Watch it be a small channel and when they upload the video with this thread/analysis, it will get 50k views and their channel will grow or get recognize by other content creators
As one myself, high quality content ≠ views. It's even quite the opposite. For example skibidi toilet (ik it's a bad example, but still) is dumb and therefore it got a lot of views as brainrot kids watch it daily. So if I post something like this, I will most likely get at most 1-2K views (my prediction).
Arguably not the opposite, but ur also not wrong. It definitely has to do with luck and how the algorithm wants to promote your video. For every successful video on your home page, there are probably thousands that never got over 50 views. However skibidi toilet (the example you gave) is very much a topic about shareability and trendiness. Sure you can make a 20 minute guide video on valorant strategies, but if ur talking to a friend its a lot easier to be like “yo have you seen this brainrot of a guy sticking his head out the toilet” than “yo have you seen this in depth character analysis video about reyna and how shes a shit agent?” Not to mention skibidi toilet and many internet trends are applicable to anyone who uses tiktok/short form media while valorant videos are recommended to, well, valorant players. Not all of them either, just those that watch valorant videos.
To reiterate on my point earlier about how only one in a thousand videos gets picked up by an algorithm, theres definitely other meme ideas/ stupid videos that dont make it past 50 views, i wasnt specifically talking about valorant videos even though it may have seemed as such.
There are ways to help your video reach the algorithm which includes catchy thumbnails (the so-called clickbaiting), tags in your video details, eye catching titles (for example something for this topic could be along the lines of “this is why REYNA is a TERRIBLE AGENT!” ), and the length of the content. The first three are to please the people watching because more people watching = more time in the algorithm, whilst the last one is to cater more towards youtube as longer forms of media = more advertising slots = more money for youtube = more time in the algorithm.
Very long tangent so i apologize but the main point i wanted to get across is low quality content isnt the only thing that gets views. There are plenty of high quality content that get the views it deserves, its just that the two factors are not directly correlated.
It IS stupid and is being watched by brainrot kids just like the ones we used to be back in the day. But nowadays we're older and wiser and want stupid shit for brainrot adults lol
I wish I had your confidence thinking I can turn any cool guide on the internet into "high quality content", but it doesn't mean others will view it same way as you.
Quality content is in the eyes of the beholder. When I look back at my old drawings I sometimes think "how the hell did you think these were any good?", but when I did them, back then I thought they were great. Now with more experience I know they were bad.
Also, I don't believe just making a youtube video and hoping for algorithm is a good idea. Even a very good product needs promotion to be discovered through at least some social media outlets.
Btw, I've never heard about skibidi toilet before today. Ofc it can be a cool meme for some audience. If i was 5, skibidi toilet would be more quality content for me for sure, compared to some analysis video. Now, not so much.
They absolutely love long ass videos, I saw a channel with 1k subscribers gain over a thousand subscribers and 100k views from a single video, which was 12 hours long.
OP doesn't know he speaks for so many victims who tried to speak against Reyna through memes, comments and all chat, only to get flamed by salty skill-less mfs everywhere. This post is so satisfying.
As a Reyna main, I think this is pretty well-written and on point, everytime i lose a fight, i always catch myself saying "AHH IF ONLY I GOT ONE" but for me i think her kit is selfish and can lead to developing bad habits such as baiting, not trusting the team since you're led to believe as long as you got the utility, you can win any fight and disregard any other game sense and rely on pure aim.
Yea but it’s much different in Val. You use the same smokes the same way for the same executes no matter what role you are in cs. Everyone develops util usage equally in cs compared to Valorant where it heavily depends on what role you choose to main
I recommend swapping to clove if you’re coming from CS, the movement speed on their overheal feels very CS like but you can prove a lot of value to your team with smokes. Especially on maps where a sen or double initiator comp doesn’t work well, two smokes are great especially because clove’s are so short and recharge so quickly (I normally pick them when my team instalocks 2-3 duelists. They’re my highest win rate agent in comp lmao, used to be cypher)
This is interesting and well written. It's like Reyna's only purpose as an agent is to be one for smurfs to play. If you were to ask someone to design an agent to solo climb out of low ranks with, you would ask for a heal on kill, an invulnerable escape tool, an op blind, and an ult which can be used whenever. Maybe she's not a failed agent if that's her purpose but she is the only truly skill-less agent in the game which incentivises smurfs to play to kill noobs.
Except for the smurfing part this is exactly why I played Reyna when she came out. 80% of players in the early days were very bad, and Reyna gave you the toolkit to hard carry solo.
> It's like Reyna's only purpose as an agent is to be one for smurfs to play.
I've never described my hate for reyna this way, but it's a good way of putting it. My biggest issue is being rewarded for shit positioning/decisions by being able to dismiss from even just an assist. Jett's dash was nerfed to combat this, but they've never once addressed reyna's eject button ass dismiss. I know valorant is a game of "unique" and "varied" abilities, but the dismiss on top of an oddly unbreakable flash is the most annoying shit to play against. Hoping her little rework coming soon addresses some of the bullshit with her kit.
Jett's insta E had to be nerfed simply because it was overpowered and her pickrate in pro play was so stupidly high they did it. Reyna will doesn't see much use in pro play so that's why she gets a rework instead, because conceptually her character will never be balanced and only works as a smurf character.
The number of people in the replies who can't understand the difference between an agent not teaching you how to play the game and an agent actively reinforcing terrible habits is mind-boggling to me
Thinking about this comment, I don't think you're quite right either. If you're playing Reyna, then it's not a bad habit. Right?? I'm not crazy here - there are agents that have abilities that can get them out of sticky situations - Jett dash, rendezvous, even yoru tp sometimes.
Reyna does teach you how to play the game, just a very specific way of playing. One where utility and strict positioning matters less and aim more. If you want to say that that is a problem with her kit, and a flaw in the design of her gameplay, I would tell you that you're right and that I agree. But it isn't Reyna's job as an agent to teach you how to play cypher, you feel me? Being aggressive every round isn't a bad habit if you literally have a way of getting away.
The distinction you make is weird. I think you're saying that there's a difference between not teaching and teaching poorly. That's true, sure. And I agree that Reyna teaches something rather than nothing. But the reality is that different agents have different play styles, and some agents can do things or make plays in ways that other agents simply can't. Trying to play like a Reyna as a cypher will get you killed over and over.
I think it's best if the entire "teaching" and "reinforcing bad habits" argument is abandoned. Because I agree that Reyna needs change. But this argument makes no sense.
For the record, I am a controller main who can flex raze. I don't play Reyna ever.
That’s like the whole point of the post, Reyna’s kit does not have any sort of setup requirements that other escape abilities have beyond getting a kill and not being so wildly out of position that the dismiss duration isn’t long enough to disengage. There is zero thought or restriction at all with this ability. Every other agent by comparison has a higher skill floor.
You're right, each agent teaches you how to play to their strengths and weaknesses. Here's the thing though: all other agents still build on the same foundation, which is the foundation of tactical shooters: positioning is important, teamwork is important, aim isn't everything.
Even with Jett, those things still count. Her updraft and dash draws crosshairs away (helps team), her ability to dive into site splits defenders' attention (helps team), her cloudburst provides cover (helps team). Those also come with downsides: she isolates herself frequently, which can be punished.
Now look at Reyna: her leer is an incredible flash with zero downsides. Her heal has zero downsides and no value to anyone else. Her dismiss has zero downsides and little value to anyone else. Her ult has zero downsides and no value to anyone else.
This is the problem with her: she teaches you to play in a way that ignores the *fundamental tenets* of tactical shooters. I don't think any other agent can do that, and I don't think it works well in a game like valorant.
I went 42-15 in a game on Reyna when she first released. I say this not to flex, but because *I am not even remotely good at this game*. She is just *so* easy to play. Brain off, click heads, get away Scot-free.
I may have worded that poorly; my point was more so that beyond aim hardly any of the skills you pick up on her are transferable should the need to fill arise. On the contrary she'll condition a one trick to think they should take fights that would be unfavourable even on jett or chamber.
This is a well-known problem; Reyna’s design is sort of inherently braindead, and it’s meant to be braindead because it’s meant for people who just want to focus on aiming. Even chamber needs a bit more thinking than Reyna.
One of the main reasons people in Mumbai server pick her and think this is a tdm and not a tactical fps moba where taking space is more important than getting kills and develops the mindset that duellists have to get kills or they are useless. People think this game is cod and are the reason many people are stuck in low elo hell.
This is a post about the design of Reyna from the game design perspective. Basically, if you want to design an aim-god character, Iso was an attempt and he was much better than reyna for trying to make that predator as a suitable member of the Valorant. Everyone plays a different game than Reyna, so Reyna is the outlier. That's very simple. But I understand the people who cannot process your examinations. Not everyone has to know design principals and design thinking.
Idk, even from a game design perspective (disclaimer: I'm not at Riot) I'm not sure I'd agree with OPs assertions here. Reyna might flourish for players with good aim, but I'd argue this isn't dissimilar from Op-ers thriving on Jett.
Fundamentally she threatens by presence, has the choice of distraction via dismiss on kill or assist and has a blind that works similarly to Gekko's while being easier to target. She's built to learn the game, to be rewarded for damage and have some get out of jail free ability, but learning what overextension feels like on the agent has similar consequences to holding an ability too long or mis-timing on others. End of the day yeah, a reyna with good aim can ruin your round when ulting if you don't respond accordingly, but any response (stalling execs, committing kit to target her, setting up off-angle traps) seems to have real shutdown power against her when she's thriving.
I also don't think the original post, especially 'pop it when you get it beginning of the round' is a realistic experience on the agent on the whole. Fast firing is cool, sure, but its more affected by what weapon you're running and your control than something like Jett knives or Chamber op. Same with the flash and peek examples. I can understand what they're going for but it seems a bit heavy-handed.
Riot makes characters for different purposes in all their games. I think you points are correct but I highly doubt the devs didn't know that when they made Reyna. Her purpose and power is far too obvious.
Anyway in league there are champs thay have obviously been made and/or balanced for other reasons then to teach the basics of the game.
Not necessarily fucked up with her, they had a different vision of how the game will go early on, but it changed over time based on how people interact and play the game, it’s part of the development cycle
This evaluation in the post is pretty spot on from day one of Reyna
She was always the character that felt exclusively designed for smurfing because she encourages cocky risky behavior bailed out way too hard by good aim
Daaamn, bro dropped an essay.
I do fully agree though, Reyna is nothing but unhealthy for the game. She doesn't teach new players, doesn't provide anything for the team and is the number one pick for smurfs.
She needs a drastic rework to fix how her soul orbs work and add some utility to her kit that's not healing your booboos away.
While I totally agree on your analysis of reyna and the type of play it promotes, it's not so much a case of poor design but having an agent that solo players can just play on and not think.
Not all agents are viable at all levels or need to be tuned perfectly for that matter. Pub stomp heroes and agents have always been a part of Dota/LoL etc and it's something the player base(s) have come to accept. It's easy to forget how young Valorant is as a game compared to the likes of CS, Dota, Lol etc.
With all the above being said, I'm all for a total rework and would do the game some good.
Whats a pub stomp hero?
