-Maggie Borland
Hello everyone, this week we’ll be going over the Controller class in Valorant. Commonly referred to as, “smoke” characters, having at least one controller is essential to creating a good team.
Riot describes this class as follows, “Controllers are experts in slicing up dangerous territory to set their team up for success. This class often provides lots of utility in the form of slowing down the enemy players via walls, smokes that block vision, and even slows that can be placed on the ground”. This class currently only has three heroes to choose from.
Brimstone
One of the more popular (but not the most popular) hero picks. Brimstone is equipped with three smokes, one incendiary, and a stim beacon that amplifies the damage of anyone who walks within the radius. His ultimate, digital strike, allows him to target a large, orange radius with high damage strikes for several seconds. It’s effective in clearing out space because anyone caught in it for more than a few seconds will not survive.
Omen
Omen is currently the most popular controller character in the game. Unlike Brimstone who can buy three smokes, Omen starts out with two smokes and recharges one every 30 seconds. Not only that, but he’s equipped with a powerful flash, called paranoia, that can blind both enemies and teammates. His final ability is called shadow step, which he can use to teleport anywhere within his radius. His ultimate, while not as obviously overpowered as some other characters, allows him to teleport anywhere on the map. Players will often use this to gather information or to lurk within enemy backlines.
Viper
Viper, like the other two characters, is also equipped with smoke. Her smoke and wall are put down in one spot and can be used repeatedly during a round. However, both of these use resources from her toxicity meter. Once that meter reaches zero, the smoke and wall will go down while it recharges. As such, Viper players must be very cautious and use this resource wisely. She is also equipped with an ability called snake bite, which acts as poison and damages enemies who walk through it. Her ultimate, vipers pit, is a large cloud of poison which gives her thermal views of the other team, while making it harder to see for them.
With that, we have one more class to go over next week. Until then, you can watch these agents in action on our Twitch channel on Thursday evening, or join in the conversation on our Discord.