A new patch generally means a new Agent tier list. Valorant’s newest patch welcomes the newest Duelist to enter the Valorant Protocol: Neon. Along with Neon’s release came a few important gameplay and map changes that will most likely dictate how games are played going forward.
VALORANT: New Year 2022 Agent Tier List (Patch 3.12) We mentioned how a new patch would most likely move around a few Agents from their respective tiers. We recently released a 2022 Agent Tier list for patch 3.12, which you can read about here. In this article, we take a look at what Agents occupy what tiers after the new patch and why they ended up in their respective new tiers.
S-Tier
Jett
Jett is still the best Duelist in the game, without a doubt. Her double smokes and dash ability gives her free entry in just about any bomb site in Valorant. Thanks to her Dash ability, Jett can take daring angles on both Attacking and Defending and get away with it. Jett is also the only Agent in-game who can fully utilize the Operator with little risk. Lastly, Jett’s Ultimate can give her team a slight economical advantage a few times in a round as she can skip buying rifles and drop for her teammates instead.
Overall, Jett is just the most versatile Duelist in the game right now. Her abilities serve her well for both the Attacking and Defending sides. All the other Duelists in the game offer too little in the grand scheme of things compared to Jett.
As such, Jett remains in the S-Tier as of this patch.
Astra
In Valorant, teams have slowly but surely gravitated more towards picks with a ton of versatility. Specialized one-trick Agents are eschewed in favor of hybrid Agents that can serve two purposes simultaneously.
Astra is one of these hybrid Agents, as she can play both the Controller and Sentinel roles thanks to her versatile abilities.
Astra’s abilities can be split into two parts: Sentinel-like stalling utility and Controller-like smokes and walls. Astra’s smokes can be activated from basically anywhere on the map. This gives Astra the flexibility she needs to assist her teammates regardless of where she is currently on the map.
Overall, the versatility that Astra brings to any team is indispensable. Agents who can play multiple roles bring a ton of value to just about any team’s overall utility.
Viper
Like Astra, Viper is yet another hybrid Agent who can play two roles simultaneously. Viper can pretty much dictate how players navigate site entry, site defense, and post-plant situations in any round. It is honestly scary to think just how much control and influence a Viper can have in any match.
Viper can easily stall enemies using her Poison Cloud and Snake Bite molly and dictate enemy team routes with her Toxic Screen. Her Ultimate Ability, Viper’s Pit, is a powerful retake tool that almost guarantees a successful retake when appropriately used.
Hybrid Agents are slowly but surely taking center stage in Valorant teams. Recently, Viper has followed suit and brings a ton of value to any team on any map.
Skye
Skye is probably the only Initiator in the game right now that can play three different roles simultaneously. Skye is a jack of all trades who can do recon duty, site entry, and provide healing to her teammates. That’s an Initiator, Duelist, and Sentinel in one package.
Valorant teams have slowly been gravitating towards hybrid agents such as Skye because of the insane versatility to just about any team composition.
The insane versatility and forgiving utility that Skye possesses is just too good right now to pass upon, landing Skye an easy ticket to the S-tier.
A-Tier
Sova
For Patch 4.0, Sova drops one tier down to end up in A-tier. Sova is undeniably a great Agent for information gathering on just about any map in Valorant.
However, Hybrid Agents bring more value to the table these days. Agents such as Skye can do recon duty with her dog and Ultimate Ability, site entry with her Flashes, and provide Sentinel-like healing to her teammates.
Sova is amazing at what he does (reconnaissance). However, Skye can do multiple things well for a variety of situations.
Do not get us wrong. Sova is a fine Agent to play if your team is coordinated enough to play around his Owl Drone and Recon Bolt. Otherwise, you’re better off being a pseudo jack of all trades with Hybrid Agents such as Skye.
Neon
The lightning-quick Filipina Agent is the newest member of the Valorant roster. She brings speed and elusiveness to the battlefield rivaled only by the Duelist above Duelists, Jett.
Neon as a Duelist is what Sova is as an Initiator; both Agents are fully equipped to do what they do best. As for Neon, she is a Duelist Agent that does one thing extremely well: Site Entry.