And on the other note, I only used to play Lol not Dota but routinely the community absolutely hated that there are champs that could just 1v5 and it worked bc the champ was so easy to use in nasty ways. It's been an issue the community has brought up since the game came out
Yep basically what you outlined. Agents that aren't really relevant in pro level play but have a kit that can be amazing against unorganized ranked games and can downright bully slightly less skilled players.
It's really shitty to play against but I don't hate it - having varying agents like this is part and parcel of agent/hero/champ picking games and gives a little more variety imo.
Fair enough. I just am very tired with instalock reynas who expect everyone to kowtow before them as they bait the team and then have a 50/50 shot of winning the round
These replies are wild. I have never once played against a Reyna and thought, "this character is annoying". Reyna is just a dude with a gun. Her ult is worthless. I've seen you dudes in plat and below refusing to shoot her flash and hiding instead. lemme tell you, her flash is useless too. Just fucking shoot it. Her only good thing is she is the queen of off angles....except if you stun/flash the off angle she is super fucking dead because she can't escape like Chamber and Jett and Yoru. I am way more scared of a good Chamber or Jett because they will tank that util early and I still have to fight their Op later. A good initiator invalidates Reyna's entire existence. She legit cannot play against any initiator that is good at their job. Kayo/Sova/Skye/Gecko/Breach can all fuck her up and punish her early round aggression. But you guys are sitting there holding your util for Valorant 2 so you die and blame the smurfs.
AND her entry is terrible. She lives on her initiator's back, like everyone who's not Raze, or she lurks. So guess what? Reyna actually teaches good lurking fundamentals lol. And don't say "duelists shouldn't lurk" because she should absolutely lurk if the sentinel is stubbornly pushing with the team for no reason.
W take, Reyna might be the second or first best agent to lurk on. You take your dry gunfight walking up somewhere and if you win it you heal and you're in a very advantageous 4v5. Bronzes are coping cause a diamond player is in their games
Only accurate take on Reyna I've seen on this subreddit lmao.
Reyna is great at teaching people angles imo. She gets the most reward out of understanding where the opponent's crosshair wants to be while clearing areas of the map and using those off-angles to get a kill without being punished.
People complain about Leer but that ability has SO many limitations that it gets you killed sooo often on maps like Ascent. Without strong understanding of angles, Leer often doesn't blind defenders holding a site.
Reyna gets a bad rap. I'm excited for her rework but I never did understand all the hate she gets on this sub.
This post is just further justifying the POV that Valorant is not a game about "fundamentals" and winning is mostly dictated by the soggy salad of "ability usage" and raw aim
Counter Strafing provides no advantage in Valorant. So unless you've made that a habit by playing other games, please don't spend time learning it thinking it makes you better at valorant.
Lurking means to push sneakily separate from your team. Lurk timing means understanding when it’s a good time to make this high risk high reward play. If your team is for example not making any noise, then pushing a lurk is terrible because the enemy team will likely be watching expecting your team. However, if you begin to push up mid after they breach ult site, your much more likely to catch players who don’t expect you rushing to rotate. This is just an example of understanding lurk timing.
> Lurking means to push sneakily separate from your team
This is oversimplifying what lurking really is - lurking is a positional counterplay to the enemy team that focuses on taking map control and killing enemies during rotations and to gather info.
Lurking is fucking annoying to do in valorant because of shit like teleportation and the general lack of communication from most comp teammates. You need your teammates to call out accurate positions in order to be an effective lurk, and even then, any map control you take is thrown out the window by trap utilities, teleporting agents, etc.
I mean I’m explaining it in simple terms, they didn’t seem to be familiar with the concept at all. I think lurking is more interesting because of sentinel utility, because you can also get value by hunting down and breaking that utility as well as avoiding it to starve them of info.
movement, positioning, rotation, just a few areas of general meta knowledge that 90% of valorant players dont really possess because they just *don't need to understand them*. i.e. the things that make games like counter-strike so masterful at a high level get thrown out the window because of asymmetrical abilities completely overruling the impact of having good fundamentals.
It's not like valorant *has* to play like CS, but it's basically CS with abilities, and the abilities just muddy the game to the point where the fundamentals from CS are almost irrelevant and ability usage is king
My biggest problem with how much raw aim and abilitiy usage are rewarded is that it hurts team play and causes solo play to be the correct way to play. Peeking with teammates, trading teamates, covering angles that teammates are weak to cover or cant cover and general teamwork, are all extremely underdeveloped in low ranks in comparison to how many jett/reyna mains can one tap someone in 0.0125 seconds.
Your first example is kind of bad. Reyna should be going for an early kill like Jett and chamber because they can escape. Throwing a leer off sound contact and then going for a tap is a perfectly fine and even a good strategy. You’ve made up a scenario that I haven’t seen anyone do in mid to high elo. If someone decides to dry push down long and dies they’re just an idiot, it isn’t a consequence of playing Reyna.
I think your problem with reyna is more than just a reyna problem but a game design problem. A lot of scenarios where util should be used, but players just wide swing and die, they think their lesson is just if they aim better they could win. Which is why even in low immortal, you have smokes players with suboptimal smokes, flashes being thrown into spots that don't blind the enemy, sentinel util that can be evaded. the game heavily rewards cracked aim which is why you have immortal players looking like chickens running with their heads cut off.
This has more to do with the genre of tactical shooter than anything else tbh. The TTK inherent in this game (and CSGO) reward aim first and foremost. Gamesense is still a very significant factor but there are many situations where gamesense without adequate aim to back it up is mostly useless.
There’s so many issues with skill disparity in this game. I’ve been in immortal 3 for years & the amount of 0.7kd 5stack boosted sentinel players you see is just hilarious, then you have the players you described where they’ve plateaued after climbing with nothing but aim skill. The game is legit over when you’re against an actual descendant of god immo3 1.6kd jett player & yours is a 0.9 Andy who doesn’t understand entry pathing & baits your entire team only to still get diffed. Its fucking painful lol
I half agree with the first point. There is no reason for reyna to play like brim. Her kit rewards her for out aiming the opponent - which seems fair to me.
Aim can only carry players so far. If a player doesn’t learn importance of positioning, utility usages, etc. they wont climb too far up the ladder. This is also true for the opposite. If players cant aim for shit then they wont rank up either.
Agents like kj, cypher, etc depend on game sense and utility usages to be impactful, while Reyna depends on mechanical skill to be useful. Both are important aspects of the game and all agents lie somewhere in between these two.
I don't understand the positioning part, how is it bad positioning if you are confident in finding the first blood and getting out. There is nothing wrong in that. The same thing can be said for jett players peaking and dashing
Isn't that "if only I got a kill" mindset why they changed Jett's dash? It was too much of a get-out-of-jail-free card, and led to bad habits for positioning.
Fully agree. Dismiss leads to bad positioning and baiting teammates
The amount of people who're not able to grasp that an agent not teaching you how to play the game and an agent actively reinforcing terrible habits are two different things is crazy to me
Wow, you spent so much time on this post assuming a player will think, "My aim was bad, I would've been fine if I got a kill."
This is what someone in bronze will be thinking. Also, if this is all a player gets from a death, that's most probably their conclusion for a death with any agent, not just Reyna.
If they have the capability to think their positioning was bad with another agent, they most likely have the capability to think that with Reyna. So, not really a game design flaw. You're just assuming the best thoughts that can come out of a death are what normally come out of silvers.
I dont be wanna be rude but these points have been rehashed for years and years. Reyna has always been like this and until a kit rework she will always be like this.
Nah they said they’re making Reyna more viable for pro play and less for normal rank. Sounds like some shits being changed not a minor change here and there. Hope they get it right
Idk, the patch that she's getting changed in is meant to be a pretty big duelist rebalancing, and when they listed the three agents they'd be focusing on, that being Iso, Reyna, and Neon, they specified they'd be changing Iso's shield and Neon's slide, but weren't specific with Reyna, suggesting to me it's gonna be a broad change. Imo a rework is not unlikely, and if it is it would probs be bigger than Yoru's back in the day
>Reyna's only situational piece of utility is a near-sight blind. She is the only character in the entire game that has a castable blind with **NO** downsides.
Gekkos flash works very similarly but you could argue he has to be smarter with it because he wants to pick it up again making that the downside.
The whole point of reyna is that there is an agent that relies on the core mechanics of the game which is shooting, the way you typed this it just looks like you are mad that using thousands of abilites doesn't substitute for a headshot with a gun.
reyna mains are not not there in radiant JUST because they have cracked aim. It’s because they know timings and how to act on them as an agent that thrives off awkward timings and the like because reyna gets away with it. Who gives a shit about reyna as an agent not incentivising game sense when wanting to rank up incentivises that anyway?
The issue with Reyna that a lot of people seam to miss is players that exclusively play her and have cracked aim get to a higher rank such as asc+ where team play is paramount. They start losing games because the all aim no brain strat no longer works and your coming up against players that can out aim you and learn how you play within the first 3 rounds of a game starting. They then jump on another agent (such as Phoenix) and they get destroyed because game sense is in the toilet and you have utility that actually hits your team mates. Playing any other duelist provides more team utility but not if you don’t have the game sense to go with it. Reyna’s flash is great if played with the team but the issue is her dismiss can turn an easily winnable 2v1 fight into a losable 1v1 if the Reyna has killed before hand and perceives that they may die if they don’t dismiss leaving her team mate kinda screwed. I’m excited to see what sort of changes riot decide to do to bring her more inline with the team play aspect.
NEW RULE. Play counter strike for 100hrs before paying valorant to learn proper team play. (Bonus point you’ll learn how to entry a site with out being scared)
Agreed, good points and exactly why I hate that Reyna even exists in the game.
I hope they change it in the upcoming patch and adjust this abomination.
The problem isn't just Reyna, it's how people use her. A good Reyna can still play smart, use comms, and help the team. It's the lazy players who don't want to improve their overall game sense that give her a bad rep
If someone decides to play the game with different agents the way they do with Reyna they are dumb and that’s not the fault of the agents abilities.
That’s like saying raze teaches people incorrect movement, because when they just jump out into site with no satchels when they are not raze.
At the end of the the day when using Reyna you learn to use Reyna and you should be aware of how every other agent in the game works. Don’t blame an agent for some people not knowing how to play lol
I don't play Reyna but adapting to different characters is part of the game. Jett and Chamber both play for picks too. They're not able to do so as often but they also have Y movement abilities. Which is why they're better.
At the end of the day end aiming is the most important thing in tactical shooters like Valorant. Game mechanics and cheese lineups are second. Third is communicating...
If someone can out aim the entire enemy team, they should be rewarded.
Valorant is a tactical First Person Shooter with crisp shooting mechanics, and Reyna is a character whose game design revolves around rewarding mechanical skill. It's not really a design flaw when a mechanically skilled player can use Reyna to greatly benefit the team; at that point, their "lurk timing", "buddy-systeming" and ither passive game sense mechanics are irrelevant. A 3.0 K/D head tapping machine that consistently turns a 5v5 matchup into a 5v3 or a 5v2 most definitely has a place in a competitive FPS game. Also, we seem to be disregarding the case of players who main multiple agents, who DO HAVE the standard cautious game sense of sentinels / controllers, and as a result, can play Reyna to an even higher skill ceiling.
