Is HARBOR Even a Playable Agent?

Before you unlock Harbor be sure to watch this guide on the newest Valorant Agent.

#valorant

[siniganggang]

I don't know how much of an impact he'll have on the meta but I really hope they give him 1 more charge to his moving wall and remove the slow on allies and self

[monnsellimonnselli]

Im a harbor main since the release of him. I really love his water style and curving wall. I agree with your words, he is good at taking positions aggressively and playing fast. Orb is used to make some safe space to play around. Its still hard for team to understand harbor advantages but at least for me he is the most fun and versatile agent and im finally having fun again after dropping kinda boring standart smokers gameplay. 4 duelists in my plat lobby still usual thing so i just instalock harbor

[Fleischgewordener_Sterbehelfer]

Had the same feeling when i saw some gameplay of him. Also, his cascade wave is great for dealing with operator players.

[wasthataspongebobreference]

The verdict is still out on whether Harbor is strong in pro play or not; but if he ends up being underwhelming, I think a few mini buffs to him would be to remove the teammate slow on his wall, and maybe give him the option to “angle” is C ability too. Like how Sage can fine tune her wall with right click, but the wall would still go forward, that way it wouldn’t just be like a free use omen smoke but instead could also be used as a Omen blind fake out. Read the angle of the wall and you can roughly tell where Harbor’s standing, like many other abilities. Plus omen is the only controller who can do outplays at the moment

[iancrowley]

on defense, I think harbor is gonna be played either really passively and then use his util on retake or really aggressively to take space early round

[devanshudwivedi]

Bro really tried sneak in stereotypical Indian BGM 💀

[xerxop]

Your content quality is so good, talking about Harbor gameplays with Indian Flute and traditional music in the background is actually smart. ❤️ Love to all Indians and to you mate! Keep growing!

[jayliohd]

After playing harbor for a bit and watching a bunch of harbor content, I really enjoy playing him but at the controller role his abilities doesn't have much defensive impact.
Controllers have a lot of ways to stall pushes while on defense; Brim has 3 smokes and a molly, Viper has two mollies that also decay/her abilities in certain situations can fully deny entries, Astra has a pull and stun which combo with many other abilities, and Omen has a blind to stall the initial push and can also tp into strange off angles that enemies won't normally check. Harbor is good at taking space and control but when he takes control, there's not much else he can do. Especially when enemies are rushing sites and not really playing default. I guess he can cove to get a free defuse? Even then enemies learn and adapt so that only works for a couple of rounds.
Similarly, on attack he can easily take a site alone and similar to the defuse scenario, his cove can get you a free plant. But he still struggles with post plant situations. Both Viper and Brim can play lineups, Astra can pull off spike, displaces and stuns, and Omen can use his blinds and tp's to fake out enemies and stall defuses.
Another issue with Harbor is the fact that his kit revolves only around vision blocking and nothing else. With the meta picks being Chamber, 2 Initiators, I duelist and 1 controller. If Harbor is the only controller, he can definitely hinder a team comp. Good players/teams know how to punish aggressiveness so the only way to make Harbor viable on a team is if you run double controller, which isn't the worst but not ideal on almost every map. Pearl is the only exception where I can see Harbor and another controller on. Pearl has so many angles to clear especially when there's an op on defense. But throw an aggressive cascade and wall, the op has to play retake. Harbor aggressively takes site and the other controller defends the site. But Pearl is 1 of 7 (8 when Split returns to comp) that Harbor 'might' see play on. Icebox and Breeze has Viper, Bind and Fracture has Brim, Ascent, Haven (and Split when it returns) has Omen/Brim.
Overall, Harbor is definitely a fun pick but as a controller, he lacks the defensive impact that a controller usually brings. Many other controllers have team play combos; Omen blind and Yoru ult, Viper molly and KJ util, Astra pull and Raze nade, and the Brim stim with Neon are just a few examples. I guess Harbor has Cascade with a flash? but even then, there's not much other synergy. He's a good agent but he's missing a few things to make him feel like a controller. But what Keeoh said in one of his speedrun vids, "If you buff him, he'll probably be one of the best agent in the game". That's the problem. He's less then balanced but he's hard to buff without causing more issues.
If anything, the buffs should be small and should mainly focus on the cove and cascade. Increase smoke duration after the shield is broken. Cove right now lasts 15s without breaking shield so I think the smoke lasts approx. half the time the shield has been up. For example if cove has been up for 5s and shield gets destroyed, smoke remains for an additional 3s making it a total of an 8s smoke. I think two small buffs for Cascade should be, you can initially angle the wave will move, similar to sage wall. The buff should be enemies are knocked back and dazed for a short duration. Similar to real life, when hit by a wave you are knocked back and temporarily stunned. Make it a mini-version to his ult but shorten the duration of the daze.
That's it, what do you think? Is this a good analysis of Harbor?

[jomaroal]

His shield should be reworked to be anti skills instead of anti bullet. That way we would have the anti lineups agent we wanted for a long time, and he would be a solid counter pick to some agents (also an objective for the attackers if they dont want the play to be countered). Also to take off the slow to his allies

[MushroomKing]

"cove introduces a shield mechanic to the game"
Sage wall: "bruh"

[thatsmurfaccount]

hey man.
i remembered you when i watched your vids with jenkins back in the days when i was grinding Dota 2. happy to say i just reached low immo in dota.

I'm so happy i saw your channel and a familiar voice when i try valorant cuz my friends want me to.

thanks for the content bro.

[EmpReb]

I’m gonna Controller main with Harbor as my main as this point. He’s fun and if you like omen you can kill people instead of doing nothing till smokes up. Really playing him a lot

[FreddyTanusina_]

Harbor for me : he is a controller with full of different and unique smokes ability but the time of smoke is short which not really effective on defending site espesially when u want to delay enemy with smokes. But in other hand good at attacking, aggresive defender and retaking site. But with the time of the smoke is short, is not a good choice to delay some execute like retaking, or taking site when the smoke start, which hard to do if enemy have good counter abilities. So harbor with some other controller/sentinel like astra and viper is a good choice to fill what harbor disadvantages, so its like harbor +controller/sentinel +care flank sentinel like chamber( can replace by initiator if u need 2 of them cuz ur team might gonna need both flash initiator(kayo breach) and information initiator( fade, sova)+ initiqtor + duelist is good i think. This agents line up is disadvantages cuz there 2 smoker/sentinel which u need to throw sentinel that can care flank cuz ussualy 2 initiator flash + info and duelist that can dash to site (raze jett neon) ussualy better than flasher duelist( phx reyna) in high elo. This y opinion, hope you guys understand) sorry for bad english

[Sebvantiggele]

With the introduction of gekko, he will be needed again with his cove

[Haseendard]

nah nah i hear the background flute and beats, love the details and effort

[hallwhallw]

I can see icebox meta changing if he can set up good sight lines on B Viper + Sage could get replaced by Harbour + Cypher

[ho]

water abilities have already convinced me lol
now for the xp grind

[Kmn]

Wait, people don't like controllers? I'm a Brim main and Viper & Omen are really fun on the occasion. Blocking sightlines is more of an f-u than flashes imo. It basically tells the enemy they have to wait around and do nothing. Also it's great vs awpers which is always good to screw over.

[gobahgaber]

"what you lose in overall size you can make up for with the motion of the ocean" when did elevated become a poet?

[Seabass]

From my experience Harbor has been a massive space gaining agent. He’s more of an initiator/guardian than a controller (the roles are flawed anyways, give each agent a rating on each capability instead).

He’s a free spike plant on offense. Drop his wall and the put the bubble a little behind it. No one can stop the plant without really well placed mollys.