Be ready to meet the new agent in VALORANT. Riot Games’ officially introduced a new VALORANT agent, Waylay, adding another duelist to their roster. See what she offers with her abilities on the battlefield.  

Who is Waylay and When is She Being Released?

This new VALORANT agent hails from Thailand adding vibrancy to the impressive roster. The duelist, Waylay, stuns with her distinctive yellow, black, and navy blue tactical suit. In the official description, they described Waylay as transforming into light as she moved across the battlefield. She strikes down targets using shards of light and flees back to safety in the blink of an eye.

After much anticipation from the community, Riot Games finally revealed Waylay on March 2, 2025. This simultaneously happens during the grand finals of VALORANT Masters Bangkok 2025. However, she’ll only be available once the Season 2025 Act 2 launches exactly on March 5, 2025. 

Waylay’s Abilities: Speed, Light, and a New Debuff

With Waylay’s addition, what new should the players expect from her? The new VALORANT agent attracts interest with her light-based movement and debuff called “Hindering.” This makes her unique from other agents they can select and play from VALORANT’s roster. Here’s what is known about her abilities so far:

  • Refract: This will create a beacon of light on the floor. By reactivating, it will speed you back to light during which you are invulnerable.
  • Light Speed: It gives players a speed burst by fire to dash forward twice. You may opt to dash once through using alternate fire. Only the first dash will send you upward.
  • Saturate: This hinders nearby players with a powerful movement as well as weapon slow by throwing clusters of light. This explodes upon contact with the ground. 
  • Convergent Paths (Ultimate): It makes an afterimage of yourself which projects a beam of light. The prismatic power gives you an impressive speed boost and expanding beam, to hinder other agents in the area. 

On the other hand, using Hindering greatly slows affected players from their fire rate, equip time, and recoil recovery. Moreover, their reload, movement, and jump speed are also reduced to give you an advantage over them.

Strengths and Weaknesses: Where Will Waylay Excel?

It seems that the new VALORANT agent, Waylay, has plenty of great skills contributing to the game. She is perfect for clearing map corners with numerous angles and tight spaces. Waylay is particularly effective on Icebox, Lotus, Bind, Ascent, and Pearl. With her ability, she can quickly check and clear ratty angles on A-site U-Haul on Bind to her advantage.

Besides appearing as a great movement duelist, her kit also builds strong against Sentinel utility. Waylay’s skill easily bypasses Trap wires of Cypher by using her Light Speed ability. Meanwhile, she can escape Killjoy’s alarmbots and grenades with Refract. So this might bring in a potential meta shift for both Sentinel and Duelist selection.

Though Waylay is not free from any disadvantages against other agents. Waylay doesn’t have abilities enabling her to take cover in open areas compared to Jett’s Cloudburst smokes. So you can expect her to struggle when playing in large open areas like Abyss and Breeze. 

Also, playing Waylay would need coordination with the rest of her teammates to avoid wasting her abilities. Plus, she can easily get picked off by opposing teams due to her limited cover. 

How Waylay Will Change the VALORANT Meta

It has been four years since Jett dominated the duelist meta of the game. The arrival of the new VALORANT game challenged her dominance, especially in movement abilities. Also, this marks Riot’s first attempt at adding a new movement duelist to fuel players’ excitement. 

According to VALORANT Game Designer, Juan Cuervo, Waylay is a blend of Raze’s satchel movement and Jett’s dash speed. Yet, she isn’t completely designed to change any of the current duelists in team compositions. However, she stands unique for her versatile escape ability in the guise of Refract. 

Conclusion

Now, does the addition of a new Valorant agent, Waylay, excite you? This Thai duelist will get tested soon whether she’ll play on or above par with other Duelist agents. Yet, her kit including light and movement seems promising to any team composition. Ready to play this new agent once out on March 5, 2025.