- These agents often have a pick rate of just 1-2%
- They are not always bad agents but are often map specific or hard to use
- At a 1.3% pick rate, Harbor gets the inglorious award for the least-picked agent
We’ve tried to gather a list of the least-played agents in VALORANT and briefly explain why this is the case.
Least-picked VALORANT Agents
Games featuring many characters often have some meta-plays that seem to be utilized often because of their strengths, versatility, or ease of play. This often necessitates them to be banned by players, often topping the most banned charts, such as the list of most-banned League of Legends champions of 2022.
VALORANT is another game that has a lot of different and unique characters players can choose from. Like other hero-based games, the shooter also sees many of its agents being particularly often played because they’re strong. However, there are many whom we see very rarely and we’ve tried to list the least played characters and briefly explain why that might be.
Starting off the list is Astra. Her ability to use smokes as stuns and pulls makes her extremely good on well-coordinated teams, and she is a good smokes character in general. However, it’s precisely her skill that seems to be her bane in low-level or non-professional play. She shines mostly when the communication between team members is good, which is why you might see her a lot in the VALORANT Champions Tour. However, with a 2.3% pick rate, it’s clear that she is too tough for most casual and solo players to use.
Continuing the trend for map and team-specific agents is Neon. From the get-go, she was designed to be an aggressive duelist, but when play slows down, a lot of her kit becomes a lot harder to get value out of. Neon is a great pick on maps like Fracture, but if your teammates are not as fast as you, you might find yourself playing alone. This reliance on good teamplay and communication is probably why Neon currently sits at a 2% pick rate.
At a 1.3% pick rate, Yoru is the second least picked VALORANT agent. Although his kit is unique, especially with his signature ability Gatecrash which allows him to teleport, it’s somewhat difficult to use. This once again makes him quite a map-specific agent and just generally more difficult to get comfortable with.
Topping the inglorious list is one of the game’s newest characters – Harbor. Now, a few months after his introduction in VALORANT, he remains one of the lesse4r picked agents. While his kit is useful, it’s not that valuable on most maps. His wall and his Cove ability seem to be underwhelming and useful mostly on maps like Lotus or Haven.
With a pick rate of just 0.9% across almost all ranks, Harbor remains the least-picked VALONAT agent. His pick rate was not helped by the fact Harbor was temporarily disabled in November due to his glitchy ultimate that caused massive lag spikes. Even then, fans urged VALORANT’s developers to buff the agent, but that didn’t result in much.
Of course, just because an agent has a low pick rate doesn’t mean they are necessarily bad. Sometimes it’s just up to the players to get good at using them or find the ideal blend of map and team to play them. Still, it would probably be a good idea for VALORANT’s devs to look at these specific agents.