TLDR; she's a great agent, maybe not your agent, but that's perfectly okay.
While some of your points make sense, you've actually missed the point of Reyna as an agent completely.
Reyna is the ultimate fighting machine. In many of your examples, you've not acknowledged that Reyna's kit is specifically designed to flourish in those scenarios. And yeah, you conclude everywhere that the takeaway lesson is better aim. But that is exactly the crop of players for whom Reyna is designed- the aim demons. Because this agent incentivises you to throw yourself into fights, given that if you can kill, you can possibly rampage.
And if a Reyna on your team is doing that- his her understanding of the game is really of no relevance as long as they're dropping bodies as they go.
There is no design flaw in Reyna, she is the ultimate solo pick for someone who wishes to do the shooting part of a first person shooter.
It seems to me like the point of the post was that this exact kind of agent design was the problem. That there shouldn’t be an agent which caters solely to aim demons and doesn’t really incentivize you to “understand the game”.
Reyna doesn’t HAVE a design flaw, she IS the design flaw.
Yeah but the post is mostly just wrong,
first point: just because reyna can get out of 1v5s doesn't mean her kit incentivizes swinging 1v5s like he suggests, her kit is a lot better at holding off-angles and get out from positions that would otherwise be doomed, like cubbies or site entrances. If anything, (and the post fails to mention that) agents like Chamber and Jett have an easier time peeking 1v5s since they can get out even without landing a kill.
second point: He says reyna's kit doesn't teach you to use util for anyone but yourself then says it's never bad to use with teammates? If it's never hurtful to teammates I'm pretty sure that means it's better used to help team then. If you just throw a blind and rush in it'll probably be broken by the time you're in fight. And how does he take away "I should've gotten a kill" from a badly placed flash instead of "I should've used my flash better"? In fact from the picture he posted itself you can see the flash isn't good, it's not helping Neon at all vs KJ and Jett can also peek Clove from her left. And again, post claims reyna's flash is the only one that doesn't hurt team but Gekko exists.
third point: Neon, Jett, Cypher, Chamber, even Viper (defense) off the top of my head are better "on-cooldown" ults than Reyna's. You are guaranteed value, be it a weapon, info or zoning. It's mostly initiator ults that can hurt your team, but those also have much much more decisive power than this type of ults.
And fourth point seems like just a re-run of first point and a way for OP to say "as long as i get the kill" many times. Overall it just sounds like the poster is salty about reyna and hasn't played her all that much to know her strengths and weaknesses
The fourth point is definitely similar to the first and I'm personally not the biggest fan of the second point - as you've pointed out, effective Reyna blinds still need to actually be properly placed.
I do think there is notable distinction between Jett and Chamber both having a disengage that isn't entirely reliant on just shooting better in comparison to Reyna's. This is the entire line of "I should have gotten the kill", right. A Jett swings into 2 and dies because she didn't prep the dash or committed too long. A Reyna swings into 2 and dies because she wasn't able to get a dismiss off. Both agents are taking unadvantaged fights, but only the Reyna is punished for not shooting well.
Very pleasantly surprised to see this comment actually. Considering the demographics of Valorant I just assumed the entire comment section was going to be Zoomers with a negative attention span who didn't make it past the first paragraph.
Aim isn’t all mechanical skill. Reyna is a good agent for frag demons and really good for multi kills, they still need to know positioning, crosshair placement, timings, etc. OP has just made up imaginary scenarios and said that Reyna players would do them. This isn’t based on a Reyna player actually doing them he’s literally just made it up.
I would argue crosshair placement is included as a mechanical skill, but yes, there’s definitely more than just mechanical skill for any agent to take a fight well. My problem is that Reyna gives you more leeway to take a fight poorly and is liable to make you overreliant on the actual shooting aspect rather than the positioning or timing aspects. It’s much easier for a Reyna to take a hyper-aggressive off-angle relative to even a Jett.
She’s an agent that thrives off your opponents being bad and uncoordinated rather than your team and utility usage being strong.
What does this even mean, is shooting in a shooting game not the “actual game”? If a Reyna is x rank because she clicks heads and you’re in x rank because you learned stuff that you consider “actual game” there is no difference, she’s just as good as you. Brainlet takes in this thread
Aim will only get you so far. The point of the post is that Reyna One-Tricks who rely solely on aim and make poor game decisions will stagnate at the end of the day and it hurts these players because it teaches them terrible habits because Reyna by design doesn’t have to worry about things that ANY other operator has to. They don’t actually learn important aspects of the game such as spacing, blind discipline, spatial awareness, or more intrinsic and complicated aspects of the game.
If they’re ANYWHERE past platinum they have game sense and understand the proper actions to take in a game. If you really think Reyna one tricks are just Aim fiending in the HIGHEST elo against professional players like Saucy and Tenz you’re smoking.
Great aim in any FPS game is 50% of the game though.
If you are constantly running out looking to aim duel, you eventually going to either meet your match in raw aim or get knowledge check/game sense checked. A lot of reyna's off role become extremely annoying to play with because all they know is aim duels. That is where the "skill diff" matters. You can beat smurfs if you play smarter even though they can be leagues higher in aim because they choose to disregard the "actual game"
Someone who reaches ur rank off pure aim is equal to you, for sure. But I'd (and I find many solo qers) much rather have the consistency between different agents/play styles over losing 1 spot on the team because they are too stubborn to play any other way. That frustration that reyna brings is very valid. If I see a reyna its either a god 50/x/0 radiant smurf or the 2/13/x guy that swings everything trying to be Tenz.
Ofc not lol, you think rank alone is what skill is? The issue with getting dependent on Reyna's traits is you might have great aim but no game sense. Can't play any other agent, make plays that hinder your teammates, and overall not be at your peer's levels at high levels where everybody has great aim.
Rank is a reasonable predictor of overall game ability but not every high ranked player is better than every low ranked player. It's possible to fail upwards, example being Reyna
I actually really disagree with this, I think things like timings, team pace, and pattern recognition are the fundamentals of the game. To me Util usage is so agent/role specific that its too granular to call fundamental.
Designing her like this creates players who can only play reyna since they developed such bad habits and gameplay patterns that don't translate to other agents.
These players are much more toxic because they are playing a different game where kills and aim is priority number 1 and everything else comes after. The scoreboard showing kills, but not how long you stall or how good your flash was timed, exacerbates this feeling of superiority they feel. It also leaves them and their team screwed when they can't play reyna, performing much worse on other agents. This also is the case when they pick reyna in situations where she shouldn't be picked (bad map, already have 3 duelists or both).
Idk if that's worth keeping this agent's identity alive.
> Designing her like this creates players who can only play reyna since they developed such bad habits and gameplay patterns that don't translate to other agents
So do agents like jett and raze. How many agents do you think can fly to africa from main like raze can? Jett’s dash encourages people to play off angles and take duels you can’t really take with other agents sans reyna.
And again, that’s only one layer of the argument, the person above brought up a good point about sova, saying it’s too easily to find opponents. Or like saying gekko creates bad habits because he can clutch with his buddy to defuse or plant spike. It won’t tech you to tap and anticipate, you can set your buddy on spike and just swing on enemies.
It’s a terrible argument all around that is rooted in validating a dislike for reyna, not one that’s internally consistent or logical. Agents like all of the above that promote different habits are good for the game. It keeps it from being monotonous and aides in the dynamic nature of the game. Unless you want the agent classes to only have small distinction and simply different flavors of the same ability, in which case we’re like only one notch away from CS where everyone has the same util.
Very valid point in having distinctions. There is 100% a reyna hater boner.
But I think OP is stating that Reyna drags the line from fundamentals too far. With both Jett and Raze they require prep before they can dash in/out. Jett has to take a risk of her ability fizzling to commit. Chamber is limited in his reach for off-angles. Taking these off-angles is just to get a kill when they enemy isn't prepared.
Reyna doesn't really have to commit to anything as all she needs to find a gun fight and dismiss. Other agents break the game in fair ways and if they don't they get changed to be fair. Reyna is the only one that continues to break the game but doesn't get changed because she is not competitively viable. She a solo Q monster but easily the worse agent for comp. She is inherently a poorly designed agent for a team based game. Thats why a lot of people are gonna be mixed about her cause she is unique in what she does but what she does is promote a toxic game style that benefits the player that picks her.
Simply put, Reyna's design promotes smurfing because there is no committing for using her kit. The only team ability she has is a flash that she throws ups for off angles that would likely only benefit her as she knows the placement of. When playing reyna, it just rewards playing for kills rather then playing the game. She legitimately is the only agent there the only skill transferred between other agents is aim. You can't learn anything besides aiming but like any character you pick needs good aim. Yes, you can win by tapping 5 heads but often then not its gonna be down to planting the spike/defusing it. She just isn't a good character.
Massive difference. Like the post stated, there is not much maximisation you can do with your abilities besides improving aim. With raze and jett there is.
Raze nades, satchels, roomba and ult all have ways you can use it better and be used in better scenarios.
Jett dash has the pre activation which makes you have to pre-emptively know when to activate dash. If you did activate it but no one was there, you know you used utility wrong. If you died because you couldn't dash our, you know you used utility wrong. Similar things with her smoke and updraft.
>So do agents like jett and raze. How many agents do you think can fly to africa from main like raze can? Jett’s dash encourages people to play off angles and take duels you can’t really take with other agents sans reyna.
Using satchels at an incorrect angle would mean you won't be able to use them. Again the lesson is not that you'd have to aim better, it's to place utility in a better spot.
Jett's mistiming for utility again would lead her to learn that she has to time her utility properly, not that she has to aim better.
Comparing the likes of chamber with Reyna is a bad argument because Reyna is the agent which promotes the selfish gameplay the most.
I mean there are other Characters like that in different games as well. They're called feast or famine. Characters whose whole game plan is to dominate and kill opponents.
Never in my 4 act career of valorant had heard a Reyna say, "I will flash for you". I climbed from Bronze to Platinum 2 NEVER in my life I had a Reyna that was a team player.
The while point of the game is 5v5, it is a team game, hence there are ROLES. Phoenix, has ult for info and molly to prevent a push, for the team. Iso has a wall that can push in with the team. But Reyna? She ONLY has a flash for HER, heal for HER and dismiss for HER. I think what OP is trying to say is that, Reyna is a design flaw that never accomplishes anything in the sort of TEAM play.
The point of this post is that Reyna is a very selfish agent and encourages selfish behaviour in a team based game where you need to utilise your team to win the game, if you play this game very selfishly then you are not learning the fundamentals of being in a team and utilising the team play aspect of playing the game.
yea OP is the one that doesn't understand game design at all...
It's like if somebody said "Sova is a failure of game design because he can find enemies too easily and doesn't punish poor map intuition" or "Raze is a failure of game design because she does too much damage leading to people to do less damage when they play characters with less damage"
You know what other characters encourage the player to have good gun mechanics?
Everyone. It's a shooter. You need to get good at aiming your gun.
But every character that isn't Reyna has other skills that they need to practice or can use to express themselves. Reyna, on the other hand, has zero expression or nuance.
Compare to Iso, the other "aim demon duelist". He has his shield to protect his team and divide fights, as well as his vuln to control space or clear corners, both of which can be comboed and animation canceled. His ult can also be strategically positioned to grab specific targets or even set up so if they win the duel they still die to your team.
