Looking to main Sage in Valorant? While her ability loadout consists of healing, resurrection, and delay tools, there’s no need to sit back and clean up the pieces when playing as Sage, and there are plenty of other ways to use her utility that you may not have considered.
As abilities cost money as part of the Valorant economy, knowing the different ways to use her abilities will hopefully help you decide which ones to drop cash on before each round depending on the setup your team’s going for.
Her signature ability, the Healing Orb, will heal any friendly back to 100 health over 30 seconds, making her generally helpful all of the way through a round. The Slow Orb can cover an area in a slowing ice effect that crunches when any player moves over it and slows their movement significantly and even slows Jett’s aerial movement. The Barrier Orb creates a large ice wall that decays over time but can also be broken if you do enough damage to it. Finally, Sage’s ultimate is a resurrection spell that takes several seconds to take effect and simply brings a teammate back to life.
Of course there’s a lot more subtlety to each of Sage’s skills, which is what we’ll be breaking down for you here.
Sage Slow Orb
The Slow Orb is an extremely powerful piece of kit that you can buy two of per round. They are absolutely worth it as unlike smokes, these will pretty much stop players moving through key areas entirely. The reason for this is the Slow Orb slows movement and any players moving through them will emit a crunching noise that gives their position away, unless they’re slow-walking.
Unlike Brimstone’s smokes, these have to be thrown like grenades so many use them with line of sight – this is obviously quite risky as you can easily be shot while throwing a Slow Orb. However, there are learnable Slow Orb spots on every Valorant map that will allow you to cut off key rotations without line of sight or pushing up whatsoever. Used in tandem with a Brimstone, Viper, or even Omen, you can create clear channels onto site that the team can rush through.
We advise heading into a custom game as Sage, enabling cheats, and then stopping the round time, enabling unlimited buy and unlimited abilities, and practising these solo. We’ve only included Split and Haven so far but these should give you a clear idea of how you can mess around with these yourself.
Sage Slow Orb spots for Split
These are a few Slow Orb spots we’ve seen in play on the Split map.
This first one is great for an A long push – it locks off the angle to the left making it easier for the team to funnel through to A site.
This next spot is great for stalling out or pushing mid when attacking from the sewers. Two orbs can be used in quick succession to stop enemies on the left and right of mid.
Finally, we have one for B site on Split. This one is all about locking down the peek from the back off B, leaving the team free to focus on defenders playing in B heaven.
Sage Slow Orb spots for Haven
This first spot is all about stopping peeks from below heaven and crates on the A site. While there are other orbs that cover the same area, we like this one as you can time it with a push a little better.
Another orb spot for taking A on Haven, this instead focuses on hitting Heaven. This was spotted by YouTuber Flauz, so all credit to them. Chain this with the spot above and you can gain a solid advantage on A.
This is a very simple orb that’s by no means new, but is still very helpful for taking B on Haven.
Finally, we have a strong Slow Orb spot for attacking C on Haven. Line this up so the crates and wall are in line, then find the point where the branches almost meet and aim slightly lower. This covers the rotate between platform and crates at the back of C, meaning you can focus on the right side of site.
Sage Barrier Orb
You can only buy one Barrier Orb per round, but it’s a very powerful piece of kit that can block flanks and line of sights, or even elevate you or a teammate to a nasty new angle.
The wall can only be placed with line of sight, but if you press the C key you can rotate it, allowing you to place a wall that blocks a corridor without actually having to expose yourself to the enemy.
You can also look down as you place the wall so that you’re standing on it when you activate it. You can use this to reach high up spots or to make shortcuts around the map. You can also use this with Omen’s teleport to surprise enemies.
Sage wall spots on Split
This first one is an easy way to rotate from A site to A heaven following a Spike plant.
This next one gives you a really strong peeking spot after planting the spike on A site.
If you’re coming from sewers to mid then this is a barrier spot that leads straight into a great pick onto B heaven.
Here’s a final spot for defending A site that allows you to get a very sneaky angle onto the attacking base of the A long angle. Better still, if you get a pick here you can follow it up with a Slow Orb to stop the enemy chasing you, or even trap them. You can set the wall even further back if you place it so the wall is going away from you and stand on the right side of the ramp – this gives you vision even further back.
Sage wall spots on haven
This first wall spot is to hold A long and relies on holding an angle the enemy will not be checking as it’s so high up. It takes a little practice to get the jump wall spot right, but when you pull it off you can really confuse enemies. This spot is neat as well because it doesn’t obstruct the view from heaven.
This is another Flauz find that we’re in love with. It’s for retaking A after a spike plant. The wall blocks the right side off completely, and you can freeze enemies in place with two easy Slow Orbs.
Our final Haven wall spot is for holding B itself. There are many approaches to this wall spot, but we like this setup as you can fall off either side and also get decent angles on the entrances to the left and right.
Sage Resurrection ult
The Resurrection ult is obviously very powerful as it allows you to return a player and equal your team’s chances of winning the round. But, there are a few other moments where you should consider using it.
For example, if you’re in a tight round where your team has the man advantage, it’s sometimes worth bringing an additional player back so they can improve your chances further. After all, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
We’ve also found this can be used to bait a push in a clutch scenario. There is a slight timer on rezzing a teammate and it gives a clear audio cue to the enemies – they’ll want to push you to secure the free kill, so push them as the rez is happening.
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Finally, the rez can be handy if you’re team’s running low on cash, simply so you can bring a living player with a gun into the next round – if you’re saving and you have the rez ult, bring a buddy with you.
If you’re looking for more Valorant tips, check out our guide to the best Sova arrow lineups and our guide to Killjoy’s Turret and Alarmbot placements.