Abilities

Abilities are tools that are available to be used by agents in addition to the weapons that they carry. Each ability in VALORANT is unique, though some share similarities. All agents have three types of abilities to give them more tactical opportunities and assist their gunplay; basic, signature, and ultimate.

Summary

Sage with Slow Orb equipped.

Fade suppressed by KAY/O's ZERO/point.

Abilities are deployed by agents in various ways. Many abilities must also be equipped before deployment, causing the agent to go through an equip animation for a short amount of time before they can cast the ability, though some can be cast instantly. Abilities are only audible to enemies after they are cast; nearby enemies cannot hear when you are equipping abilities. After casting an ability, an agent will reequip the last weapon they were using at its normal, fast, or instant equip time, depending on which one each ability utilizes. The player can change which weapon is initially reequipped if they input a selection prior.

Players are prevented from using abilities if they are suppressed. Some abilities can affect both enemies and allies. Such abilities that damage allies deal ¹/₃ damage, while abilities that has debuff effects affect allies fully.

Ability usage differs per game mode.

• In most Plant/Defuse modes (Unrated, Competitive and Swiftplay), most abilities have a cost to obtain and use (through credits or ult points), though some are given for free.
• In Spike Rush and Replication, all basic and signature abilities are refreshed every round.
• In Team Deathmatch, all basic and signature abilities are set on a cooldown, while ultimate abilities use a percentage bar depending on kills and ultimate orbs.
• In Deathmatch, Escalation and Snowball Fight, individual agents' ability usage are disabled.

Several abilities cannot be cast during Buy Phase in Plant/Defuse modes as they do not achieve anything if they were to be cast at this time, however others can be as they specifically help agents to set up utility or positioning before the Round Phase begins. During Buy Phase, used abilities cannot be repurchased if the uses has reached the maximum allowed for the round and used abilities on cooldown will not begin till Round Phase starts. All abilities in Team Deathmatch cannot be cast in spawn.

The following abilities usable for Plant/Defuse modes during Buy Phase are:

• Astra's Astral Form
• All of Chamber's abilities
• Cypher's Trapwire, Cyber Cage (placement only), and Spycam
• Deadlock's Sonic Sensor (placement only)
• Jett's Updraft
• Killjoy's Nanoswarm (placement only), Alarmbot, and Turret
• Neon's High Gear (Energy and Slide charge not consumed)
• Omen's Shrouded Step
• Raze's Blast Pack
• Sage's Healing Orb
• Viper's Poison Cloud (placement only) and Toxic Screen (placement only)
• Vyse's Razorvine (placement only), Shear, Arc Rose (placement only)
• Yoru's Fakeout (stationary placement only) and Gatecrash (placement only)

Types

There are four types of abilities in VALORANT:

Passive

Main article: Passive Effects

Agent passives are additional effects that some specific agents have. Whilst most of these interact with agents' standard abilities, these effects are often utilized by multiple of an agent's abilities instead of being a passive effect that is only part of an individual ability. Many passives do not require any active interaction from the player to be activated or applied, but there are some passive effects that do require the player to activate them with a specific hotkey.

Passives can be effects that are:

1. Constantly available to be used without any cost:
   • Astra's Astral Form
   • Jett's Drift
   • Passive resource generation
     • Neon's Energy
     • Viper's Fuel
2. Activated or applied as an additional effect on top of the primary function of an action (abilities or kills):
   • Fade's Terror Trail
   • Gekko's Globules
   • Phoenix's Heating Up
   • Reyna's Soul Harvest
   • Viper's Toxin

Basic

Basic abilities are abilities that most agents have to purchase using credits to be able to use. All agents have two basic abilities, with the exception of Reyna having only one and Astra having three basic abilities.

