In the popular competitive online game, Valorant, a unique and unconventional new agent has been released. In Valorant, agents are actually fictional characters with powers and a fictional backstory.
This time Riot Games brings us Clove - a fearless, warm and whimsical agent from charming Edinburgh - who can be noticed by his "hard" accent during gameplay.
The possibilities that Clove offers are based on a "beautiful" and grandiose death where at one point when you die you have the possibility to come back to life in any round. But before that, I have to mention that Clove is a hybrid between a controller and a duelist. This means that it does not hide behind the first lines of defense, but quickly jumps into the risky "battlefield" with its controlling powers.
More than death
Clove has the ability, if their ultimatum (known to players as the X button) is charged, to respawn and return to the round. Namely, after death you only have a few seconds to return to the round. With a beautiful animation, you are once again brought back to the possibility of playing - but not unconditionally. After coming back to life, you have very little time until the imaginary timer expires to kill one opponent or get a gaming assist. If you fail to kill someone during that time, you return back to the dead.
Ruse
The Ruse ability allows you to place a smoke bomb on the map. This power is characteristic of all controllers, and what makes it special here with Clova is that you can throw a smoke bomb even if you are not alive in the round.
These smoke bombs or vision-obscuring clouds are quite similar to Omen's (another fictional character from the game) abilities.
Meddle (Q)
Meddle is a bomb of the essence of immortality. When thrown at opponents, within a very small blast radius, it engulfs enemies and drops their health to 10 percent - making them ideal targets. After a few moments, the health is raised and the enemy becomes more of a threat again.
Pick Me Up (C)
This possibility is reflected in the fact that you can temporarily drain "life" from other players you have killed. Unlike Reyna (also a Valorant character), Clove cannot go over 100 percent health with this ability. Health taken from enemies is also not retained permanently and expires after a certain amount of time.
This is quite an interesting possibility, especially for controllers. As the Valorant development team says: you don't get any of this opportunity if you don't fight, so the clear message is to "go" and find an opponent.
How to play Clove?
To be good at playing this new agent, you need to be proactive. To remind you: you play as a hybrid between a duelist and a controller, which means that you have the opportunity to attack directly or slow down incoming enemies with the help of your powers.
Comments from the development team
The Riot Games development team states that when players are playing solo and want to join an online round with random teammates, they usually have to select the Controller agent type if they want to engage in direct gunplay. Clove, a hybrid controller - duelist, gives them the ability to be on the front lines of defense where the game doesn't depend on your ability to stay alive.
Clove has the ability to contribute to his team and the round itself even after death.
Character design development
The inspiration for the character design itself comes from rotting fruits and vegetables. But don't let the swirls of purple and playful pink fool you, because underneath Clove's "youthful" persona lies the potential for immortality.
As we said at the beginning, Riot Games adds importance to the creation of the back story of these fictional characters with a recognizable voice, famous phrases and biography. What sets Clove apart from other agents, however, is that she is a non-binary person. More precisely, we cannot say that Clove is "he" or "she", but "they".
I hope that from this decision to make Clove non-binary, no controversy will arise, but that players will accept the character as he is.
In my opinion, Clove is a brilliantly designed agent that I believe is not recommended for Valorant beginners themselves. Effective use of the aforementioned powers (Not Dead Yet and Pick-Me-Up), no matter how simple they may seem, require precise timing, positioning, and game sense.
Clove has an interesting backstory about immortality. The background story itself is also interesting looking through the prism of design: the agent is aesthetically very well made. The powers bestowed upon us require a certain skill. But as always happens in competitive games, I leave the verdict itself to the players. Time will tell.
You can download Valorant for free via the Riot Games website.
Microsoft's Game Pass provides a lot of benefits when it comes to buying an agent. You only need to import Riot and Microsoft account.
Bonus video:
