Harbor, Valorant’s newest agent, has been met with valid criticism from pro players to content creators, all the way down to the average Valorant player. We’ll take a look at Harbor’s deficiencies, how they can be amended, and if he really is that bad of an agent choice.
Varun Batra, also known as Harbor, is the fifth controller Riot has added to Valorant. Hailing from the Indian coast, this agent’s abilities revolve around the bending of water. A few months have passed since his release on October 18th, 2022, with no notable changes made. But since his launch, players have been vocal about his weak and uninspired kit. With enough time passing for players to learn how to optimize his kit properly; is he really that bad? Or did we not know how to use him? Let’s take a look at his abilities, what he’s good and bad at, and if we can potentially fix his kit, so that he can see better usage within Competitive and Pro play.
Harbor is great at closing off the visibility of dangerous angles in a pinch. His High Tide and Cascade walls can quickly and easily isolate duels. Along with his Cove smoke, he can cover a lot of areas enemies may be holding.
Harbor is also pretty great at retaking. His Cascade ability allows him to move with a wall of protection in front of him, allowing him to solo retake a site when needed. His overwhelming sightline blocking abilities also makes it a lot easier for team retakes onto a site.
His Ultimate is also fairly useful (although some tweaks and buffs can help it). His ultimate can stop players from holding corners and forces them to move and change positions constantly, resulting in them being in vulnerable positions more often.
Harbor’s abilities are localized. His abilities are good for himself and anybody else helping him anchor or take a site. Unfortunately, it cannot be used across the map like other agents, like Astra, Brimstone, Omen, and even Viper to some extent with lineups. Localized abilities do not allow him to be as supportive as he should be.
One of the biggest problems with his kit right now is that none of his abilities punish opponents for playing through them. The Slow debuff that is inflicted on enemies is not a great deterrent for opponents attempting to take site. It does a horrible job of stalling enemies, who can simply flash through the walls for easy picks. Viper’s Vulnerable debuff is a bigger risk that opponents need to consider when taking space.
Because Harbor lacks the ability to punish opponents pushing his utility, it makes it impossible to delay the opposition. Any sort of delay ability is missing from his kit. Brimstone and Viper have a molly, Astra has pulls and stuns, and Omen has a blind. Opponents can just simply ignore his walls and smokes and disrespect any sort of utility used against them.
His smokes are fundamentally flawed. Harbor’s smokes offer a protective barrier against gunfire, something that should make him an instant pick, however the way it is implemented in his kit makes the entire smoke useless. It takes 12 Vandal shots or 13 Phantom shots to destroy the protective barrier. It might take a while for one shooter to take it down but, multiply that by two or three, and the smoke’s protective barrier goes down in an instant. What is even worse is that once the protective barrier goes down, the actual smoke dissipates 2 seconds later. This makes his smokes the worst for delaying the enemy. This 350 Credit ability for delaying the opposition can be banished in seconds.
Because Harbor’s abilities are localized, can be disrespected, and shot down, this makes his playstyle extremely one-dimensional. He offers no flexibility and adaptability in-game. The Cove to Cascade/High Tide pipeline is something you see a lot of Harbor players doing. Because his smoke cannot stay up for more than a few seconds, he must dedicate another ability to try to delay a push or close off sightlines. This means two of his abilities are already wasted when other Controllers can just use one ability to achieve the same thing. If Harbor uses the wall first, instead of the smoke, it is easy for the enemies to just flash through. This makes Harbor repetitive and predictable. Viper and Brimstone’s mollies and other Controller’s ability to set up one-ways makes it less predictable and offers more creativity and flexibility when defending a site.
Even if his abilities were good enough to stop pushes, they are still clunky to use. Abilities do not match the mini map indicator. Look up and his Cascade reach shortens, look down and it becomes longer. That is fine, however the end of the ability on the mini map does not match what happens in game. His Cascade wall will sometimes surpass what was shown on the mini map meaning Harbor players cannot be as precise as other Controller agents.
Along with his general abilities, his ultimate can also be clunky. Sometimes your teammates can get stunned by Reckoning. That in itself is fine, Breach’s ability can do the same, however it is much more RNG and adds much more uncertainty compared to Breach’s Rolling Thunder. Rolling Thunder rolls out a stun, which signifies where and when it’ll stun. This allows teammates to just follow behind. Since Harbor’s Reckoning is a bit more random when it will stun enemies, your ally can get caught in a stun because of the lack of stunning indication.
With all these deficiencies, why would you choose Harbor over Viper or Brimstone?
I am not sure he is fixable, but he most certainly can be usable with a few buffs. I do not think he will see much time in pro and highly competitive play without a rework. The most important thing that needs to be fixed is his smokes.
His smokes should stay up the regular amount of time even after the protection barrier is broken. That way you can still use a smoking ability normally, without having to worry about quickly walling after the enemies immediately destroy the smoke. Smoke abilities are quintessential to Controller agents, so his being able to dissipate in seconds is unacceptable.
A unique buff for his smokes would be to add a water vortex in the middle of them. This would punish opponents who try to push past it and allow some sort of delay ability to his kit. This vortex would work similarly to Astra’s Gravity Well ability.
Harbor’s smokes should also work like Viper’s smokes as well. Allowing you to throw it down and activate it on command would allow him flexibility in where he plays on the map. This will delocalize his smokes at least, so that he can play further away or at a different site.
Harbor’s ultimate should activate the water pulses faster. It is too easy to dodge the ultimate and relocating the enemies can work at a disadvantage. The Stun debuff is already a little weak, since it’s not uncommon for enemies to line up headshots while they are stunned. It should also not stun allies, who have to take on an unnecessary risk when pushing an area that has been ulted.
This is a question that Riot’s developers are facing right now. The way Harbor’s kit is created, buffs can make him absolutely broken and really change the meta for the worse. Right now, Harbor is disappointing and somewhat useless, but he is not negatively affecting the overall balance. Maybe, it would be okay to leave him as he is and just have him be an underwhelming character. Unfortunately, at the time of writing, picking Harbor in Agent Select is a throw. I mean… Viper is like right there. Why wouldn’t you use Viper?