List of Basic Abilities

Agent	Ability	Cost (); per use	Max. charges	Functions
Astra	Gravity Well	Free (used from Stars)	1	Cripple Displacement
	Nova Pulse		1	Concuss
	Nebula/Dissipate		2	Smoke
Breach	Aftershock	200	1	Deterrent
	Flashpoint	250	2	Flash
Brimstone	Stim Beacon	200	1	Empowerment
	Incendiary	250	1	Molotov
Chamber	Trademark	200	1	Autonomous Deployable Slow
	Headhunter	100	8	Weapon Equip
Clove	Pick-me-up	200	1	Empowerment Heal
	Meddle	250	1	Cripple
Cypher	Trapwire	200	2	Autonomous Deployable Concuss Tether
	Cyber Cage	100	2	Vision Blocker
Deadlock	Barrier Mesh	400	1	Barrier
	Sonic Sensor	200	2	Autonomous Deployable Concuss
Fade	Prowler	250	2	Autonomous Deployable Nearsight
	Seize	200	1	Cripple Tether
Gekko	Mosh Pit	250	1	Deterrent
	Wingman	300	1	Autonomous Deployable Concuss
Harbor	Cascade	150	2	Slow Wall
	Cove	350	1	Smoke
Iso	Contingency	200	1	Wall
	Undercut	300	1	Cripple Limiter
Jett	Cloudburst	200	2	Smoke
	Updraft	150	1	Dash
KAY/O	FRAG/ment	200	1	Deterrent
	FLASH/drive	250	2	Flash
Killjoy	Nanoswarm	200	2	Molotov
	Alarmbot	200	1	Autonomous Deployable Cripple
Neon	Fast Lane	300	1	Wall
	Relay Bolt	200	1	Concuss
Omen	Shrouded Step	100	2	Teleport
	Paranoia	250	1	Nearsight
Phoenix	Blaze	150	1	Wall
	Hot Hands	200	1	Molotov
Raze	Boom Bot	300	1	Autonomous Deployable
	Blast Pack	200	2	Dash Displacement
Reyna	Leer	250	2	Nearsight
Sage	Barrier Orb	400	1	Barrier Wall
	Slow Orb	200	2	Slow
Skye	Regrowth	150	1	Heal
	Trailblazer	300	1	Concuss Controlled Deployable
Sova	Owl Drone	400	1	Controlled Deployable
	Shock Bolt	150	2	Deterrent
Tejo	Stealth Drone	400	1	Controlled Deployable Limiter
	Special Delivery	200	1	Concuss
Viper	Snake Bite	300	1	Cripple Molotov
	Poison Cloud	200	1	Cripple Smoke
Vyse	Razorvine	150	2	Slow
	Shear	200	1	Autonomous Deployable Barrier Wall
Waylay	Saturate	300	1	Hinder
	Lightspeed	300	1	Dash
Yoru	Fakeout	200	1	Decoy Flash
	Blindside	250	2	Flash

Signature

Signature abilities are abilities that agents are guaranteed to be able to use every round. All agents have one signature ability (with the exception of Reyna having two abilities, albeit having shared charges between them) that will give them one free charge for them to use.

Some agents may be able to increase the amount of charges they have of their signature ability by buying more with credits, but any regenerated charges from cooldowns will not be kept for the next round and they will restart with their one free charge. Charges that do not get used and did not get regenerated will be carried over to the next round, however a new charge will not be added. Signature abilities that don't offer the option to buy more charges have other ways to allow the player to use that ability more than once in a round, such as cooldowns or enemy kill targets.

List of Signature Abilities

Agent	Ability	Cost (); per use	Max. charges	Rechargeable with cooldown/kills	Functions
Astra	Stars	150	5		Setup
Breach	Fault Line	Free	1		Concuss
Brimstone	Sky Smoke	100	3		Smoke
Chamber	Rendezvous	Free	1		Teleport
Clove	Ruse	150	2		Smoke
Cypher	Spycam	Free	1		Controlled Deployable
Deadlock	GravNet	Free	1		Slow
Fade	Haunt	Free	1		Intel
Gekko	Dizzy	Free	1		Autonomous Deployable Blind
Harbor	High Tide	Free	1		Slow Wall
Iso	Double Tap	Free	1		Empowerment Invulnerability
Jett	Tailwind	Free	1		Dash
KAY/O	ZERO/point	Free	1		Intel Limiter
Killjoy	Turret	Free	1		Autonomous Deployable
Neon	High Gear	150	1		Dash
Omen	Dark Cover	150	2		Smoke
Phoenix	Curveball	250	2		Flash
Raze	Paint Shells	Free	1		Deterrent
Reyna	Devour	200	2 (shared charges)		Heal
	Dismiss		Intangibility
Sage	Healing Orb	Free	1		Heal
Skye	Guiding Light	250	2		Controlled Deployable Flash
Sova	Recon Bolt	Free	1		Intel
Tejo	Guided Salvo	150	2		Deterrent
Viper	Toxic Screen	Free	1		Cripple Wall
Vyse	Arc Rose	Free	1		Controlled Deployable Flash
Waylay	Refract	Free	1		Invulnerability Mobility
Yoru	Gatecrash	150	2		Decoy Teleport
Notes:

Ultimate

Ultimate abilities are the strongest in the game. To use an ultimate, players must acquire ultimate points. These are earned by killing enemies, dying, capturing ultimate orbs, and completing a spike plant or defuse.

