Passive Effects

Passive Effects are ability-related effects that some individual agents can have. Having passive effects is not standard for most agents in VALORANT, but agents that do have these passives are able to make use of effects that are innate to them or utilized across multiple abilities of theirs.

Most of the passives listed as such on the VALORANT Wiki have either been explicitly stated or inferred to be passives/separate effects by Riot themselves, with any others additionally being identified as passives primarily for the purposes of simplifying documentation and consistency with observed behavior and documentation already present in VALORANT and other character-based games with abilities.

Definition[]

Passive effects used by VALORANT agents can belong to one of two groups, either being constantly available to them or being applied in addition to a preceding primary action. The following effects have been identified (either through information provided by Riot or by consistency with observed definitions and behavior) as being a passive effect that fits into one of these groups:

• Constantly available to be used: Unlike standard abilities, these effects do not go or cooldown or consume/require any charges to be used.
  • Astra's Astral Form
  • Jett's Drift
  • Passive resource generation
    • Neon's Energy
    • Viper's Fuel
• Applied as an additional effect: These effects can be regarded as separate, succeeding secondary actions that are activated or applied as a result of a primary action, such as occurring in addition to either the main function of an ability or securing a takedown.
  • Fade's Terror Trail
  • Gekko's Globules
  • Phoenix's Heating Up
  • Reyna's Soul Harvest
  • Viper's Toxin

Misconceptions[]

The following points address common misconceptions within the VALORANT community about how passives can be defined:

• "It's not a passive if you have to press a hotkey to activate it": This misconception comes from the belief that a passive is defined as an effect that requires no active input from the player in order to be put to use. However, whether they require active input or not from the player is irrelevant to whether these can be called passives. What usually makes these types of abilities that utilize a hotkey passives is that they are constantly available to the character. VALORANT already proves this as Jett's Drift, officially recognized by Riot as a passive, requires the player to use a hotkey in order to activate the effect.
• "A passive is a separate effect within the character's kit that they have in addition to their usual set of abilities": Without further context to the specifics of this new effect, this is not enough of a justification as this could just end up being another additional ability for the character. What defines whether these are passives comes down to the specifics of the effect in question itself, as set out in the definitions above. For example with Drift, what makes it a passive is that it is constantly available to be used at no cost, not because it is a separate effect from the rest of Jett's abilities. So long as the effect in question can be justified as a passive on its own, whether or not it is linked to the character's other abilities in some way does not affect whether it can still be called a passive effect or not.
• "It's not a passive if the effect can only be activated by casting an ability": This misconception can come from a mix of the previous two points; a belief that the effect should not have any association with the character's other abilities, and that the player shouldn't have to actively do anything in order to activate the effect, both of which are incorrect as explained above. This is then additionally disproven as well by existing passives in VALORANT. Heating Up and Toxin, two effects that have officially been recognized by Riot as passives, require their agent to have cast an ability first in order to be utilized. This type of passive is also often used and identified as such in the kits of characters in other character-based games, such as League of Legends and Overwatch.

List of passive effects[]

The following list of passive effects are sorted alphabetically by associated agent.

Astral Form[]

Astral Form is a Setup passive for Astra. Astra can use her ultimate hotkey to enter a higher plane that is a mirror counterpart of the entire map she is currently on. Astra is ghosted while in this plane, allowing her to move freely in the air using her movement keys and mouse to direct her. In the real world, her body remains in place in a channeling position which remains vulnerable to enemy gunfire and utility. A blue outline of her real body can be seen while in the Astral plane. Each time Astra enters the Astral plane, she will appear above and slightly behind this blue outline. As an Attacker, she can also see the location of the spike. Outlines representing allied or enemy agents will not appear in the Astral plane. Astra will still be able to hear anything that happens around her body in the real world as normal while in Astral Form.

While in the Astral Plane, Astra can place Stars, use her basic abilities by activating placed stars, and activate her ultimate, Cosmic Divide.

