Generally speaking, when your player character is gunned down in a Valorant match, that’s it – you just have to sit there and spectate your team hoping that they can win out. In the case of the the upcoming non-binary character Clove, death is only the beginning, as they have some unique abilities that can be engaged even after they’ve been taken out.
Clove’s primary ability, Ruse, lets the character bring up a map of the battlefield and indicate where their vision-blocking clouds should appear, which can be used either whether they’re alive or dead. Clove’s other abilities include a throwable DoT ability, a skill that lets them absorb the life force of a defeated enemy to gain haste and health, and an ultimate skill that lets them resurrect, though Clove will need to earn a kill or a damaging assist within a limited time frame to make the resurrection permanent.
According to Riot, Clove is built around support players who like to stay aggressive and as a way to encourage more people to take up the controller class. “We hypothesized pretty early on that naturally aggressive players didn’t have enough varied options within the Controller role,” the studio reasons. “Many of our players feel like they have to play too passively on the role compared to our other roles, so they opt out of the whole class.”
Fans of the team vs. team FPS will see if that ends up being the case when Clove makes their debut Tuesday, March 26th.