While her focus gives players an easy role to follow and play, it also makes Neon one-dimensional. In the right hands, Neon can, without a doubt, be an unstoppable Attacker but hilariously hopeless as a Defender.
We keep reiterating how Hybrid Agents are all the rage these days, for a good reason; Hybrid Agents offer a ton of value and flexibility to just about any team. Neon’s intense focus might pose a problem later on.
Only time will tell where Neon ends up on the Agent Tier list later in the year. For now, she sits comfortably in the A-tier.
Chamber
Chamber’s shine and shimmer wore out fast as a lightning-quick Filipina Agent arrived shortly after his release. However, do not let that distract you from the fact that Chamber is a monster in Sentinel’s disguise.
Our French arms dealer lands a solid spot in the A-tier thanks to his abilities to passively and actively watch two angles simultaneously. Chamber’s ability to quickly reposition within bombsites is unmatched due to his Signature Ability: Rendezvous. His flank watch capability is also solid, thanks to his Trademark ability.
Defense is where Chamber truly shines, though, as his abilities allow him to hold daring angles with his Headhunter and Tour de Force, as well as perform basic Sentinel defense with his Trademark and Rendezvous.
Chamber is a welcome departure from the defense-focused Sentinel stereotype.
Killjoy
In the early months of 2021, Killjoy was shaping up to become one of the most picked Agents on any map in Valorant. Around this time, Killjoy was a one-person defensive juggernaut, able to hold entire bombsites with the help of just her robots.
However, Killjoy’s “setup-style gameplay” would inevitably become rudimentary and predictable as players now have more experience from playing the game. As time went on, more experienced players just knew where and when to expect a setup will be placed. The recent nerf to her Turret did not help with the German prodigy’s cause as well. The last nail in the coffin was the recent change to what abilities can damage and destroy Killjoy’s Ultimate ability: Lockdown.
Although quite predictable nowadays, her Nanoswarm and Alarm Bot combo is still an amazing anti-rush utility as long as the placements are mixed up every round. Her Turret also serves an important role as a passive angle/flank watcher.
After all of the nerfs done to our German Sentinel, she nevertheless remains in the A-tier, a testament to how insanely powerful Killjoy was before the nerfs.
KAY/O
KAY/O was a soothing sight for many veteran FPS players; his abilities were akin to a CSGO loadout. As soon as players knew what to expect from KAY/O, he saw less playtime in favor of more “value-filled” Initiators such as Sova and Skye.
Perhaps players did not know how to use his suppression abilities. Yet.
However, as more and more teams challenge one another’s setups, team composition, and strategies, more complex utility setups will inevitably make their way into every round. These utility-heavy setups are fish feed for KAY/O’s suppression-focused abilities such as ZERO/POINT and NULL/cmd.
KAY/O is making more and more sense in the meta right now. His suppression is an undervalued utility that can disable a ton of on-site utility. Coupled with KAY/O’s improved pop-flash mechanic, ZERO/POINT can quickly get worksite entry for his team.
B-Tier
Sage
Sage is not a must-pick nowadays, as she used to be back in early 2021. While her Healing Orb and Resurrection abilities are indispensable mistake-erasers, Agents such as Viper and Astra do better at stalling enemies on Defense.
Wall Orb is not as great as it used to be as well. Her Slow Orb is great at stalling and slowing down pushes and rushes, but Viper’s Snake Bite and Poison Cloud also do a great job at stalling and deal significant damage to enemies. Players are now willing to give up their current location to deny Sage’s Walls early in the round immediately.
Reyna
Reyna is heavily dependent on the individual player’s skill and mechanical aim. The value she brings to a team is directly proportional to how well the person behind Reyna is playing. When played right, though, Reyna is an offensive titan who only gets stronger as the game progresses. Reyna ends up in the B-tier not because she is weak or underpowered in any way.
Unfortunately, her heavy dependence on winning aim duels to grant her team entry into bombsites via unreliable ways of getting around the map is unnecessary. Jett and Neon currently have a more rounded skillset to pave the way towards any bombsite reliably.
