How to play Harbor in VALORANT: Ultimate, abilities, and tips

After well over a year, VALORANT has added a new controller to its diverse field of somehow always attractive agents. Joining the roster as the 21st agent is Harbor, a water-bending controller hailing from India who has the potential to take control of the entire map.

Like any controller, Harbor’s ability kit is geared toward obscuring the enemy vision, but he can also slow down members of the enemy team and can fire an ultimate that can clear out a massive site and concuss anyone caught there.

Have you just unlocked his contract and are looking to ride the new agent’s wave to higher ranks? Here’s a comprehensive guide to playing Harbor in VALORANT.

Harbor’s ultimate and abilities

• Cascade (C) – EQUIP a wave of water. FIRE to send the wave rolling forward and through walls. RE-USE to stop the wave. Players hit are slowed.
• Cove (Q) – EQUIP a sphere of shielding water. FIRE to throw, ALT FIRE to underhand throw. Upon impacting the ground, spawn a water shield that blocks bullets.
• High Tide (E) – EQUIP a wall of water. FIRE to send the water forward along the ground. HOLD FIRE to guide the water in the direction of your crosshair, passing through the world, spawning a wall along the water’s path. ALT FIRE while bending to stop the water early. Players hit are slowed.
• Reckoning (X, ultimate) – EQUIP the full power of your Artifact. FIRE to summon a geyser pool on the ground. Enemy players in the area are targeted by successive geyser strikes. Players caught within a strike are concussed.

Tips and tricks for playing Harbor

High Tide is your best friend

Harbor’s water wall ability in High Tide is exceptionally valuable for walling off choke points. With how long the wall can potentially be, a Harbor player can wall off multiple entry points to a site with one single wall, and the control you have over how the wall is placed allows you to restrict access to popular hiding spots as well.

Not only does the wall travel a good distance, but players can fire it through walls like Viper, and they can see the pathing via the mini-map. With its duration and slow ability, it should serve as an excellent deterrent to enemy players.

You can’t hide in Cove forever

At first glance, Cove looks like a broken ability—imagine an Omen smoke made of water but it blocks bullets. But it’s not as impenetrable and broken as you might think.

The shield on Cove that blocks bullets is destructible, and as soon as that shield is broken, bullets can pass through and the Cove itself will disappear in just a second. Here are some stats to be aware of:

• An unbroken Cove lasts for 15 seconds.
• A Cove can take 13 Vandal or Phantom shots before it breaks.

Harbor’s Reckoning is a must-have for retakes and executes

While it doesn’t have the site-clearing potential of the ultimates used by Brimstone or Killjoy, Harbor’s Reckoning is a mighty useful tool for clearing out sites during retakes or executes.

The ability forces enemy players to get out of its large radius, or risk getting concussed by geysers. This would force your opponents to vacate the area or risk getting killed while concussed. Each blast only concusses an opponent for a couple of seconds, but the ultimate hits anyone in its radius with three consecutive blasts.

VALORANT players can try out Harbor and all his abilities when he hits the live servers on Oct. 18.