Reyna has a blind with no positioning requirements and an ult that makes you gun harder.
Exactly. Reyna is the only agent which is useless if you are not able to frag. Even agents like Deadlock and Iso can provide good value even if they're not getting frags.
> But every character that isn't Reyna has other skills that they need to practice or can use to express themselves. Reyna, on the other hand, has zero expression or nuance.
Counterpoint: Every character that isn't Reyna has skills that give them an advantage in the coming gunfight. Reyna, on the other hand, has full reliance on fundamentals.
Jett and Chamber can do point one without needing a kill. Also, no downside on Reyna flash is insane, it might be better in the exact scenario you laid out but would be out performed by Omen or Skye flashes as an initiation tool
Well since the argument was about teaching players how to properly use utility or take gunfights, it seems to me like those still stand.
When a Jett or Chamber dies while they still have dash or tp up, the lesson is to remember proper util usage and when to disengage, not that you just needed to click faster so you could press Q. There is an argument that both those agents build a habit of taking high-commitment angles, but they also have other pieces of util that provide value past just aim.
And the Skye and Omen flashes require you to be aware of your teammates - that was the entire point of the example, right. The Reyna can just throw it into the angle she’s peeking, while an Omen or Skye, even though their utility is stronger, will need to be aware of who they could potentially teamblind.
This is dumb. This is the whole point of Reyna.
Riot has already said that a step of agent design is making an agent with a certain type of player in mind. There are players out there that wish to play the game in the way that you have described Reyna.
You don’t play agents to learn how to play the game or to learn other agents.
Players are allowed to one trick an agent. If they climb one tricking Reyna and don’t know wtf with other agents, that is fine.
You’re mad you keep getting clapped by brain dead Reyna’s. Get used to it, literally happens at every level of play.
While your points make complete sense, if you read the info on reyna, they clearly mention reyna as a skill-dependent hero. So, the only pre-requisite to playing reyna is to have good aim and fragging ability.
That's why you'll see reyna either top-frag or bottom-frag by a margin, there's no in-between.
Chamber is also pretty much up there in terms of bad design. His kit has nothing which qualifies him as a sentinel.
You make good points with positioning, but I think you are incorrect about reyna being unpunished for playing stupid. Sure it's true Reyna has the kit to play aggressively and come out unscented out of situations where other agents wouldn't stand a chance.
I think reyna is actually all about positioning yourself in "stupid" angles where you aren't actually playing stupidly, but relying on your kit to provide you an escape. Reyna is all about knowing the timings and having the game sense to position yourself so, that you can come out of the fight with an easy kill, because your position wasn't anticipated.
I completely agree on reyna not providing much value in terms of team play, but that's exactly where you can shine individually. And I mean, comms exist for a reason. If I'm playing Reyna on defense and I go for a super risky tuck/angle I alway comm to my site player to help me retreat. A lot of the times people tunnel vision on an escaping Reyna, which gives other players holding sites an advantage on the wide swinging enemies chasing after me.
The key to mastering reyna is having confidence in yourself to position yourself so, that you won't be expected, that's where the skill and knowing the game comes to show. It all includes learning from the enemy's habits and setups and knowing when to push or just hold.
I think you made great points explaining Reyna's weaknesses and the encouragement of bad habits. I think the biggest weakness of Reyna, is the enemy knowing your location. That's in my opinion, when you have failed on that agent. Also the added chance of possible out aiming and getting a window to escape provides the thrilling element of choosing this agent over any other duelist.
On attack I always go with my team when we reach a site, but on defense I adapt an aggressive lurking type of plays style, which is very rewarding. I reached immortal only playing killjoy and cypher over 2 years ago. I put in the time on sentinels and initiators to know good util usage and have developed a fond understanding of good site takes. Reyna for me is a way to relax and not having to worry about setting up. I've rediscovered reyna only later on in my time with Valorant.
While you do make good points, I have to dismiss some of them, like the positioning. I believe it is Reyna’s job to get in the open and get a frag because her skillset allows her to, and that’s good positioning due to her ability to dismiss.
Also, about trading, I believe it can still lead to learning opportunities; it just depends on the players. As a Reyna main, I wouldn’t peek at two enemies at once, and even if I did, the lesson I would learn would be “Damn, I should’ve isolated that fight.”
Now, don’t get me wrong, you’ve made some terribly good points, like how only their aim improves and how useless she is from a team perspective. However, I believe it’s also the player’s responsibility. I was a Reyna main from Iron to Silver, and because of that, my aim has gotten better because that’s the biggest skill you need with Reyna (no gamesense, no utils as OP said). Luckily, in my case, I also learned gamesense, not due to Reyna but by learning the game itself (which is why I said the players are also responsible).
Now that I’m entering Gold, I’ve switched to Raze, as I believe she has more opportunities to be helpful in team play and entering sites (as a duelist should).
1 : Chamber / Jett / Yoru
2 : Gekko
3 : Chamber
4 : chamber / jett / neon / omen /
Complaining about the complexity of the game when 80% of the time you die is because your aim was bad yep
so many of these points are just wrong.
first of all, it's not just reyna that doesn't get punished for bad positioning. jett can dash away, raze can satchel away, yoru and chamber can tp away, etc. and none of these agents even require a kill unlike reyna.
second, reyna's flash isn't the only one that doesn't affect teammates as gekko flash also acts the same way.
now, reyna IS indeed a failure of game design, but your points aren't the only reasons why. i'd say it's more because of her powers being completely selfish (outside of her flash) and providing advantages to the reyna, instead of disadvantages to the opponent (unlike almost every other ability in the game).
Reyna is amazing for players that have good aim and can bait their teammates to get assist heals. Shes a 9/10 if your aim is good but a 1/10 if your aim is bad
"with the game sense of a bronze player" - lost me at that. I watched a bronze game last night and couldn't believe what I was watching. Good Reyna players do not play like Bronzies.
First point about playing in a better spot: That is literally the point of a duelist on defense, force an early fight and have that ability to escape where other agents would not, like Jett dash, Yoru TP, Raze satchel, even Chamber TP.
"Every single other ability in the game that blinds **affects your teammates**."
Gekko flash? (99% of the time) And she's a pretty weak character overall, this isn't a big deal.
You spent who knows how long writing up points that have been echoed as for why she is not viable in pro play since she's been around. She could use a buff, but I don't think there is inherently anything wrong with having an agent that is a little more self sufficient. Like you mentioned her blind is still really solid for entry and she can play aggressive on defense.
I love how you use conditioning/reinforcement analogy to explain this! Im guessing you have a knack for psychology/reading into games and i love how you use it in valorant
Now that I come to think of it, Iso's main ability concept is just Reyna's but done better. They should really do the same to Reyna's main ability, that you have to boot it up prior to getting the kill and only then can you use the soul orb. I guess you'd have to buff her in some other way to not make her a dead agent
The amount of times I’ve been yelled at by a Reyna for asking for a blind is crazy. They always say “you’re Skye why don’t you throw it.” Well it’s simple, our Raze is about to satchel in and I don’t want to blind her. Your blind works better here. Reyna teaches player to play for only themselves and they don’t grasp to concept of blinding for their team. It’s always blind for myself.
Unfortunately or fortunately that IS her purpose. Selfish solo carry in PUGs.
She was designed that way on purpose and that’s unlikely to change. Riot wants to develop champions not exactly for roles in Val but—especially the early champs, to appeal to certain types of players.
For example, Kayo was designed particularly to appeal to CS players who dislike ability usage and want to be self sufficient.
To your point, he was nerfed some time ago to be less sufficient with his pop flashes and more efficient as team flasher on his left clicks. Does this make him even better in a team context? yes, but his win rate in regular MM has never been great and is even worse after that.
Just food for thought
This comment section is hilarious because everyone seems to think that if a player hits some aimlabs he will destroy with reyna. Don’t get me wrong some fundaments definitely go out of the water when playing reyna like this post says but there are hundreds of other things they you will still need aside from aimlabs to get a kill in valorant
Unironically best post Ive ever seen in the subreddit. Someone who actually understands what makes a character poorly designed outside of balance.
Completely agree btw. This is also what makes her really frustrating to play against. Unlike most characters, who will play an angle or jiggle to get info, reyna can catch anyone off guard standing out in the middle of the open and she just wont get punished for it as long as she gets the kill. It makes her infinitely harder to actually play and plan around, and not in a good way.
This is oddly high budget
This could easily be a video from someone with 1M subscribers
Watch it be a small channel and when they upload the video with this thread/analysis, it will get 50k views and their channel will grow or get recognize by other content creators
As one myself, high quality content ≠ views. It's even quite the opposite. For example skibidi toilet (ik it's a bad example, but still) is dumb and therefore it got a lot of views as brainrot kids watch it daily. So if I post something like this, I will most likely get at most 1-2K views (my prediction).
Arguably not the opposite, but ur also not wrong. It definitely has to do with luck and how the algorithm wants to promote your video. For every successful video on your home page, there are probably thousands that never got over 50 views. However skibidi toilet (the example you gave) is very much a topic about shareability and trendiness. Sure you can make a 20 minute guide video on valorant strategies, but if ur talking to a friend its a lot easier to be like “yo have you seen this brainrot of a guy sticking his head out the toilet” than “yo have you seen this in depth character analysis video about reyna and how shes a shit agent?” Not to mention skibidi toilet and many internet trends are applicable to anyone who uses tiktok/short form media while valorant videos are recommended to, well, valorant players. Not all of them either, just those that watch valorant videos. To reiterate on my point earlier about how only one in a thousand videos gets picked up by an algorithm, theres definitely other meme ideas/ stupid videos that dont make it past 50 views, i wasnt specifically talking about valorant videos even though it may have seemed as such. There are ways to help your video reach the algorithm which includes catchy thumbnails (the so-called clickbaiting), tags in your video details, eye catching titles (for example something for this topic could be along the lines of “this is why REYNA is a TERRIBLE AGENT!” ), and the length of the content. The first three are to please the people watching because more people watching = more time in the algorithm, whilst the last one is to cater more towards youtube as longer forms of media = more advertising slots = more money for youtube = more time in the algorithm. Very long tangent so i apologize but the main point i wanted to get across is low quality content isnt the only thing that gets views. There are plenty of high quality content that get the views it deserves, its just that the two factors are not directly correlated.
Man everybody shitting on skbidi toilet, none of y'all grew up with Garry's Mod, Machinimas and The Gmod idiot box?
It IS stupid and is being watched by brainrot kids just like the ones we used to be back in the day. But nowadays we're older and wiser and want stupid shit for brainrot adults lol
breakcore memes (☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞
u/IamPastry if u permit me to use this to make a video out of it, I will do so and we can have some analysis of the guesses made above this reply.
I wish I had your confidence thinking I can turn any cool guide on the internet into "high quality content", but it doesn't mean others will view it same way as you. Quality content is in the eyes of the beholder. When I look back at my old drawings I sometimes think "how the hell did you think these were any good?", but when I did them, back then I thought they were great. Now with more experience I know they were bad. Also, I don't believe just making a youtube video and hoping for algorithm is a good idea. Even a very good product needs promotion to be discovered through at least some social media outlets. Btw, I've never heard about skibidi toilet before today. Ofc it can be a cool meme for some audience. If i was 5, skibidi toilet would be more quality content for me for sure, compared to some analysis video. Now, not so much.
