Mastering the Fade: A Comprehensive Guide to Playing Fade in Valorant

Fade Agent of Reyna has one normal ability called Fade Out, which is classified as a Hyperion/1 C cost ability. It has 2 charges and can be used every 20 seconds. This 200 HP, 1 meters per second phase agent is semi-unique with her quantum spacetime shadow dark arts. When pressed, Reyna is able to grant herself invisibility, in which no enemy agent can see her. Reyna’s closest invisible agent would be Viper when using her ult, as they can’t be seen by the enemy. Viper can be seen by her team, and Reyna can’t be seen by her own team. These are not functionally useful abilities, being asked to reveal nothing and do essentially nothing respectively. Reyna needs to be aware not to make noise with steps as they are still audible and can give away where she has stopped going for the enemy.

Ability 2: Shadow Step

Shadow Step is Fade’s second ability. Entering the Shadow Realm, Fade is unseen to the enemy, doesn’t make sounds from movement, can see in the dark lane that day, and moves faster. Shadow Step costs 100 credits, and Fade becomes invisible on the enemy map. Fade will stay in the shadow terrain for 15 seconds. After activation, Fade cannot attack for 3 seconds. At lower levels, Fade does not emit a sound after her Shadow Step ability has been used. The recharge time is 40 seconds.

Gameplay suggestions using Shadow Step include escape, early-round map control, or fast rotates. During opponent pushes, use Shadow Step to emerge from sights, then rapidly walk away to loosen contact and escape. Assist teammates by being the initial player to check a dangerous approach aggressively, then use Shadow Step to escape if opponents are noticed or to generate predicative data when no enemies are noticed.

Ability 3: Shadow Walk

The Shadow Walk is the second part of Fade’s Q ability and activates automatically after Shadow Step ends. Fade turns completely invisible. Fade’s footsteps disappear, making no noise, and Fade’s air control is the fastest in the game. Shadow Walk echoes enemy footsteps, allowing Fade to fool the enemies into thinking the normal radius of walking noises is their real location, giving Fade a key tool for surprising and flanking enemies.

How to Use Fade’s Abilities Effectively?

Use Fade’s abilities effectively in Valorant to provide reliable tactical cover for your fellow agents. Use Smoke Lockdown to deny sightlines for flashes and spikes, and gain mobility through a mid plant. Use Warp Dissolve to build a dynamic wall and deny the enemy superior positioning. Use the Power Surge Ultimate to reposition oneself or one’s team without enemy notice.

Use Fade Out to Escape or Re-position

Players can fade with average and fully recharged fuel tanks, allowing them to blind opponents by passing enemies or to dodge lethal shots to the detriment of recharging the tank and using actual fuel. As of the Episode 4: Act 1 release of Valorant, Fade begins to leak after 2 seconds to exert a finable fee to blind some distances. Pros tailwind out of direct harm’s way and walk until the enemies lose their line of sight to safe zones inside the aren’tno enemies camping.

Furthermore, opponents often have a difficult time determining which direction Faded agents will come from, ensuring an even higher degree of safety. Fade is at its most useful when Escape is necessary or repositioning is needed without being seen. This is much more predictable for the opponents when playing inside the building, making it a common use of Viper on Bind.

Use Shadow Step for Mobility and Flanking

On top of Shadow Step’s invincibility frames, it can be used for mobility and flanking. In her 1.11 build, Shadow Step is traded with her Rapid Fire to pack much more of a punch. Used for exploring the map and gaining the element of surprise versus taking enemies down faster.

Fade technique: With a deactivated Dismiss, position your crosshairs at the landing point. Then activate it on the second mark. Since the first duration is only one second, perfect timing is crucial. If it overlaps, your landing is respectively boosted or shorter. If it is too short, it is not going to give you any benefit. A parallel trick is using a Bind or Blink across the map and timing the teleport just as a Shockwave hits the ground near the initial point. This can totally throw enemy teams off guard

Take this random example where an Omen uses her Ultimate to get to very-high elevation inside B site on Split. She then waits for just the right time to Fade her way around to a railing out of sight. Perfect for getting a broad flank on whomever comes out of middle or the B garage.

Use Shadow Walk for Recon and Trapping Enemies

Shadow Walk is lurking power and it is mainly used for the decision-making process of the game and sometimes to get out of tight situations. When you enter Shadow Walk, the part of your character model that is in the air is left behind in the air. If you use this to your advantage and use the jump right before entering Shadow Walk, you will virtually leave a vanilla model standing in air. This is known as a Bait Vanishing Act. Enemies might shoot the vanilla model leaving the Fade player their last known position so the Fade player knows exactly where their gunfight will start and can prepare accordingly.

