Launching a new agent in VALORANT can be a tightrope walk for Riot Games. You certainly don’t want to launch an overwhelmingly powerful agent that disrupts the game balance and meta like what happened with Chamber and Astra upon their debuts. On the contrary, an agent that gets largely overlooked is also undesired.
Looking at the latest three additions to the agent roster, Harbor sadly stands out as a flop. The character, who wields water abilities has been met with lukewarm reception from the player base across all game modes. Despite featuring slightly more at the professional level, players are still not warming up to him.
Harbor has been one of the least picked agents since his introduction in VALORANT Episode Six in 2023, surpassed only by Astra, according to Blitz.gg. Astra was indeed a powerful and popular agent when she was first introduced in 2021. Her current status seems to be a result of Riot’s efforts to curb her dominance. Unfortunately, Harbor didn’t even have a powerful start to begin with, and the minor enhancements he’s received have done little to strengthen him.
His lack of strength has made him largely irrelevant in competitive play. Currently, during Act One of Episode Seven, Harbor is the least chosen agent across most of the ranks, including the highest tiers like Radiant and all Immortal tiers. He also lacks popularity in Silver, the game’s biggest player population.
Initially, I enjoyed playing as Harbor, particularly on Haven and Pearl maps, due to his easy manoeuvrability and his ability to create barriers with his water walls and Cove abilities. However, he lacks impactful abilities that can influence the game significantly, such as Omen’s Paranoia, Brimstone’s molotov, or Viper’s Snakebite. His ultimate comes across more as an annoyance than a game changer.
When Harbor was first introduced in October 2022, similar sentiments were echoed by professional players. NAVI’s ANGE1 pointed out he was the only controller without any form of disruptive power, and Sentinels analyst DrewSpark stated his utilities give away his position too easily.
Despite these weaknesses, some professional players have brought Harbor into their games in 2023, often pairing him with Viper in a double-wall controller setup. This strategy is typically referred to as the “pizza slice” approach. While this strategy has its fans, it also has its critics with NRG star crashies calling it “boring” during an interview at Masters Tokyo. He argued it led to more Phantom sprays through smoke and said the Harbor-Viper combination could be hard to watch, especially when both teams use it as the screen gets filled with green and blue walls.
Since the release of Harbor, two new agents, Gekko and Deadlock, have made their way into VALORANT. Presently, Deadlock has a higher pick rate while Gekko isn’t far off, sitting just below the median across all modes. This balance is what Riot Games should be aiming for when introducing new agents: ones that are competent and relevant, but not overly dominant. For Harbor to reach this mark, a major overhaul of his abilities is required as his current kit simply doesn’t make the cut.