Valorant: Every Status Effect, Explained

Highlights

• Valorant’s unique abilities play a key role in shifting the game’s balance and must be understood for success in ranked mode.
• In-depth knowledge of status effects like Revealed, Vulnerable, and Deafen is crucial for counterplaying opponent abilities.
• New Agent additions bring fresh abilities and effects, emphasizing the importance of knowing enemy capabilities for effective strategies.

Unlike other tactical first-person shooter games, Valorant is defined by its ever-expanding roster of agents and their unique abilities. To excel in the game’s highly challenging ranked mode, players must understand how these abilities work, especially concerning the vast array of status effects.

Status effects, such as Concuss and Heal, can deal significant buffs or detrimental debuffs to players that can shift the balance of a match. Nonetheless, in-game information about these effects is hard to come by. The following are in-depth explanations of each Valorant status effect and their associated abilities to ensure players grasp how to counter and wield them effectively.

Updated on August 19, 2024, by Mehrdad Khayyat: As Valorant continues to evolve, Riot Games introduces new Agents that come with unique sets of skills and abilities to expand the game’s roster and offer new options in every available role. In between, some Agents also introduce new, never-before-seen effects that either influence themselves or other players.

As a competitive game, it is important for every Valorant player to know what each Agent is capable of. Even if a player mains only a few Agents, knowing what effects an enemy player’s Agent could leave on others is crucial, especially when the team is planning out its strategies for each round.

15 Reveal (Debuff)

Sova, Cypher, And Fade

One of the most impactful status effects, Reveal does just as its name suggests. It exposes a player’s position, highlighting their silhouette to the enemy team even through walls.

Various abilities apply the Revealed debuff on players, including Cypher’s Trapwire, Fade’s Haunt, and Sova’s Recon Bolt. Cypher’s Spycam and his Ultimate Neutral Theft also Reveal enemy positions. However, instead of real-time silhouettes, their outlines are slightly delayed still images. Players should try to run to cover and find spots that cannot be wall-banged when Revealed to avoid getting spammed by enemy gunfire.

14 Vulnerable (Debuff)

Killjoy, Viper, Astra, And Iso

The Vulnerable status effect in Valorant temporarily doubles the incoming damage the affected player takes from any source. As such, it is incredibly powerful when strategically combined with other abilities. For example, just one of Sova’s Shock Bolt will deal enough damage to kill any player afflicted with Vulnerable.

Killjoy’s Alarmbot, Viper’s Snake Bite, and Astra’s Gravity Well all inflict the Vulnerable status effect. Given its potent damage boost, Vulnerable players should delay engaging in combat until the effect has expired.

13 Deafen (Debuff)

Fade, Skye, Omen, And Reyna

Deafen is a simple audio debuff that severely decreases and muffles players’ in-game sound. Deafen makes players more susceptible to attack as they cannot hear footsteps or critical audio cues.

Several abilities cause players to become Deafened, including Fade’s Seize and her Ultimate Nightfall. All utility that applies the Nearsight debuff will also inflict Deafen. This includes Fade’s Prowler, Omen’s Paranoia, Reyna’s Leer, and Skye’s Seekers. Players should use voice communication effectively to counter this status effect.

12 Concuss (Debuff)

Neon, Harbor, Breach, Cypher, Skye, Astra, Gekko, And Deadlock

The Concuss status effect is an all-encompassing debuff that slows movement, reduces fire rate, restricts aiming down sights and blurs and grays vision. It also shakes the affected player’s crosshair and FOV while distorting their audio perception. This drastic impairment significantly hinders a player’s combat abilities and situational awareness.

Concuss, commonly referred to as Stun or Daze, is triggered by a diverse and broad range of abilities in Valorant, including Astra’s Nova Pulse, Breach’s Fault Line, and Deadlock’s Sonic Sensor.

11 Slow (Debuff)

Sage, Chamber, Harbor, And Deadlock

Slow is one of the more straightforward status effects, but that doesn’t make it any less effective. The mobility of a Slowed player is drastically impeded, with both their movement speed and jump height dramatically reduced. This can make escaping deadly scenarios next to impossible.

The Slow status effect is triggered by Sage’s Slow Orb, Chamber’s Trademark, and Deadlock’s GravNet, among many other abilities. All abilities that Detain or Concuss also apply the Slow debuff.

10 Tether (Debuff)

Fade, Cypher, And Astra

The Tether debuff is a crowd control status effect that causes agents to be held in a specific place and unable to move beyond a very limited radius. Tethered can be deadly to players if the enemy capitalizes on their limited mobility using gunfire or abilities.

Cypher’s Trapwire inflicts the Tethered status effect on players that activate it and subsequently Reveals and Concusses them. Fade’s Seize also Tethers players in place while Deafening and Decaying them. Players can counter this status effect using Teleportation abilities such as Omen’s Shrouded Step.

9 Combat Stim (Buff)

Brimstone, Reyna, And KAY/O

Combat Stim provides a buff to a player’s firing, reload, and recovery speed as well as additional speed buffs for specific abilities. Combat Stim is one of the most overlooked status effects. However, it can significantly enhance a player’s offensive abilities when used strategically.

