In VALORANT, the controller agent Brimstone is an old favorite, literally and figuratively. The American military master is capable of smart and precise utility placement and has one of the most destructive and devastating ultimates of any agent on the roster.
During the early days of VALORANT, Brimstone became an early favorite for new players and players coming over from CS:GO. After nerfs to a newer controller in Astra and a somewhat recent buff to Brimstone’s smokes and Stim Beacon, Brimstone experienced a considerable resurgence.
Here’s everything you need to know about how to play Brimstone.
Abilities
- Incendiary: Launch an incendiary grenade that deploys a damaging field of fire.
- Stim Beacon: Target a nearby location to call in a Stim Beacon, giving all players near it Rapidfire and a 15 percent speed boost.
- Signature Ability – Sky Smoke: Use your map to call in orbital deployment smokescreens that obscure vision. Click to set the locations, and confirm to launch.
- Ultimate – Orbital Strike: Use your map to target a location, launching a devastating orbital strike that pulses for high damage over several seconds.
With a plethora of abilities that resemble familiar utility from other tactical shooters, many players will feel right at home with Brimstone’s playstyle. Incendiary plays like a Molotov for zone control, while Sky Smoke plays as three precise, deployable smoke grenades that have the option to be used all at once.
Stim Beacon provides your team with Rapidfire and a speed bostin a gunfight, while his ultimate, Orbital Strike, can flush out some entrenched enemies over a specific target location. He brings plenty to the battle, whether you’re defending a bomb site or attacking one.
Playstyle
When defending a bomb site, Brimstone has plenty of zone control with Incendiary and Sky Smoke, using the smokes to choke off the attack’s entry points and using the Incendiary to further deny entry or even deny a spike plant.
On attack, he’s great for smoking off certain angles that the defenders could be holding. He can also flush out players who are camping around points with fire, but we’d recommend keeping the Incendiary for post-plant scenarios since he can deny a defuse with a well-placed Molotov.
His Orbital Strike is great in most situations since it can either snuff out an enemy attempt at taking a bomb site or it can force defenders to move out from the angles they’re holding. It also does a ton of damage, which should force anyone to move from its area of effect.
In pistol rounds or any attack-side site executes, a well-placed Stim Beacon can help the entire team cover ground more quickly after it received a speed boost in Patch 4.04.
