VALORANT | Best Agents Tier List and Ranking the Best of the Best

Image: Riot Games

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Reviewed by Benjamin Barr

Valorant is one of the most popular PvP shooters available right now. Its quickly acquired status in the e-sports scene and is regularly featured as one of the top ten most-watched channels on Twitch. There’s a lot you need to do if you want to “get gud” and start climbing the ranks in Valorant, though. You need to fine-tune your settings, learn the ins and outs of all the different weapons, and above all, figure out what kind of role you’re going to play on your team and which Agent is best for you.

We at High Ground know that can be a little intimidating. There are fifteen different Agents in Valorant, each with their own special abilities and roles they’re best suited to. Trying to pick one to be your main can be a tall order to fill. We’ve put together a tier list of all the best Valorant Agents, and a top 10 list with detailed information about the best of the best.

Valorant Agents Tier List

Ready to set your spike? It’s time to list the best Valorant Agents by tier. After that, be sure to check out our top ten list below for more in-depth reviews of each of the best Valorant Agents.

S-Tier

1. Astra
2. Jett
3. Sova

These Agents are the best of the best. Some have a pretty high skill threshold to utilize their full potential, but have the highest ceiling as a reward. These are usually the first Agents chosen by professional e-sports gamers.

A-Tier

4. Raze
5. Skye
6. Killjoy
7. Viper

These are excellent choices as well. Players who master these characters can control the tide of battle and carry their teams if need be. They don’t have quite the same pro-level potential as our S-Tier picks, but they’re still very good and generally a bit easier to use.

B-Tier

8. Sage
9. Cypher
10. Phoenix
11. Breach

These are more specialized choices. There aren’t any bad options here and each Agent still has a job they’re best suited to, but the S- and A-Tier options have abilities that allow them to be useful in a wider variety of situations.

C-Tier

12. Reyna
13. Brimstone
14. Omen

These are the Agents you almost never see the pros use, mostly because they aren’t especially useful for any given job. Reyna is a really popular choice for her ability to carry a weaker team and heal herself by absorbing the energy of those she’s killed, but her lack of utility makes her a difficult to recommend for most players. Still, all of them are better than Yoru.

D-Tier

15. Yoru

Last on the Valorant Agents tier list? Yoru. Even after his recent buff, Yoru is still one of the weakest Agents in the game. Just don’t pick Yoru.

The 10 Best Valorant Agents Ranked

Now it’s time to go through each of the top 10 best Agents in Valorant one-by-one in order to tell you about their abilities and why we think they’re the best choices in the game. Think about what role you want to play in your team, be honest about your skill level, and be sure to pick a backup in case your Agent gets picked before you can get them!

10/10

Phoenix

Starting off our list of the 10 best Valorant Agents is Phoenix. This guy can flash around corners to blind his enemies (and allies, if you’re not careful), put up a fire wall, hurl a fireball that an area that does constant burn damage, and even come back from the dead!

So why is he only our number 10 Agent? Well, Jett and Raze do the same job, just better. Still, Phoenix is a viable choice for the role and extremely capable in the right hands. His “Run-It-Back” ultimate ability is one of the strongest in the game when it comes to taking a control point for your team. Also, all of his fire abilities heal him.

9/10

Cypher

Cyborg, cowboy, detective. Cypher is always watching. This sentinel is a useful addition to any team because he can use set tripwires that make enemies glow red through walls, and set up a spycam that he can use to look through and shoot enemies with a dart that makes them visible through walls and smokes until they pull it out. Both of these abilities are great for defending a site or holding a flank. He can also use smoke and he can see the location of every enemy on the map by throwing his hat on the corpse of a defeated foe with his ultimate ability, “Neural Theft.”

Every team should have a Sentinel, and Cypher is a solid choice if you aren’t a fan of Sage or Killjoy.

8/10

Sage

Sage is the OG healer in Valorant. She was the only healer in the game until Skye was introduced. She can create a solid ice wall, throw an orb which makes a puddle which slows enemies, and toss orbs that heal her allies. Her ultimate ability is called “Resurrection,” which she can use to revive dead allies on the battlefield.

Sage may not be the best medic in the game anymore, but she is still a useful member on any team and is somewhat easier to use.