Once a player has earned enough points, they can use them up to cast their ultimate. Upon doing so, all players will hear a global voice line alerting them to that specific agent using their ultimate. Gekko is the only agent with three additional voice lines due to his ability to recast his ultimate in the same round.

List of Ultimate Abilities

Agent	Ability	Cost (points)	Functions
Astra	Cosmic Divide	7	Wall
Breach	Rolling Thunder	9	Concuss Displacement
Brimstone	Orbital Strike	8	Deterrent
Chamber	Tour De Force	8	Slow Weapon Equip
Clove	Not Dead Yet	8	Intangibility Revive
Cypher	Neural Theft	7	Intel
Deadlock	Annihilation	7	Detain Displacement
Fade	Nightfall	8	Cripple Intel
Gekko	Thrash	8	Controlled Deployable Detain
Harbor	Reckoning	7	Concuss Intel
Iso	Kill Contract	7	Banish Limiter
Jett	Blade Storm	8	Weapon Equip
KAY/O	NULL/cmd	8	Empowerment Limiter Revive
Killjoy	Lockdown	9	Detain
Neon	Overdrive	8	Weapon Equip
Omen	From the Shadows	7	Teleport
Phoenix	Run it Back	6	Revive
Raze	Showstopper	8	Weapon Equip
Reyna	Empress	6	Empowerment
Sage	Resurrection	7	Revive
Skye	Seekers	8	Autonomous Deployable Nearsight Slow
Sova	Hunter's Fury	8	Weapon Equip
Tejo	Armageddon	9	Deterrent
Viper	Viper's Pit	9	Cripple Vision Blocker
Vyse	Steel Garden	8	Limiter
Waylay	Convergent Paths	8	Empowerment Hinder
Yoru	Dimensional Drift	8	Intangibility

Ultimate voice lines

Agent	As an ally		As an enemy
Astra		"World divided!"		"You are divided!"
Breach		"Let's go!"		"Off your feet!"
Brimstone		"Open up the sky!"		"Prepare for hellfire!"
Chamber		"They are so dead!"		"You want to play? Let's play."
Clove		"Back like I never left!"		"You had your fun, my turn!"
Cypher		"Where is everyone hiding?"		"I know exactly where you are!"
Deadlock		"Pull them to their grave!"		"My territory, my rules!"
Fade		"Nightmare, take them!"		"Face your fear!"
Gekko	Initial cast:
		"It's all you, lil' homie!"		"Oye! Monster on the loose!"
	Recast:
		"Thrash is going again!"		"Thrash isn't done with you!"
		"We're going again!"		"She's still gunning for ya!"
		"She's going again!"		"You want more? Here's more!"
Harbor		"Let's turn the tide!"		"I suggest you move!"
Iso		"No distractions!"		"It's you and me!"
Jett		"Watch this!"		"Get out of my way!"
KAY/O		"No one walks away!"		"You... are... powerless!"
Killjoy		"Initiated!"		"You should run."
Neon		"Here we go!"		"Hoy! I'm pissed!"
Omen		"Watch them run."		"Scatter!"
Phoenix		"Come on, let's go!"		"Joke's over, you're dead!"
Raze		"Here comes the party!"		"Fire in the hole!"
Reyna		"They will cower!"		"The hunt begins!"
Sage		"Your duty is not over!"		"You will not kill my allies!"
Skye		"Seek them out!"		"I've got your trail."
Sova		"I, am the hunter!"		"Nowhere to run!"
Tejo		"This is how it ends!"		"Go ahead, stand your ground!"
Viper		"Don't get in my way!"		"Welcome to my world!"
Vyse		"Bring me the arsenal!"		"Adapt or die!"
Waylay		"Line 'em up! I'm going in!"		"One by one!"
Yoru		"I'll handle this!"		"Who's next?"

