Valorant
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The best Skye flash guide for every map in Valorant
Olivia Richman
Valorant’s newest agent, Skye, has been a lot of fun for players to figure out. And used properly, she can be devastatingly effective. Her signature ability, Guiding Light, has been one of the reasons players keep flocking to the healing agent. Flashes are important in tactical shooters such as Valorant and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive because they throw off the enemy’s vision and ability to react. This often creates enough time …
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Here’s how to fix the most common Valorant errors
M Alzamora
Valorant’s mix of Overwatch’s abilites and CSGO’s precise gunplay has proven to be a hit among players, but constant errors have the community frustrated. Despite the game’s overwhelmingly positive reception, Riot’s updates have made the shooter more and more unstable over time. Frustrated fans and players have flooded the game’s subreddit and forums with complaints while begging for help. So what are are some of Valorant’s common errors and how …
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How to peek corners in Valorant like a pro
Olivia Richman
Tactical shooters like Valorant aren’t always all about headshots and flashes. They certainly aren’t a bad thing, but there are a lot of skills players must learn if they want to climb the ranks and stand out from from the pack in competitive. One of these important skills is peeking. Peeking is when a player stays at an angle, moving in and out of the line of sight. The goal …
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Aceu thinks Valorant leaderboard is rigged, Tenz and Doinkmachine97 on top
Fariha Bhatti
Riot has launched the Valorant leaderboards for North America, which shows Tyson “TenZ” Ngo as the second-best player. Doinkmachine97 is the underrated prodigy who has usurped Tenz from his number one spot. As if Doinkmachine97 replacing Tenz wasn’t enough to shock the fans, both the players have managed to acquire three spots on the leaderboard. Tenz continues to dominate the NA scene by sitting on ranks 2, 18, and 33 …
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Learn the best Valorant agent for you according to CSGO styles
Fariha Bhatti
Aim makes or breaks the game in most first-person shooters. However, to truly master a game, it’s important to understand all of its attributes. Crosshair placement in Valorant may help veteran Counter Strike: Global Offensive players to win a few rounds, but agent abilities can still be an alien concept for them. Valorant has a vast number of CSGO migrants. Ex-CSGO players who have moved to Riot’s shooter are finding …
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Riot’s new approach to Valorant updates comes in patch 1.12
Olivia Richman
After the problematic release of patch 1.11, Riot is taking a new approach to game updates. “Patch 1.11 is forcing us to reevaluate what it takes to raise the quality bar for patch days going forward. So, while we’re not skipping Patch 1.12, we’re giving it a light touch,” comms associate Jeff Landa explained. Landa also noted that they will be skipping the next patch cycle. This means patches will return …
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Women are continuing to face harassment, toxicity in Valorant
Olivia Richman
Women are continuing to come forward with their negative experiences had while playing Valorant. Riot’s tactical first-person shooter has the same issues that many free-to-play titles have: hackers and toxic players. The Valorant community even asked developers to punish trolls more harshly as more and more players started to experience games being thrown and general toxicity. But one demographic has been targeted much more frequently than others is women. One …
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Top NA Valorant teams qualify for the First Strike main event
Olivia Richman
The First Strike main event has named its first four competitors, and they make for a strong early field. Sentinels, 100 Thieves, Envy, and Renegades each earned a spot in the First Strike main event over the weekend thanks to impressive performances at the Valorant First Strike Closed Qualifier. Four teams from the UMG Closed Qualifier later this month will also compete in the main event in December, fighting for …
shroud says there is no reason to play Valorant agent Skye
Olivia Richman
News
Former Counter-Strike: Global Offensive pro Michael “shroud” Grzesiek has recently dedicated a lot of his streaming time to Valorant. Over the past few days, shroud has had a lot of time to dabble with Skye, the new Valorant agent. After practicing with her, the FPS expert told his fans that he probably won’t be playing with Skye in the future. With the ability to heal allies and control a pack …
Cypher hit with big nerfs in Valorant patch 1.11
Fariha Bhatti
News
Valorant intel broker Cypher is one of the original agents released in beta version. The sentinel’s ability to gather information has made him a vital part of the game, but nerfs in patch 1.11 might take some of Cypher’s prowess away. Though the nerfs to Cypher were overshadowed by the launch of new agent Skye and new map Icebox, Cypher’s tripwire and camera took a big hit in patch 1.11. …
Riot looking to slow down Valorant update development
Olivia Richman
News
The latest Ask Valorant blog offered players more insight into issues with Patch 1.11. Due to a lot of game-breaking agent bugs, Patch 1.11 was rolled back at the end of October. Even though the patch has returned, along with new agent Skye, players are still concerned with the buggy update and what it may mean going forward. Valorant developers decided to address this topic in their latest blog post. …
This handicapped Valorant player uses a crazy custom setup
Olivia Richman
News
Reddit is often where the Valorant community goes to complain. But recently, one player decided to share a positive story about how they can still play the tactical first-person shooter despite having a disability. Reddit user “YHJ_JYG_Kryptlock” stated that they have mild cerebral palsy in their left arm and leg. This limits their hand movement, making it nearly impossible to play with a mouse and keyboard on PC. The passionate …
Riot wants 7 competitive maps in Valorant, and it’s speeding up
Olivia Richman
News
Riot is planning to increase the competitive map pool for Valorant in the near future. Valorant director Joe Ziegler sat down with G2’s Oscar “mixwell” Cañellas Colocho to talk about increasing the competitive map pool and better balancing the game’s agents. The interview gave a lot of insight into the future of competitive Valorant, which has already been growing increasingly popular throughout Europe and North America. Icebox was just released, …
Riot brings back Valorant patch 1.11 and Skye after new fixes
Olivia Richman
News