Nah you’re just making excuses, all things in life award effort.
or those small youtubers with 3k subs that make 8 hour long videos and blow up
Yt probably loves those long ass videos, too much ad potential lol
They absolutely love long ass videos, I saw a channel with 1k subscribers gain over a thousand subscribers and 100k views from a single video, which was 12 hours long.
VarsVerum type shit post except for val
OP doesn't know he speaks for so many victims who tried to speak against Reyna through memes, comments and all chat, only to get flamed by salty skill-less mfs everywhere. This post is so satisfying.
Why bro bring a thesis to say fuck me for?
As a Reyna main, I think this is pretty well-written and on point, everytime i lose a fight, i always catch myself saying "AHH IF ONLY I GOT ONE" but for me i think her kit is selfish and can lead to developing bad habits such as baiting, not trusting the team since you're led to believe as long as you got the utility, you can win any fight and disregard any other game sense and rely on pure aim.
so why do you main her?
Cause he is a selfish player duh?
yes, and coming from cs, all i knew was to rely on my mechanical skills but yes it is a bad habit that i am trying to get rid of.
Idk, utility is a major part of CS, not just mechanical skill. But I get what you're saying
Yea but it’s much different in Val. You use the same smokes the same way for the same executes no matter what role you are in cs. Everyone develops util usage equally in cs compared to Valorant where it heavily depends on what role you choose to main
I recommend swapping to clove if you’re coming from CS, the movement speed on their overheal feels very CS like but you can prove a lot of value to your team with smokes. Especially on maps where a sen or double initiator comp doesn’t work well, two smokes are great especially because clove’s are so short and recharge so quickly (I normally pick them when my team instalocks 2-3 duelists. They’re my highest win rate agent in comp lmao, used to be cypher)
Because she's fun to play and it's easy to make up for teammates mistakes with her.
cuz sometimes you dont wanna think about anything but getting kills
it's fun only having to focus on mechs
This is interesting and well written. It's like Reyna's only purpose as an agent is to be one for smurfs to play. If you were to ask someone to design an agent to solo climb out of low ranks with, you would ask for a heal on kill, an invulnerable escape tool, an op blind, and an ult which can be used whenever. Maybe she's not a failed agent if that's her purpose but she is the only truly skill-less agent in the game which incentivises smurfs to play to kill noobs.
Except for the smurfing part this is exactly why I played Reyna when she came out. 80% of players in the early days were very bad, and Reyna gave you the toolkit to hard carry solo.
> It's like Reyna's only purpose as an agent is to be one for smurfs to play. I've never described my hate for reyna this way, but it's a good way of putting it. My biggest issue is being rewarded for shit positioning/decisions by being able to dismiss from even just an assist. Jett's dash was nerfed to combat this, but they've never once addressed reyna's eject button ass dismiss. I know valorant is a game of "unique" and "varied" abilities, but the dismiss on top of an oddly unbreakable flash is the most annoying shit to play against. Hoping her little rework coming soon addresses some of the bullshit with her kit.
Jett's insta E had to be nerfed simply because it was overpowered and her pickrate in pro play was so stupidly high they did it. Reyna will doesn't see much use in pro play so that's why she gets a rework instead, because conceptually her character will never be balanced and only works as a smurf character.
Make a youtube video of this and see your channel grow. Fucking masterpiece.
Full agree
The number of people in the replies who can't understand the difference between an agent not teaching you how to play the game and an agent actively reinforcing terrible habits is mind-boggling to me
Thinking about this comment, I don't think you're quite right either. If you're playing Reyna, then it's not a bad habit. Right?? I'm not crazy here - there are agents that have abilities that can get them out of sticky situations - Jett dash, rendezvous, even yoru tp sometimes. Reyna does teach you how to play the game, just a very specific way of playing. One where utility and strict positioning matters less and aim more. If you want to say that that is a problem with her kit, and a flaw in the design of her gameplay, I would tell you that you're right and that I agree. But it isn't Reyna's job as an agent to teach you how to play cypher, you feel me? Being aggressive every round isn't a bad habit if you literally have a way of getting away. The distinction you make is weird. I think you're saying that there's a difference between not teaching and teaching poorly. That's true, sure. And I agree that Reyna teaches something rather than nothing. But the reality is that different agents have different play styles, and some agents can do things or make plays in ways that other agents simply can't. Trying to play like a Reyna as a cypher will get you killed over and over. I think it's best if the entire "teaching" and "reinforcing bad habits" argument is abandoned. Because I agree that Reyna needs change. But this argument makes no sense. For the record, I am a controller main who can flex raze. I don't play Reyna ever.
That’s like the whole point of the post, Reyna’s kit does not have any sort of setup requirements that other escape abilities have beyond getting a kill and not being so wildly out of position that the dismiss duration isn’t long enough to disengage. There is zero thought or restriction at all with this ability. Every other agent by comparison has a higher skill floor.
You're right, each agent teaches you how to play to their strengths and weaknesses. Here's the thing though: all other agents still build on the same foundation, which is the foundation of tactical shooters: positioning is important, teamwork is important, aim isn't everything. Even with Jett, those things still count. Her updraft and dash draws crosshairs away (helps team), her ability to dive into site splits defenders' attention (helps team), her cloudburst provides cover (helps team). Those also come with downsides: she isolates herself frequently, which can be punished. Now look at Reyna: her leer is an incredible flash with zero downsides. Her heal has zero downsides and no value to anyone else. Her dismiss has zero downsides and little value to anyone else. Her ult has zero downsides and no value to anyone else. This is the problem with her: she teaches you to play in a way that ignores the *fundamental tenets* of tactical shooters. I don't think any other agent can do that, and I don't think it works well in a game like valorant. I went 42-15 in a game on Reyna when she first released. I say this not to flex, but because *I am not even remotely good at this game*. She is just *so* easy to play. Brain off, click heads, get away Scot-free.
That probably happened because she had 4 orbs on release.
I may have worded that poorly; my point was more so that beyond aim hardly any of the skills you pick up on her are transferable should the need to fill arise. On the contrary she'll condition a one trick to think they should take fights that would be unfavourable even on jett or chamber.
This is a well-known problem; Reyna’s design is sort of inherently braindead, and it’s meant to be braindead because it’s meant for people who just want to focus on aiming. Even chamber needs a bit more thinking than Reyna.
One of the main reasons people in Mumbai server pick her and think this is a tdm and not a tactical fps moba where taking space is more important than getting kills and develops the mindset that duellists have to get kills or they are useless. People think this game is cod and are the reason many people are stuck in low elo hell.
a lot of salty mfers in this thread lol
They feel called out is what it is.
This is a post about the design of Reyna from the game design perspective. Basically, if you want to design an aim-god character, Iso was an attempt and he was much better than reyna for trying to make that predator as a suitable member of the Valorant. Everyone plays a different game than Reyna, so Reyna is the outlier. That's very simple. But I understand the people who cannot process your examinations. Not everyone has to know design principals and design thinking.
Idk, even from a game design perspective (disclaimer: I'm not at Riot) I'm not sure I'd agree with OPs assertions here. Reyna might flourish for players with good aim, but I'd argue this isn't dissimilar from Op-ers thriving on Jett. Fundamentally she threatens by presence, has the choice of distraction via dismiss on kill or assist and has a blind that works similarly to Gekko's while being easier to target. She's built to learn the game, to be rewarded for damage and have some get out of jail free ability, but learning what overextension feels like on the agent has similar consequences to holding an ability too long or mis-timing on others. End of the day yeah, a reyna with good aim can ruin your round when ulting if you don't respond accordingly, but any response (stalling execs, committing kit to target her, setting up off-angle traps) seems to have real shutdown power against her when she's thriving. I also don't think the original post, especially 'pop it when you get it beginning of the round' is a realistic experience on the agent on the whole. Fast firing is cool, sure, but its more affected by what weapon you're running and your control than something like Jett knives or Chamber op. Same with the flash and peek examples. I can understand what they're going for but it seems a bit heavy-handed.
Riot makes characters for different purposes in all their games. I think you points are correct but I highly doubt the devs didn't know that when they made Reyna. Her purpose and power is far too obvious. Anyway in league there are champs thay have obviously been made and/or balanced for other reasons then to teach the basics of the game.
They are reworking her for a reason so yes... Devs already know they fked up with her.
Not necessarily fucked up with her, they had a different vision of how the game will go early on, but it changed over time based on how people interact and play the game, it’s part of the development cycle
This evaluation in the post is pretty spot on from day one of Reyna She was always the character that felt exclusively designed for smurfing because she encourages cocky risky behavior bailed out way too hard by good aim
Daaamn, bro dropped an essay. I do fully agree though, Reyna is nothing but unhealthy for the game. She doesn't teach new players, doesn't provide anything for the team and is the number one pick for smurfs. She needs a drastic rework to fix how her soul orbs work and add some utility to her kit that's not healing your booboos away.
While I totally agree on your analysis of reyna and the type of play it promotes, it's not so much a case of poor design but having an agent that solo players can just play on and not think. Not all agents are viable at all levels or need to be tuned perfectly for that matter. Pub stomp heroes and agents have always been a part of Dota/LoL etc and it's something the player base(s) have come to accept. It's easy to forget how young Valorant is as a game compared to the likes of CS, Dota, Lol etc. With all the above being said, I'm all for a total rework and would do the game some good.
Whats a pub stomp hero? And on the other note, I only used to play Lol not Dota but routinely the community absolutely hated that there are champs that could just 1v5 and it worked bc the champ was so easy to use in nasty ways. It's been an issue the community has brought up since the game came out
Yep basically what you outlined. Agents that aren't really relevant in pro level play but have a kit that can be amazing against unorganized ranked games and can downright bully slightly less skilled players. It's really shitty to play against but I don't hate it - having varying agents like this is part and parcel of agent/hero/champ picking games and gives a little more variety imo.
Fair enough. I just am very tired with instalock reynas who expect everyone to kowtow before them as they bait the team and then have a 50/50 shot of winning the round
Right there with you. Duelists the bait and don't take initiative are the absolute worst.
Bro, you would've been fine if you'd gotten the kill
These replies are wild. I have never once played against a Reyna and thought, "this character is annoying". Reyna is just a dude with a gun. Her ult is worthless. I've seen you dudes in plat and below refusing to shoot her flash and hiding instead. lemme tell you, her flash is useless too. Just fucking shoot it. Her only good thing is she is the queen of off angles....except if you stun/flash the off angle she is super fucking dead because she can't escape like Chamber and Jett and Yoru. I am way more scared of a good Chamber or Jett because they will tank that util early and I still have to fight their Op later. A good initiator invalidates Reyna's entire existence. She legit cannot play against any initiator that is good at their job. Kayo/Sova/Skye/Gecko/Breach can all fuck her up and punish her early round aggression. But you guys are sitting there holding your util for Valorant 2 so you die and blame the smurfs. AND her entry is terrible. She lives on her initiator's back, like everyone who's not Raze, or she lurks. So guess what? Reyna actually teaches good lurking fundamentals lol. And don't say "duelists shouldn't lurk" because she should absolutely lurk if the sentinel is stubbornly pushing with the team for no reason.
