7th January 2022

Guide: How to play Agent Neon (Abilities, tips, tuto...)

Neon is the 19th Agent of Valorant. She is a duelist who focuses on outpacing her opponents, whether in combat or in mobility. She is extremely aggressive and requires great reflexes to be played as well as to be countered. It's quite simple, everything goes much faster when Neon is around, and if you're not able to keep up with her pace, you're in for a real shock.

Before anything else, we advise you to familiarise yourself with Neon's abilities.

Abilities of Neon

Fast Lane

Neon's first ability is Fast Lane. When used, Neon causes two walls of electricity that cross a medium distance. The walls block the vision of all players, but can be crossed freely. Neon can cross the wall without damage, but all other players take damage as long as they remain in contact with it. The damage is relatively low, as long as the players do not linger on it. Crossing a wall causes a minimum loss of 8hp, but unlike Viper's wall, the damage is permanent.

Fast Lane walls do not stay in place for very long. They just allow a player to walk the makeshift path before disappearing. So don't dawdle or hesitate too long if you want to cross an area. It is possible to adjust the length of the walls by aiming at the ground when casting the ability. The walls then stop where you were aiming at when you cast your ability.

Fast Lane is very useful for clearing a path to a site, but the ability can also be used in narrow corridors to burn opponents. Electric walls go through doors and crates, but not walls.

Relay Bolt

Relay Bolt is an extremely useful ability, but will require smoke skill. When used, Neon immediately casts a lightning bolt. There is no need to equip the ability and shoot, just press the shortcut and the lightning bolt is gone! Neon then quickly re-equips herself with the weapon she had in her hand.

When the lightning bolt hits a wall, it bounces back before coming to rest on the next surface it touches. There is no distance limit to this ability. Unlike Sova's arrow, which always falls back, Relay Bolt is not subject to gravity. This means that it allows for new angles, but much more at ground level. You'll have to rigorously learn new setups to get the most out of it.

With each impact with a wall, Relay Bolt causes a spark to fall, resulting in two large explosions on the ground. The blast area forms a cylinder similar to Cypher's Cyber Cage: capable of hitting a little lower than the point of impact, but also much higher. These explosions do no damage, but they disorientate players, enemies and allies alike. They then move more slowly and have a greatly reduced rate of fire.

Example of the use of the Relay Lightning capability.

Since the explosion can hit players through obstacles and walls, this makes it an excellent tool to enter a point by destabilising hidden opponents. Be careful though, Relay Bolt is less useful and effective than a Sova arrow. It is mainly an ability to outpace your enemies, not to spot or eliminate them.

High Gear

High Gear is the ability that best defines Neon. With it, Neon becomes the first character in Valorant capable of sprinting ! She can now start or stop her sprint at any time, without delay or reload.

However, the ability has some serious drawbacks. First of all, it consumes charge points. This sprint gauge is displayed above Neon's abilities. Neon always starts a round with 100 charge points. The points decrease gradually as long as High Gear is active, even if Neon remains stationary. She passively recovers charge points when High Gear is not active. She recovers a large number of charge points when she kills or assists.

Example of the use of the Speed Up skill.

When sprinting, Neon makes a lot of noise. The range of her footsteps is the same as normal footsteps, but the sound is different and much louder, making it easier to locate her. In addition, Neon leaves visible footprints behind when she is under the effect of High Gear. Finally, Neon cannot equip her weapons during a race, but she can still cast her other abilities.

High Gear has an active ability, the slide. In itself, the slide is not as powerful as one might have feared when the character was announced. It can only be used once (unless you're making kills) and it doesn't allow you to go faster than sprinting. It does allow Neon to equip her weapon before resuming her normal walking speed, but really to shoot. This can give a very slight advantage in picks.

It's important to note that Neon can only slide when she reaches her maximum speed during a sprint. If she takes side steps of is slowed down in any way, Neon cannot slide. Slowdowns include Sage's Slow Orb, Astra's Gravity Well, but also the slowdown you experience when you get hit by a shot. In fact, sliding is more useful for getting into a fight than getting out.

Overdrive, Neon's Ultimate

The ultimate ability of Neon is Overdrive. On activation, Neon recovers a slide, her entire sprint gauge and automatically switches to High Gear state. The sprint gauge then gradually decreases. Overdrive ends when the sprint bar is empty. During this time, Neon is free to unequip or re-equip her weapons. Nothing can interrupt Overdrive, except death.

Overdrive is an overpowered ability that allows Neon to fire a continuous bolt of lightning from her fingertips, injuring her opponents. Lightning bolts have no range limit, but their damage is reduced according to the distance from the target. At close range, the lightning does about 22 points of damage per tick, compared to 10 of damage at maximum range. There is no distinction in damage between a body shot and a head shot.

Neon can fire about forty flashes of lightning in two seconds. If she runs out of lightning, Neon momentarily burns her fingers and cannot attack or switch weapons for a short time. She then gets 40 new bolts of lightning to shoot. It's better to stop shooting lightning bolts before you reach 0, as Neon recovers her ammunition very quickly in these cases.

What makes the skill formidable, besides the speed at which it kills, is its surgical precision. As long as Neon has both feet on the ground, the lightning bolt will go exactly where she aims. Even better, Neon can fire her lightning bolts during a slide and still maintain this accuracy. However, if Neon is in the air, the lightning bolts scatter and fire like some kind of extremely inaccurate and inefficient shotgun.

When Neon kills an opponent with her lightning bolts, she immediately recharges her lightning bolts, her sprint gauge and recovers a slide. This makes her an ultra-aggressive character who will do anything to chain kills and keer her Overdrive.

What role for Neon in a team?

Neon has strong arguments to become a top duelist, but it is not clear that she can compete with Jett. She could, however, be part of a new two-duelist meta, if Astra's supremacy and KAY/O's small breakthrough are challenged. Indeed, Neon suffers far too much from the various opponent controls, while they are predominant in Valorant.

Nevertheless, Neon is an extremely enjoyable Agent to play and will undoubtedly be a great success in solo play.

Few tips and tricks

You can't just turn around and shoot lightning bolts in all directions while using Overdrive and expect to hit every enemy around you. The lightning acts more like a machine gun than a true continuous beam.