It hasn’t been long since Valorant was released and quickly rose in popularity. People from various games shifted to Valorant in a race to learn the game quicker than the rest. Yet, it is still a growing game and people continue to join. It is important for these players to learn the abilities of each agent to strategize better.
The easiest way to read what your agent’s abilities do is to press F1 in the game. You can also press F1 when spectating an ally. Abilities are displayed at the start of the game, and you can press Alt at any time in the game to view which abilities your allies have available. You can read what the abilities do outside the match as well.
Not only do you need to be aware of what abilities your own agent has, but you might also want to be constantly aware of what your allies are equipped with. Valorant is different from standard FPS in this regard, as proper ability usage can produce outplays that no gun in the game would be able to.
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Why You Should Check Abilities
There can be multiple benefits to checking your abilities or your allies’ abilities. During a match, you can check your own abilities to know how your agent is supposed to be played. This is useful if you are new to the game or are trying out a new agent. You can also do this during spectator mode.
Knowing which abilities are available to your allies can help you strategize better for the round. For example, you might be flaming your Sage player for a heal that they may not even have. In such cases, simply checking which abilities they have available can prevent this confusion. You can make plays depending on what abilities you expect your teammates to have instead of taking wild guesses.
Checking which ultimates are available is an important step in prioritizing targets or playing around certain agents. If you are prepared, you can play around an ultimate much better than simply getting caught off-guard.
Holding F1
On Yourself
Pressing F1 when you are alive and playing an agent will display your own abilities at the bottom of the screen. Short descriptions of these abilities are also present.
On Teammates
During a match, if you die, you can spectate your teammates. During this spectator mode, you can press F1 just like you would do on your own agent. This displays the details of the agent you are spectating.
Ally Ability Availability
The method listed above only displays abilities that are built into the agent’s kit. During a match, players buy and spend abilities as per required, so how can we check which abilities are up at any moment in a round? There are two main ways to check your allies’ abilities without actually dying and spectating them:
Start Of The Match
When the match starts, the abilities your allies have appear on top of their agent. Their HUD displays their equipment and cooldowns, which is a good way of knowing what your teammates are planning.
Pressing Alt
In the middle of a round, you can easily check what abilities your allies have left by pressing Alt. This displays the abilities on top of their agents similar to how they appear at the start of the match.
Previously, you could only see the abilities of the agents you were looking at when pressing Alt. Thankfully, this was changed fairly quickly and now it displays every single ability of every single ally when pressing Alt.
Ultimates
Checking which agents have ultimates available is actually the easiest thing to do as it does not even require the press of a button. Simply look at the top of your screen, and you can see the HUD with 5 agents displayed on each side. Agents that have their ultimate ability available will have a yellow highlight behind their portrait. This highlight remains until they use their ultimate.
Checking Outside Of Match
Valorant Website
The easiest way you can read up on agent abilities is to simply visit the official Valorant website, which can be found here. The website lists all the agents currently available in the game, and details of their abilities. There are also handy video clips demonstrating how the ability operates.
Agents Tab
During Agent Selection
The last option is simply looking at your abilities while selecting an agent. Once you click on an agent, you can view their abilities in the lobby before loading into the game. If you are trying out new agents or are simply new to the game, this can be helpful as it provides you with a general idea of how your agent works.
Conclusion
It is important to be aware of the different abilities present in the game. There is a wide variety of agents to pick from in the game and each one offers a different set of abilities. Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of each agent based on their ability usage will definitely help you improve your play and plan better for what the enemy has to offer.