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The New Wave: Is the new Valorant agent "Harbor" any good?
It's been a week since the latest Valorant Agent Harbor was released. So let's examine the agent's abilities, understand them, and see if it's any good.
Harbor agent abilities:
- Harbor's signature ability, High tide(E), is a wall of water that can be freely controlled using a fire button and lasts 15s.
- The first basic ability of Harbor is Cascade(C), a wave of water slowing the enemies by 30s. The ability costs 150 Credits. Reequip will stop the wave.
- The Ultimate, Reckoning(X) creates a geyser pool stunning the agents in its AOE. The ultimate only costs seven ult points.
- The most highlighted part of the Harbor's kit has to be his Cove(Q). The 350 Credit ability creates a bullet-blocking smoke that has 500 HP and lasts 15 seconds if not interfered with. But, it dissipates when the Cove's shield is broken.
Harbor in a Valorant game:
First of all, It is to be understood that Harbor is not a replacement for Viper. It's an aggressive alternative to the agent. Both agents are entirely different types of controllers. While Viper is more defence-oriented, Harbor is offence-oriented.
The high tide is controllable and lasts 15s, and can be redeployed in a different area of a map, making the agent much more flexible than Viper on retakes and attacks. But the lack of crowd-controlling Viper's Snake Bite and Poison Cloud makes him less effective on defence.
The Cascade ability is to isolate duels so that while taking control, you can concentrate on a single area of the map without worrying about another part. While the tide also moves, allowing you to move, visually covering one of the multiple angles.
Now, onto Harbor's Ult, which is "easily-dodgeable", its purpose isn't to stun enemies but to force them out from the angle they are holding in an unfavourable position. Requiring only seven ult points, the ultimate will be great.
Finally is the most coveted and now disliked Cove, a supposed shielded smoke that'd help you defuse the spike in its cover, as shown in the Harbor's Trailer. That is not possible as, with only 500 HP, even a single player can break it in less than 2s, and abilities can still pass through the Cove.
Players can still use it to force a fight, to pop-flash out of a choke and multiple other ways, just not the one mentioned in the video. Especially in pistol rounds and 1v1s, the cove shines, as demonstrated by ex-100Thieves IGL steel.
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Harbor in Competitive:
The agent may not be a meta-breaking agent like Chamber or Fade. But Harbor can be an alternative Viper and a secondary controller and has its place in multiple compositions. Especially on Bind and Fracture, which facilitate faster rotations, Harbor will be a great addition to the composition. In the right hands, and with proper teamplay, Harbor will be a great offensive asset. Especially in a proper coordinated attack, Harbor's kit will shine.
With just one week, the Valorant community is disappointed in the agent, and a significant part of its reason is that Harbor's attention-grabbing cove is weaker than expected. But with time, People will understand the agent a fair bit more leading to more people trying the agent and coming up with interesting in-game tech and plays.
Image Source: Riot Games
