Although it was available during the beta, ranked queue hasn't yet made its return in Valorant since the official release. However, a new Agent was added to the game: Reyna, the Vampire. Quickly, most players started to feel she's without a doubt one of the strongest characters of the current pool. Actually, she might even be too strong...
With an extremely versatile ability kit, Reyna is capable of flashing thanks to her Basic - Leer, healing thanks to her Basic- Devour and entering into stealth with her Signature - Dismiss. Some League of Legends players might recognize here the kind of design that created the most unbalanced champions, not because they were initially OP but rather because their kit was quite overloaded with tools.
A double-edged Agent
To benefit from the full power of Reyna, you have no choice but to take risks. Although her skills are incredibly powerful and cheap, their use is restricted by a condition: most of them require the soul of a killed enemy to be activated.
Moreover, assistances don't count — meaning you need to be actually taking the kill. As a consequence, you can't afford to play passively with Reyna, and she's quite weak in the early rounds.
An overloaded ability kit
The problem with Reyna is that her Basic - Leer is already too strong in itself. The ability only costs 200 credits, you can buy two each round, and it doesn't affect allies, unlike Phoenix's Curveball. Thanks to this spell, Reyna can easily snowball in early rounds, especially when communicating properly with her teammates.
Moreover, she becomes especially stronger when she uses her Ultimate." Empress" increases her fire rate while reducing reload time, highlights enemies, and synergizes with other soul consumption abilities to empower their effects.
Overall, Reyna's ability kit feels overloaded as she actually has all the tools a Duelist would like to have. Her versatility makes her a self-sufficient Agent, that can actually 1v9 if played correctly — something that definitely feels overpowered.
Can Reyna be balanced?
In the previous patches, Riot Games targeted the Agent that wer considered too strong, just like Sage 1 and we can safely assume that they will do the same with Reyna. Several avenues could be explored to balance her:
- Increase the costs of her spells
- Reduce the duration of her Ultimate, or prevent her from resetting it with eliminations
- Prevent her from gaining more shield than she initially bought in the shop, or increase the rate at which the shield decreases.
- Limit the number of souls that can be harvested per round
- Reduce the range of her flashing ability or prevent him from going through walls
Do you think Reyna is overpowered? Feel free to drop your own analysis in the comment section below!
During a stream, one of Valorant's developers teased the next agent that could arrive in the coming weeks. This would be the first real healer in the game.
Original content from Millenium FR by "Tipsalewo".
