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What role should you play in VALORANT?
It’s not easy to find the role that fits you in VALORANT. Different players will thrive in different slots. Let’s find the best one for your playstyle.
Every team-based shooter has some version of roles, and each one has it’s own responsibilities. In some games, roles have their own perks and powers in need of a matching personality/playstyle. VALORANT will always be about your aim first but the abilities can make or break your rounds, and the kits each agent offers can make your gameplay vary from slow methodical approaches to a hectic and fast-paced flights above the enemy team’s heads, shotgun in hand.
Duelist
Do you like to get involved in every fight possible, for better or worse? Do you like fast-paced action and abilities that focus on getting kills and making entries? Is being the first one through the door something you enjoy? If you answered yes to any of the prior questions, there’s a good chance that the Duelist class will be for you.
Duelists have the flashiest abilities and a laser focused gameplan: Be the first through the door and get the first pick, or get a trade that allows your team to take point. You may have the most kills but unless, you’re a young Timmy, you will definitely have the most deaths on your team. That’s fine, it’s part of your job as a duelist. You take the good fights and the bad fights, all to help make space for the team in your own way.
On defense, you still want to put yourself in a good position for an engagement or to watch an angle to be able to call a push out to your team, but maybe don’t seek out the early trade or kill as often.You never know if one player will turn that corner on a flank or if they brought the whole roster with them to rush site.
You may win that one on one fight, but if you trade off. It is not a fair trade for your team on defense. Each team may be one down but your squad just lost a site defender, potentially allowing the enemy to walk on site. On defense, use your flashy movement abilities like Jett's. Keep your finger over the movement ability key so you can take your shot, then get out of trouble, the second you see an enemy. This lets you call out to your team, relaying who and how many are coming down your way onto B site, before bracing for the push you know is coming. Never give them the point for free, and a 1 for 1 trade is free as it gets.
Sentinel
Sentinels are the defenders of VALORANT. They thrive when setting up their team and using their game sense. They’re typically the best agent to play if you want to dole out the orders. Sage, Cypher, Killjoy and Chamber are your sentinels and one of the first things we notice is they all have abilities that require them to stay alive long enough to get real value. Sage can block a lane with her Mei-esque ice wall and revive one teammate with her ultimate, Cypher can lock down an entire site by himself, slowing the pushing team down long enough for your team to recover. Killjoy has great area denial and obstructive abilities while Chamber has an ultimate stronger than the Operator (perfect for holding down the long sightline on defense).
Sentinels are never the first, second or even third one in for a fight. They are the backline on offense. Their kit doesn’t help them on entries or to block off lines of sight and is also too valuable to lose in the first moments of a round. They thrive after the bomb is planted, preventing flanks, as well as on defense where they can make the bomb site less approachable for the attackers. Since they’re likely to live long thanks to their positioning in the team, they make a great agent to pick if you want to be a shotcaller. If they aren’t out in the first fight, they can change the map to fit the team's needs, whether it be with Cyphers trip wires and spycam or Killjoy’s ultimate. They can guarantee a round win with a well-timed ability.
Controller
Controllers do what their name implies in a lot of ways. They control the map to fit their team's needs. Astra, Brimstone, Viper and Omen make up the games current controller roster and the main thing they have in common are their smokes. The bread and butter of their kits, they use their smoke abilities to block off lines of sight before the push even starts; blocking off vision for potential enemy snipers, bombsites and common camping spots. With the enemies vision obscured, your team will have a far better time going about their business of planting bombs and winning games.
A good controller is an amazing gift and, no matter what your skill level and ELO are, every team you are a part of in VALORANT should have at least one controller. There are simply too many ways to be punished in this game, and playing a controller can throw a wrench in the enemy’s plan, forcing them into bad positions or into taking bad fights. While each controller plays a little differently the core of their kit is the same: smokes and area denial. This isn’t just a pre-emptive thing either, smokes have value even after the bomb as been planted. Whether you use Vipers smokes or ultimate to secure the planted bomb in a green haze of smoke or Brimstone’s Molly to make defusing the bomb impossible for the 5 extra seconds you need before detonation. Controllers have amazing potential from what appears to be one of the more boring kits the game offers you at first look, but make no mistake, every team wants a good controller.
On defense they are just as valuable as they can smoke off the entries to the points you’re holding. Force attackers to wait and waste precious time or risk blind peaking through your smokes and hoping they can get lucky. If you like making 200iq plays, frustrating the enemy and planning out your round before it has even started, give one of the controllers a try.
Initiator
Initiators are second through the door and will be the ones who truly decide if your aggressive duelists live or die. They are equipped with flash bangs and stuns to soften up an entrenched defender so that your team, normally your duelist, will have all the advantages in the first fight of the round. They are great at getting intel for your team as well, letting you know if a site is clear or even outlining exact enemy positions for a time. The main goal of the initiator is to get as many of your team onto the site as possible.
Breach, KAY/O, Fade, Skye and Sova make up the initiators and, if you have already played VALORANT, you probably know they all play a little differently. They are the set up people, A.K.A the ones who can make quick plays your team can instantly capitalize on. Where Controllers and Sentinels need more planning in the barrier phase, initiators react to the present needs of the team and enable them as best they can. Skye can use her dog ability to clear corners fast and safely so your duelist won’t have to guess, Breach can stun someone camping in a cubby hole so your teamsafely turns the corner and send them to the spectator screen, and Sova can shoot his radar arrow to reveal all the crafty hiding spots the enemy found themselves for that round, forcing them to move.
The flashes they have are also game changers, sometimes making or breaking a fight. Just be careful not to flash your team, too! If you like playing a character that thrives as part of the team, enabling allies while still being close enough to the action to take part in it, Initiators may be the choice for you.
Which Agents can be shot callers
Shot Callers can be anyone except the entry fraggers, but the Sentinel class is where you want to pick your Agent pool from most games. Sage and Sova are two that make great options to influence the game. Intel is a huge part of Valorant, characters that can provide that should use their abilities to coordinate their team's pushes.
