VALORANT agents ranked: the easiest and hardest characters to play

We can’t just assign Easy, Medium and Hard without establishing what criteria will be considered for the list and what rules the agents must follow. After all, what makes an agent easy to play? Is it the simplicity of their abilities or there effectiveness?

Raze’s explosive utilities are the quickest to grasp and, while they can be used in an honest way, they can also encourage creative uses for them. Her boom-bot and cluster grenade are simple, but effective. Send them where they need to go and they’ll do the rest – which is explode. A nice bonus to the cluster grenade is that it recharges after getting a few eliminations as well.

Raze’s Blast Pack is also a pretty simple tool: an explosive that can stick to surfaces and be detonated remotely. What makes it unique is that it can be used as a movement ability as well, since Raze doesn’t take damage from the explosion and the knockback sends her flying. It’s tricky to master at first, but the unconventional use of this ability can put Raze in unique positions. Keep in mind however that Raze can still receive fall damage despite being immune to the explosion damage. Raze’s ultimate is a rocket launcher that deals incredible damage in large AoE.

Anywhere you go, on any map you play, Raze is always effective. Her boom-bot doesn’t require any manipulation like throwing a wall or smoke. You just send it down any path and, if an enemy comes across it, the bot locks on to them and explodes. Raze’s cluster grenade and blast pack can be used any time any position and she shoots a rocket launcher. Game knowledge with Raze isn’t necessary to make use of her abilities and get the most out of here to the best of your ability.

In terms of the third criteria of personal skill, Raze doesn’t demand too much from the player to use her abilities. Even aiming the rocket launcher ultimate comes with a little bit of forgiveness, given its large AoE. All-in-all, Raze is a perfect agent for a newcomer to VALORANT and even a newcomer to using a mouse and keyboard in fps games.

The only ability that could technically rely on game knowledge would be Reyna’s nearsight ability. Knowing strategies or positions in the map to best make use of them can allow Reyna to have an easier time to tap into the synergy of her passive and other abilities, as well as limit any aggressive or offensive attempts the opposing team could make. However, it’s important to be aware of which agents could potentially lock down or even suppress Reyna from activating her skills. Without her skills, Reyna can’t take advantage of the flow and benefits that are generated from them. This doesn’t make her useless, but she won’t have any other abilities to use in the meantime.

Reyna’s passive and special abilities only truly come online when she gets an elimination or an assist. Without the personal skill needed to kickstart her ability flow, only one ability can be utilised. This doesn’t necessarily make Reyna a hard agent to play, since her skills are easy to use, but you do need to be able to position yourself well and get eliminations to use her to the fullest.

It’s great to have map knowledge when it comes to playing Neon, as it can further enhance her effectiveness in a given match. However, what’s more important is knowing which agents are good at locking down sites, alerting enemy presences and disabling skills. Agents such as Sage, Cypher and Astra are good at slowing down Neon and even preventing her from reaching the objective altogether. Having the knowledge of which agents you’re up against makes Neon’s engagements more focused and precise.

Lastly, like most Duelists we’ve been rating, Neon does need an injection of personal skill to get the best possible results from her kit. Just like Jett, it won’t matter too much how you use those skills if you’re unable to score eliminations without them. With Neon’s abilities being more varied and her passive regenerating over time without the need of eliminations, players can still eke out effective utility with Neon.

Phoenix’s abilities can be used similarly in both offensive and defensive play. His walls and fireball can be used to shutdown access to spikes and corridors or to prevent flankers and anchors from rotating behind him. His curveball is a great binding ability that can catch opponents by surprise, leaving them with little room to react. It may take some time to master, but overall the utility is more of a positive than negative. His Ultimate grants the player a second chance if he’s killed during its duration. It’s a powerful ability for a solo player and a duelist, but comes with the caveat that your opponents can find where you respawn or even eliminate you during the ultimate’s lengthy animations.

Phoenix doesn’t demand a mastery of game knowledge either. While it does help to know where your walls, fireball and blind orb go, Phoenix can ultimately use his abilities in a selfish manner to protect and heal himself as a response to an enemy push or while pushing an enemy’s objective. There isn’t much that agents can do to stop Phoenix’s utility either, unless they want to risk getting burned by his walls or fireballs. You still get the most out of Phoenix’s utility even if you don’t know the full extent of the game’s mechanics.

While Phoenix’s abilities do have an alternate fire to precisely determine their direction or range, it doesn’t demand much personal skill at all. However, the blinding flare orb does require understanding of how it works, otherwise you’ll find yourself also getting blinded.

