Valorant's Episode 2, Act 2 update is almost here – and it'll introduce Astra, a brand new Agent.
"Ghanaian Agent Astra harnesses the energies of the cosmos to reshape battlefields to her whim. With full command of her astral form and a talent for deep strategic foresight, she's always eons ahead of her enemy's next move," Riot says.
Riot has already promised balance tweaks are coming since Astra's abilities mean she can essentially watch the Spike while in her astral form.
Sure, she can't spot the enemies, but she can see when the Spike is being planted.
Riot's Altomnbre commented on the game's Reddit – noting that a fix is coming.
"Being able to see bomb defusal status in Astral Form? Yeah, we don't like this behavior and are looking into options now. I'm not sure how easy/difficult changing this would be since I'm not an engineer, so I can't make promises on timelines, but we're not fans of this behavior and are seeing what we can do."
Still, for now, here's what this new Controller-role Agent can do.
Astra's Abilities
Here are Astra's abilities.
C: GRAVITY WELL
Place Stars in Astral Form (X)
ACTIVATE a Star to form a Gravity Well. Players in the area are pulled toward the center before it explodes, making all players still trapped inside fragile.
Q: NOVA PULSE
Place Stars in Astral Form (X)
ACTIVATE a Star to detonate a Nova Pulse. The Nova Pulse charges briefly then strikes, concussing all players in its area.
E: NEBULA
Place Stars in Astral Form (X)
ACTIVATE a Star to transform it into a Nebula (smoke).
F: DISSIPATE
Use (F) on a Star to Dissipate it, returning the star to be placed in a new location after a delay.
Dissipate briefly forms a fake Nebula at the Star’s location before returning.
Astra's Ultimate
X: ASTRAL FORM / COSMIC DIVIDE
ACTIVATE to enter Astral Form where you can place Stars with PRIMARY FIRE. Stars can be reactivated later, transforming them into a Nova Pulse, Nebula, or Gravity Well.
When Cosmic Divide is charged, use SECONDARY FIRE in Astral Form to begin aiming it, then PRIMARY FIRE to select two locations. An infinite Cosmic Divide connects the two points you select. Cosmic Divide blocks bullets and heavily dampens audio.
Developer Interview:
"With Astra we wanted to make a controller that was thinking about the whole map. Her global presence was there right from the beginning. From there the fine tuning was in finding the right abilities to balance predicting enemies’ actions and reacting to changing game circumstances," explains Jordan "Riot Wrekz" Anton, designer.
"We love that Astra has a (literally) different perspective on the map and from that top-down view starts naturally thinking about all the different ways a round could go and how to account for them."
"However, you can’t always be in the driver's seat dictating the flow of a round, so giving her some ability to react and change her plan was critical, though dangerous, as you leave your physical body vulnerable. We wanted her skill expression to be about gathering information and turning that into a plan, where the execution phase is less about precisely targeting a grenade throw and more about seeing if your read on the enemy came together how you hoped."
As for Astra's visual style? The team leaned on a specific concept.
"African Futurism was a huge inspiration for us when it came to designing Astra’s thematics, once that element was brought into her development all the pieces naturally fell in place", reveals John “Riot MEMEMEMEME” Goscicki, character producer.
"Ascending above the map to place her “Stars” is such a huge part of her kit, and there are amazing cohesive representations of African Futurism X Space that we were able to pull from. From there it was also about making sure there was enough of a real world grounded element to her personality and character design. To make sure those grounded elements were represented properly we worked with a consultant from Ghana on the details."