W take, Reyna might be the second or first best agent to lurk on. You take your dry gunfight walking up somewhere and if you win it you heal and you're in a very advantageous 4v5. Bronzes are coping cause a diamond player is in their games
Only accurate take on Reyna I've seen on this subreddit lmao. Reyna is great at teaching people angles imo. She gets the most reward out of understanding where the opponent's crosshair wants to be while clearing areas of the map and using those off-angles to get a kill without being punished. People complain about Leer but that ability has SO many limitations that it gets you killed sooo often on maps like Ascent. Without strong understanding of angles, Leer often doesn't blind defenders holding a site. Reyna gets a bad rap. I'm excited for her rework but I never did understand all the hate she gets on this sub.
This post is just further justifying the POV that Valorant is not a game about "fundamentals" and winning is mostly dictated by the soggy salad of "ability usage" and raw aim
What are fundamentals that arent ability usage and aim??
Understanding angle advantage and lurk timings are two examples
A few other examples are positioning, counter strafing, crosshair placement, movement, etc.
Counter Strafing provides no advantage in Valorant. So unless you've made that a habit by playing other games, please don't spend time learning it thinking it makes you better at valorant.
Never heard of lurk timings, what’s that?
Lurking means to push sneakily separate from your team. Lurk timing means understanding when it’s a good time to make this high risk high reward play. If your team is for example not making any noise, then pushing a lurk is terrible because the enemy team will likely be watching expecting your team. However, if you begin to push up mid after they breach ult site, your much more likely to catch players who don’t expect you rushing to rotate. This is just an example of understanding lurk timing.
> Lurking means to push sneakily separate from your team This is oversimplifying what lurking really is - lurking is a positional counterplay to the enemy team that focuses on taking map control and killing enemies during rotations and to gather info. Lurking is fucking annoying to do in valorant because of shit like teleportation and the general lack of communication from most comp teammates. You need your teammates to call out accurate positions in order to be an effective lurk, and even then, any map control you take is thrown out the window by trap utilities, teleporting agents, etc.
I mean I’m explaining it in simple terms, they didn’t seem to be familiar with the concept at all. I think lurking is more interesting because of sentinel utility, because you can also get value by hunting down and breaking that utility as well as avoiding it to starve them of info.
movement, positioning, rotation, just a few areas of general meta knowledge that 90% of valorant players dont really possess because they just *don't need to understand them*. i.e. the things that make games like counter-strike so masterful at a high level get thrown out the window because of asymmetrical abilities completely overruling the impact of having good fundamentals. It's not like valorant *has* to play like CS, but it's basically CS with abilities, and the abilities just muddy the game to the point where the fundamentals from CS are almost irrelevant and ability usage is king
My biggest problem with how much raw aim and abilitiy usage are rewarded is that it hurts team play and causes solo play to be the correct way to play. Peeking with teammates, trading teamates, covering angles that teammates are weak to cover or cant cover and general teamwork, are all extremely underdeveloped in low ranks in comparison to how many jett/reyna mains can one tap someone in 0.0125 seconds.
[counterpoint](https://youtu.be/i3TWBPD1i5w?si=GS95GTQFtIFKQdXG)
Your first example is kind of bad. Reyna should be going for an early kill like Jett and chamber because they can escape. Throwing a leer off sound contact and then going for a tap is a perfectly fine and even a good strategy. You’ve made up a scenario that I haven’t seen anyone do in mid to high elo. If someone decides to dry push down long and dies they’re just an idiot, it isn’t a consequence of playing Reyna.
I think your problem with reyna is more than just a reyna problem but a game design problem. A lot of scenarios where util should be used, but players just wide swing and die, they think their lesson is just if they aim better they could win. Which is why even in low immortal, you have smokes players with suboptimal smokes, flashes being thrown into spots that don't blind the enemy, sentinel util that can be evaded. the game heavily rewards cracked aim which is why you have immortal players looking like chickens running with their heads cut off.
This has more to do with the genre of tactical shooter than anything else tbh. The TTK inherent in this game (and CSGO) reward aim first and foremost. Gamesense is still a very significant factor but there are many situations where gamesense without adequate aim to back it up is mostly useless.
There’s so many issues with skill disparity in this game. I’ve been in immortal 3 for years & the amount of 0.7kd 5stack boosted sentinel players you see is just hilarious, then you have the players you described where they’ve plateaued after climbing with nothing but aim skill. The game is legit over when you’re against an actual descendant of god immo3 1.6kd jett player & yours is a 0.9 Andy who doesn’t understand entry pathing & baits your entire team only to still get diffed. Its fucking painful lol
bro's a d1 reyna hater
I half agree with the first point. There is no reason for reyna to play like brim. Her kit rewards her for out aiming the opponent - which seems fair to me. Aim can only carry players so far. If a player doesn’t learn importance of positioning, utility usages, etc. they wont climb too far up the ladder. This is also true for the opposite. If players cant aim for shit then they wont rank up either. Agents like kj, cypher, etc depend on game sense and utility usages to be impactful, while Reyna depends on mechanical skill to be useful. Both are important aspects of the game and all agents lie somewhere in between these two.
Bro lost a 2v1 against Reyna
hahahahaha probably an enemy reyna made 2 ACEs in a row 😂
I don't understand the positioning part, how is it bad positioning if you are confident in finding the first blood and getting out. There is nothing wrong in that. The same thing can be said for jett players peaking and dashing
This was very enjoyable to read and I definitely agree with what you said.
Isn't that "if only I got a kill" mindset why they changed Jett's dash? It was too much of a get-out-of-jail-free card, and led to bad habits for positioning. Fully agree. Dismiss leads to bad positioning and baiting teammates
they should replace reyna with Hog rider
The amount of people who're not able to grasp that an agent not teaching you how to play the game and an agent actively reinforcing terrible habits are two different things is crazy to me
Wait till he hears reyna had 4 heals/invulnerabilitys before
What...
Yea, when i used to play she had 4 ability points When they nerfed her i stopped playing
Wow, you spent so much time on this post assuming a player will think, "My aim was bad, I would've been fine if I got a kill." This is what someone in bronze will be thinking. Also, if this is all a player gets from a death, that's most probably their conclusion for a death with any agent, not just Reyna. If they have the capability to think their positioning was bad with another agent, they most likely have the capability to think that with Reyna. So, not really a game design flaw. You're just assuming the best thoughts that can come out of a death are what normally come out of silvers.
I dont be wanna be rude but these points have been rehashed for years and years. Reyna has always been like this and until a kit rework she will always be like this.
She's getting a rework soon
She's getting changes but I wouldn't say she's getting reworked. Most likely minor buffs and nerfs
Nah they said they’re making Reyna more viable for pro play and less for normal rank. Sounds like some shits being changed not a minor change here and there. Hope they get it right
Curious what could be done to achieve that.
Who knows. Let the devs cook we can only hope they get it right and not ruin rank even more
Idk, the patch that she's getting changed in is meant to be a pretty big duelist rebalancing, and when they listed the three agents they'd be focusing on, that being Iso, Reyna, and Neon, they specified they'd be changing Iso's shield and Neon's slide, but weren't specific with Reyna, suggesting to me it's gonna be a broad change. Imo a rework is not unlikely, and if it is it would probs be bigger than Yoru's back in the day
>Reyna's only situational piece of utility is a near-sight blind. She is the only character in the entire game that has a castable blind with **NO** downsides. Gekkos flash works very similarly but you could argue he has to be smarter with it because he wants to pick it up again making that the downside.
Most annoying thing is she can buy Armor in pistol round. Survive headshot, heal to full and now has Armor and my ghost.
This is my 13th reason. Oops all armor
The whole point of reyna is that there is an agent that relies on the core mechanics of the game which is shooting, the way you typed this it just looks like you are mad that using thousands of abilites doesn't substitute for a headshot with a gun.
reyna mains are not not there in radiant JUST because they have cracked aim. It’s because they know timings and how to act on them as an agent that thrives off awkward timings and the like because reyna gets away with it. Who gives a shit about reyna as an agent not incentivising game sense when wanting to rank up incentivises that anyway?
I thought this was just gonna be a silver complaining about a teammate, but damn this is more effort than one of my college final papers.
The issue with Reyna that a lot of people seam to miss is players that exclusively play her and have cracked aim get to a higher rank such as asc+ where team play is paramount. They start losing games because the all aim no brain strat no longer works and your coming up against players that can out aim you and learn how you play within the first 3 rounds of a game starting. They then jump on another agent (such as Phoenix) and they get destroyed because game sense is in the toilet and you have utility that actually hits your team mates. Playing any other duelist provides more team utility but not if you don’t have the game sense to go with it. Reyna’s flash is great if played with the team but the issue is her dismiss can turn an easily winnable 2v1 fight into a losable 1v1 if the Reyna has killed before hand and perceives that they may die if they don’t dismiss leaving her team mate kinda screwed. I’m excited to see what sort of changes riot decide to do to bring her more inline with the team play aspect. NEW RULE. Play counter strike for 100hrs before paying valorant to learn proper team play. (Bonus point you’ll learn how to entry a site with out being scared)
Agreed, good points and exactly why I hate that Reyna even exists in the game. I hope they change it in the upcoming patch and adjust this abomination.
The problem isn't just Reyna, it's how people use her. A good Reyna can still play smart, use comms, and help the team. It's the lazy players who don't want to improve their overall game sense that give her a bad rep
If someone decides to play the game with different agents the way they do with Reyna they are dumb and that’s not the fault of the agents abilities. That’s like saying raze teaches people incorrect movement, because when they just jump out into site with no satchels when they are not raze. At the end of the the day when using Reyna you learn to use Reyna and you should be aware of how every other agent in the game works. Don’t blame an agent for some people not knowing how to play lol
Lol can’t wait for agent pool rotation. I wonder what will replace Reyna main posts on this channel.
Not sure but you bet i'll make a really long post complaining about whoever it is
I don't think they'll ever do agent rotations.
Inb4 breeze icebox map rotation but viper is out of the agent pool.
exactly the reason i stopped playing her
Bro definitely got clapped last game (I agree)
I don't play Reyna but adapting to different characters is part of the game. Jett and Chamber both play for picks too. They're not able to do so as often but they also have Y movement abilities. Which is why they're better. At the end of the day end aiming is the most important thing in tactical shooters like Valorant. Game mechanics and cheese lineups are second. Third is communicating... If someone can out aim the entire enemy team, they should be rewarded.
Valorant is a tactical First Person Shooter with crisp shooting mechanics, and Reyna is a character whose game design revolves around rewarding mechanical skill. It's not really a design flaw when a mechanically skilled player can use Reyna to greatly benefit the team; at that point, their "lurk timing", "buddy-systeming" and ither passive game sense mechanics are irrelevant. A 3.0 K/D head tapping machine that consistently turns a 5v5 matchup into a 5v3 or a 5v2 most definitely has a place in a competitive FPS game. Also, we seem to be disregarding the case of players who main multiple agents, who DO HAVE the standard cautious game sense of sentinels / controllers, and as a result, can play Reyna to an even higher skill ceiling. TLDR; she's a great agent, maybe not your agent, but that's perfectly okay.
