Sage is an essential pick for any team lineup in VALORANT. Her skill set allows her to support her allies and lockdown bomb sites to buy her teammates enough time to rotate and help.
Sage’s wall, Barrier Orb, is the most versatile ability in her skill set. Players can get creative with creating walls to take advantage of angles enemies would least likely check.
Today, we look at a few walls you can use as a Defender in Ascent. Let’s get started!
Sentinel Above Sentinels: Sage
Sage is a powerful support Agent under the Sentinel class. She embodies what a full-on Sentinel Agent should be; An Agent who can support her teammates to help them stay alive and kicking within the course of the round.
Sage is a powerful Defender; she can stall or even stop enemies from fully entering the site she is holding through her barrier and slow orbs. Sage’s skill set allows her to stall enemies enough to the point where Sage’s allies can rotate over to her side of the map to fight and defend against an attacker’s bombsite take.
Perhaps her most powerful abilities lie in her healing and her ultimate ability: Ressurection. Sage’s heal allows her to heal up worn-down allies to keep them fighting longer. Her Ressurection ability completely resurrects any fallen comrade to give them one more chance at winning the round.
Because of her skill set, Sage has become a popular pick for beginners and support-oriented players because of her simpler and more laid-back gameplay relative to the other Agent Classes in VALORANT.
However, Sage can be played beyond the stereotypical Sentinel Agent role with her Barrier Orb as her partner in crime.
Ascent A-site Defending – Rafters Passive-Aggressive Barrier Orb Boost
A typical A-site Defense Sage wall looks like this:
Do not get us wrong; this wall is the easiest and most effective way to stop Attackers from pushing into the A-site. However, as the game goes on, with more and more rounds played, enemies will break this wall by shooting or knifing it down, rendering it less and less effective as the game stretches out.
If you feel slightly sharp today, you might want to try a more unconventional passive-aggressive wall on the Rafters. This wall will catch enemies off guard as they will not expect you to “waste” your wall on such a trivial spot on-site. You can peek off this wall to score easy kills from unsuspecting enemies.
- Stand anywhere in this corner behind the tall wooden box on the Rafters:
2. Aim for this metal bar:
3. Rotate your Barrier Orb by pressing “C”:
4. Place the Barrier Orb while jumping forward (to stop the first wall block from breaking):
5. You can move around to get a better angle towards A-Main and Tree:
Ascent Middle – Defender Spawn Wall Boost to Middle Barrier Orb
We consistently discuss how vital middle control is in Ascent in our Ascent-related VALORANT articles, such as Sova’s Recon Bolt Lineups for Ascent.
Middle-control in Ascent can make or break an Attacker’s push or Defender’s hold.
Sage’s Barrier Orb is often used to block passageways in Ascent maps. This is not a bad way of using Sage’s wall since it serves a few important purposes for your team:
- Blocks off enemy players from entering an area.
- It gives you and your team enemy location information when they start destroying your wall.
- It helps your team guesstimate where the enemy team will be coming from since their choices have been reduced thanks to your wall.
As we can see, these are not a bad way to spend 400 credits in the round. However, as mentioned in the first Barrier Orb above, enemies will likely start destroying the wall later in the round anyway.
We can use the enemies’ aggressiveness to bait them into entering the market area, hoping to score a quick multi-kill.
This next Sage Barrier Orb can help you catch enemies off guard as you will be coming from an angle that Attackers will never check because of how absurd it is. It is worth noting, though, that this wall will most likely be a one-off because your enemies will check the same angle the second time around.
Still, if you can afford to play this aggressively to score a game or round-changing play, try out this Barrier Orb from Defender Spawn.
- Look for the closed-off well at Defender Spawn:
2. Get on top of the well:
3. Rotate your Barrier Orb vertically:
4. Jump forward while placing the wall:
The Wall Orb does not have to be pixel-perfect. You should not be peeking deep into Middle Courtyard with this wall. The goal is to make the enemies think the middle is “open” and then catch them off guard on their way inside the Market.
Ascent Middle – Market Boost Barrier Orb
This next Barrier Orb is a wall boost to give you a better vantage point towards the top middle. With an Operator, you might be able to snag a few kills from this off-angle.
Unfortunately, like the wall before it, this wall will more or less be a one-off, which means you will most likely be able to use it only once per match. Players will most likely start checking this angle once they have used it. This is also a common wall boost for Ascent Market, so use this one sparingly.
- Look for these fruit trays inside B-Market:
2. Tuck yourself in this corner:
3. Rotate the Barrier Orb once clock-wise to make it vertical:
Ensure a portion of the Barrier Orb’s width goes through the rightmost wall. Also, make sure the wall placement indicator sits on top of the fruit boxes:
4. Jump forward while creating the wall:
The Barrier Orb should look like this when done correctly:
Ascent B-site – Lane Barrier Orb
This next Barrier Orb setup is great for cutting off and reducing the space Attackers can take hold of on their way to the B-site.
This Sage Barrier Orb blocks off Lane, which forces attackers to expose themselves to your teammates at Market as they try to break the wall. Lane is the safest route towards B-site, giving attackers cover from Defenders at Market and Defender Spawn.
Using this Sage Barrier Orb, you effectively block off Lane from Attackers, and, as a bonus, this Sage wall will give you the boost you need to peek towards the B-Main Entrance from an off-angle. You can pick off some Attackers for quick and easy kills with this wall.
- Jump on top of these boxes in B-site Default:
2. Place the wall in such a way that it is parallel with the left-most wall:
3. Jump backward while placing the Wall Orb so it does not break:
When done correctly, the wall should block off Lane entry and give you a great vantage point towards B-Main.
Ascent A-site – Tree One-way Barrier Orb
This last Sage Barrier Orb Setup is tricky to get right, but it becomes second nature once you get the hang of it. This Sage Wall Orb is great when your teammate gives up Middle Cubby and Catwalk. Hopefully, you can use this one-way Barrier Orb to get some easy picks from Garden.
This Sage Barrier Orb is a complete and true one-way, which means only you can see the enemies from behind the Barrier Orb.
- Stand anywhere inside A-Garden:
2. Align the Sage Barrier Orb indicator so that the indicator’s bottom-left corner aligns with the bottom-left corner of this square shape:
3. Left-click to make the wall:
When done correctly, the Sage Barrier Orb should fully cover the entrance and give you a one-way vision of any enemies crossing Tree:
Sage: Both Shield and Sword
In the intro to this article, we mentioned how Sage was the epitome of what a Sentinel should be. We still believe that to be true; she is most effective when playing a support role.
Today, we examined how Sage can play a “Sword” role through aggressive Barrier Orb placements that should net her easy off-angle kills. However, in one of Sage’s voice lines, there is a reason why she says: “I am both shield and sword.” — because she can be both a shield and a sword.
Sage’s Barrier Orb can be used both offensively and defensively. She provides great flexibility for her team depending on setting up her Barrier Orbs.
These are just some of the many possible Barrier Orb setups in Ascent. It is up to players to develop wall setups that work for their playstyle.
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