7/10

Viper

Master of poisons and toxic gas, Viper is an excellent addition to any team. She’s especially useful on long range, open maps like Icebox and Bre e ze. She has the longest wall in the game, (not including Astra’s ult). She can also use mollies and smoke. All of her abilities make your enemies take damage and become “vulnerable,” which makes them take double damage for a brief time. Her ultimate ability is called “Viper’s Pit,” which creates a massive pool that deals big-damage to anyone unfortunate enough to step inside it.

Viper is probably the best controller for most people since there’s such a high skill threshold for Astra.

6/10

Killjoy

Killjoy, AKA “the genius of Germany,” is next on our list. She can use nano-swarm grenades, which work sort of like Phoenix’s molly with a controlled detonate. She also has an alarmbot which sounds whenever someone enters its vicinity and then explodes on them, making them vulnerable. On top of all that, she also has a turret which can not only hit enemies with pin-point accuracy, but also slows them down. Her ultimate ability, “Lockdown,” creates a field with a timer. When the timer hits zero, everything under the dome is paralyzed.

The beauty of playing Killjoy is in all the ways her abilities work together. Plant any two of them side by side, and you can all but guarantee the enemy that encounters them won’t survive.

5/10

Skye

Skye is the best healer in the game. She has an AOE ability called “Regrowth” which allows her to heal every ally within range. She can also summon a spectral Tasmanian tiger (though everyone just calls it a dog) that she can use to spy on enemy locations and pounce on them in order to stun them. Her spectral hawk can be controlled and detonated in order to blind enemies. This also alerts you to their location by confirming that they’ve been successfully blinded. Her “seekers” ultimate tracks down every surviving enemy on the field, leading you right to them while also briefly stunning and blinding them.

She’s basically a Sentinel and an Initiator rolled into one. The sky’s the limit with Skye.

4/10

Raze

Want to blow some stuff up? Raze is the Agent for you. She can throw grenades, which explode and deal massive damage. She has an attack-roomba, which also explodes, and she has blast packs which can be thrown. Guess what they do? Yup, they explode. The blast packs can also be used propel you across the field. Raze’s ultimate ability is called “Showstopper.” It’s a rocket launcher. It’s pretty self-explanatory.

Raze is probably the best Agent in the game in terms of pure damage output. Just watch out for friendly fire.

3/10

Sova

As the Agent used in Riot Game’s Valorant tutorial, Sova is among the best Valorant Agents for beginners. He also snags the award for best Initiator. This master archer can use a recon dart to reveal enemy locations across an entire site and make them glow through walls. He also has shock darts which hurt enemies and an owl drone which you can control and use to tag enemies with tracker darts. His “Hunter’s Fury” ultimate ability allows him to shoot a powerful beam out of his bow three times, each of them dealing massive damage.

His ability to track enemies and gather information is second-to-none, though to really make the best of Sova, you have to learn the maps and know where to place him so that his arrows reveal the most information possible. This is why he’s such a popular choice in pro gaming.

2/10

Jett

Jett is the top Duelist in the game. There’s a reason she’s always one of the first Agents chosen in pro and general lobbies alike. Jet has a dash ability, making her easily the most mobile Agent in Valorant. She can also create smokes and has an updraft ability that allows her to leap up into second story areas that no other player can reach. This makes her an ideal sniper, as she can reach perches and escape quickly. Her ultimate ability allows her to throw knives that can one-shot enemies on a head-shot.

Jett is one of the few Agents in the game who is good for beginner and experienced players alike. Make sure you have a backup if you make her your main though because she gets picked fast.

1/10

Astra

Now for the best Agent in the game, though not the best for everyone. Astra is not easy to use. In fact, she is probably the most difficult Agent to master in Valorant. She uses her abilities by placing “stars” around the map. Once they’re down, these are the only locations where her abilities can be placed. One of them is a simple smoke, though she gets a lot of them. She can generate a concussive blast from one of the stars which stuns enemies, and she can generate a whirlpool from one of stars which sucks all the enemies in range into its center. Astra’s ultimate ability is a wall that covers almost the entire map. No one can shoot through it and it muffles all sound on the other side.

Astra isn’t the best Agent for everyone. In fact, there are very few people who can use her to the best of her potential. But all of her abilities put together make her the ideal Agent for disrupting enemy activity, controlling the map, and leading a team to victory.