How to play Valorant's brand new 15th agent Astra
Valorant’s agent 15 is not your regular controller with basic smokes and molotovs. Astra may require a galaxy brain and tons of patience to be viable in competitive games.
Since its release in 2020, Valorant has extended its roster to 15 agents with unique abilities. All agents share some similarity based on the category they’re spawned it. Agent 15, however, carries a miscellaneous kit that can be tricky to tackle.
A breakdown of Astra’s powers
How to use Astra’s X ability:
At first glance, Astra’s kit can be a bit confusing. The agent doesn’t have multiple ultimates, but her X key serves two purposes.
Astral Form (X): By pressing X, players will glide into Astral form, which will provide a vantage point over the entire map. So far, no other agent has been able to slither around the map like Valorant’s 15th agent.
To utilize Astra’s abilities to the fullest, you may want to communicate with your teammates and have impeccable hand-eye coordination. Her stars don’t have intrinsic power, but it’s the players who decide what the little icons will turn into. This requires a razor-sharp focus on the map and a good grasp on ability keys.
Astra’s Gravity well explained
The Ghanian agent brings brand new ability type Gravity into the game. The tornado pulls enemies into the center, which could provide an aim advantage to teammates. For example, if you’ve planted a star at Haven’s mid window, you can activate it by pressing C on spotting enemies, forcing them to pick a fight while they’re vulnerable.
Concuss (Q ability) can stun the agents
Astra’s loaded kit has everything but a flash. Her Nova pulse makes up for it.
There are many ways her stun ability could demolish enemies, but to squeeze full juice out of it, you may want to put some thought. For example, in maps like split or Icebox, Astra’s concuss can be deadly when combined with Viper’s molotov or Killjoy’s nano swarm. Upon activation, the stunned enemy will likely expire right there. The same can work for her C ability Gravity well too.
Classic controller smokes (E ability)
Smokes to controllers are like butter to bread. They’re a must.
Astra is equipped with galaxy smokes that she can plant during the buy phase. She gets two smokes, more than Viper, less than brimstone and at par with Omen as she gets to place them wherever she wants. Players can activate two Nebulas at once by pressing (E), with a cooldown of 15 seconds.
Astra’s Ultimate Divides the map (Ability X)
Finally, the second use of her X key is her ultimate, Cosmic Divide.
By pressing X, Astra places stars with a left-click. Right-click allows her to activate her ultimate. Press your right mouse button to enable her ultimate and select an ideal angle for the wall using left-click. The Cosmic Divide will cause a fissure between worlds, swallowing enemy bullets and reducing audio.
Astra’s Cosmic Divide is a mix of Killjoy’s lockdown and Viper’s pit. The agent closes down an area and blocks out all noises from the outside world. While it can’t deal damage like Viper’s ultimate, the opaque wall gives Astra’s teammates an aim advantage. It’s important to notice here that the wall isn’t impenetrable for agent abilities.
What makes Astra overpowered in the controller roster is her ability to redeploy all her star. Players can pick a star by pressing (F) and the plant is somewhere else mid-round.
The controller agent goes live on March 3rd, along with the new Battle pass and Prime 2.0 skin bundle.
Fariha Bhatti is a long-time gaming writer who loves competitive FPS games and slots with particularly fun themes. She got her start playing classic games developed by SNK, from legendary fighting game series The King of Fighters to challenging platform franchise Metal Slug. She now spends most of her time playing Valorant and Counter-Strike 2 while working her way through new slot releases to find her next favorite. Fariha has been published at PCGamesN, TalkEsport and ONE Esports.
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