-Maggie Borland
Valorant is a first-person shooter game, with 13 different heroes to play. Each team picks five heroes, in an attempt to have a well-rounded set of characters. There are currently four classes of hero: The duelist, initiator, controller, and sentinel. This week, we’ll be discussing the sentinels.
Sentinels are defined as, “defensive experts who can lock down areas and watch flanks, both on attacker and defender rounds. This class type tends to be the best defensive agents; these characters will either hang back or lay traps to watch your teams flank when attacking.” Most teams will have one to two different sentinels within their team at a time.
Cypher
The most used of the three, Cypher excels in reconnaissance. His main ability is a spycam, which allows him to watch a location without putting himself in harm’s way. He also has a set of trip-wires, which he will put in places where the other team will either have to walk through (revealing their location), or destroy (giving Cypher a notification). The last ability is a cage, which acts much like a smoke, but if the other team crosses either side of it, a sound will be made. When his ultimate is activated, it will quickly highlight the other team and their locations for one second.
Killjoy
Equipped with powerful grenades and a turret, Killjoy can also be a master of controlling space. She’s equipped with a deployable turret which will automatically shoot the enemy team if they are within a certain distance. It can be easily destroyed, but people will often use it to gather information on flanks, much like a Cypher tripwire. Another useful information gathering ability is her alarm bot. If a player runs into an area the alarm bot is occupying, they will have a “vulnerable” status applied to them and take double damage for a short period. Nanoswarm is her last ability, and it acts as a very powerful grenade. She can put these down in advance then activate them from anywhere on the map. Finally, her ultimate is a large dome called “lockdown”. After it is deployed, the enemy team will have 13 seconds to either destroy it, or get out of its radius otherwise they’ll be “detained”. This means they won’t be able to move or shoot for eight seconds after the status is applied.
Sage
One of two healers in the game, Sage is a very powerful defensive hero. Her main ability is a heal orb, which she can use on either herself or her teammates to heal once every 45 seconds. Her second ability is a large wall she can use to block off space, or even boost her teammates. The wall will disappear after 30 seconds, or if the other team breaks it. Slow orb is Sage’s final ability and it does exactly what you’d expect. It’s an orb she can throw and when it lands it will slow enemies and sound like someone’s stepping on broken glass if they try to walk on it. One of the most powerful ultimates in the game, “resurrection” gives her the ability to resurrect one of her teammates, which is often able to turn an entire round in her favor.
Next week, we’ll be going over the controller class. Until then, you can watch these agents in action on our Twitch channel on Thursday evening, or join in the conversation on our Discord.