How to win Haven on defense in VALORANT: Best agents and strategies

Haven is one of only two maps in VALORANT with three sites, which makes it notoriously difficult to defend. Instead of going all out to overcompensate with offensive strategies on Haven, there are a few things you can do differently to bolster your defenses and win more rounds.

From the best overall strategy and outlook to what agents are best for the job, here is our guide for defending on Haven.

The best strategies for defense on Haven

When defending on Haven, or any map in VALORANT, it’s important to understand the characteristics of the map that make it unique. While basic defensive principles apply to any map in the game, in Haven’s case, there are two main things that make it stand out.

First and foremost, the map’s three sites create a unique challenge, forcing your team to spread their numbers thin across your defensive line. We recommend spreading your team out to have two players on A site, one player on B site, one player in C garage, and one player holding C site. This way, you can have one player guarding each entry point to a plant zone: A long, A short, B main, C garage, and C long.

This strategy should give you enough coverage to get information from multiple areas of the map. But being spread out means that in nearly every imaginable scenario, your team will have less manpower in an engagement fight. Therefore, your teammates will have to get used to rotating strategically. Notice we aren’t putting the focus on rotating quickly, but rather strategically, as knowing when to stand your ground is also important.

If you rotate too quickly off of a site at the first hint of presence on another, you leave your team with not only no defense on the site you’re leaving but more importantly no information. On a map like Haven, where you will likely always be undermanned when defending, getting information about enemy positions rather than having an aggressive defense is usually a better call. Don’t take fights by yourself. Get the information you can and relay it to your team.

Speaking of rotating too early, it’s also important to not burn too many of your abilities too quickly on defense. Of course, if you’re stuck with no other options, you should throw everything but the kitchen sink at your enemies, but if you’re communicating right, those situations should be few and far between.

If you use up all of your utility too early in the round, your opponents can simply rotate to one of the other two sites on the map, and you’re stuck with no more smokes. Trust me, as a Brimstone player, I’ve been there way too many times.

The second important thing about Haven (that actually works in favor of defenders, at least most of the time) is that the sites themselves are quite small. Though each site has its corners and tricky areas where attackers can set up for a post-plant scenario, the actual surface area where the spike can be planted is very small. You can use this to your advantage when choosing your agent composition.

The best VALORANT agents for defense on Haven

The best agents for defense on Haven are self-sustaining and have flexible utility. You want a balance between agents who can stand their ground in a tricky situation, but can also utilize their abilities in a wide variety of situations.

Sage

Sage is a great option for Haven, specifically to hold the B site. Her wall cuts off the entire entry point, which gives attackers more room to move around in mid, but no way to get to B site unless they flank around.

In addition, Sage is one of the only agents in VALORANT who can heal themselves, meaning she can afford to take a bit of damage and still rotate, back off, and come back to the fight later.

Her Slow Orbs are also an essential piece of utility on this map, as she can delay an offensive push to give her teammates more time to rotate.

Omen

Omen is probably the best controller you can have on Haven. Omen is an ideal choice for one main reason: His smokes recharge.

The flexibility of Omen’s smokes allow him not only to place many, meaning he can utilize them on multiple sites in a single round, but he also has some of the most precise smoke placement in the game. The precision with which you can set up your Omen’s smokes rivals perhaps only Astra as far as controllers go, giving your team a highly flexible piece of utility.

In addition, Haven’s small sites and tight corridors are almost made for Omen’s paranoia flash. He can hit many enemies at once and leave them stuck, only to end up dying. He is excellent for re-taking sites if your team decides to back off.

KAY/O

KAY/O may not be the best initiator on Haven overall, but he is excellent on defense.

Initiators have one primary goal: To get as much information for their team as possible. As attacking initiators, these agents can extend into new places to scout for their team or use their utility to do so. On defense, some of this information tends to be less useful, except for KAY/O’s knife.

KAY/O’s knife is so great because you don’t just see how many people are in an area, but also exactly who they are as well. It can help you work out which site your enemies are aiming to end up at, versus where they want to sell a fake.

In addition, KAY/O’s knife is an excellent delay tactic as it prevents enemy utility usage, which will help your team rotate or regroup to assess your defensive strategy. His ultimate is also a game changer, and works well in Haven’s tight spaces and small sites. Overall, KAY/O has excellent, flexible multi-faceted abilities that should help improve your defensive game.

Astra

Astra is one of the most flexible agents in VALORANT, because she can use so many different utility options at a moment’s notice, anywhere on the map.

This means that Astra excels at helping out teammates who may be on the opposite side of the map from her. Does your Killjoy holding C site need a smoke ASAP? Astra’s got you, and she can do it faster than any other controller agent.

Keep in mind that Astra is one of the hardest agents in the game to play, but she can be a great pick on Haven, and also works well in various attack strategies.

The worst VALORANT agents for defense on Haven

The worst agents for defense on Haven are weak at everything the above agents excel at. Perhaps they have a singular niche, tend to burn their utility too quickly, or fail to adapt to changing situations around them, you should avoid these VALORANT agents on Haven at all costs.

Brimstone

Brimstone has the luxury of being able to use three smokes at once, blocking off an entire site completely. The downside is that once he’s used those three smokes, they don’t come back. This will come back to haunt you when the enemy team simply waits out your smokes and rotates to another site on Haven, where you’ll have nothing left to stop them.

In addition, Brimstone tends to be extremely predictable on Haven. He might’ve been an excellent choice once, but now, his utility on this map is limited, and he lacks flexibility. He mostly serves a single purpose, and it’s a “one and done” deal.

Reyna

Reyna is, in short, not known for her defensive prowess. In fact, she may be the worst defensive agents in the game. On top of this, she is incredibly bad on Haven.

Her biggest defensive weakness is that she barely has any utility in the first place. Reyna can’t gather information, can’t block off areas, and can’t delay an enemy push in any way other than by just killing them.

In contrast to KAY/O, a multidimensional agent with a multitude of playstyles, Reyna really only has one option that works: Killing enemies. On Haven’s defense, you don’t want to play hyper-aggressively as you’re already spread thin, making Reyna’s main strength totally useless.

Viper

Viper certainly isn’t the worst choice, but she has a few shortcomings that ultimately means there are better picks for a controller on Haven.

The main reason you’ll regret running Viper is because of how quickly her poison fuel runs out. Even with a perfectly crafted setup that covers nearly every entry point, and lineups for those typical plant spots, you probably don’t have enough fuel to execute even half of the things you want to.

With her recent nerfs that also brought her ultimate up to a whopping nine points, you won’t get to use it enough to get value. And even when you do, the enemy can simply rotate to another site.