A Guide to Mastering Reyna with Pro Player Psalm - VALORANT Agent Guide
Reyna is one of VALORANT's most intricate duelists. In this guide, Psalm details exactly how to master her.
Perhaps the most intricate and precise duelist in the game, Reyna is one of the few characters in VALORANT that allows players to truly show off an incredibly varied and deep skillset. With an arguably loaded kit that includes a full flash, self-healing, and even invisibility, Reyna is by far one of the most versatile duelists in all of VALORANT.
In this guide, we’ll detail everything it takes to master Reyna. With a little help from Psalm, Dignitas’ main Reyna player on our professional VALORANT roster, we’ll cover the ins and outs of the agent and what makes her viable in not only the current duelist meta, but all of VALORANT. Additionally, we’ll touch on how to perfect the usage of Reyna’s many unique abilities, as well as how you can utilize her strengths in your climb up the VALORANT ranked ladder.
Perfecting Reyna’s ‘Slippery’ Playstyle
What makes Reyna so viable on her own is her ability to take each 1v1 gunfight on an individual basis. Her trademark ability, Devour, allows Reyna to heal herself back to a maximum of 150 HP in some situations after winning a gunfight. If Reyna straight up beats someone in a one-on-one battle, the idea of her being “lit” or damaged in any possible way goes right out the window. Part of what makes Reyna so strong is that she's able to reset the tempo of a round whenever she gets a kill.
If Reyna’s in aggressive situations where she’s going for the first pick, and if she doesn’t need to Dismiss, then she can heal right back up to full. It’s as if she never actually took a fight but you’re still up a player.
As an alternative to Devour, Reyna can elect to take advantage of a Soul Orb by casting Dismiss after getting a kill. This ability makes Reyna completely intangible to the enemy team. Vision of her will become blurry as she transforms into a sped-up, incorporeal version of herself. This ability in particular allows Reyna players to easily slip away from combat after getting a kill. In situations where Reyna might snag herself a quick takedown in a 1v2 gunfight, she can use Dismiss to escape from any further trouble.
Dismiss alone makes Reyna worth picking up.
Mastering these two abilities are going to be a crucial portion of what it takes to find success with Reyna. Interchangeably being able to keep yourself topped off on a gunfight-by-gunfight basis while also managing to slip away from enemies whenever they get a good look at you is part of what makes Reyna so annoying to play against. In stark contrast to other duelists such as Jett, Raze, and others, Reyna is a thorn in the side of any opposing team that can take advantage of a round truly by herself. In the right hands, Reyna has the potential to put away any situation through clever use of her abilities, alone.
Her strongest characteristic is her ability to play in positions that no other character can play and get away with. She can be off-angled, she can push up super deep into enemy territory and take these one-on-one engagements and still be able to follow up because of Dismiss.
If the enemy team manages to take a few chunks of HP off of an agent like Jett or Raze, they make progress towards taking them out of the equation entirely. Reyna, however, is a threat until she’s properly dealt with. Any misstep against her practically resets her round, making things much tougher for your teammates.
Playing Around your Team
Speaking of your team, it’s quite easy to feel like the center of attention when playing a flashy character like Reyna. Oftentimes, with so many tools at your disposal and potential for outplays, Reyna can promote a playstyle that alienates the other four members of her team.
In true duelist fashion, though, Reyna is one of the only characters in the game that demands her team play around her in many situations. While she’s certainly able to utilize her kit in a way that lets her hold her own in certain situations, such as lurking around a site on offense or attempting a solo retake on defense, Reyna is best utilized in many team compositions where the team plays around her.
You never want to take on Reyna alone. That’s where she wants to be.
Her playmaking potential is through the roof, and if a team’s Reyna player can swing the tides of a round early on, her teammates should take notice and adjust their strategies accordingly. If you notice that Reyna is off on her own, forcing the enemy team to rotate towards her, you, as her teammate, should rotate to Reyna’s position — especially if she’s going for a lurk play during the early stages of a round.
She wants to be in a 1v1 because usually the Reyna player on the other team is going to be the strongest fragger. Someone who’s confident in their ability to perform in a one-on-one engagement. You never want to be in a spot where Reyna can take you on alone. You always want to be with someone who can help you take her down together, take the eyeball down together, whatever it takes.
