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Game on with Neon: A VALORANT Agent Guide
Neon is a duelist who boasts incredible movement speeds and a fast pace playstyle. Is she the right one for you?
Neon was 2022's first duelist agent joining the Valorant Protocol. Her kit introduced a unique playstyle to Valorant’s already original character designs. Neon is all about mobility and her free signature ability “High Gear” allows her to channel her power for an increase in movement speed as well as an electric slide that can be refreshed as you play. Neon excels at moving quickly and covering large portions of the map, making her extremely capable in both attack and defense for either adapting or rotating from one point of the map to the other.
Not only does Neon have incredible speed, her two other abilities, “Fast Lane” and “Relay Bolt” accentuate her mobile playstyle and allow her to block enemy vision and sight lines as well as concuss from any angle twice. Neon’s Ultimate, “Overdrive” is a combination of power and speed, which activates her High Gear as a passive ability and unleashes her lightning powers with high movement accuracy almost like Force Lightning.
High Gear (E Ability)
High Gear is Neon’s exclusive movement ability that boosts her movement speed, jump distance, and allows her to slide with ALT fire. Using High Gear or her Ultimate, Overdrive, taps into her passive ability bar that drains with each use. This bar naturally replenishes as the rounds play out but can also be refreshed as she gets agent kills. While sprinting in High Gear, you lose access to your weapons but you can use your other abilities making High Gear, on paper, a very straightforward ability but one that can be utilized in complex ways and mastering her slide mechanics, can allow you to dash into and maneuver around in duels unlike any other character can.
Taking advantage of tapping into lateral movements that other agent’s don't have access to gives Neon players an edge in winning their battles. High Gear can also be used for getting into safer and more advantageous positions sooner enabling better map control, closing the gap between your enemies and engaging into them catching them off-guard with your speed, evading enemy abilities and getting to objectives much quicker than anyone else. Utilizing High Gear in conjunction with Neon’s other resources make her versatile in how she can interact with her surroundings and enemies as well as make her effective on both Attack and Defense.
Fast Lane (C Ability)
Fast Lane is a wall vision blocker ability similar to Phoenix's Blaze flame wall or Viper’s Toxic Screen. However, Fast lane is unique in that it creates two walls that rise on both sides of where Neon throws the missile to summon the walls. This ability costs 300 credits, only has 1 charge, and lasts for 6 seconds. It’s easy to fall into the pitfalls of this ability however as it is a straight line with a safe tunnel in the middle. Smart opponents can predict where you may end up depending on the map or anticipate you and expect you to come out on the other end of the lane. However, Fast Lane can be used to exploit such expectations and by using this ability to block angles and pathways or as bait and peek out of the wall to get the jump on your opponents.
The benefits to Fast Lane is that as long as the casting missile’s path isn’t obstructed, the walls that are summoned can even block and pierce through map terrain. Fast Lane also makes it difficult to hear you and your allies as you pass through the walls. Fast Lane can also be used as a simple vision blocker as well allowing you to better position you and your teammates without the enemy being able to see you or forcing the enemy to engage without proper knowledge of what is happening. Integrating these mechanics into your play with High Gear can allow you to be versatile in both defending your objective as well as playing a strong offense on Attack to ensure a speedy but safe spike plant.
Relay Bolt (Q Ability)
Relay Bolt is a Crowd Control ability that has 2 charges and costs 200 credits each, it also shares similar mechanics to Astra’s Nova Pulse. Both abilities concuss they’re opponent but Neon’s Relay Bolt can cover multiple areas, has a wider radius, and faster startup. The concuss lasts 3 seconds but with Neon’s speed it is more than enough to close the gap or turn the corner and surprise peek and frag out on your enemies. Relay Bolt is a projectile that when thrown can bounce off surfaces such as walls or terrain once and each location it bounces off of will leave a horizontal concussive zone. This zone can also stun you and your allies as well.
Relay Bolt excels at being able to catch and stun enemies that may be hiding at certain locations or help with entering tight rooms and areas with lots of peeking angles. It’s key to remember that you can use this ability while in High Gear making it effective for aggressive playstyles on Attack or trying to catch enemies while they plant on Defense.
Overdrive (Ultimate)
Overdrive is the complete fusion of Neon’s High Gear and electric potential. As an empowerment ability like Reyna’s Empress or KAY/0’s NULL/CMD, Neon charges up and brings forth her latent lightning potential. While in Overdrive, Neon gains access to a lightning beam attack that fires in a straight line with very long range that can pierce through enemies. High Gear is automatically activated and she can utilize all of her abilities too as her energy bar begins to deplete during its duration. Neon is also able to re-equip her weapons unlike in High Gear allowing you to switch between her abilities and weapons. The lightning beam does have a headshot multiplier and impressive movement accuracy which reinforces the mobile and aggressive-like playstyle allowing Neon to blitz through the map lasering her foes with her destructive power.
