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Make your enemies think twice with Vyse: A VALORANT Agent Guide
Cut down and bar all roads to victory from your opponents using strategies and tips with our Vyse Guide!
Vyse joins VALORANT as a Sentinel, which plays defensively, providing safe areas for their teammates by using their abilities to gather information and deny opponents access to flanks. Similar to Deadlock, Vyse’s Sentinel kit has a theme of halting opponents’ abilities and movement. What sets Vyse apart is how her abilities can all be hidden from enemy sight.
Her signature ability, Arc Rose, allows Vyse to deploy a stealth ability that can blind enemies within line of sight. This ability can be placed on any surface remotely, which makes it a great tool to cover your flank with some use in engagements and offensive pushes. Shear and Razorvine, Vyse’s basic abilities, are the bread and butter of defensive abilities that most agents in the Sentinel role are equipped with.
Shear is a wall ability which functions like a hidden trap, making it stand out from similar abilities. Once enemies step past the ability’s trigger, it immediately rises and isolates the enemy that dared to step into Vyse’s territory. Razorvine, is an area-of-effect ability that slows and damages enemies who find themselves standing in Vyse’s vines. It can be laid invisibly on any flat surface on the map and gives an audible cue when an enemy is entangled.
Steel Garden, Vyse’s ultimate, brings out her identity of thorns, roses, and metal. Once activated, Vyse sends out her thorns in a wide area. Opponents caught in this Ultimate lose the ability to use their primary weapon as it gets jammed and wrapped in metallic vines.
Vyse is the 26th agent in VALORANT and belongs to the Sentinel class.
© Riot Games
Arc Rose (E Ability)
Arc Rose is more than just a blind ability. Arc Rose functions similarly to Cypher’s spycam in that it can be controlled and deployed to remain wherever the player chooses until it’s recalled or destroyed. However, it’s difficult to destroy, since it stays invisible and blinds the enemy if activated. Even when it can be seen, the enemy won’t actually be able to see it!
On top of the enemy being flashed, Vyse has a voiceline which calls out if an enemy was successfully blinded. An Arc Rose can only be revealed if Vyse is suppressed or eliminated, and if an Arc Rose is destroyed Vyse will also give a callout if she is able to. This serves as additional information since Arc Rose has to be manually controlled. If Vyse suddenly calls out that an Arc Rose is destroyed, you’ll be able to figure out where an enemy is positioned or where they have their sights set at least.
Since Arc Rose is a blind debuff utility, it can be implemented both offensively or defensively. Arc Rose as a defensive ability is basic and is used to protect chokepoints, objectives, and flanks. Once Vyse players hear enemy footsteps, or enemies triggering other abilities on their way to an Arc Rose, Vyse can prepare corners and areas to anticipate enemy pushes or take the initiative and stop them before they get close.
What makes Arc Rose an offensive tool is its ability to be placed on opposite sides of viable surfaces. With the foreknowledge of where enemies are positioned, a well placed Arc Rose can be an incredible opener that blinds enemies caught in its line of sight.
This ability has synergy with other parts of Vyse’s kit as well, like having a Shear hidden and waiting to separate unaware opponents. Sometimes, shifting and controlling enemy positions isn't enough and an Arc Rose placed nearby the Shear will give Vyse the upper hand in securing the elimination.
Shear (Q Ability)
Vyse only gets 1 use of Shear per round and it costs 200 credits. Despite its limited and conventional use, Shear has many hidden benefits that makes it a tricky ability which shouldn’t be underestimated. Shear is placed on the ground and can only be recalled during the Buy Phase,=. Like most walls, Shear prevents agents from passing through and seeing past it.
However, as is the theme of Vyse’s abilities, once placed on the ground, Shear becomes invisible and can only barely be detected when in close proximity. The wall cannot be destroyed by conventional means but can be destroyed by the spike or any changes in the map like doors or terrain map effects. When an agent steps past it, the wall deploys, pushing other agents away and even destroying deployables within the wall’s area. This allows the wall to be used almost like a speed bump on the road, as veterans and experienced players who spot it will slow down their movement to avoid triggering it and compromising their positions.
Shear is an excellent intel utility that allows Vyse to get a handle on where the enemies movements are, as well as controlling their positions and paths to entry. Shear can have synergy with Razorvine or even Steel Garden as it prevents the enemy from being able to leave their area-of-effect as the wall rises, closing off any exits and leaving opponents to suffer their effects to Vyse’s advantage.
Razorvine (C Ability)
Razorvine is Vyse’s additional debuff utility, costing 150 credits each and coming with 2 charges. How you deploy this ability, during and after the Buy Phasel, works similarly to Shear, but it doesn’t activate on its own. Once deployed, it turns invisible but requires Vyse to manually activate it when enemies are standing in its area-of-effect. This difference in activation doesn’t detract from Razorvine’s effectiveness though. In fact, with a more measured and responsive hand, Vyse can manipulate team fights in her favor by controlling enemy movement while dealing damage at the same time.
Razorvine controls movement in a couple of ways., The first is by giving the slow debuff, which slows an agent's movement speed. The other way is by blocking off areas where enemy players have to take a risk to push past the Razorvine utility trap. By controlling how an opponent responds to Vyse’s Razorvine, good players will keep an objective or their team safe from the opponent’s aggression by pacifying their movement.
Razorvine is an excellent tool when used in conjunction with her other abilities, namely Shear and Arc Rose. Whether it’s physically barring an exit and laying out a thorny trap, or blinding the enemy and preventing them from running away, Vyse has the time and the upper hand in eliminating her opponents without any issues at all.
Steel Garden (Ultimate)
With every new agent that joins the game, so too does a novel Ultimate ability that showcases creativity. Vyse’s ultimate ability Steel Garden not only creates a titular Steel Garden across a large area of the map but also, jams the opponent’s primary weapon for a brief duration. It may be brief, but it is long enough for Vyse to easily eliminate any unlucky enemies that are now stuck without their precious Vandals.
This ultimate is great for closing out rounds and clutching spike refusals. It can also be used in large team fights since the area-of-effect for Steel Garden has no height limit and can affect high ground and below. This ultimate can be especially crucial at undermining the economic advantage the enemy team might have over Vyse and can allow her team to decisively win rounds that would be a lot harder than they should be.