Part of what makes Reyna strong and unique as a duelist is her blind, Leer. The ability — perhaps Reyna’s most recognizable — showcases a large purple eyeball that completely obscures vision from the enemy team until it’s killed. This ability is castable through walls, making it extremely strong as a “flashbang” of sorts. Only agents like Breach and Omen have abilities that can obscure vision directly through a wall and don’t need to be directed by the player. Keep in mind that both of those characters in particular don’t fall into the “duelist” category. Giving an ability like this to a character like Reyna, who has the potential to capitalize upon it all on her own, is extremely dangerous.
The biggest thing that new Reyna players can focus on is where they throw their flashes. If you know you’re going to use Leer, you want to place the flash in a position where the enemy has to take their crosshair far away in order to shoot it. So place the eyeball either high up or down on the ground. You never want to throw your flash at body or head level because you’re just making things easy for them.
However, there are ways for her teammates to capitalize upon Leer, as well. The eyeball takes a few shots to kill. Only one weapon in the game, the Operator, is able to take it down in one swift shot. Every other weapon in VALORANT needs to do a bit of unloading before vision can be restored. With this in mind, there’s going to most certainly be a window in which Reyna’s teammates can barge onto a site or into a choke where an eyeball is cutting vision. If Reyna’s team pushes onto their enemies while their vision is obscured, the opposing team will have to either waste their team shooting the eyeball or hope to get lucky with a “spray and pray” style of approach into the unknown. Either way, Leer gives Reyna and her team a massive advantage if used in conjunction with other players.
Counterplay
While Reyna might appear to be one of the toughest characters in the game to deal with, the counterplay to her abilities and general playstyle is relatively straightforward when compared to other duelists.
Just make sure that even if she does manage to get the first kill and get away, you force her to use Dismiss and not to be able to just heal up for free.
Since she can snowball rounds out of control essentially by herself, Reyna players should be prioritized in any gunfight. Keeping her alive and prioritizing other targets allows Reyna to make quick work of the enemy team. Make sure to take her out as soon as possible, as not many other duelists in the game can perform as well as she can in sticky situations.
When it comes to playing against Reyna’s abilities, the one with the most counterplay is obviously going to be Leer. In a simple situation, all that enemy players are going to have to do upon seeing the eyeball spawn is simply kill it before Reyna and her team have the chance to jump on you.
The strongest, and maybe only way to play against Leer is literally just to shoot it. It’s not really the strongest ability. But, it does work really well at lower levels because players will see the eye and start to freak out. But, at the higher levels, you need to be shooting the eye as soon as it leaves her hand.
Another solid strategy to deal with Leer is to have two players positioned around an angel where you think Reyna is going to peek from. Once the Leer appears, you can have one player fire shots into the eyeball while the other aims at the most logical place where Reyna is going to peek from. Keep in mind that although Reyna works well with her allies, she’s also easily beaten by a group of enemies.
You’re at your weakest against the eye if you’re in a strict 1v1 against Reyna. If you’re with your teammates, the eyeball is going to be easier to shoot down, but if you’re in a 1v1, she can make you shoot the eyeball and take your crosshair off.
As for her other abilities — the ones that revolve around a Soul Orb — Reyna has to be taken care of quickly. Keeping tabs on her position during Dismiss is a good way to take her by surprise once the intangibility wears off. Additionally, if you fire shots into her during the brief moment in time where she’s collecting a Soul Orb with the intention of healing, you can catch Reyna off guard and negate much of the self-healing that she can attempt to take.
Additional Tips and Tricks
Dismiss is an ability that’s usually most utilized to get away from a dangerous situation. However, if there is another opportunity to capitalize on another gunfight lurking on the horizon, Reyna can use Dismiss to peek around another angle or through another doorway to prep herself for the next one-on-one situation.
Reyna players should always be exploring off-angles in the game. With Dismiss, you’re able to play these one-and-done spots that other agents aren’t able to play. Try and look around the maps and find places and angles that will give you an advantage in a one-on-one trade where you can also get out safely after.
The best weapons to use when playing Reyna are traditional rifles such as the Vandal and Phantom. While other duelists such as Jett might find success with long range weapons like the Operator, Reyna is all about getting into the nitty-gritty skirmishes that VALORANT has to offer. When saving, cheaper options such as the Stinger and Spectre are viable, as well.
Reyna plays unlike most agents on the VALORANT roster. However, if she’s picked by one of your teammates and you want to still practice a similar playstyle, other duelists with high playmaking potential — namely Jett and Phoenix — are strong alternative picks.
