The Best VALORANT Duelists to Rank Up and How to Play them – Part 2

Keep in mind that this is purely as a base for the player, as fun and enjoyment should always be the main factor when playing games! Here we go with part 2. Make sure to check out our esports betting as we cover most of the events!

Reyna

Reyna’s kit is capable of winning rounds with aggressive plays within the live server of VALORANT. She can shut down enemy attacks in a matter of seconds, or even use her flank proficiency to catch your enemy off guard and increase your odds of success.

How well you perform with the Mexican native Duelist largely depends on how well you’re able to utilize her abilities into a fluid process. There’s more than meets the eye to her abilities and succession on when to use them, so here’s a detailed breakdown of how to best play Reyna in VALORANT.

Reyna is quite unique in her playstyle. When playing Reyna, the majority of your abilities won’t really function properly unless you’re killing enemies constantly, so playing extremely passive in the game won’t benefit you or the team as well. To reach the full potential with Reyna, try to constantly position yourself at the front of any big pushes or look to crawl out for a flank when possible. These two options are the most consistent ways to achieve kills in the game.

If you’re in front of the push, you can play off the use of allied CC such as smokes and stuns, or even use your own blind which will “Nearsight” any enemies looking into it. After your first kill is done, try to control and pressure the next area. If more enemies are close to you, turn invulnerable and freely get back to the safety of your team. If you instead are flanking, as soon as you get a kill look to push behind the enemy lines to apply pressure.

One thing you need to be aware of when playing Reyna, is just how easily her Leer can be dealt with by the enemies. Similar to Sova’s Recon Bolt, enemies can rapidly shoot down the floating orb in a matter of a second. Don’t make the mistake of using the ability and absolutely rushing into the enemy as most likely they are not blinded.

Her Ultimate buffs damage output and uses skills faster than usual, meaning you can manage your choices together with greater impact. Ultimately, you want to be aggressive, casting abilities one after another, trying to flow her kit into one smooth sequence of events which will at last overwhelm your enemies.

Here you can see Reyna’s kit in more detail:

• Ability 1: Leer (250 Credits) Equip an ethereal, destructible eye. Activate to cast the eye a short distance forward at a fixed range, passing through obstructions in the way. The eye will Nearsight all enemies who can see it.
• Ability 2: Devour (200 Credits, shared with Dismiss) Instantly consume a nearby Soul Orb, rapidly healing for a short duration. Health gained through this skill exceeding 100 will decay over time. If Empress is active, this skill will automatically cast and not consume the Soul Orb.
• Signature Ability: Dismiss (200 Credits, shared with Devour) Instantly consumes a nearby Soul Orb, becoming intangible for a short duration. If Empress is active, also becomes invisible.
• Ultimate Ability: Empress (6 points) Instantly enter a frenzy, increasing firing, equip and reload speed dramatically. Grants infinite charges of Soul Harvest abilities. When an enemy dies to Reyna, or dies within 3 seconds of taking damage from Reyna, the duration is renewed.

Phoenix

As one of VALORANT’s staple Duelists, it’s no surprise that Phoenix is at his best when rushing into the enemies as an entry fragger. That doesn’t mean that smart and patient play is not possible, though. By using his utility to the fullest, Phoenix can not only gain major advantages in duels, but also be almost entirely self-sufficient when pushing into a site, by being able to take site, hold that section, and even heal himself thanks to his kit.

If you’re not sure if anyone is near you, especially in corners, it’s always worth using a quick Curveball. But, you need to make sure that you’re not blinding your allies (as it has friendly fire), so don’t be afraid to get into the practice tool to learn the range of one of his main abilities. As soon as you’ve nailed down your Curveballs, you’ll be blinding enemies and rushing them in no time at all, allowing you to jump in the fray and claim a lot of kills.

Phoenix really comes alive when you utilize his abilities in succession creating a lot of isolated opportunities to kill enemies one by one. By chaining together Blaze to create a wall, then Hot Hands to make sure enemies won’t be crawling out of unexpected places, you’ll be overwhelming them into a corner extremely fast to easily kill them when they have nowhere to go.

Here you can see Phoenix’s kit in more detail:

• Ability 1: Blaze (200 Credits) Equip a flame wall. Fire to create a line of flames that moves forward creating a wall that blocks vision and damages players passing through it. Hold fire to bend the wall in the direction of your crosshair.
• Ability 2: Curveball (250 Credits) Equip a flare orb that takes a curving path and detonates shortly after throwing, impairing vision. Fire to curve the flare orb to the left, detonating and blinding any player who sees the orb. Alternate fire to curve the flare orb to the right.
• Signature Ability: Hot Hands (1 free) Equip a fireball. Fire to throw a fireball that explodes after a set amount of time or upon hitting the ground, creating a lingering fire zone that damages enemies.
• Ultimate Ability: Run it Back (6 Points) Instantly place a marker at Phoenix’s location. When this ability is active, if you die or if the time expires, the ability ends and sends Phoenix back to the starting location.

Yoru

Yoru excels at a couple of things in particular: lurking, flanking, and creating distractions against the enemy. He’s the first VALORANT Agent with a dedicated kit for this specific playstyle or role. Something that previously was half done for Cypher, but as mentioned before Yoru is unique to this play style.

His mirror images can easily distract enemies and create confusion on a site, and you can even use them to “reverse fake” your enemies if they have no clue on how Yoru’s kit works. Most of the time you will look to lead with your clones and crawl quietly behind them, then quickly push from around a corner when the flashes are set off with your team behind you to secure the kill.

When he’s on the site, he can definitely still have value on his kit. His flash range is extremely flexible to throw in creative angles, and his kit allows him to force out movement from his enemies without putting himself at too much risk, helping him clear corners rather easily.

Nevertheless, keep in mind Yoru’s kit is not perfect though. If you’re using him after a while, you do have to be mindful of Yoru’s rework implemente around Episode 4,⁠ an enemy hiding might choose to not procc your mirror images and wait for you to actually reveal the true Yoru. Make sure you aren’t too careless with this ability as it’s not as stable as before.

Lastly, his flashes take a while to get used to as they can be quite inconsistent range-wise. The bounce can be awkward depending on what’s near it, so considering the flash now lasts for 1.5s be aware to not flash your own team via friendly fire. Go into the practice tool and get a feel on the flashbangs as they are the key to his kit.

Here you can see Yoru’s kit in more detail:

• First Ability: Fakeout (100 Credits): Equip an echo that turns into a mirror image when activated. Fire to instantly activate and send the image forward. Alternate Fire to place an echo in place. Use the inactive echo to convert it into another mirror image and send it forward. Mirror images explode and cause a blinding flash whenever destroyed by enemies. Mirror images can exist for up to 10 seconds from being activated.
• Second Ability: Blindside (250 Credits): Equip to rip an unstable dimensional fragment from reality. Fire to throw the fragment, activating a 1.5-second flash that winds up once it collides with a hard surface.
• Signature Ability: Gatecrash (Free, 30s cooldown, 2 Kill recharge): Equip to harness a rift tether. Fire to send the tether out moving forward. Alternate Fire to place a tether in place. Activate to teleport to the tether’s location. You can reactivate Gatecrash while in Dimensional Drift
• Ultimate Ability: Dimensional Drift (7 points): Equip a mask that can see between dimensions. Fire to drift into Yoru’s dimension, unable to be affected or seen by enemies from the outside.

That’s it for our list! We hope you enjoyed and learned a lot of new things about the strongest VALORANT duelists in the game. If you are interested in esports bets then make sure to check out the rest of our content as we share esports odds on a constant basis!

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