the orb leaving an opportunity for others to get the jump on him.
Enemies can also shoot the orb too to prevent Iso from maintaining his Double Tap flow state. Knowing that Double Tap promotes an aggressive playstyle for Iso, opponents can decide to peel and wait out his timer instead of spending precious resources breaking his shield down.
Iso plans for all contingencies
© Riot Games
Contingency (C Ability)
Like other walls or vision blocker abilities in VALORANT, Iso’s is unique but follows most of the same rules as the others.What sets this wall apart from others is its property of blocking both bullets and vision. Contingency has one charge and costs 250 credits during the buy phase. While the sound of Contingency blocking bullets is tantalizing, players must understand that it blocks bullets from both sides, front and back. Given that it isn’t a straight or flat wall, its curves make it particularly useful for sending down long points or hallways as well as making it easier to use when pushing past corners.
Additionally, Contingency passes through terrain and can rise or fall depending on the elevation of the surface it is moving along. It only moves in a single direction, which is directly in front of where Iso is looking and it plays a small audio cue when it’s ending. This can signal to both Iso’s teammates as well as the enemy team when to re-peek a corner/site or perhaps when to re-engage a fight that was postponed by casting Contingency. Unlike other walls that provide a debuff to players that pass through it, Contingency provides no such thing and does not harm any players in its path. This means that players can send their abilities like Raze’s boom bot past the wall to punish any opponents that cling too close to the moving shield.
This doesn’t mean that the only playstyle for Contingency is to move behind it once it’s cast. In fact, Iso and his teammates do not have to be anywhere near the wall to take full advantage of its protective qualities. It can be used instead as a tool for map control. For instance, sending the wall down a corridor or path in a map where peeking or camping is well known can prevent the enemy team from pushing towards a site or establishing a solid location. This forces them to reposition where they will ultimately be unprepared to face Iso and his teammates.
Iso's Undercut
© Riot Games
Undercut (Q Ability)
There aren’t many agents that can take advantage of the Vulnerable debuff in the roster of VALORANT, and even fewer that can do it as easily as Iso. What makes Vulnerable so special is that it makes affected players receive double damage from any source of damage. Undercut has two charges and costs 200 credits during the buy phase.
What set’s Undercut apart from all the other sources of the Vulnerable debuff is how quickly it can affect its victims, both enemies and teammates, as well as how swiftly and how long the duration of the debuff lasts. To activate Undercut, Iso quickly equips and throws a bolt that can pass through any terrain similar to Contingency. The radius and travel distance are fairly generous and your minimap will show the exact measures under which it will perform before players decide to throw the bolt. Once the bolt is thrown, players will be alerted and able to see the trajectory the bolt is taking while it travels if they’re on the same path.
Undercut is also able to synergize with Contingency in some situations, mainly when Iso players are able to push their enemies to reposition to a location where they’re unable see or escape, thereby putting them in between a rock and a hard place where they are both vulnerable, blind, and unable to fight back. The speeds of these two abilities differ greatly though. It’s best to test the waters with Contingency and get some movement going before committing to throwing out an Undercut bolt.
Kill Contract (Ultimate Ability)
The cool factor on this ultimate has clearly not been skimped on. Costing only seven ultimate points, Iso is able to isolate himself and one other enemy within range of his ultimate to send each other to duel in a 1v1 in an interdimensional arena. Once the ultimate is equipped, Iso will toss a ball of energy that washes out across the area. When channeling the ultimate, you can check your minimap to see its viable range to ensure that you do not misjudge its draw distance and fail to activate it.
Once Iso throws the ball of energy and captures an enemy player, and both players are teleported into Iso’s domain for a 1v1. Iso’s ultimate leaves behind a glowing, purple hexagon at both players’ previous locations. While both players are being teleported to the interdimensional arena, their vision is blocked, their health and shields are restored, their weapons reloaded, and abilities are suppressed for the duration of the duel. As an added bonus, Iso activates or refreshes his Double Tap ability without spending a charge.
Once inside the interdimensional arena, two unmoving Contingency walls will spawn at Iso’s left and right, while the opponent will have one unmoving Contingency wall directly in front of them. The walls are set up so that Iso has complete visibility of his opponent’s Contingency wall so they can see which side they decide to initially peek or come out from. Once the arena is complete, and both players are transported, the duel begins in earnest. While Iso may have a vision advantage, the duel ultimately comes down to who is the better shot. After a few brief moments, the contingency walls will come down. Once Iso or his opponent are defeated, they return to the location they were at before they were transported to the duel arena with their health replenished again. Alternatively, if both agents survive long enough and outlive the ultimate’s duration, they are both eliminated.
What makes this ultimate unique is that it can be used beyond its purposes of isolation for a duel. In fact, we can expand the uses of this ultimate, so Iso players don’t have to isolate players from their teammates but also from their objectives. If the timer is running hot for the spike and it’s up to Iso to prevent a plant or a defuse, Iso can simply play near the objective and once they’re alerted to the audio cue of someone interacting with the spike, they can then activate their ultimate and completely take them away from the objective and map subsequently preventing them from attempting to win the round.
Another thing to remember is that other players can find out where both Iso and the other player in the interdimensional arena were before they were teleported. The glowing, purple hexagon remains on the map for all to see so if Iso or the enemy were to win, all the other teammates of either team have to do is simply wait for the duel to finish and clean up for a trade.
This ultimate can also be used to reposition enemies away from locations where they’re able to take full advantage of their utility such as heaven, hell, corners, peeks, lineups, etc. Don’t forget, qhen Iso captures an enemy in their ult, they can use it as a tool to suppress their opponent's ultimates and negate them. Finally, this ultimate can be used as a way for Iso to regain their health to even the odds if they’re outnumbered and need an edge to win the round.
