The guide on Astra — a unique agent-controller who can control space and time

We return to our series of materials dedicated to available VALORANT agents. This time, we will talk about Astra — the agent-controller who stands out with her ability to crack space and time, creating effective obstacles for opponents.

In other words, Astra is connected with space, fueled by energy and leaving the stars. Moving between reality and astral shape, the agent gets a map under her full control and can manage the deployed stars on her own.

However, Astra is a pretty complicated agent to master because her skill set requires a special knack and level of preparation.

Due to this, we propose to talk about Astra — tell you in detail about the abilities of the agent and give a few pieces of advice on how to play her correctly.

The list of abilities of Astra

A little remark should be made here because Astra does not spend credits for using her abilities in a common meaning. Instead, the agent uses stars that drop at the beginning of every round in an amount of two units. Since the amount of stars is limited, a player can buy two more stars for 150 credits each.

Nova Pulse

This is one of the main abilities of Astra, for which you will have to use three stars. With the help of Nova Pulse, a player can concuss opponents, receiving an advantage on the battlefield.

In other words, Astra moves into an astral form, where it places a star at the selected point. Activating the ability, a star explodes and releases a powerful blast that concusses all nearby players.

It will be enough to use the ability if you feel the timings on a map and listen to the enemy team’s movements. ova Pulse will not help you in an open shooting but the ability is extremely useful in post-plant situations.

For example, Astra is protecting a planted spike with her teammates. Having deployed the ability at one of the open positions, you can cut off the enemy’s offensive and win a situation.

How to control: Move into an astral form to arrange the stars. Press the ability button to concuss all players with a powerful impulse.

The key characteristics:

• Quantity — one
• Cooldown — 45 seconds
• Deployment time — 1 second
• Concussion effect time — 4 seconds
• Size — 475

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Nebula

Actually, there is nothing to say about the following ability because Nebula is another kind of smoke grenade. However, just like the previous ability, Astra moves into an astral form where she deploys her stars.

When a player wants to cover space with a smoke screen, he will activate the ability and deploy smoke. At the same time, Astra can dispel Nebula at any moment and use stars in different locations. It is also worth noting that Dissipate briefly forms a false Nebula in the star's place before the star returns.

It is worth talking about the advantages of the ability. Usually, agents have one smoke grenade, of course, it is called differently. However, Astra can spend two stars, closing two positions on a map. Of course, it is difficult to compare with Brimstone’s variation of the ability but it is way better than Jett’s one.

How to control: move into an astral form to deploy stars. Press the ability button to activate a star and release a smoke screen. Stars can be dissipated and placed in a different location to reuse the ability after a while.

The key characteristics:

• Quantity — two
• Cooldown — 45 seconds
• Smoke screen deployment time — 0,5 second
• Smoke screen duration — 15 seconds
• Dissipation duration — 2 seconds
• Cooldown after dissipation — 25 seconds
• Size — 475

Gravity Well

Let’s move to the last signature ability. In this case, Astra deploys a star, which pulls all nearby opponents toward the center. Moreover, when it is deployed, Gravity Well explodes, making opponents vulnerable.

The star deployed by the player through the astral form creates the effect of a dark hole and pulls all players toward its center. After a small delay, the star explodes, debugging all the players within its range.

This ability can be useful to stop the enemy’s movements and can be combined with other agents to create extremely effective combinations.

How to control: Move to an astral form to locate stars. Press the ability button to activate a star and start pulling all players toward its center. After a while, the star explodes, debuffing all the players inside.

The key characteristics:

• Quantity — one
• Cooldown — 45 seconds
• Pull effect duration — 3 seconds
• Vulnerability effect duration — 5 seconds
• Size — 475

Astral Form/ Cosmic Divide

This is the ultimate ability that becomes available to a player after earning 7 points. In this case, Astra created a synthetic divide on a map that divides it into two parts. The remarkable thing is that two parts are divided by the fault line, through which you can see nothing and it can’t be shot.

Astral Form/ Cosmic Divide is a useful ability in post-plant situations and also clutches when a player has to create an advantage and disorientate opponents.

Since the ability, in fact, breaks a map into two parts, players from the opposing team will move between positions carefully, trying to avoid trouble. However, the drawback of the ability is the fact that the wall blocks bullets but it misses the abilities of other agents.

How to control: Move into an astral form to locate stars and create the divide on a map. Stars can be reactivated later, having turned them into other abilities.

The key characteristics:

• Price — 7 points
• Activation time — 3 seconds
• Divide duration — 20 seconds

How to play as Astra well?

Astra is a very difficult agent because a player has to consider not just the situation on a map but use her stars wisely and choose the right time to move into an astral form.

Besides, the abilities require accurate learning and a lot of practice. That only is Astral Form/ Cosmic Divide, which takes a lot of attention and requires experience to combine a few abilities.

The main advice, which will help to play as Astra right:

• Do not skimp on stars. You can remove stars at any moment and reuse them during a round.
• Combine abilities for a bigger effect. For example, you can deploy two stars nearby and turn one of them into Nebula and another one into Gravity Well.
• It is better to have an opportunity to use all three abilities in the same place effectively. It is very important: an opponent can see a star but he/she does not know what abilities you have prepared for this area.

Summing up, Astra stands out among many agents for her mechanics. If we compare this character with other controllers, the difference will be drastic from the first look. First of all, a player who wants to master Astra’s abilities has to feel a map and predict the enemies’ actions to deploy stars in the right locations.

Secondly, the agent is useful at the end of the round, so a player should not find shootings at the beginning of a round. Besides, Astra requires a long preparation, so you should visit the training ground and try out the abilities before launching a rating match.