Internationally recognized tactic guru King comments that when you (the Fade player) use your Shadow Walk, you hear how many bullets they (the enemy) missed, he didn’t even see that you changed position… you can use your ultimate at the next corner and kill those guys. Sometimes when you get the jump, enemies won’t shoot, which allows you to switch out of Shadow Walk without them knowing. American content creator Autumn Rhodes recommends using it when your health is low to get away. Autum used a bait vanishing act when a player was camping the spike and killed them. The same tactic is shown at the start of the video by KING below.

King’s fade clutches.

What are the Best Weapons to Use with Fade?

The best weapons to use with Fade are the Bucky or the Frenzy. The Bucky is the best weapon to use with Fade because of its cheaper price, a similar right-click spread to the Frenzy despite doing better damage at long range, and a left-click spray pattern that is quite similar to the Stinger despite doing a higher close range headshot damage (117 versus 105). Paired with Bucky, Fade is excellent at earning credits while playing agent roles that assist the main entry fraggers.

The Classic is a great weapon to use against an aggressive attacking team. The Frenzy does less DPS against opponents who have shields, which means the Frenzy is less ideal the earlier into the round it is known the enemy team is buying full shields and safety in the pistol round. This, paired with its lightweight and pistol playstyle, makes Fade the second best agent to use with it due to his own lightweight and pistol-style play.

What are the Strengths and Weaknesses of Fade?

The strengths of Fade in Valorant are her A3-N Neural Interface, Empress and spectre clutcher, gravity well as a zoning agent, and smokes as concealment and decoy utilities.

Her A3-N Neural Interface is an early-game fragging and disorienting utility while Empress is her late-game powerful fragger. Empress greatly enhances her CQB fighting skills and mobility to an extent comparable with or exceeding duelist agents.

The main weakness of Fade’s kit is that none of her abilities have the ability to deal damage.

According to those who are experts in playing Fade or other agents and have also played with her, Fade is optimal in these agent combinations to cover her weaknesses.

• Fade with Viper
• Fade with Phoenix

Strengths: Mobility and Stealth

Fade is strong in mobility and stealth.

Fade’s mobility greatly assists her in her aggressiveness as an initiator on either attacking or defending rounds. Her abilities further accentuate this strength, with no cooldown for her Zoom ability and a long cooldown for her two-mode teleport to Master switch. Fade’s teleport almost functions exclusively as a means of quickly crossing the map or escaping from a losing confrontation.

Master switch is better suited for short-range escapes and manoeuvers, whereas the longer fade teleport can be used for quick lateral transitions.

The quiet and hidden nature of Fade’s abilities provides agents with valuable information when used on enemies, while also allowing Fade to remain hidden. This underpins her double-agent status as an initiator and agent with pointy-sharp blades, while also offering various unique map control and vision-denial opportunities.

Combined with her high mobility, her stealth can prove to be a serious threat to defenders if she can attack from a direction from which they were not expecting.

Weaknesses: Lack of Defensive Abilities and Low Health

Since the update that removed Donovan’s explosive pack, Fade is one of the few agents with no defensive abilities. This means that her only protection beyond the damage she deals is her person’s own skill at avoiding enemy fire. The armor system may provide limited protection, but skilled opponents will have no difficulty compensating by aiming for Fade’s head instead of her center mass. This allows for a quick takedown even with full armor.

Additionally, Fade has just 100HP, which when combined with the lack of stop-gap abilities renders her highly susceptible to being quickly damaged. Any player that can locate her before she can get out of the line of fire can quickly take her out with bodyshots, despite the armor.

How to Counter Fade in Valorant?

To counter Fade in Valorant, sova and skye both have abilities that allow them to see around Fade’s smoke curtain. While omen can bypass the smoke curtain, and Brimstone’s incendiary grenades go through it. Using Measures Defense Law (Cypher main) to plant tripwires at the entrances of high-traffic locations can catch Fade trying to slip in unnoticed or plotting to nade a throw from a concealed position.