Valorant’s most recent patch is back, which means new agent Skye is also in the game once again. Riot developers were forced to roll back patch 1.11 after it was launched on October 30 due to a number of game-breaking bugs. Some of these issues included Viper and Brimstone’s smoke abilities being clear and hollow inside, as well as Reyna and Omen’s blinds not working effectively. Valorant developers called 1.11 …
Omen and Sova see the highest pick rate in Valorant First Strike NA Qualifier
Fariha Bhatti
News
Valorant first strike NA qualifiers revealed Omen, Sova, and Jett as the most played agents by the professional players. Among the three agents, Valorant’s shadow hunter dominated the top spot on the majority of the maps with a pick rate of 98%. Riot’s tactical shooter Valorant largely relies on aim. It’sone of the reasons why Counter-Strike: Global Offensive professionals are finding easy wins in Valorant. However, agent abilities can make …
Gen.G takes down Sentinels, dominates First Strike NA qualifiers
Olivia Richman
News
Gen.G shocked the Valorant community and defeated Sentinels in a one-sided quarterfinals match. After the 2-0 sweep, Gen.G is moving to the semifinals. First-seed team Sentinels was knocked out of the tournament. They must next compete in the UMG qualifiers. Nobody expected Gen.G to take down Sentinels. The eight-seed team took down Serenity and XSET, but fans weren’t as confident in how the team would fair against Jay “sinatraa” Won …
Valorant developers roll back patch 1.11 due to technical issues
Olivia Richman
News
Valorant patch 1.11 was a big one. It introduced new agent Skye, added Icebox to the ranked map pool, and brought some new balance changes to existing agents. But all of these changes have brought big technical problems along with them. Valorant developers took to Twitter to inform players that patch 1.11 was being “rolled back” due to it being a “technical nightmare.” North America, Brazil, and the LATAM server …
Here’s how to turn on Riot’s disabled experimental sharpening feature
M Alzamora
News
Valorant’s 1.11 patch came with sweeping changes to the shooter’s economy and class balance. But there’s one change that players will both love and hate. In Patch 1.11, Valorant developer Riot Games disabled a graphical feature called experimental sharpening. The option allowed players the ability to play at very low graphics settings to increase their overall frames-per-second and still retain the ability to tell the difference between an enemy and …
Valorant players are demanding harsher punishments for trolls
Olivia Richman
News
While Valorant’s new map has shined a light on toxic behavior, it seems like no map is safe from the overwhelming amount of trolls in Riot’s tactical first-person shooter. Valorant players have started openly complaining about constantly running into toxic players. There are a lot of people who just scream into their headset. Some players who continuously berate their team, even after their death, telling them how to play and …
Valorant’s Reaver skin line returns for Vandal, Operator, and knife
M Alzamora
News
Riot Games’ artists have put in a ton of work on the re-release of one of Valorant’s beta skin lines, Reaver. The Reaver skin line was originally only available for purchase during the game’s beta period. The ultra-rare line comes complete with chromas that change the color palette of the weapons and unique kill animations that fit right in with Omen. The original skin line was a modeled in a …
Riot Games has long looked to expand its footprint beyond the success of popular MOBA League of Legends, and one of its biggest successes to date in this regard is the tactical shooter, Valorant. Blending traditional first-person shooter elements with unique and flashy hero abilities, Valorant seeks to combine the best attributes of tactical shooters and hero shooters into one cohesive experience.
Based on player feedback, the game has largely succeeded in accomplishing those aims. It’s not an easy balance, and it’s one that is arguably still tenuous, but Riot Games seems to be doing as good a job of it as most fans have hoped for.
What type of game is Valorant?
Valorant is a first-person shooter that represents a unique blend of the tactical shooter and hero shooter subgenres. There are some games that represent similar gameplay elements, but not many that offer the exact experience that Valorant puts forward to players.
The tactical shooter genre is often considered to have been defined by the release of the original Counter-Strike, a multiplayer mod for famed single-player PC title Half-Life that later became a standalone game of its own. While most multiplayer FPS games to that point emphasized prolonged battles between opposing players zipping around the game at high speeds, Counter-Strike slowed things down significantly and made players much more susceptible to each other’s firepower, requiring players to take a more tactical approach to play.
That slower and more tactical approach, combined with the lightning-quick nature of action when it does occur, proved reliably popular. That popularity can still be seen today with the ongoing success enjoyed by the Counter-Strike franchise, and it’s this gameplay type that represents the core of Valorant. It’s no accident that former Counter-Strike developers were drafted by Riot Games to help create Valorant during the game’s formative stages.
What differentiates Valorant from CS and other tactical shooters it that each of the game’s characters, called agents, wield a number of unique abilities. Some are typical for tactical shooters, like flashbangs and smokes, while others are wildly different, such as an ability that transports two players to an isolated dueling arena for its duration.
These agent abilities are more reminiscent of hero shooters, a subgenre that arguably got its start with the Team Fortress games but has best been popularized by Blizzard title Overwatch. The abilities, combind with the tactical considerations that are at the core of Valorant, separate it from most any other FPS experience available for play.
How does Valorant esports work?
Like many other popular competitive shooters, Valorant does have a thriving esports scene. That scene is differentiated by the way it’s run and controlled by developer and publisher Riot Games. Riot uses a model based on the success of its League of Legends esports scene, which sees the globe’s competitive players and team’s separated by region. These regions play out their own competitions in their sections of the world before coming together at regular intervals for international tournaments featuring the best teams from each individual region.
While League of Legends once boasted a variety of regions and regional types, Riot sought to simplify that model when setting up esports for Valorant. The game has only a handful of major regions, and these regions are held as largely equitable, each sending their best teams to international events leading up to the year-end VALORANT Champions event.
