VALORANT is a popular Tactical First-Person Shooter (Tac-FPS) released by Riot Games. It combines the essential elements of Hero Shooters and Tac-FPS through abilities and ultimates, consumable utilities, and the objective of planting the bomb called Spike. One important aspect of Hero Shooters that VALORANT adopted is the Agent selection with specific roles attached to them. Since VALORANT’s Agent pool is not that big compared to other Hero Shooters like Overwatch and Paladins, some Agents have an advantage over others. Jett, for example, is the quintessential Duelist Agent in VALORANT. But what if your teammate already chose Jett, and you want to play the Duelist role? This article will look at the best secondary Agent for every role in VALORANT.
Read more about Agent roles here: Agent Roles Guide
The Best Secondary Option: Duelist
While I like to say that this depends on the map, the all-around second-best option for the Duelist role is Raze. Having her go crazy with Jett is a work of art for VALORANT players of every skill level. Jett’s predictable verticality is in total contrast to Raze’s movement with her Blast Packs. Their team coordination does not always require too much from players. On one hand, teams with a Jett-Raze combo will have the advantage of having two entry Agents to clear spaces. On the other, the combo is very lethal individually.
If your team needs an Agent with a flash utility, Phoenix is the best Agent to complement Jett. After all, there’s a reason why both of them are available when you start your first real VALORANT match.
The Best Secondary Option: Initiator
VALORANT’s most important Agent role, I believe, is the Initiator. In the early days of VALORANT, Sova was the unanimous pick across all maps, with Skye as the best secondary option. As the map pool got bigger and the maps itself got more complex, the need for more Initiator choices became necessary. This is evident in the use of Breach almost exclusively in Fracture. As an all-around second-best Initiator Agent, KAY/O is my pick. His kit is the best all-around for an Initiator, especially his signature ability, ZERO/point, that can be used to gather information every round consistently.
The Best Secondary Option: Sentinel
I am biased toward Cypher regarding the best secondary Sentinel. However, the Sentinel role is equally important in VALORANT as Initiator as they are the second-best Agent role in the game because of their information-gathering utilities, except for Sage. For this, I have to consider the meta as of the release of Deadlock in Patch 7.0.
With the release of Deadlock, the meta has since shifted from Chamber to Killjoy. At the same time, Cypher has slowly crept in power level (usage and overall impact) among players of all skill levels and even in professional tournaments. The introduction of Deadlock has not changed the current meta, but we will see how this affects the pick rate of Sentinel Agents other than Killjoy. For now, at least, the best secondary Sentinel Agent is Cypher. The reason for this is simple: his utilities have become more useful since his last tweak in Patch 5.12, while his pick rate in professional tournaments rose steadily in some maps like Bind, Ascent, and Fracture. Cypher is in a good spot to be a solid second option, but once Deadlock is tweaked, we’ll see if this will remain true.
The Best Secondary Option: Controller
This is difficult. All of the Controller Agents have a lot of impact in matches. Brimstone, for example, is a solid first choice in Fracture, Bind, Pearl, and Ascent. Likewise, Omen is impactful in Lotus, Ascent, and Bind. Meanwhile, Viper has been the unanimous first choice in professional tournaments, while she’s the best secondary Controller in all maps in the current rotation in ranked and unranked matches.
This can be attributed to the properties of her Toxic Screen and Poison Cloud. As a “line” smoke, Toxic Screen denies the opponent’s line of sight compared to the “dome” smokes of Astra, Brimstone, and Omen. This is very useful in maps like Icebox and Breeze (currently not in the map rotation), Pearl, Split, and Bind. For the remaining maps, Viper is very situational. Fracture is probably her weakest map, but her Viper’s Pit ultimate is valuable as it covers a significant portion of both bomb sites. This makes Viper a good secondary Controller Agent.
However, if Viper is already chosen, the second-best Controller goes to Omen. Omen’s value has not diminished since VALORANT’s release. His utilities remain one of the most impactful among Controllers. The ability to reposition at any point of the map with his From the Shadows Ultimate stalls any rotations from happening while providing Omen the ability to lurk and provide cover for his team. Another solid case for Omen is his Paranoia ability which is unique among Controllers. This ability makes Omen a hybrid Controller and Duelist by providing a flash-like ability that can be used to take spaces while entry-fragging for the team.
There you have it. The best secondary options for every role in VALORANT. This is not intended to be an authoritative list, and it depends on the Agents you want to unlock, if you’re a new player, or the Agents you want to learn but do not have the opportunity to because of teammates who insta-lock the one you want to learn.
What do you think of this list? Are there any other solid cases for the best secondary option for every role? Let us know.
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