Use Area Denial Abilities

In Valorant for Fade, use area denial abilities to force opponents into a position where they are more predictable and vulnerable. Examples of Area Denial characters of abilities include:

1. +molotovs
2. +smokes
3. +toxic slows from Viper
4. +Tripwires from Cypher

Breach’s Faultline and Raze’s Boom bot that act as area denial ability preventing anyone from enemies from staying and/or pushing a certain area. Astaris’ smoke, Viper or Brimstone’s poison cloud, and Omen’s dark cover are good examples of area denial abilities that are available even after the round starts, making sure that you have used these characters’ abilities during critical moments.

Stick Together as a Team

In Valorant, tactics for Fade’s play include sticking with the team. Fade’s play should involve sticking together as it is essential for most agents in Valorant to play together as a team, assisting each other, and planning strategies to attack and defend against the enemy. This is particularly the case with Fade as she has few abilities to escape in the event of an ambush.

In some situations, Fade can act independently of her teammates by waiting behind to surprise the enemy from the rear if they are attacking her teammates from behind while they hold the fort or attack from the front. However, she must always remain close to the team to provide assistance.

Watch Out for Flanking and Ambushes

Map knowledge of which areas leave you open to these attacks and which provide adequate cover is key. There comes a moment in the attack phase – and less often in the defend phase – where one must be aware that the target of ambush will be themselves. As a result, where the Fade takes themselves out in such an instance becomes important. Reacting quickly when seeing enemies flank and ambush is crucial; firing at ambushers becomes important. Because their location is no longer hidden to the rest of the team, the ambushers as well as the target of the ambush must act swiftly.

Tips and Tricks for Playing Fade in Valorant

Fade is an excellent choice for the attacking side in Valorant due to her Gatecrash portal (and its accompanying field that makes up for any faults in the agent’s capacity) as well as her Charging Light and Steer Movement abilities for flipping plant and defense strategies. Using Gatecrash for game entry gets the most out of the agent, with Charging Light functioning as a cheaper, quicker Ghost buy.

With good timing, Cloudburst can be utilised as a smoking or flanking device. Best suited to teams with a high level of coordination.

Regardless of the entry location, Fade is a mobile killer. Her A-typical camera placements and ultra-specific Afterimages are important for her success. Learn more by watching streamers like Sinatraa, MythFPS, Tenz, or ButterfooTV.

Practice Using Abilities in Custom Games

To play as Fade, a player must practice using their abilities correctly. One way to do this is by starting custom games and familiarizing yourself with how this agent’s abilities work. The reason why custom games are helpful is that there isn’t an opposing team to oppose or distract you while you get acquainted with Fade. Custom games are available in the training section of Fade’s abilities. Some basics such as the primary and secondary fire and the location where the hack ability works, as well as the cooldown time, sound signature, and so on should be the first steps in getting used to Fade’s abilities. The second process should be developing in-game scenarios in both offensive and defensive scenarios using Fade.

Communicate with Your Team for Coordinated Plays

Communicating with your team for coordinated plays involves using your microphone to give your teammates information that affects your choice of move when playing as the agent Fade in Valorant. This information includes calling out locations of enemy agents when they are spotted, sharing information on where objectives are in relationship to your position or the position where you had intended to advance, and taking advantage of callout positions from the map in order to specify the spot to which you plan to advance. The bind agent in Valorant and especially the pistol-exclusive Fade weapon, due to its great utility features of smokes and flashes and intended play against defensive, static enemy camps often requires coordinated plays to breach these defenses.

The main breach to take note of is when Fade throws out her flash (using the MOUSE2 button) and teammates with scopes in the background can make easy picks or provide cover using Fade’s vision and the smoke curtain. How to communicate in Valorant – The bottom line for communicating with your team on how to play agents in Valorant is to have a microphone, listen to your team in return, don’t violate gaming etiquette concerning mic usage, and to hold tight to the specialized radial communication menus and callout positions so that you can continue to give important and quick-to-understand information even if circumstances force you to mute your microphone.

Be Mindful of Your Health and Positioning

This tip may be obvious, but it is very important to be mindful of your health and positioning while playing Fade. She is less of an initiator than some other agents, such as Omen or Brimstone, although her abilities help her to cross the map quickly. This means that using intact abilities or tripwires for defense is recommended. You should always be moving between and around sites, as your opponents will find bottlenecks hard to breach.

By remaining mobile and hidden, you force them to check above, below, behind, and in bushes. Make tight angles, use peekers advantage when enemies don’t have intel. Think creatively and be knowingly unpredictable. 90% health remaining is better than 100%, As Fade has no other defense tools beyond the one-time-use shadow formation ability. Only use Fade’s ultimate ability when you are covered somewhere discreet and remove yourself from the battlefield before activating it. It is best to come in from somewhere unexpected or even above so you have an easy escape back to safety.