Reyna is still an insanely powerful Duelist in the right hands, though. Her self-sustain is very strong, and her flashes are usable. Jett is just a more well-rounded Duelist that every team should pick every chance they get.
Raze
Raze is another niche Agent who is somewhat dependent on the map currently being played. She is not as strong in larger maps such as Breeze, but she deals a ton of damage in tighter maps such as Bind.
Raze does not have any sustain mechanic built into her skillset, which makes her a tough sell in some team compositions nowadays. On the other hand, Jett, Reyna, and Neon all have some heal or escape mechanism that helps them survive and escape sticky situations.
Cypher
There is a common trend brewing amongst the B-Tier Agents on this list: Lack of versatility.
Cypher is yet another Agent that suffers from being cursed to a limited role. His entire skillset revolves around flank-watch these days. His traps and camera are great for quickly gaining information on his backside but don’t offer much more beyond that.
While his flank-watch and site defense capability are decent, none of his abilities deal significant amounts of damage to enemies. This severely affects the overall value that a Cypher pick brings to a team. Sentinels such as Chamber or Killjoy are a much better pickup these days.
Breach
Breach is a tough pick among much more value-filled Initiators like Sova and Skye. However, unlike those top-two Initiators, Breach is the only Initiator who can actively challenge multiple close angles with Aftershock, Fault Line and Rolling Thunder. Breach does not have any information-gathering tools in his repertoire.
Unfortunately, Breach is a walking liability to any team (since all of his abilities affect his teammates as well) remains. There are just better Initiators in Skye and Sova right now.
Omen
Omen is, first and foremost, a smoker Agent in the grand scheme of team compositions. While his smokes are quite limited in quantity, he can re-smoke later in the round, thanks to his smokes being cooldown-based.
However, if you want a smoker on your team, Astra or Viper can do smoke duty and serve a few different purposes for their team. Omen feels lacking in the role he is trying to fill in the meta right now.
Nevertheless, his flash ability is still quite powerful, and his ability to reposition is still a great asset. However, there are just better Agents that can play the same role as Omen right now.
C-Tier
Brimstone
Brimstone is a glorified smoker at this point. His smokes are plenty but can only really be used once per round. The rest of his kit is geared more towards post-plant gameplay, where he can use his molly, stim-beacon, and Ultimate ability to stop and deter a spike defuse. There were no changes to Brimstone in the 4.0 patch.
Unfortunately, Viper has more mollies, her walls cover more space, and her post-plant Snake Bite lineups are even more powerful than Brimstone’s molly.
As was the case with most of the lower tier Agents on this list, Brimstone is just a difficult Agent to pick amid other more valuable Agents in Patch 4.0.
Phoenix
Phoenix is in a weird place right now. All the other Duelists in the higher tiers are either extremely good at what they do or can contribute in multiple ways to help their team. Phoenix does none of that.
Phoenix is on an identity crisis right now; jack of all trades, master of none. He can do multiple things such as spawn walls, flash, molly, and even sustain himself. He does not do anything particularly well, making him a less than ideal pick as a Duelist.
All the other Duelists in the game provide a clearer image of what they will contribute to their team on every round. In a game where multiple roles are played, the last thing you need is a Duelist that can not do their job well as a Duelist.
Yoru
Yoru can be a highlight machine capable of jaw-dropping plays in the right hands. However, his skill set is now very predictable and easily countered.
His decoy ability is practically useless in the higher tiers. Yoru’s flash is also painstakingly slow and can easily be avoided by more experienced players. His teleport ability is pretty much unusable without a supporting flash ability to set it up.
He will remain in the C-tier until his rework arrives.
Hybrid Agents in High Demand
That is about it! This is what our current Agent tier list looks like. For a good reason, agents who can fill multiple roles are at the top of the tier list; they offer a ton of value to any team on both the Attacking and Defending sides.
The rankings on this tier list will most likely be switched and shuffled around every patch, so keep your eyes peeled for upcoming patches and updates!