Functions

"Functions" are organized by the VALORANT Wiki and its editors as a way to classify and group abilities with similar functions. It is not an official VALORANT classification. These functions only identify the core, shared use of abilities within a group and may not take any additional effects into account.

While each ability in VALORANT is unique, some share similar functions. These allow them to be sorted into the following classes and sub-classes:

• Barrier: Barriers prevents agents from being able to move through them.
• Blind: Blinds are used to limit an agent's vision.
  • Flash: Flashes completely remove all vision.
  • Nearsight: Nearsights afflict enemies with a short, maximum vision radius as well as deafening them.
• Cripple: Cripples apply temporary debuffs to an agent's health, bringing them closer to death or increasing incoming damage taken by them.
• Crowd Control: Crowd Control tools affect an enemy's capability to move on the map.
  • Banish: Banish abilities remove the affected agents from the map.
  • Concuss: Concuss abilities reduce movement speed and fire rate, decrease bullet accuracy, prevent use of scopes or ADS, and affect a player's vision.
  • Detain: Detains severely reduce movement speed, massively decreases jump height and force the enemy to unequip all their weapons and abilities.
  • Displacement: Displacements physically move enemies out of position by force and against their will.
  • Hinder: Hinder reduce an enemy's movement and weapon speed.
  • Slow: Slows reduce an enemy's movement speed.
  • Tether: Tethers prevent an enemy from moving beyond a specific location.
• Decoy: Decoys are used to distract an enemy and draw their attention away from where the real threat is.
• Deterrent: Deterrents are used to flush enemies out of certain positions by threatening to kill them if they attempt to stay in that location.
  • Molotov: Molotovs deal damage over time in a small area-of-effect on the ground of the location they detonate in.
• Empowerment: These increase an agent's power by buffing them in some way.
  • Weapon Equip: Grants the agent a new weapon for them to use.
• Intel: Intel tools give information on the whereabouts of enemies.
  • Autonomous deployable: Autonomous deployables operate on their own without any further input from the player.
  • Controlled deployable: Controlled deployables must be controlled by the player to operate.
• Limiter: Limiters apply debuffs that disable specific parts of an agent's loadout.
  • Jam: Jam abilities disable primary weapons.
  • Suppress: Suppress abilities disable abilities.
• Mobility: Mobility tools abilities give agents a way to traverse the map beyond just running and walking.
  • Dash: Dashes allow the user to move in a certain direction at greatly increased speed.
  • Intangibility: These allow the user to be immune to damage. They can also grant invisibility in some circumstances, hiding them from enemy sight.
  • Teleport: Teleports allow the user to blink to a location without having to walk or run between their start and end position.
• Resource Bar: Abilities that use resource bars require enough of their resource to be available in order to be cast.
• Setup: These abilities provide setup that the agent will use for casting some of their other abilities.
• Sustain: Sustain tools allow agents to withstand and counteract damage being dealt to them while remaining active on the battlefield.
  • Heal: Heals restore health to the target.
  • Invulnerability: These make the affected agent immune to all sources of damage.
  • Revive: Revives allow an agent to continue fighting even after taking lethal damage.
• Vision Blocker: Vision blockers block line of sight, allowing allies to carry out actions behind or inside the blocking object without giving visual info to the enemy.
  • Smoke: Smokes are spherical vision blockers.
  • Wall: Walls are linear/rectangular vision blockers.

Some abilities may be completely unique and therefore do not fit into any of these functions. Such abilities are classed as Niche, however all abilities in the game currently fit under at least one of the above classes instead.

Lore

The abilities used by agents in-game also make appearances within the lore of VALORANT. However, whilst gameplay must take balancing into account, the lore is not tied down by these restrictions and so more "realistic" depictions (in the context of the VALORANT universe) can be shown within the lore, meaning there can be some differences between how abilities operate in-game and in-universe. Gameplay does not have to be accurate to how abilities would realistically work within the lore, and lore does not have to be accurate to how abilities are required to work in-game.

For example, in the case of in-universe depictions not needing to accurately reflect gameplay functionality, Killjoy's Turret must remain in one place when it is deployed in-game with just basic 'detect and engage' programming. Away from the restrictions of gameplay balancing in the lore however, the turret can be seen running alongside Killjoy and understanding and reacting to directive hand gestures. Not being restricted to the exact functionality of abilities in-game allows the lore to show these depictions that make much more sense from a narrative perspective.

