Players’ reactions to an instalocked Reyna will tell you everything you need to know about this agent. She is ready to ruin your day and make you want to delete VALORANT for the third time this week.
On Oct. 3, a VALORANT player shared an extensive thread about how Reyna is unhealthy to the game. She is an agent who relies purely on mechanical skill and aim to have an impact in the match. This creates a whole range of issues from annoying smurfs to players who don’t fully understand the game.
Smurfing is probably the biggest issue associated with Reyna. Not that you can’t smurf on any other agent, but Reyna offers a perfect kit for players with better aim. The whole point of Reyna is to snowball from getting kills which is incredibly easy when enemies can’t punish you.
It becomes scary for new players to play against her and “makes players feel like they shouldn’t be peeking with their teammates, which is detrimental to improvement,” the original poster said.
Reyna can also be unhealthy for her mains. She encourages peeking and getting kills, which becomes a habit and not necessarily a good one. How many times have you been in a three-vs-one and then your Reyna peeks? Now it’s a two-vs-one. A simple mistake can turn it into a one-vs-one and a losable round.
This peeking habit becomes more punishable the higher you climb. You need to start using your utility more and coordinate with your team to gain an edge. This is where Reyna becomes more difficult to play. She does see a good amount of play but you need to have incredibly consistent mechanics. And if you decide to switch agents after maining Reyna you pretty much have to learn the game again.
I know this looks quite one-sided so far but Reyna can be a decent agent too, especially for newer players. She teaches you to be more confident in taking fights and focus on your mechanics. You can learn how to shoot before worrying about utility.
VALORANT community agrees that Reyna needs some sort of change.
“I wouldn’t say Reyna is the issue, but smurfing is making her insufferable at times,” one fan wrote. Another one replied: “How could she not be the issue when her kit is the most smurf enabling kit in gaming history lol.”
Reyna’s character design and lore are beautiful to the point that I can’t imagine VALORANT without her. A potential rework to tone down her selfish abilities and encourage teamwork would do nicely. I bet Riot can tie the rework with her character development in some way as well.
Riot Games is about to introduce a new duelist to the game so maybe that will bring a shake-up to the VALORANT agent line-up and allow players to have more fun in the game even with smurfing Reynas.
