Valorant Neon Guide – Play Neon like a Pro
Neon is Valorant’s 18th agent, hailing from the Philippines. Neon is a duelist with large entry and carry potential. While she has unfortunately built up a reputation in the community of being a run it down agent, her potential is immense, alongside an equally high skill cap.
Valorant Neon guide – Skills
- Q – Relay Bolt – Throws an energy bolt that bounces off the first surface it hits. Agents inside the area the energy bolt hits (bounce off + final location) will be concussed. Neon can purchase two Relay Bolts, effectively being able to stun 4 separate locations.
- E – High Gear – Toggling on E will consume Neon’s energy and grant her additional speed. While the ability is toggled, Neon cannot fire her gun. While toggled and running, using right click will allow her to slide on the ground and quickly pull her gun out. The slide can only be used once, but is reset after two kills. This skill is extremely strong in close quarters, especially with shotguns like the shorty or judge.
- C – Fast Lane – Cast two walls on fire on both sides of Neon. Similar to Phoenix’s wall, they deal damage to agents who pass through them and block vision, but they do not heal Neon.
- X – Overdrive – Enables Neon to cast lightning by holding left click, dealing high consistent damage on enemies. This lightning is completely accurate while moving, but is inaccurate while jumping. The lighting has a “clip”, but is regenerated after a short pause. Overdrive has a duration, but is reset upon each kill.
Valorant Neon tips – Improve with a few easy steps
- C – Fast Lane – Fast lane cannot be curved like a Phoenix wall, potentially making Neon have to expose herself to the enemy’s line of sight. In lower ranks, Neon players are overly enthusiastic about using her utility and trying to entry site as soon as possible. An obvious tip would be to first clear the angle, either through wide peaking with your gun out, or getting your teammates to clear the initial angle before casting fast lane.
- Q – Relay bolt – It is extremely important to note that Neon’s relay bolt has quite a decent radius, goes through walls, and hits two locations. Most Neon players only utilize the relay bolt’s first bounce radius, completely ignoring its final point which can also concuss targets. To fully utilize Neon to her full potential, knowing a few angles or lineups will be extremely helpful. This will allow you to use relay bolt to concuss enemies more frequently, and reduce the risk of it negatively impacting your own team.
- E – High Gear – This ability allows Neon to outpace and hence out rotate any Valorant agent. Despite defenders generally being able to rotate faster due to the build out of most maps, Neon’s high gear provides her the movement speed to out rotate defenders. In situations where defenders can all be spotted near or at the same site, Neon can grab the bomb and quickly head to the other site, getting the spike down early for her team. This can often be done discreetly, as while Neon’s footsteps do make noise, gun sounds can mask the sound reasonably while she is in audio cue range.
- E – High Gear – When using the high gear slide aggressively, it is best to use it primitively when challenging angles. This will ensure your gun is pulled out quicker, and enemies have less time to react. While it may sometimes be “wasted” if enemies are not there, at least you have safely cleared out an angle.
- X – Overdrive – Overdrive has extremely strong damage overtime, which allows Neon to easily win duels if enemies do not headshot her. You should always be constantly moving while using overdrive to avoid getting instantly headshot. Given you are in control and have the advantage in the “run and gun”, move perpendicularly instead of towards enemies to make it harder for them to track you.
Strengths
Strong ultimate – Overdrive is arguably the strongest ultimate in the game, especially in lower elos. Overdrive has the ability to easily wipe out the enemy team with its infinite reloads and high base damage.
Quick rotates – In games at the highest level, team and macro gameplay is vital. Her high movement that allows quickly executed rotates will result in well-timed flanks and the ability to set her team up with free entries.
Counters
Cypher – Cypher’s trip wire and cage set ups greatly counter Neon, as her high gear ability prevents her from shooting. This means Cypher can easily peak off audio cues to catch Neon off guard, quickly killing her before her team can react. Neon’s high movement speed while trying to entry also often prevents her from noticing trip wires, allowing her to often get caught, especially if Cypher places them in obscure locations.
Killjoy – Killjoy’s turret will not only detect Neon’s rotate if Killjoy is in range, but also slow Neon. The turret slows not only with every shot, but forces Neon to deactivate her High gear movement speed to take her gun out and destroy the turret, reducing the impact of her quick rotates.
Top Neon Valorant gameplay content creators
PROD
When Neon first released, many stated this agent was created with PROD in mind. PROD’s playstyle allows him to fully utilize her with quick entries, strong flanks, and simply insane movement.
Ending note
While Neon may not have the best win rate or KD, her potential is immense if you take the time to learn some line ups, have general consideration and do not simply run it down. Neon is suitable in all Valorant ranks, with a strong ultimate in lower ranks, and a huge advantage for strong macro plays in the top levels.