At the core of Valorant’s complex gameplay is its diverse pool of Agents. Your character decides the abilities you have access to, and for the most part what archetype your playstyle has to fit into. New updates that bring Agents are some of the most exciting additions to the game that there is. Astra is the latest to come with Valorant Act 2 Episode 2. This new Agent is fairly unique in terms of playstyle, using abilities that are going to really reward high-strategic plays. Astra’s kit is some of the most interesting to be added to the game yet.
This Valorant Astra guide covers the latest Agent and everything you need to know. These are her abilities, how they work, and how you can get the most out of them. One thing to note with this Agent is that Riot have already promised some pretty big nerfs. One main one is going to remove her ability to watch the spike in her astral form. We won’t be dedicating space to the elements of her meta that are going to be removed at the first opportunity though, so this guide can help you actually master playing Astra, not just her early broken form. In general, this character is really quite different to what we’ve seen in the past.
Valorant Astra Guide – Abilities
Astra is a controller agent with some new abilities, but also some entirely new mechanics. All you’re going to be buying are stars, which can be turned into abilities. This obviously makes her economy pretty different. You trade these stars for one of these few abilities. You can use all your stars as one ability, but there is a cooldown on these so using different ones is simpler in a rushdown situation.
Astral Mode – Astra Passive Ability
With one press you can enter into Astral mode mode. Here you can place down stars wherever you need too. You’re going to need to be making pretty common use of this. These are some tips for how it works:
- The enemy can see your stars, so you can’t just throw them into enemy territory and attempt to take them by surprise.
- What the stars are going to turn into, however, is a mystery to enemies. So as Astra while your stars are visible, you’re not entirely exposed.
- The stars can’t be destroyed, aside from with gravity wells. So enemies can take them out.
- Place your stars in spots where they’re not immediately visible. If you’re using one in a doorway, place it where the enemy can’t spot it peaking. They can still hear it, but it increases your stealth just a little bit.
- There are some obvious placements for stars around chokepoints, lines of sight, and doorways. You can get a bit more creative too, but these points are going to be your bread and butter.
- You can return stars if you want to move them, although there is a delay. They smoke briefly when returned, so this is kind of exploitable if you’re timing things right. While this isn’t as much of an exploit as the spike watching thing, this might get cut down too. The duration at the moment for this ‘free’ smoke feels a bit too long.
- You can use Astral form to protect and control the flow of your teammates, if you’re really trying to play as the ultimate controller.
- You’re vulnerable as Astra when in Astral form, just try to do so in safety.
Gravity Well
Astra’s Gravity Well ability is a pretty fun ability. You can place a gravity well, if a player is caught in the AOE they’re pulled towards the center where it exploded. There is good potential for trapping players here. The obvious use beyond the effect of the well itself for area control. This ability is going to work great to keep players contained and clear them off of areas if you need to make space. These are some tips and tricks for using this one of Astra’s abilities:
- Players are pulled in and become fragile after the gravity well explodes.
- Be careful with placement. Your and your teammates get pulled in too and get the debuff just like enemies.
- Putting this one around ledges and windows works well. You can’t jump near it or you’re going to be pulled in.
- This has just a short cooldown, so it can be popped off fairly frequently if you’re carrying a lot of stars in that round.
Astra Abilities – Nova Pulse
This activates a star to detonate a nova pulse. This briefly charges, and then it strikes and concusses all players in its area of effect.
- This is a flash that concusses enemies.
- It also affects enemy utilities, so you can use it to clear out an area when needed.
- Your team needs to be ready to pounce on the concus debuff. This one might be best to set off in astral mode when you’re pulling a full ‘controller’ move.
- As far as traditional flashes go, it isn’t the most useful. The detonation whenever you want is kind of what makes it more interesting.
- Activate it when enemies breach a doorway or checkpoint that this is positioned by. It isn’t too useful to use it in a bigger firefight as it runs the risk of a teammate becoming concussed.
Nebula
This is a smoke, you can use the ability to turn a star that you’ve placed in Astral form into one. This one might feel like a traditional smoke, but like with all of Astra’s abilities the Astral form and stars element turns it into something a bit different.
The main thing to think about with this one is where to place and when to detonate. Placement applies the same rules as all other smokes in the game, so players are going to have a few spots in mind when thinking about it. The smaller dissipate smoke that comes from withdrawing a star is a smaller version of this. To a lot of players, the low-cost alternative might be more useful in more contexts. Try to get a feel for when you need to spend a full star as Astra.
Astra Abilities – Cosmic Divide
Cosmic Divide is the Ultimate ability here. With it, you have to select two locations. The cosmic divide then appears to connect these two points. The device sets up a giant wall, it also blocks all bullets and dampens audio considerably. These are some tips and tricks you can use to get the most out of it:
- This thing is kind of overpowered. It is huge and blocks out a lot of stuff. You can even ping it in Astral form.
- Abilities still travel through this, so keep your teammates aware of any problems that could still arise.
- Your own abilities will pass through too, but wasting them in a blind situation might not always be wise.
- This works great for dividing things off while you handle a spike. This basic play is going to be used a lot, especially with the audio damping.
- It doesn’t block the majority of abilities or Sova arrows, but at the moment a few are blocked by the wall.
- You need map knowledge to use this as well, it isn’t that complicated beyond that since it is one of the better ultimates around at the moment.
That’s all you need to know about Astra and how the new abilities work. This is one of the more exciting agents to come to Valorant in some time. If you’re looking to really step up the responsibility that comes with the controller role, then this agent might be for you.
Out other guides to Valorant can help you with any other aspect of gameplay you might need to look at:
- How to Get Valorant Skins – Guide
- Valorant Killjoy Guide – Abilities, Tips and Tricks
- Who is the Best Valorant Team?
- How to Counter-Strafe in Valorant
- The Best Valorant Team Composition