New Valorant Agent Reyna revealed: Abilities, gameplay & lore

Agent 11 is coming to Valorant, and Riot Games have finally revealed more about their Mexican one-woman-army as well as a first look into her abilities.

Just like with the other Agents in the game, Reyna will have a slight tweak to the HUD considering how two of her abilities are pooled together. If her brief Agent trailer was any indication, players will have to switch into the ‘carry’ mentality to make full use of her kit.

Reyna looks to have a heal, blind, and constantly regenerating lifebar, as long as the player hunts down another kill to their tally before the cooldown dwindles. Each of her abilities have been explained in more depth by Riot themselves, but here’s a short summary:

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Reyna’s abilities

• Ability 1 (C) — Blinding: Cast an Orb that blinds enemies within the vicinity. Enemies can see and destroy the orb while blinding.
• Ability 2  (Q) — Soul Catcher: Reyna’s health can regenerate to fill by absorbing life from Soul Orbs. Collect Soul Orbs from corpses that you kill.
• Signature Ability (E) — Invulnerability: Reyna can temporarily become invulnerable to incoming damage, by using power from Soul Orbs. Collect Soul Orbs from corpses that you kill.
• Ultimate Ability (X) — Sleight of Hand: Temporarily increases rate of fire, decreases reload time and speeds up your skill usage.

After her first kill onto Cypher, a purple Soul Orb drops from his body which Reyna can collect before it disappears. These orbs lets the Agent heal to full health (plus up to 50 Armor) using one of her Signature Abilities.

The trailer shows that Reyna has two abilities that share the same pool of charges. This is because Soul Orbs let her heal, like previously mentioned, or become invulnerable while being unable to shoot for a few seconds.

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One of her core abilities seems to be a blind she can send through walls and leave hanging suspended in mid-air.

Her Ultimate, called ‘Empress,’ enhances her Soul Orb abilities and the trailer shows her enemies draped with a red highlight. Reyna’s ult increases her rate of fire, speeds up her reload and resets her recoil with every kill she gets.

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To keep her Empress activated, Reyna needs to kill an opponent to reset the constantly decreasing bar.

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Gameplay with Reyna’s abilities

 

In the trailer, Reyna is navigating a 1v5 on what looks to be the new map that Riot has been teasing. Reyna has capabilities in her kit that no other Agent has.

Because of her regen ability, she can actually Overheal up to 50 HP, effectively giving her the chance for a regenerating Heavy Shield.

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Players will be pressed for time to track down their next kill, seeing how it will refresh the ultimate’s active ability. This is reminiscent of Viper’s ultimate in which she has to stay within her plume of gas to keep it alive, however this Agent needs constant kills.

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Reyna’s lore in Valorant

The newest Agent might be more of a hot-head than Phoenix, and with a sinister personality to compliment her blood-thirsty kit.

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Reyna, which translates to ‘queen’ in Spanish, hails from Mexico, and can be heard saying “give me your heart” after getting the kill onto Cypher in the teaser.

Upon activating her Empress Ultimate and getting yet another elimination, she says “they will suffer” and “more, more” when collecting a purple orb.

It sounds like Reyna was made to be one of the game’s more aggressive Agents, and players will have to play like it to unleash the upcoming character’s full potential.

There’s a lot more to discover about the bloodthirsty Reyna when Valorant officially launches on June 2.