Which are the best VALORANT Agents?

VALORANT is Riot’s exciting new team shooter where the crisp gunplay is mixed with characters using unique abilities. Which are the best Agents and how are they ranked in the game? We put together the list of the most useful VALORANT Agents in the game for you.

These are the best VALORANT Agents in the game. Make sure to include them in your team!

If you’ve played Counter-Strike in the past, you’ll immediately understand why she’s so useful in any team. In a game with quick and brutal firefights between two teams of five players, the ability to heal and to resurrect a player with your ultimate is invaluable. The abilities are appropriately expensive so you need to exercise care in using and purchasing them, but there’s really no reason not to have a Sage player in your ranks as you go into battle.

Sage’s abilities

Signature ability: Healing Orb (free but has a 35-second cooldown)
Ability 1: Barrier Orb (costs 300)
Ability 2: Slow Orb (costs 100)
Ultimate ability: Resurrection (7 points)

It’s the flexibility which makes Breach such a useful Agent, with abilities geared for helping out with successful reactor site takes and a source of instantaneous map control. Be mindful that Aftershock’s punishingly long activation time pretty much forces you to coordinate with teammates to set it up, making this otherwise powerful Agent a bit less effective as a choice for solo queue.

Breach’s abilities

Signature ability: Fault Line (free but has a 35-second cooldown)
Ability 1: Aftershock (costs 100)
Ability 2: Flashpoint (costs 200)
Ultimate ability: Rolling Thunder (7 points)

Knowledge is half the battle and Cypher provides it in spades. With abilities that provide all sorts of intel about the enemies’ plans and locations, it becomes all the easier to prepare for a push or to find the best way to retake a reactor site. With the added disruption ability of the Cyber Cage, a good Cypher player can lock down one of them on their own.

Cypher’s abilities

Signature ability: Spycam (free but you only get one use per round)
Ability 1: Trapwire (costs 200)
Ability 2: Cyber Cage (costs 100)
Ultimate ability: Neural Theft (7 points)

Useful

These VALORANT Agents ranked below the best of the best but are still useful to have in your team depending on the map and your playstyle.

She was unquestionably one of the best (and certainly the most controversial) Agents at the beginning of the closed beta, and she was already hit by the nerf bat. She’s still a very useful part of any squad but no longer game-defining, and that’s definitely a good thing. Explosives are pretty good in a tactical shooter – and a bazooka especially so.

Raze's abilities

Signature ability: Paint Shells (1x free per round, you get another use per every two kills)
Ability 1: Boom Bot (costs 200)
Ability 2: Blast Pack (costs 100)
Ultimate ability: Showstopper (6 points)

Another Agent whose abilities should be a no-brainer for CS fans, the utility of what are essentially smoke grenades and Molotov cocktails (plus the Orbital Strike ultimate) offers you many different ways to directly affect specific points of the map even when you’re two corners away.

Brimstone's abilities

Signature ability: Sky Smoke (1x free per round, you can buy two more for 100 each)
Ability 1: Stim Beacon (costs 100)
Ability 2: Incendiary (costs 200)
Ultimate ability: Orbital Strike (6 points)

You can think of him as Cypher lite, with more flexibility on offer for the scouting toolkit with some unique options once you’ve mastered the requisite lineups. However, the obnoxious shouting when you fire Hunter’s Fury doubles as a direct warning to any opponent, making it one of the worse Ultimates in the game.

Sova's abilities

Signature ability: Recon Bolt (free but has a 35-second cooldown)
Ability 1: Owl Drone (costs 300)
Ability 2: Shock Bolt (costs 100)
Ultimate ability: Hunter’s Fury (7 points)

This Agent is straight fire with great map control abilities and a potential resurrection effect as its ultimate? Sounds familiar? That’s right, Sage and Breach basically do each of his toolkit better, though the quasi-flashbang of Curveball does provide added utility with this Agent.

Phoenix's abilities

Signature ability: Hot Hands (free but you only get one use per round)
Ability 1: Blaze (costs 200)
Ability 2: Curveball (costs 100)
Ultimate ability: Run It Back (6 points)

Risky

These VALORANT Agents are considered a tier below the rest by the best players of the game and you should only pick them if you have a particular affinity for their playstyle or happen to be very good with them.

It’s a testament to the character’s weakness that it already received a buff in the .49 patch, but it’s still not a part of the top tier. That said, Shrouded Step and the ultimate ability provide unique gameplay opportunities that cannot be ignored as an option for an otherwise well-rounded team.

Omen's abilities

Signature ability: Dark Cover (free but you only get two uses per round)
Ability 1: Shrouded Step (costs 100)
Ability 2: Paranoia (costs 200)
Ultimate ability: From the Shadows (7 points)

Though Jett’s abilities offer some added flexibility in close quarters combat if you can catch your opponents off guard, the rewards rarely outweigh the risks and unless you’re an excellent sharpshooter, you’re better off with an Agent that offers more independently strong abilities. The same goes for her Ultimate as well. Here’s the thing: if you’re a good shot, why not take an even more powerful Agent with more reliable abilities?

Jett’s abilities

Signature ability: Tailwind (free but you only get one use per round)
Ability 1: Cloudburst (costs 100)
Ability 2: Updraft (costs 200)
Ultimate ability: Blade Storm (7 points)

There’s no question about the power of Viper’s abilities but the relative complexities of the Fuel mechanic coupled with the time it takes to dish out the damage with them makes her one of the least effective options in a game where a headshot pretty much wipes out the opponent in front of you.

Viper’s abilities

Signature ability: Toxic Screen (free but you only get one use per round)
Ability 1: Snake Bite (costs 100)
Ability 2: Poison Cloud (costs 200)
Ultimate ability: Viper’s Pit (7 points)

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