Riot announced that there will be a total of 10 agents available at Valorant’s launch. For a long time, we only knew about 9 but now the tenth is clear – Raze.
As we already know, Valorant is one of the more popular games even though it's not even out yet. The game broke records over the last few days as it became the most viewed unreleased title. The characters you can play in the game are called Agents and Riot Games announced that ten of them will be available at the game’s launch this summer. The company has revealed only 5 on their official Valorant Twitter but the rest were seen in some leaked gameplay footage. This included the Twitch Rivals recording as well as a leak by content creator CzechCloud.
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Raze is the final piece
With Valorant entering the closed beta, nobody was sure if we’d see the tenth agent as the game was still months away from its official release. It quickly became apparent that Riot did their homework and Raze was revealed to be the final agent in the game. Many were quick to label her as overpowered because her abilities sparked a discussion.
In the video above, we see a segment from Jaryd “Summit1g” Lazar’s stream where he gets nuked from 100% to 0 (event with shields) and his reaction says it all. Valorant is marketed as a tactical shooter, with most agent abilities serving a more utility-oriented purpose. The main focus of the game is supposedly gunplay but Raze sure doesn’t feel like that. Let’s take a look at her kit:
Boom Bot – Equip a Boom Bot. Fire will deploy the bot, causing it to travel in a straight line on the ground, bouncing off walls. The Boom Bot will lock on to any enemies in its frontal cone and chase them, exploding for heavy damage if it reaches them.
Paint Shells – Equip a cluster grenade. Fire to throw the grenade, which does damage and creates sub-munitions, each doing damage to anyone in their range.
Signature ability: Blast Pack – Instantly throw a Blast Pack that will stick to surfaces. Reactivate the ability after deployment to detonate, damaging and moving anything hit.
Ultimate ability: Showstopper – Equip a rocket launcher. Fire shoots a rocket that does massive area damage on contact with anything.
Her ultimate is the cream of the crop, but the rest of her abilities are also quite useful. Boom Bot can be used to check if there’s an enemy nearby, causing them to reveal themselves if detected or suffer heavy damage. Blast Pack can be used to propel yourself by standing on it. You can use the skill to reach higher ground, something that not all agents can do. Using a rocket or explosives to jump higher is something we’ve also seen in other titles like Quake, Team Fortress, and Overwatch so it’s certainly not a unique mechanic to Valorant.
The thing is, there’s a difference in the pace of those games and a tactical shooter. Showstopper is also one of the few skills in the game that deals direct damage, so the combination of all her abilities just seems a bit too good at this point. Maybe people haven’t figured out the meta yet but she’s seen in almost every match.
Many players have already criticized the character and considering Valorant is still in closed beta, Raze might get changed before launch. In the meantime, stay tuned for more Valorant updates.
