In Valorant you don’t pick a class but an agent: a character with four abilities that you buy and use every round alongside your weapon. That’s what makes Valorant different from a classic shooter: everyone can aim, but a match is often decided by who throws a smoke in the right spot. Let’s go through how the agent system works, what the four roles do, how many agents the game has, how you unlock them and which ones are worth starting with.
How the agent system works
Every agent has four abilities: two basic ones you buy with credits in the round’s buy phase, one signature ability (it comes back for free at the start of the round or recharges with kills) and an ultimate. You can’t buy the ultimate: it charges from kills, deaths, collected ultimate orbs and planting or defusing the spike.
Abilities aren’t a substitute for shooting. In most rounds you get killed by someone with a gun, not by a spell. An ability is there to set up a situation where the gunfight almost wins itself. A smoke over one angle means you deal with one opponent instead of three. How to work with that varies from map to map, so it’s worth going through our overview of maps in Valorant too.
The four roles and what each one does
Riot splits agents into four roles. A role isn’t a label but a job description: it tells you what the rest of the team expects from you and when you should be up front in a round and when you should hang back.
Duelist: goes in first and looks for fights
Duelists have abilities built around getting into a fight on their own and winning it. Jett has a dash and an updraft, Raze has satchels she uses to launch herself where nobody expects, Neon sprints and slides, Phoenix sets a wall on fire and runs past it. None of that helps the rest of the team: a duelist opens up space with their own body.
The duelist enters the site first and the rest follow. Duelists look best in highlights and lose the round fastest when they run ahead without support.
Initiator: finds out where the enemy is and pushes them out of position
The initiator makes a site entry possible. Sova fires a recon bolt that reveals half the site. Skye releases a bird that blinds anyone looking at it. Breach fires flashes and concussions through walls. KAY/O’s knife completely suppresses enemy abilities for a few seconds. Without an initiator, an attack looks like five people running into the unknown and hoping.
Controller: splits the map with smoke
The controller is the only role that can change the shape of the map. Smokes cover angles the team would otherwise have to clear and turn a wide site into a narrow corridor. Brimstone drops smokes from the map as if from a command tent, Omen throws them anywhere and teleports himself, Viper builds a long toxic wall. A good attack is practically impossible without a controller, which is why in ranked someone almost always picks one first.
Sentinel: holds what the others have taken
The sentinel keeps watch. On defense they lock down a flank of the map alone so the rest of the team can stand elsewhere; on attack, after the spike is planted, they make sure nobody comes from behind. Cypher sets up tripwires and a camera, Killjoy builds a turret and an alarmbot, Sage builds a wall, slows enemies and is the only one who can heal and revive teammates. It’s the least flashy role and at the same time the one where a good player wins the round by making sure the information arrives in time.
How many agents the game has and how to unlock them
As of patch 13.05 (1 September 2026), Valorant has 29 playable agents. The number grows by roughly two to three a year, because Riot keeps adding new agents with new acts.
You don’t need all of them. A new account starts with a small free group, traditionally Brimstone, Jett, Phoenix, Sage and Sova. You unlock the rest in two ways:
- Kingdom Credits: in-game currency earned by playing and from daily missions. An agent costs 8,000 KC, you can’t hold more than 10,000 at once and you can’t buy them with money.
- Valorant Points: the paid currency. An agent costs 1,000 VP, roughly the price of a smaller skin. What costs money in the game is covered in our article on prices in Valorant.
A newly released agent also has an Agent Recruitment event: a limited period after release when you progress by earning XP and when the agent can’t be bought with Kingdom Credits. After the event ends, the agent becomes a regular unlock for 8,000 KC.
Agent Gear is a separate matter: rewards tied to individual agents. So far they have been unlocked with Kingdom Credits, but in patch 13.05 Riot announced that this changes from 13.06 (22 September 2026) and gear will be tied to time played with the given agent.
Which agents are the most rewarding for beginners
Don’t look for the strongest agent in the current patch; that won’t hold a month from now. Look for an agent where you immediately see what the ability did:
- Sova (Initiator). You fire a recon bolt and enemy outlines pop up on the minimap. Either they’re there or they aren’t, so you know right away whether you picked a good angle, and you learn to read where opponents tend to hold.
- Brimstone (Controller). He places smokes from the map, so you can think them through calmly and learn which angles need covering. His molotov drives people out of corners, and his ultimate is the simplest in the whole game.
- Sage (Sentinel). Wall, slow, heal, revive. None of it requires precise aim, and the team genuinely appreciates all of it.
- Phoenix (Duelist). A classic duelist without complicated mobility. With him you learn to flash and enter sites without worrying about satchel jumps or dash timing.
Jett, Raze, Chamber, Yoru and Astra, on the other hand, only make sense once you have the basics down. They aren’t harder to control, but they punish mistakes faster: Jett without good aim is just a player who launched herself into the middle of five enemies.
How to build a decent team composition
Nobody coordinates in advance in a ranked match, but there’s a setup that works almost every time: one controller, one initiator, one sentinel and one or two duelists. The fifth slot is flexible depending on the map and what the team is missing.
The practical rule is: look at what your teammates picked and fill the gap. A team with four duelists loses not because duelists are weak, but because nobody has smoke. That’s why it pays to know at least two agents outside your favorite role. You don’t have to play them brilliantly; it’s enough that you can fill the gap with them. The higher you climb the ranked ladder, the more it shows.
Spending ties into team composition too: abilities and weapons are bought from the same wallet, so an agent who needs both basic abilities every round has to choose in eco rounds. What’s worth buying when is covered in our overview of weapons in Valorant.
FAQ
As of patch 13.05 from 1 September 2026, the game has 29 playable agents in four roles: Duelist, Initiator, Controller and Sentinel. Riot keeps adding new ones, so the number will grow.
Some of them. A new account gets a basic group of agents, and you unlock the rest either with Kingdom Credits (8,000 per agent), which you earn by playing, or with paid Valorant Points (1,000 VP). Money only buys you speed, not an advantage.
Sova, Brimstone, Sage or Phoenix. All four have abilities where you immediately see what happened, and they don’t require precise timing or complicated mobility. Leave Jett and Raze for later.
No. Every player on the team has a different agent, and you pick it before the match starts; you can’t switch during the match.
You don’t buy it. It charges from kills, your own deaths, planting or defusing the spike and collecting ultimate orbs placed around the map. How many points an ultimate needs differs from agent to agent.
Information verified as of 9 September 2026. The number of agents will grow with every new act, so double-check it after a bigger patch. Where each agent shines depends on the map, and we cover those in our article on maps in Valorant. Before you jump into the game, take a look at requirements and settings; the rest of the guides for the game are in the Valorant section.