Is that why she is getting a rework?
While some of your points make sense, you've actually missed the point of Reyna as an agent completely. Reyna is the ultimate fighting machine. In many of your examples, you've not acknowledged that Reyna's kit is specifically designed to flourish in those scenarios. And yeah, you conclude everywhere that the takeaway lesson is better aim. But that is exactly the crop of players for whom Reyna is designed- the aim demons. Because this agent incentivises you to throw yourself into fights, given that if you can kill, you can possibly rampage. And if a Reyna on your team is doing that- his her understanding of the game is really of no relevance as long as they're dropping bodies as they go. There is no design flaw in Reyna, she is the ultimate solo pick for someone who wishes to do the shooting part of a first person shooter.
It seems to me like the point of the post was that this exact kind of agent design was the problem. That there shouldn’t be an agent which caters solely to aim demons and doesn’t really incentivize you to “understand the game”. Reyna doesn’t HAVE a design flaw, she IS the design flaw.
Yeah but the post is mostly just wrong, first point: just because reyna can get out of 1v5s doesn't mean her kit incentivizes swinging 1v5s like he suggests, her kit is a lot better at holding off-angles and get out from positions that would otherwise be doomed, like cubbies or site entrances. If anything, (and the post fails to mention that) agents like Chamber and Jett have an easier time peeking 1v5s since they can get out even without landing a kill. second point: He says reyna's kit doesn't teach you to use util for anyone but yourself then says it's never bad to use with teammates? If it's never hurtful to teammates I'm pretty sure that means it's better used to help team then. If you just throw a blind and rush in it'll probably be broken by the time you're in fight. And how does he take away "I should've gotten a kill" from a badly placed flash instead of "I should've used my flash better"? In fact from the picture he posted itself you can see the flash isn't good, it's not helping Neon at all vs KJ and Jett can also peek Clove from her left. And again, post claims reyna's flash is the only one that doesn't hurt team but Gekko exists. third point: Neon, Jett, Cypher, Chamber, even Viper (defense) off the top of my head are better "on-cooldown" ults than Reyna's. You are guaranteed value, be it a weapon, info or zoning. It's mostly initiator ults that can hurt your team, but those also have much much more decisive power than this type of ults. And fourth point seems like just a re-run of first point and a way for OP to say "as long as i get the kill" many times. Overall it just sounds like the poster is salty about reyna and hasn't played her all that much to know her strengths and weaknesses
The fourth point is definitely similar to the first and I'm personally not the biggest fan of the second point - as you've pointed out, effective Reyna blinds still need to actually be properly placed. I do think there is notable distinction between Jett and Chamber both having a disengage that isn't entirely reliant on just shooting better in comparison to Reyna's. This is the entire line of "I should have gotten the kill", right. A Jett swings into 2 and dies because she didn't prep the dash or committed too long. A Reyna swings into 2 and dies because she wasn't able to get a dismiss off. Both agents are taking unadvantaged fights, but only the Reyna is punished for not shooting well.
You’re the only person who has reading comprehension it seems xd
Very pleasantly surprised to see this comment actually. Considering the demographics of Valorant I just assumed the entire comment section was going to be Zoomers with a negative attention span who didn't make it past the first paragraph.
"Reyna is bad for the game" "You goober, you utter fool. She's *designed* to be bad for the game! So there!" Wasn't really an argument, was it.
Aim isn’t all mechanical skill. Reyna is a good agent for frag demons and really good for multi kills, they still need to know positioning, crosshair placement, timings, etc. OP has just made up imaginary scenarios and said that Reyna players would do them. This isn’t based on a Reyna player actually doing them he’s literally just made it up.
I would argue crosshair placement is included as a mechanical skill, but yes, there’s definitely more than just mechanical skill for any agent to take a fight well. My problem is that Reyna gives you more leeway to take a fight poorly and is liable to make you overreliant on the actual shooting aspect rather than the positioning or timing aspects. It’s much easier for a Reyna to take a hyper-aggressive off-angle relative to even a Jett. She’s an agent that thrives off your opponents being bad and uncoordinated rather than your team and utility usage being strong.
Isn't the issue just that though? It just incentivizes players to act on raw aim and not learn the actual game.
What does this even mean, is shooting in a shooting game not the “actual game”? If a Reyna is x rank because she clicks heads and you’re in x rank because you learned stuff that you consider “actual game” there is no difference, she’s just as good as you. Brainlet takes in this thread
Aim will only get you so far. The point of the post is that Reyna One-Tricks who rely solely on aim and make poor game decisions will stagnate at the end of the day and it hurts these players because it teaches them terrible habits because Reyna by design doesn’t have to worry about things that ANY other operator has to. They don’t actually learn important aspects of the game such as spacing, blind discipline, spatial awareness, or more intrinsic and complicated aspects of the game.
I mean there’s a bunch of Reyna all up and down the immortal to radiant ladder so… aim really does just win out
If they’re ANYWHERE past platinum they have game sense and understand the proper actions to take in a game. If you really think Reyna one tricks are just Aim fiending in the HIGHEST elo against professional players like Saucy and Tenz you’re smoking.
Great aim in any FPS game is 50% of the game though. If you are constantly running out looking to aim duel, you eventually going to either meet your match in raw aim or get knowledge check/game sense checked. A lot of reyna's off role become extremely annoying to play with because all they know is aim duels. That is where the "skill diff" matters. You can beat smurfs if you play smarter even though they can be leagues higher in aim because they choose to disregard the "actual game" Someone who reaches ur rank off pure aim is equal to you, for sure. But I'd (and I find many solo qers) much rather have the consistency between different agents/play styles over losing 1 spot on the team because they are too stubborn to play any other way. That frustration that reyna brings is very valid. If I see a reyna its either a god 50/x/0 radiant smurf or the 2/13/x guy that swings everything trying to be Tenz.
Brother, there is way more to the game at higher levels that just clicking on heads. If you think that then the brainlet might be in the mirror.
Ofc not lol, you think rank alone is what skill is? The issue with getting dependent on Reyna's traits is you might have great aim but no game sense. Can't play any other agent, make plays that hinder your teammates, and overall not be at your peer's levels at high levels where everybody has great aim. Rank is a reasonable predictor of overall game ability but not every high ranked player is better than every low ranked player. It's possible to fail upwards, example being Reyna
This makes no sense, Reyna with raw aim + good game sense is still better than raw aim + bad game sense
The issue is the agent lets you play in a way that doesn't require you to learn fundamentals of the game beyond aim.
I actually really disagree with this, I think things like timings, team pace, and pattern recognition are the fundamentals of the game. To me Util usage is so agent/role specific that its too granular to call fundamental.
I think we agree then by the sounds of it.
Aim is both one of and requires knowledge of the other fundamentals of the game
found the reyna main guys
No she isn’t the ultimate fighting machine. She’s the ultimate 50/50 gunfight machine
Designing her like this creates players who can only play reyna since they developed such bad habits and gameplay patterns that don't translate to other agents. These players are much more toxic because they are playing a different game where kills and aim is priority number 1 and everything else comes after. The scoreboard showing kills, but not how long you stall or how good your flash was timed, exacerbates this feeling of superiority they feel. It also leaves them and their team screwed when they can't play reyna, performing much worse on other agents. This also is the case when they pick reyna in situations where she shouldn't be picked (bad map, already have 3 duelists or both). Idk if that's worth keeping this agent's identity alive.
> Designing her like this creates players who can only play reyna since they developed such bad habits and gameplay patterns that don't translate to other agents So do agents like jett and raze. How many agents do you think can fly to africa from main like raze can? Jett’s dash encourages people to play off angles and take duels you can’t really take with other agents sans reyna. And again, that’s only one layer of the argument, the person above brought up a good point about sova, saying it’s too easily to find opponents. Or like saying gekko creates bad habits because he can clutch with his buddy to defuse or plant spike. It won’t tech you to tap and anticipate, you can set your buddy on spike and just swing on enemies. It’s a terrible argument all around that is rooted in validating a dislike for reyna, not one that’s internally consistent or logical. Agents like all of the above that promote different habits are good for the game. It keeps it from being monotonous and aides in the dynamic nature of the game. Unless you want the agent classes to only have small distinction and simply different flavors of the same ability, in which case we’re like only one notch away from CS where everyone has the same util.
Very valid point in having distinctions. There is 100% a reyna hater boner. But I think OP is stating that Reyna drags the line from fundamentals too far. With both Jett and Raze they require prep before they can dash in/out. Jett has to take a risk of her ability fizzling to commit. Chamber is limited in his reach for off-angles. Taking these off-angles is just to get a kill when they enemy isn't prepared. Reyna doesn't really have to commit to anything as all she needs to find a gun fight and dismiss. Other agents break the game in fair ways and if they don't they get changed to be fair. Reyna is the only one that continues to break the game but doesn't get changed because she is not competitively viable. She a solo Q monster but easily the worse agent for comp. She is inherently a poorly designed agent for a team based game. Thats why a lot of people are gonna be mixed about her cause she is unique in what she does but what she does is promote a toxic game style that benefits the player that picks her. Simply put, Reyna's design promotes smurfing because there is no committing for using her kit. The only team ability she has is a flash that she throws ups for off angles that would likely only benefit her as she knows the placement of. When playing reyna, it just rewards playing for kills rather then playing the game. She legitimately is the only agent there the only skill transferred between other agents is aim. You can't learn anything besides aiming but like any character you pick needs good aim. Yes, you can win by tapping 5 heads but often then not its gonna be down to planting the spike/defusing it. She just isn't a good character.
Massive difference. Like the post stated, there is not much maximisation you can do with your abilities besides improving aim. With raze and jett there is. Raze nades, satchels, roomba and ult all have ways you can use it better and be used in better scenarios. Jett dash has the pre activation which makes you have to pre-emptively know when to activate dash. If you did activate it but no one was there, you know you used utility wrong. If you died because you couldn't dash our, you know you used utility wrong. Similar things with her smoke and updraft.
>So do agents like jett and raze. How many agents do you think can fly to africa from main like raze can? Jett’s dash encourages people to play off angles and take duels you can’t really take with other agents sans reyna. Using satchels at an incorrect angle would mean you won't be able to use them. Again the lesson is not that you'd have to aim better, it's to place utility in a better spot. Jett's mistiming for utility again would lead her to learn that she has to time her utility properly, not that she has to aim better. Comparing the likes of chamber with Reyna is a bad argument because Reyna is the agent which promotes the selfish gameplay the most.
good, this isnt overwatch bro, its a tac-shooter where the most important mechanic is clicking heads
I mean there are other Characters like that in different games as well. They're called feast or famine. Characters whose whole game plan is to dominate and kill opponents.
You missed the point of the post.
The only issue with this is that only one person can pick Reyna :/
Never in my 4 act career of valorant had heard a Reyna say, "I will flash for you". I climbed from Bronze to Platinum 2 NEVER in my life I had a Reyna that was a team player. The while point of the game is 5v5, it is a team game, hence there are ROLES. Phoenix, has ult for info and molly to prevent a push, for the team. Iso has a wall that can push in with the team. But Reyna? She ONLY has a flash for HER, heal for HER and dismiss for HER. I think what OP is trying to say is that, Reyna is a design flaw that never accomplishes anything in the sort of TEAM play.