Despite Jett’s abilities being uncomplicated, knowing where to use them on the map, as well as your timing, is critical to success. Using the dash or Updraft ability in parts of the map can leave you heavily exposed to your enemies and not knowing where to move can get you into a sticky situation rather than out of one. Positioning is key for agents with movement abilities to make sure you get into a great position for a flank, maneuver aggressively or stealthily across the map.

The proper use of her smoke ability also requires some map knowledge as both opponents and team-mates are affected by it and denying your team-mates space in the map isn’t good. Overall, while map and game knowledge isn’t imperative, knowing what other agents can do to stop you, where you are on the map and what tools you can use determines the difference between a good Jett and an even better Jett.

Now for the hard truth. None of Jett’s abilities are inherently lethal and won’t equate to easy eliminations. Personal skill is necessary for success, ranging from reaction speed with dashing and movement, to landing the perfect spot for a smoke and using her Ultimate to its fullest potential. Each knife counts and you don’t want to waste them with bad aim. Using Jett to get to the best position in the map doesn’t matter if you end up missing your shots the moment you get there.

Iso provides a unique approach to playing a duelist. He requires both personal skill and game knowledge where the others lean towards just one. For example, Iso’s wall and bolt ability do require him to learn the maps he plays on (and where the opponent could position themselves) to make use of their effects. His wall is bulletproof and moves, but, unlike phoenix or Yoru, it can’t be manipulated once sent out. The same goes for the bolt. Its effectiveness is only as good as an Iso player’s knowledge of where to send it, either by knowing popular positions or anticipating enemy locations.

Conversely, Iso’s double tap ability is only as good as the player’s aiming skill. Compared to Reyna, Iso not only has to get an elimination, but must also shoot a small target that spawns above the opponent’s position fairly quickly or they won’t be able to generate their shield. The same applies to Iso’s ultimate. If anything, Iso can not only lose the battle their ultimate creates, but could also end up helping the enemy, because they replenish health.

Iso is the latest agent to join the VALORANT roster so it makes sense that their kit evolved with the game and what the player base was already accustomed to. His abilities are still simplistic, but draw from all of the criteria used to make this tier list, so if a player is lacking on one end, they can still make use of Iso. However, it might be better to try some older duelists before moving on to Iso.

Out of all the Duelists in VALORANT, Yoru is a tricky agent to just play, let alone master. His abilities not only require really good personal skills, but also decent game and map knowledge. Whether it’s bouncing his flash to the right spot, sending his teleport tether to a precarious position or trying to send a decoy without getting pushed on, precision is required. Yoru’s ultimate does take him out of the map, but without proper knowledge or good decision-making, you might end up somewhere dangerous.

His smoke and ultimate ability require you to know the map as you call them down. They’re highly dependent on your knowledge and application, so it’s best to communicate with your team to coordinate and position well to generate the best outcome. Be careful, unlike Phoenix he won’t heal if he stands on his own fire.

Brimstone’s utility is completely isolated from most facets of personal skill, so while it’s good to have great reaction speed, aim, awareness and decision making, for a new player it’s not an automatic loss to try your hand at Brimstone.

Viper’s abilities all center around her toxins. They act as smoke, deterrents and can make opponents that enter them vulnerable or susceptible to taking more damage. The main danger around Viper’s abilities is the Decay (essentially poison damage) and she can distribute them across the map as smokes, pools, walls and, for her ultimate, a large cloud. Her abilities regenerate on their own over time and can be reused anytime you don’t die.

Having more knowledge of the game and maps will certainly help a Viper player but, ultimately, you can still make the most out of her kit regardless of map. Ability regeneration allows new players to make mistakes and learn from them as the rounds go on.

Decision-making and awareness contribute towards being a better Viper player, but it’s not the be-all and end-all for anyone trying her for the first time. Viper is an agent that doesn’t require too much investment in the game or the genre to play.

Because Harbor’s walls have lots of versatility, they allow players to quickly adapt to a match’s moving parts easily. Where other controllers require some setup or planning, Harbor makes use of his abilities in a more impromptu manner. This means that map knowledge, while always useful for Controllers, isn’t the most important tool to have. Teamwork and really good personal skills are more necessary to get the best out of Harbor.

When it comes to personal skill, Harbor does need good awareness to make use of his walls and decent decision-making to take advantage of his cove, ultimate and changes to pouches or rotates affected by his walls. As a Controller, Harbor shines in negating or engaging pushes with his team or solo if you’re confident in your skills.

