Although Sage's pick rate isn't as high as some of the other agents in tournament play she was still used on Split 75% of the time and Icebox 56% of the time during the Valorant Champions Tour Stage 2: Masters Reykjavik. To add to this in patch v2.09, Sage had the highest pick rate in ranked and one of the highest winning percentages out of all agents of just under 50%.
What are Sage's strengths?
She's great at delaying/stopping people from coming through chokepoints on both sides. Her heal and ultimate make sure that your team has a second chance in specific rounds and in matchmaking, a lot of people don't understand how to play against her which can be a huge advantage (I'll explain more below).
What are Sage's weaknesses?
She's not good for lurking or entry fragging and to be honest she can be quite annoying to play in ranked because your teammates will constantly be asking for heals and letting you know you have your ultimate.
What maps is Sage good on?
In competitive play, the maps she's most used on are Split and Icebox but you could make a case for her on every map.
Now that you know Sage's strengths and weaknesses let's go into her abilities with examples on how to use them. The definitions below in quotations were taken from the Play VALORANT website.
Slow Orb
EQUIP a slowing orb. FIRE to throw a slowing orb forward that detonates upon landing, creating a lingering field that slows players caught inside of it.
In most cases, you're going to use the slow orb to either delay or stop the enemies on both defense and attack. The general idea is to throw slow orb's in chokepoints to stop people from running through. When throwing the slow orb's make sure to stagger them. There's no value in throwing both of them at the same time. Throw 1, wait for it to disappear, then throw the next.
Here's an example of throwing double slow orbs on the ground. DO NOT DO THIS!
Instead, stagger the slow orbs as I mentioned above.
Here's a hypothetical situation on the attack. If my team had hookah control and we were about to execute on B site. I would throw my slow orbs in the chokepoints. In this case, it would be elbow and CT. So it would like something like this.
Healing Orb
EQUIP a healing orb. FIRE with your crosshairs over a damaged ally to activate a heal-over-time on them. ALT FIRE while Sage is damaged to activate a self heal-over-time.
Not many examples to give with this ability but mouse1 is to heal a teammate, mouse2 is to heal yourself. If you play Sage, get ready for your teammates to talk to you all game "Sage, heal me", "Sage, do you have a heal?", "Sage, heal heal heal".
Barrier Orb
EQUIP a barrier orb. FIRE places a solid wall. ALT FIRE rotates the targeter.
As a beginner, the barrier orb is the strongest piece of utility you will use. It offers so much value to your team on both defense and attack.
On defense, it's used to wall off a location so you don't have to worry about it unless someone breaks it or late-round when it breaks on its own. The wall is great to cast through tight doorways so if the enemy wants to get through they need to break at least 2 blocks, instead of 1.
If the enemy doesn't break your wall then you don't even need to look at shower. This gives your team a major advantage because you can stack players towards other areas. There are other maps you can use this type of wall on.
Short A on Haven
Garage on Haven
Tube on Icebox. You'll want to turn the wall a little bit if you're playing against an Omen. If you cast the wall straight in tube Omen can teleport by it. To turn the wall hold mouse2 and move your mouse left or right.
You can also play on top of your wall and try to get a kill when someone tries to break it.
The wall is also great in clutch situations. It adds an additional layer of protection between the enemy and you. There are many times where I was able to wall and diffuse.
Ressurection
EQUIP a resurrection ability. FIRE with your crosshairs placed over a dead ally to begin resurrecting them. After a brief channel, the ally will be brought back to life with full health.
Ressurection speaks for itself. It's similar to the heal, if you have it get ready for everyone that's dead on your team to ask for it repeatedly :) Hope you enjoyed the Tiktok video.
That's it for the Beginner Sage Guide! I hope this helps you if you're new to VALORANT and thinking about picking up Sage as a main. Leave me comments below if you have any questions. I'll always answer them!
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