All Waylay abilities in VALORANT

VALORANT is all set to welcome its 27th agent, Waylay, and her prismatic abilities to its ever-growing roster. If you’re wondering how her abilities work, we’ve got you covered with a comprehensive Waylay guide for your VALORANT games.

Hailing from Thailand, Waylay, a Radiant duelist, uses light energy to power up her kit. While her unique abilities don’t deal damage, she’s well-equipped to tackle fights and can seamlessly make space for her allies. Unlike what we’d normally expect from a light-wielding VALORANT agent, she surprisingly can’t blind her enemies. She can, however, impose a new debuff, known as “Hindering,” on them. 

Now, let’s get into the details about Act two’s showstopper, shall we?

All abilities of Waylay, VALORANT’s 27th agent, explained

Like all VALORANT agents, Waylay offers four abilities—two basic, one signature, and an ultimate. Here’re the basic details of her abilities.

Refract

Activate to instantly create a beacon of light on the floor. Reactivate to speed back to the beacon spot as a mote of pure light. You are invulnerable as you travel back.

Light Speed

Equip Light Speed to prepare for a burst of speed. Fire to dash forward twice. You can Alt Fire to dash just once. Only the first dash lets you go in the upward direction.

Saturate

Activate to instantly throw a cluster of light that explodes upon coming in contact with the ground. Affected enemies deal with the Hindering debuff, which slows movement and limits weapons.

Convergent Paths (ultimate)

Equip to focus Waylay’s prismatic power. Fire to create an afterimage that projects a beam of light. After a brief delay, the beam expands, applying the Hindering debuff to players caught in its radius. You also gain a powerful speed boost after the delay.

New Hindering debuff

As mentioned before, Waylay introduces the new Hindering debuff, which slows the following features:

• Fire Rate
• Recoil Recovery
• Equip Time
• Reload Speed
• Movement Speed
• Jump Speed

How to play Waylay in VALORANT: Tips and tricks

Being the first “space taking duelist” since Jett and Raze, Waylay has massive potential to stir up VALORANT’s duelist meta. While she excels on packed maps like Bind, Ascent, and Icebox, she may struggle on maps with a lot of open spaces like Breeze and Abyss as she doesn’t have many ways to protect herself. She isn’t as versatile as Jett when it comes to taking risks and universal cover, but she offers valuable crowd control that Jett lacks. You can pair Waylay with Raze for a strong double duelist team composition, or even run her solo.

Now that you know what she can do, let’s check out the best ways to use Waylay’s abilities in VALORANT.

Starting with Refract, this is an excellent ability to use when you intend to take space as a duelist. For example, if you’re approaching Ascent B Site, you can leave the beacon in B Main, and push the site. If things get too chaotic, you can reuse the ability to return to safety or reclaim the space in B main. It’s like Phoenix’s ultimate, but manual. You can also use it to fake a site push or use it to gather crucial information for your team. Just make sure you hit the button before an enemy shoots you down: You’re only invulnerable when you’re travelling back to the beacon.

Light Speed gives you the ability to dash twice, inspired by Jett’s Tailwind and Raze’s Blast Packs. You can use it to make space for your allies and catch enemies off guard. The first dash lets you move upwards, so you can use it to make unpredictable moves—or even escape a situation.

Saturate is a great crowd-control ability that lets you flush corners or discourage enemies from peeking a certain angle. It applies the Hindering debuff, so enemies hit will be at a huge disadvantage against you. 

Lastly, her ultimate, Convergent Paths, is built to offer you easy access to enemy territory by giving you a speed boost and Hindering enemies in the way. Whether you’re attacking a site or retaking one, you can use Convergent Paths to clear corners and send enemies looking for a safe spot which isn’t in her range.

Waylay goes live on March 5 with VALORANT V25, Act two’s release. Act two also introduces a new weapon collection, Cyrax, which uses starforged crystals to beautify four weapons and melee. You also get to grind toward a new battle pass, full of free and premium rewards.