With a character as atypical as Clove, who, despite their role as a controller, possesses an unparalleled utility kit, they can single-handedly do the work of several roles at once. However, mastering Clove’s kit might require more practice compared to other Controllers.

Clove’s signature ability, Ruse, allows her to deploy smokes from a mini-map, even while spectating after elimination. This unique feature grants her unmatched influence on the battlefield, even in death. Meddle, her grenade, inflicts the decay debuff on enemies, weakening them in combat. Finally, Clove’s ultimate ability, Not Dead Yet, offers a second chance. Upon elimination, she has a brief window to activate a self-revive. However, to truly stay alive she must secure a kill or assist within a limited time frame.

Omen is one of the few agents that takes full advantage of the map and the more you know it, the more utility you can squeeze out. Omen’s abilities are all about shrouding the perceptions of your opponent, but it’s a double-edged sword in that if you’re new or unaware, you can also hinder your team-mates. Omen’s shrouded step is easy to grasp and it’s great for getting into tricky spots. His other abilities, while easy to use, won’t be effective if you don’t know how to apply them or where to place them.

Being able to read and make use of the minimap is also imperative for Omen. It’s how you’ll know the best places to blind and to move to. With Omen’s teleportation working both vertically and horizontally, creating vision blockers and finding the best position all depends on teamwork and game knowledge.

For Omen, personal skill comes to play not with aim and reaction, but with awareness and decision-making. Making last-second choices, creating plays and having a creative mind that can take advantage of his abilities to mask, flank or rotate against an enemy are important skills to have.

There’s no sugar coating this one: Astra is a challenging agent to play. While this doesn’t make her a bad agent by any means, the complexity of her abilities and the knowledge required to use them creates a difficult combination. Her astral form allows Astra to open the map and place stars that can then be activated to concuss, smoke or make anyone who enters the area vulnerable. These star setups require extensive map knowledge to know where to place them and precise timing to activate, and entering astral form leaves Astra vulnerable to attack as you can’t control her physical body.

Sova is all about information gathering and using his abilities to discern the location of opponents. He can be played passively, actively, solo or with a team. Using his drone and recon bolt you can make engagements and rotations easier for you and your team when you can isolate opponents, find the best point to plant the spike, or flank, defend and push. Sova’s abilities are a great mix between recon, utility and damage.

Sova is a great agent to use to learn the maps and mechanics of the game. His playstyle reinforces the premise of gathering information through reconnaissance and hunting down opponents.

While Sova eventually becomes hard to play, given the amount of lineups needed to learn, that level of knowledge only becomes a requirement at higher skill ranks. Since Sova is one of the free agents new players can access and has been in the game from the beginning, it’s highly recommended to try him out.

Gekko can be considered easy to play given that everything offered in his arsenal is not only fire and forget, but also recyclable. What makes him medium difficulty is that as an Initiator he’s a jack of all trades, but master of none. For most things Gekko is capable of, there’s an initiator who excels at it.

That doesn’t mean you should just play someone else. Gekko’s versatility means he can be used on any map, regardless of a player’s knowledge. Granted, using all of Gekko’s abilities still requires understanding how they work despite their automatic dispensation of utility.

With Gekko, you’ll have to work harder in some situations, but have an easier time in others. For one, Gekko can reuse his buddies as long as he can recollect them in the same round. He’s a little easier on economy. He’s a great character for a beginner to grow into once they’ve learned more about the game.

As an Initiator, Skye has easy to understand abilities that concuss, blind and lessen an opponent’s vision or heal her team-mates. Such a versatile approach to initiating engagements makes her a popular pick and sets her apart from similar agents.

Map and game knowledge aren’t completely necessary, but still good to have. The debuffs Skye inflicts can be controlled remotely as she sends them out so, even if you’re unaware of what’s around the corner, you still get the opportunity to guide your abilities where you see fit rather than worrying about over throwing and completely missing it or accidentally putting team-mates in danger.

Skye’s execution relies solely on her abilities and capability to initiate with her team, and this does put a little pressure on newer players to get good. While her skills are incredible to use, without teamwork and personal skills, Skye’s potential and utility diminishes. It’s imperative to do a little learning before locking in a character that can do so much in so many ways.

Suppression won’t stop an agent, but it will stop their tools. That includes any deployables they place on the ground. This makes KAY/O perfect for initiating pushes into spike territory or flanking through a heavily fortified position. You have to know what KAY/O can and cannot suppress, and which tools are affected by it. Some agents are able to get by just fine being suppressed, while others are severely hindered. Knowing who best to target or engage will concentrate KAY/O’s efforts into a more focused path, which is where newer players might falter.

