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Reviewed by Benjamin Barr
New Agents bring new ways to play the game. Or, in this case, new ways to play with your prey.
Reyna has joined the active-duty roster in VALORANT as of version 1.0. She’s a monster of an Agent, sapping the souls of her victims to nourish her rampage and shift into the immaterial like a specter of impending, inescapable death. Which she absolutely is.
Ready to add a new Agent to your repertoire? It’s time to make the opposing team cower in fear before Reyna.
Agent Overview
- Name: Reyna
- Type: Duelist
- Abilities: Leer, Soul Orbs (Devour & Dismiss), and Empress
- Leer (200 credits): Blinds enemies who look at it; does not blind teammates. Can be destroyed.
- Soul Orbs (100 credits): Shared between the Devour and Dismiss abilities. Devour consumes a nearby Soul Orb and rapidly heals HP. If Empress is active, Devour will automatically cast and not consume a Soul Orb. Dismiss consumes a nearby Soul Orb, and makes Reyna become immaterial for a short time. If Empress is active, Reyna also becomes invisible.
- Empress (6 Ultimate Points): Enter a frenzied state, increasing fire-rate and speeding up weapon equipping and reloading. Grants Reyna infinite Soul Orbs for her abilities. Kills while Empress is active extends the ability timer.
The Twilight of Life
There are a few constants in the life of a VALORANT player:
- You’ll always look away just before you get peeked
- Peeker’s advantage will always work in your opponents’ favor and not your own
- It’s the corner you don’t check that they’ll be hiding in, no matter how irrational their positioning is
Perhaps you’ve noticed that these constants all share a theme. In VALORANT, it’s the enemy you don’t see that kills you. Most of the time, every time.
There’s plenty of ways to end up on the wrong side of a flanking maneuver. But apparently, the fine folks at Riot Games were inspired by the idea of the invisible killer. Because they decided to incarnate her as a hero you can pick and play.
Then they gave her self-healing and temporary invisibility. Why not, right?
Reyna is an absolute powerhouse of a hero. But surprisingly, she doesn’t feel overpowered in application. She’s bound to see some adjustments to her stats as the data rolls in to Riot. But even now, she has a strong role without overshadowing the rest of the team.
Her strength lies in closing out “1vX” clutch situations, as every kill grants her an opportunity to recover a bit of health or become invisible/immaterial for a short time to reposition. Sapping souls for health and invisibility takes Soul Orbs, which can be purchased for a crisp 100 credits each. Souls linger around the mortal plane for three seconds post-death, so be quick on the keys if you want to vacuum one up.
Her Leer ability is like a levitating flashbang or Eye of Sauron. It only blinds enemies that keep it in their line-of-sight, leaving teammates immune to its burning gaze. And it can be destroyed with a few well-placed shots. It dissipates after three seconds, but those may be the longest three seconds of your opponents’ pitifully shortened lives.
Her Ultimate, Empress, turns her into a one-woman maelstrom of violence.
“They will cower,” she says — and if they’re smart, that’s precisely what they’ll do. Her fire-rate across all weapons syncs with her racing heartbeat. She reloads and equips weapons in fractions of a second. She soaks up souls without any conscious effort, and using Dismiss renders her fully invisible. She pops in and out of reality like a jack-in-the-box from hell, manipulating 1vX situations to whittle the enemies down until Reyna is the last one standing.
The Inevitability of Death
So how do you counter a Reyna?
Stick together. Cover different angles than your teammates. She’s likely going to eliminate one of you — but as long as you’re working together, she can’t get all of you. Hopefully.
Remember that Reyna has a limited window to take advantage of souls. When a teammate dies, get ready to swing wide and trade him as Reyna tries to siphon him up. And when her ultimate is offline, remember that her Dismiss renders her immaterial but not invisible. Like a teleporting Omen, a Dismissed Reyna is easy to set a trap for with a teammate or two — but she can’t zip away to safety.
And while her ultimate is terrifying, she still falls to a few well-placed shots, just like any other mortal Agent. Keep calm and keep putting rounds downrange.
If you’re a fan of sniping, consider using another hero. Like other Duelists, she should be the first to engage and the last to retreat. If Reyna isn’t on the frontlines, it’s not that she’s at a disadvantage. She simply won’t be using her toolkit to its fullest potential. So don’t be a fool — vacuum those souls!
For those of you new to the ride, Agent ability adjustment is a given in the first few months. It’s clear that Reyna is intended to be the clutch mistress, the queen of closing out rounds. So like Sage, any potential nerfs will likely be geared toward ensuring her round impact doesn’t scale exponentially as players learn how to play her. But her specific design and purpose will likely remain the same.
Learn to love the clutch scenarios and keep the camera rolling for your highlight reels. With Reyna, every 1vX is just another opportunity. And they will learn to fear your name before the end.
Related Reading
- VALORANT Ranking System Overview
- XPG Summoner Gaming Keyboard Review
- VALORANT Weapons Guide
- Windows 10 Home vs. Pro for Gaming
- VALORANT Agents Guide
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