Vyse’s most OP Valorant ability won’t be her Ultimate
Riot GamesRiot Games has revealed Vyse, a Sentinel and Initiator hybrid, as its next agent in Valorant. While her Ultimate looks like her most overpowered ability, it should actually be her flash utility.
Vyse is the 25th agent added to Valorant and a Sentinel with abilities meant to trap enemies. Her kit revolves around setting up her wall and barbed wire to slow and damage enemies, then eliminating them easily.
Her Ultimate, Steel Garden, jams the enemy’s primary weapons forcing them to switch to their pistols if they want to shoot back.
While this ability is quite powerful, as all Valorant Ultimates are, I think her most OP ability that will cause players many headaches will be her flash, Arc Rose.
Arc Rose is a flash that Vyse players can attach to or place through walls and activate on command. Vyse is the first agent in the Sentinel class to have a flash, and players will soon realize why Riot hasn’t given a blinding ability to the class before.
Trap setups are already powerful in Valorant; they’re why Cypher and Killjoy always stick around in the meta. Vyse looks like she will continue in that same mold, but be able to disrupt enemy pushes much more aggressively thanks to her flash.
While this flash cannot be used on the fly like other Initiators that can activate them at will, Arc Rose will quickly become an incredibly annoying ability.
Her other utility, Shear and Razorvine, can trap enemies but players will be able to shoot back and potentially earn a kill. With the flash from Arc Rose in her trap setup, that should not be possible as players will be trapped and blinded.
The flash is the straw that will break the camel’s back for her power level. The rest of her kit looks balanced, but Arc Rose will make Vyse oppressive and impossible to counter.
Vyse’s flashy Ultimate might look incredibly OP, but it won’t always be available and will probably create an entire genre of highlight clips of players dying to pistols after activating it.
What will make Arc Rose overpowered is the fact that players can have it every round and that it is invisible once placed down. That means destroying it before it goes off will be impossible.
Riot has yet to reveal the specific numbers around Vyse’s abilities, but I find it hard to believe Arc Rose won’t be the most oppressive part of the new agent’s kit and that players won’t be calling for a nerf almost immediately.