KAY/O’s abilities are better utilised by a player who knows more. While the abilities themselves aren’t challenging, having game knowledge and personal skill will elevate any KAY/O player to greater heights.

Despite Breach’s abilities being quite literally straightforward, they do take a bit of consideration and timing before using them. Breach is great at fulfilling his Initiator role, but his abilities need a little map knowledge before engaging with any of Breach’s utility as an opener or response. Breach can utilise several debuffs, such as Concuss, Blind and a lot of damage.

Breach’s abilities are simple, but become more potent with a little knowledge. Knowing the range of the abilities, what walls they can affect and where beyond those walls the opponent can run will make Breach fare more effective. This takes a team effort, but even a solo player will at least need to know how to use their minimap to fire his charges in places where the enemy was last spotted or could have gone.

Having the insight and judgment to fire Breach’s charges and ultimate at the right locations are some of the personal skills players will need to use him to his fullest potential. Getting the most out of him will not be easy for new players, as Breach demands the combination of many skills, even if you are coordinating with your team.

Initiators trend towards being some of the hardest agents to master and Fade is no exception. Her terror abilities are great at gathering intel, marking and debuffing her opponents, but will take a little effort. To get the most out of Fade, knowledge of the map, where players can peek from and what strategies teams might try are important to have. After all, you can’t get a terror trail if there are no opponents around to trigger her abilities. She can be played in both defensive and offensive play styles, making her initiating capabilities strong at any point in the match.

Not much, if any, map or game knowledge is needed to bring out the best Sage’s abilities. Her utility is omnipresent and can be used in any situation. This also applies to personal skill. A good Sage player can support the team even if they haven’t developed the best skills and a great Sage player accomplishes even more.

There’s no easier way to enjoy and play a defensive playstyle than with Killjoy. All of her abilities funnel into tools and deployables that aid in locking down positions much easier. Her Alarmbot and Turret make holding angles and hallways simple as they do all the work in alerting, deterring and, potentially, even eliminating opponents when they try to reach the objective. Additionally, for a more active ability on defense is Killjoy’s nanoswarm grenad, which can be remotely activated once opponents get within range. Killjoy’s ultimate is another fantastic tool for defensively locking down a zone and eliminating her opponents.

Killjoy’s passive utility allows her to bypass the general knowledge check that VALORANT asks of players, both new and veteran. With her abilities to hunker down and use her deployables, new players can spend more time learning about the game and practicing without having the pressure of having to play solo or misuse any of their abilities. Not much personal skill is really needed to make Killjoy shine – her skills do all the talking.

Chamber is an aim agent and demands probably more aiming skills than any other agent in the game. Whether you wish to use Chamber because your aim is great or because you want to force yourself to learn how to aim, to get the most out of him you have to hit your shots. For example, one of his abilities and his ultimate are weapons and only work so long as you don’t miss.

While map knowledge isn’t a requirement to be a great Chamber, his teleport ability and trap tool are more useful if you know where to place them and where to return to. Having good placement in a map allows Chamber players to be in strong positions to make use of his ultimate and heavy revolver, as well as flexible locations for rotations or objective pushes.

All in all, other Sentinels might provide utility without great skill in aiming, but Chamber comes with massive rewards for a little time on the range

Cypher comes equipped with a spycam that he can place on any surface. It’s invisible when not used, but reveals itself once activated. Cypher can use the spycam to keep an eye on areas of the map and tag enemies within its range. A simple mechanic like this can be controlled by anyone, but good game and map knowledge makes for devastating traps and punishments in conjunction with the tripware ability.

Cypher players need more than just some studying, though, they need personal skills like awareness, shot-calling and decisiveness to truly ascend. This agent’s playstyles are slow and patience is required to get the proper jump on the enemy team. New players could be able to use Cypher, but not as effectively as a veteran player can.

Deadlock can be deployed in both offensive and defensive efforts. Her playstyle largely relies on the enemy and her team to facilitate proper use of her abilities and, as such, it can be hard for newcomers to Deadlock to be able to use her to her fullest potential.

While it can’t be denied that Deadlock has her uses, other sentinels like Cypher or Chamber can be a better-honed edge, while Deadlock is more of a blunt tool. Her abilities slow, stop and concuss, but they can all be destroyed. Use them as a reaction to pressure and not necessarily as the team coordinates and plans beforehand. It’s hard to say she’s a difficult character to use, because unlike the other Sentinels she’s still lacking in many different ways.