Terror Trail[]

Terror Trail is an Intel passive for Fade. Her Haunt and Nightfall will mark enemies with a Terror Trail for 12 seconds, creating a black trail on the ground between the marking effect's point of origin and the affected agent, that Fade and her allies can follow. For the duration of the mark, Terror Trail will track the affected agent's movements, extending their current trail. The trail can only be broken by teleports (the trail will begin again from the agent's new position as long as they are still marked but will not connect to the original trail) or cleansed by Yoru's Dimensional Drift. When the agent's mark debuff expires, the trail will disappear.

Prowlers can be used to pursue trails. Upon pursuing a trail, the prowler will also reveal the exact identity of the agent to Fade. A prowler will follow the path of a trail until it encounters an enemy or the end of a trail, or until the trail disappears due to its agent's mark debuff expiring. An individual trail can only be pursued by one prowler with the pursuit causing the trail to become grayed out, though the trail will still remain visible and continue tracking so long as the target agent is still marked.

Globules[]

Globules is a Setup passive for Gekko. After using Wingman, Dizzy, or Thrash, each of these creatures will turn into a globule when they expire, falling to the ground if they were airborne at this moment. They will then remain there for 20 seconds, during which time Gekko can approach them and reclaim the globule over 1 second. Successfully retrieving a globule will then put that globule's ability on a 10-second cooldown after which it can be used again. If Gekko does not reclaim the globule within its lifespan, it will disappear from the map.

Thrash will only turn into a globule after the first time she is used in a round.

Drift[]

Drift is a mobility passive for Jett. Whenever she is airborne, she can hold her jump key to reduce her fall speed and allow herself to glide down to ground instead. This can be used to safely fall from large distances without taking fall damage upon landing. Jett can still use her weapons and other abilities while using Drift.

Energy[]

Energy is a Resource Bar for Neon which gives her 100 Energy. Activating High Gear or Overdrive requires Neon to consume Energy at a rate of 1 every 0.1 seconds (10/sec) for High Gear and 1 every 0.2 seconds (5/sec) for Overdrive. Neon will say a warning if her energy drops below 20. If her energy run out, the abilities automatically deactivate. When not active, Neon will replenish Energy at a rate of 1 every 0.2 seconds (5/sec) and will be able to reactivate High Gear once she has at least 2 Energy.

Whenever Neon kills an enemy agent, she will instantly refill her Energy.

Heating Up[]

Heating Up is a Sustain passive for Phoenix. His fire-producing abilities, Blaze and Hot Hands, will heal Phoenix instead of inflicting damage if he comes into contact with them, for a total of 50 HP over their full durations. Healing is applied with 1 HP ticks spread out evenly over their durations (1 every 0.16 seconds for Blaze, 1 every 0.08 seconds for Hot Hands).

Soul Harvest[]

Soul Harvest is a Setup passive for Reyna. If an enemy agent that she has dealt damage to within the last 3 seconds dies, they will drop a Soul Orb at their location that remains there for 3 seconds. If she has sight of the Orb, Reyna can use Devour or Dismiss to consume it.

Fuel[]

Fuel is a Resource Bar for Viper which gives her 100 Fuel. Activating only Poison Cloud or Toxic Screen requires Viper to consume Fuel at a rate of 1 every 0.12 seconds (8.33/sec). However, Viper can have both abilities active, which consumes Fuel at a rate of 1 every 0.08 seconds (12.5/sec). If her fuel levels run out, the abilities automatically deactivate and Viper must wait for her fuel levels to replenish, which will happen at a rate of 1 every 0.3 seconds (3.33/sec).

Viper must have a minimum of 30 Fuel to activate a fueled ability.

Toxin[]

Toxin is a Cripple passive for Viper. If an enemy agent comes into contact with her Vision Blocker abilities ( Poison Cloud, Toxic Screen, Viper's Pit), their health will begin to decay. They will instantly decay 30 HP upon contact, then continue to decay for 1 HP every 0.1 seconds (10 HP/sec). If no longer in contact, the debuff will briefly remain for 1.5 seconds before their health begins to climb back up at a rate of 1 HP every 0.04 seconds (25 HP/sec), up to a maximum of how much HP they would have if they had not been affected, taking any damage and healing taken while they were decayed into account.

References[]