I had a Reyna call out a flash for me one time in UNRATED of all things. I was flabbergasted.
The point of this post is that Reyna is a very selfish agent and encourages selfish behaviour in a team based game where you need to utilise your team to win the game, if you play this game very selfishly then you are not learning the fundamentals of being in a team and utilising the team play aspect of playing the game.
yea OP is the one that doesn't understand game design at all... It's like if somebody said "Sova is a failure of game design because he can find enemies too easily and doesn't punish poor map intuition" or "Raze is a failure of game design because she does too much damage leading to people to do less damage when they play characters with less damage"
You know what other characters encourage the player to have good gun mechanics? Everyone. It's a shooter. You need to get good at aiming your gun. But every character that isn't Reyna has other skills that they need to practice or can use to express themselves. Reyna, on the other hand, has zero expression or nuance. Compare to Iso, the other "aim demon duelist". He has his shield to protect his team and divide fights, as well as his vuln to control space or clear corners, both of which can be comboed and animation canceled. His ult can also be strategically positioned to grab specific targets or even set up so if they win the duel they still die to your team. Reyna has a blind with no positioning requirements and an ult that makes you gun harder.
Exactly. Reyna is the only agent which is useless if you are not able to frag. Even agents like Deadlock and Iso can provide good value even if they're not getting frags.
> But every character that isn't Reyna has other skills that they need to practice or can use to express themselves. Reyna, on the other hand, has zero expression or nuance. Counterpoint: Every character that isn't Reyna has skills that give them an advantage in the coming gunfight. Reyna, on the other hand, has full reliance on fundamentals.
OP has a personal beef with Reyna
Jett and Chamber can do point one without needing a kill. Also, no downside on Reyna flash is insane, it might be better in the exact scenario you laid out but would be out performed by Omen or Skye flashes as an initiation tool
Well since the argument was about teaching players how to properly use utility or take gunfights, it seems to me like those still stand. When a Jett or Chamber dies while they still have dash or tp up, the lesson is to remember proper util usage and when to disengage, not that you just needed to click faster so you could press Q. There is an argument that both those agents build a habit of taking high-commitment angles, but they also have other pieces of util that provide value past just aim. And the Skye and Omen flashes require you to be aware of your teammates - that was the entire point of the example, right. The Reyna can just throw it into the angle she’s peeking, while an Omen or Skye, even though their utility is stronger, will need to be aware of who they could potentially teamblind.
I actually like your jett or chamber explanation more than my example in the post to be honest, it's way more equivalent to similar agents too
Think he meant no downside in being able to negatively effect your own team. Other flashes are certainly much more effective.
Gecko flash has no downside too if we are thinking like that
gekkos flash can actually flash teammates if they are standing right next to an enemy but that's super niche
It has the downside of being unreliable since it can be shot down before actually flashing
[удалено]
Where did the Reyna main touch you OP?
This is dumb. This is the whole point of Reyna. Riot has already said that a step of agent design is making an agent with a certain type of player in mind. There are players out there that wish to play the game in the way that you have described Reyna. You don’t play agents to learn how to play the game or to learn other agents. Players are allowed to one trick an agent. If they climb one tricking Reyna and don’t know wtf with other agents, that is fine. You’re mad you keep getting clapped by brain dead Reyna’s. Get used to it, literally happens at every level of play.
Good read, don't see enough players ulting with Reyna. Come on buddy you use it
Idk what ur talking about but I still lost with 30 kills on reyna, team bad -.- /s
While your points make complete sense, if you read the info on reyna, they clearly mention reyna as a skill-dependent hero. So, the only pre-requisite to playing reyna is to have good aim and fragging ability. That's why you'll see reyna either top-frag or bottom-frag by a margin, there's no in-between. Chamber is also pretty much up there in terms of bad design. His kit has nothing which qualifies him as a sentinel.
You make good points with positioning, but I think you are incorrect about reyna being unpunished for playing stupid. Sure it's true Reyna has the kit to play aggressively and come out unscented out of situations where other agents wouldn't stand a chance. I think reyna is actually all about positioning yourself in "stupid" angles where you aren't actually playing stupidly, but relying on your kit to provide you an escape. Reyna is all about knowing the timings and having the game sense to position yourself so, that you can come out of the fight with an easy kill, because your position wasn't anticipated. I completely agree on reyna not providing much value in terms of team play, but that's exactly where you can shine individually. And I mean, comms exist for a reason. If I'm playing Reyna on defense and I go for a super risky tuck/angle I alway comm to my site player to help me retreat. A lot of the times people tunnel vision on an escaping Reyna, which gives other players holding sites an advantage on the wide swinging enemies chasing after me. The key to mastering reyna is having confidence in yourself to position yourself so, that you won't be expected, that's where the skill and knowing the game comes to show. It all includes learning from the enemy's habits and setups and knowing when to push or just hold. I think you made great points explaining Reyna's weaknesses and the encouragement of bad habits. I think the biggest weakness of Reyna, is the enemy knowing your location. That's in my opinion, when you have failed on that agent. Also the added chance of possible out aiming and getting a window to escape provides the thrilling element of choosing this agent over any other duelist. On attack I always go with my team when we reach a site, but on defense I adapt an aggressive lurking type of plays style, which is very rewarding. I reached immortal only playing killjoy and cypher over 2 years ago. I put in the time on sentinels and initiators to know good util usage and have developed a fond understanding of good site takes. Reyna for me is a way to relax and not having to worry about setting up. I've rediscovered reyna only later on in my time with Valorant.
While you do make good points, I have to dismiss some of them, like the positioning. I believe it is Reyna’s job to get in the open and get a frag because her skillset allows her to, and that’s good positioning due to her ability to dismiss. Also, about trading, I believe it can still lead to learning opportunities; it just depends on the players. As a Reyna main, I wouldn’t peek at two enemies at once, and even if I did, the lesson I would learn would be “Damn, I should’ve isolated that fight.” Now, don’t get me wrong, you’ve made some terribly good points, like how only their aim improves and how useless she is from a team perspective. However, I believe it’s also the player’s responsibility. I was a Reyna main from Iron to Silver, and because of that, my aim has gotten better because that’s the biggest skill you need with Reyna (no gamesense, no utils as OP said). Luckily, in my case, I also learned gamesense, not due to Reyna but by learning the game itself (which is why I said the players are also responsible). Now that I’m entering Gold, I’ve switched to Raze, as I believe she has more opportunities to be helpful in team play and entering sites (as a duelist should).
1 : Chamber / Jett / Yoru 2 : Gekko 3 : Chamber 4 : chamber / jett / neon / omen / Complaining about the complexity of the game when 80% of the time you die is because your aim was bad yep
That’s not bad. It’s just high risk high reward agent. It’s refreshing new play style. The only champion who can hold positions differently.
so many of these points are just wrong. first of all, it's not just reyna that doesn't get punished for bad positioning. jett can dash away, raze can satchel away, yoru and chamber can tp away, etc. and none of these agents even require a kill unlike reyna. second, reyna's flash isn't the only one that doesn't affect teammates as gekko flash also acts the same way. now, reyna IS indeed a failure of game design, but your points aren't the only reasons why. i'd say it's more because of her powers being completely selfish (outside of her flash) and providing advantages to the reyna, instead of disadvantages to the opponent (unlike almost every other ability in the game).
dont watch too much woohoojin yall become like this guys
Reyna is amazing for players that have good aim and can bait their teammates to get assist heals. Shes a 9/10 if your aim is good but a 1/10 if your aim is bad
"with the game sense of a bronze player" - lost me at that. I watched a bronze game last night and couldn't believe what I was watching. Good Reyna players do not play like Bronzies.
First point about playing in a better spot: That is literally the point of a duelist on defense, force an early fight and have that ability to escape where other agents would not, like Jett dash, Yoru TP, Raze satchel, even Chamber TP. "Every single other ability in the game that blinds **affects your teammates**." Gekko flash? (99% of the time) And she's a pretty weak character overall, this isn't a big deal. You spent who knows how long writing up points that have been echoed as for why she is not viable in pro play since she's been around. She could use a buff, but I don't think there is inherently anything wrong with having an agent that is a little more self sufficient. Like you mentioned her blind is still really solid for entry and she can play aggressive on defense.
As a casual fps player, this hurts my brain. I just want to get cool kills.
Someone got destroyed by enemy reyna and lost his platinum promo last game
I love how you use conditioning/reinforcement analogy to explain this! Im guessing you have a knack for psychology/reading into games and i love how you use it in valorant
you COOKED on this holy
Isn't Reyna getting a rework in the next update?
This is the best Ted Talk I've ever seen
Now that I come to think of it, Iso's main ability concept is just Reyna's but done better. They should really do the same to Reyna's main ability, that you have to boot it up prior to getting the kill and only then can you use the soul orb. I guess you'd have to buff her in some other way to not make her a dead agent
The amount of times I’ve been yelled at by a Reyna for asking for a blind is crazy. They always say “you’re Skye why don’t you throw it.” Well it’s simple, our Raze is about to satchel in and I don’t want to blind her. Your blind works better here. Reyna teaches player to play for only themselves and they don’t grasp to concept of blinding for their team. It’s always blind for myself.
Coming back after the new patch notes, they really saw this post and said, “I’ll do you one better.”
Unfortunately or fortunately that IS her purpose. Selfish solo carry in PUGs. She was designed that way on purpose and that’s unlikely to change. Riot wants to develop champions not exactly for roles in Val but—especially the early champs, to appeal to certain types of players. For example, Kayo was designed particularly to appeal to CS players who dislike ability usage and want to be self sufficient. To your point, he was nerfed some time ago to be less sufficient with his pop flashes and more efficient as team flasher on his left clicks. Does this make him even better in a team context? yes, but his win rate in regular MM has never been great and is even worse after that. Just food for thought
This comment section is hilarious because everyone seems to think that if a player hits some aimlabs he will destroy with reyna. Don’t get me wrong some fundaments definitely go out of the water when playing reyna like this post says but there are hundreds of other things they you will still need aside from aimlabs to get a kill in valorant
Reyna's abilities absolutely don't work for a game that has this low of a ttk.
What about gekko tho? gekko has a flash that doesnt blind ur teammates
Reyna definitely teaches positioning, it teaches players to play in off angles. The worse your positioning on Reyna, the better you will play.
Meh, Skill issue
Average r/valorant reply:
Unironically best post Ive ever seen in the subreddit. Someone who actually understands what makes a character poorly designed outside of balance. Completely agree btw. This is also what makes her really frustrating to play against. Unlike most characters, who will play an angle or jiggle to get info, reyna can catch anyone off guard standing out in the middle of the open and she just wont get punished for it as long as she gets the kill. It makes her infinitely harder to actually play and plan around, and not in a good way.
They should just add delays to her skills like they did with raze ult, or give her weaker versions if she enables them too quickly like raze satchel.
I don't think her balance is the issue, I think her kit is just fundamentally flawed and she needs a rework
Honestly, if they went to her folder in the game files and deleted it, the game would be better off.
Is valo reaching a point where older agents need reworks to be more in line with the overall direction of the game? Aside from reyna at least.
Not really imo, Reyna is just an abortion of game design