Conclusion

Fade is a VALORANT agent that relies on outsmarting opponents, using distractions, and stealth mechanics for scouting and flaking the enemy team. Their ability kit allows them to nullify informational advantages that the enemy has over time and by being physically advantageous from above their opponent. Use Fade to exploit and create vulnerabilities in the enemy’s map control positions and to force duels on advantageous terms. Mastering Fade requires good planning, patience, broke timing, stealth attack timing, and confident aim in 1v1 situations. Reyna, Kayra, Phoenix, Viper, Yoru and VIPER-6 are Fade’s most advantageous synergies for creating dual threats and fast enemy clears.

Disadvantages of playing Fade include the following: Fade is not a dueling game, so do not expect to be favored in 1v1 short fights against Commanders or Combat Experts. Fade will inherently be the agent of large amounts of self-damage when using her ability kit. If not managed carefully, their health will be eroded quickly. Fade takes a lot of practice to master from getting the most value out of the sniper rifle to practicing to make the snapshots as short as possible before converting to a sniper rifle. Heavy utility use contributes to decreasing the dynamism that Fade has. This means she is vulnerable to concentrated attacks.

Playing Fade Successfully follow these tips while playing as Fade. Implement jump throwing of friends for better fade vision, use ‘Fade + Brimstone’, Dark Vision Jumpthrow into ‘Fadeball’, and drop Fadeballs behind you when you start sprang the areas you have to attack to help with quick discovery catches. This will keep enemies confused over the source of your power. Keep this basic principle in mind when playing 3 step Fade (blind > fire snipe > flick fired, shutdown weapon animation when fade)): Slow it down. Crosshair positioning Hacks from Valorant Door ‘jump peak’ in Icebox for an easy dual door in terminal. The ability to safely cover is very impressive.

Final Thoughts and Recommendations

Fade in Valorant is a passive agent that can zone enemies and perform scouting and intel-gathering duties. She is particularly useful on the A-Site on Bind and A-Site and Mid on Split. Sabbath’s Engame on YouTube highlights the best locations to exploit her abilities for fading angles of approach.

She has seen success in home-run or plant-clearing scenarios but can struggle in retake maps for B Site on Bind and Defend/Cover scenarios on C Site on Haven. Phase Runner and Evasive Maneuvers are Fade’s most important abilities. If you are centered around these, a Ghost or Sheriff sidearm for close-quarters and long-distance backup is a good pick. Both Stinger and Guardian are recommended primary weapons, with Fade’s low damage output having an easier time getting the final kill with one magazine.

Bucky, Marshall, Operator are all strong situational picks, but are not recommended for general play styles. Fade in Valorant fits best into a dual controller line-up. Teammates might play defensive agents with lots of crowd control effects to give her space to roam and remain safe.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. How do I unlock Fade in Valorant?
To unlock Fade in Valorant, you will need to purchase the Fade Bundle from the in-game store for 2,475 Valorant Points.

2. What are the abilities of Fade in Valorant?
Fade’s abilities include a passive called ‘Shadow Step’ which allows her to become invisible for a short period of time, a smoke grenade called ‘Fade Out’, and a tactical ability called ‘Fade Away’ which allows her to create a shadow clone.

3. How do I use Fade’s ultimate ability in Valorant?
Fade’s ultimate ability, ‘Fade Shift’, allows her to instantly teleport a short distance. To use this ability, you will need to charge up your ultimate by getting kills and then press the ultimate key (default is X) and select your destination with your mouse.

4. Can I choose which direction to teleport in with Fade’s ultimate?
Yes, you can choose the direction to teleport in with Fade’s ultimate by moving your mouse in the desired direction before releasing the ultimate key. This allows for more precise and strategic teleportation.

5. How can I effectively use Fade’s abilities in Valorant?
To effectively use Fade’s abilities, it is important to communicate with your team and coordinate your actions. Use her invisibility to flank enemies and surprise them, and use her smoke and shadow clone to create distractions and confusion.

6. Is Fade a good choice for a beginner player in Valorant?
Fade’s abilities may be more advanced and require more strategy, so she may not be the best choice for a beginner player. However, with practice and understanding of her abilities, she can be a valuable asset to any team.