Combat Stim is afforded to players using Reyna’s Ultimate Ability Empress, KAY/O’s Ultimate Ability NULL/cmd, and Brimstone’s Stim Beacon. In addition to the standard Combat Stim buff, Reyna’s Empress provides her with a speed boost to her equip time, allowing her to re-engage in combat more swiftly. Likewise, Brimstone’s Stim Beacon reduces his equip time and enhances his and his affected teammates’ movement speed.

8 Heal (Buff)

Sage, Skye, Reyna, And Phoenix

Unlike other character-based shooters, such as Overwatch, Valorant lacks a specific “healer” role. Fortunately, players can still rely on a trusty heal to save them during intense moments of battle. Health Regen can take many forms in Valorant, depending on the ability.

Reyna and Phoenix both have utility kits that make them self-sufficient, with Devour, Hot Hands, and Blaze allowing them to self-heal. In contrast, Skye’s Regrowth ability can provide healing to her teammates but not herself. Renowned for her support, Sage can use her signature ability, Healing Orb, to heal both her allies and herself.

7 Decay (Debuff)

Viper, Clove, And Fade

Decay is a potent debuff that gradually deteriorates a player’s health. If in a Decayed area or ability, the status effect can cause a player’s health to drop all the way to 1hp, drastically impacting their ability to withstand damage. Once out of the hazardous zone, the player’s health will slowly regenerate.

Fade’s Seize and Nightfall and Viper’s Poisonous Cloud, Toxic Screen, and her overpowered Ultimate Ability all inflict Decay. To counter this powerful debuff, players should avoid lingering in Decayed zones such as Viper’s Pit and prioritize regenerating lost health before initiating combat.

6 Suppress (Debuff)

KAY/O

The Suppress debuff means players cannot equip or use their abilities, and their already cast utility (such as Killjoy’s bots) will become temporarily deactivated. As such, the Suppress status effect can effectively alter the dynamics of Valorant gameplay to be more akin to conventional tactical FPS games, where the focus is more on gunplay than character-specific abilities.

Given the strength of this unique status effect, currently, KAY/O is the only agent that can apply it, using his ZERO/point blade and his Ultimate Ability NULL/cmd.

5 Detain (Debuff)

Killjoy And Gekko

Detain is a game-changing status effect that causes a player to become severely slowed and, more importantly, incapable of equipping anything, including weapons, the spike, or their abilities. The immobilized player cannot defend themselves and cannot plant or defuse the bomb, making it an easy win for the enemy team.

Given its power, the Detain status effect is currently reserved for Ultimate Abilities. Killjoy’s Lockdown and Gekko’s Thrash both inflict Detain while Deadlock’s Annihilation causes Cocoon, combining Detain with complete immobility and Blindness.

4 Marked (Debuff)

Sova, Cypher, And Fade

Fade’s unique Initiator kit introduced its own impactful status effect into Valorant called Marked. When Marked, a player’s movement is tracked by a Terror Trail, which the enemy can follow to find their current position. Fade’s Prowlers will lock onto any player with a Terror Trail and travel faster to them than if hunting an unmarked agent, which gives this intel-based status effect some offensive potential.

Marked is a complex status effect to counter, so it’s lucky that only Fade’s Haunt and Nightfall abilities currently employ it.

3 Blind (Debuff)

Omen, Gekko, Reyna, Fade, Yoru, Skye, Phoenix, And KAY/O

Blind is a familiar gameplay mechanic that is routine in tactical shooters. However, Valorant offers three versions of this status effect, each with unique characteristics.

Flashed is induced by abilities like Skye’s Guiding Light and causes a bright screen overlay, which can be dodged by turning away. Nearsightedness, triggered by abilities such as Omen’s Paranoia, limits vision to extremely close proximity and causes Deafened. Plasma Blind, introduced by Gekko’s Dizzy, is similar to Flashed but uses a splash visual to obscure the player’s vision. To counter the diverse Blinding abilities, players must anticipate and then dodge or destroy them.

2 Haste (Buff)

Clove

Haste is one of the relatively new status effects in Valorant that was added to the game when Clove was welcomed to the roster. So, it is exclusive to Clove, which gives them some sort of selling point compared to the other Agents.

When Haste is active, the player gains a small boost in the ability cooldowns, which makes them available faster. But that’s not all about this buff. Haste also slightly increases the player’s movement speed, which is quite helpful in swings. Clove can only gain Haste if they manage to press this ability’s hotkey within nearly 5 seconds of getting a kill or an assist.

1 Overheal (Buff)

Reyna And Clove

For a long time, Reyna was the only Agent in Valorant with the ability to Overheal herself, but now Clove has joined the club as well. This is an ability that could help entry fraggers a lot with retaining some extra HP even if they lose their shield during the gunfights.

Overheal is like Decay, but it works the opposite way. So, when it is active, the player’s health goes all the way up to 150, and then it starts to gradually decrease back to 100 over time. For Clove, it takes 12 seconds to lose Overheal, while for Reyna, this number is 25 seconds