For the reverse case of gameplay not needing to adhere to how abilities would realistically work within the lore meanwhile, Brimstone's Sky Smokes and Orbital Strike are deployed from an orbital satellite, so from a narrative perspective targeting areas inside buildings would only cause his utility to be blocked by the roofs of these buildings instead (temporarily however in assumedly most cases for Orbital Strike until the laser cuts through, or if the roof material is weak enough for a Sky Smoke to break through on impact). In-game however, it is necessary for these abilities to immediately affect these target areas without any disruption by any terrain above, even if from a narrative perspective this would either be unrealistic or completely impossible. The needs of gameplay balancing will always come first over lore accuracy when designing in-game abilities, even if within the lore such functionality or decision making would make no sense at all.

Agents also aren't restricted to just having the abilities that they have in-game within the lore, such as with Neon who has been seen to also have the ability to release a large electrical pulse from her body when in Overdrive.

Appearances in lore

List of Ability appearances in lore

Agent	Ability	Preview
Astra	Astral Form
Breach	Aftershock	Audio only
	Rolling Thunder	Seismic charge
Brimstone	Incendiary	Launcher
	Sky Smoke	Deployment
	Orbital Strike	Wind up
Chamber	Rendezvous	Anchor + Arrival
	Tour De Force
Clove	Meddle
	Ruse
	Not Dead Yet
Cypher	Trapwire
	Spycam
	Neural Theft	Reveal
Deadlock	GravNet	Grenade
	Sonic Sensor
	Annihilation	Pulse Cocoon Nanowire accelerator
Fade	Prowler
	Seize	Tethers Tethers overwhelming a victim
	Other	Fade's Nightmare tendrils, summoned from her own hands, overwhelming a victim Ability to see nightmare-visions (Mentioned only)
Gekko	Globules	Thrash as a Globule enters Gekko's carrier
	Mosh Pit
	Wingman
	Dizzy	Blinding plasma blasts
	Thrash	Explosion A victim detained by Thrash
Harbor	Cascade
	Cove
	High Tide	Setting up wall
	Reckoning
	Other	Water walls being also able to block gunfire
Jett	Drift
	Cloudburst
	Updraft
	Tailwind
	Blade Storm
KAY/O	FRAG/ment
	ZERO/point
	NULL/cmd	Used by Max Bot
Killjoy	Turret
	Lockdown
	Other	A bot created by Killjoy, used to access computer systems through keyboard inputs hands-free A bot created by Killjoy, used to cut through surfaces Bots created by Killjoy, the one on the right being used to download information from terminals
Neon	High Gear
	Overdrive
	Other	Neon's body releasing a large electricity pulse
Omen	Shrouded Step	Channeling
	Paranoia	Victim being nearsighted
	Dark Cover	Cast - in transit
	From the Shadows	Shade Form
	Other	An additional form of teleportation used by Omen
Phoenix	Heating Up
	Blaze
	Curveball
	Hot Hands
	Run it Back	Disintegration on death Revival
	Other	Phoenix using his powers to super heat a Radi-Core Phoenix unleashes a devastating blast
Raze	Boom Bot
	Blast Pack
	Paint Shells	Grenade
	Showstopper	Rocket
Reyna	Leer
	Devour
	Dismiss
Sage	Barrier Orb	Equip Damaged wall
	Slow Orb	Equip
	Healing Orb
	Resurrection	Equip Channel An encased corpse ready to undergo Resurrection
Skye	Regrowth	Audio only
	Trailblazer	Summon
	Guiding Light	Trinket
	Seekers	Audio only
Sova	Owl Drone
	Shock Bolt
	Recon Bolt	Reveal
	Hunter's Fury	Windup Blast
Tejo	Stealth Drone
	Special Delivery
	Guided Salvo
	Armageddon	Equip Activation
Viper	Snake Bite	Canister and launcher
	Poison Cloud
	Toxic Screen
Vyse	Razorvine	Nest
	Shear	Trap
	Arc Rose
	Steel Garden	Vines lying in place
Waylay	Saturate
	Light Speed
	Refract
	Convergent Paths
Yoru	Gatecrash	Tether
	Dimensional Drift	Yoru's footsteps still visible to others