Sage, the healer and mistress of crystalline energies used to help her allies. She belongs to the 10 original Valorant agents released when the game first went live and is the very first healer in the game. As the most prominent support unit, Sage supports her allies by renewing their life energies and protects her allies by creating safe havens where they can feel safe. In this Sage guide, we will be learning how to properly use Sage as your team’s primary support unit to assist in securing victory for the team.
Sage: The Giver of Life
Sage is an agent hailing from China, attributed by her eastern-style clothing and speaking accent. As part of the Valorant protocol, she behaves with discipline and gives off a leadership vibe by always reminding her allies of their duties and responsibilities during the mission. Until the announcement of Skye, Sage was the only agent who was capable of healing other teammates. This made her one of the most contested support units in the game.
As a Sentinel, Sage plays a supportive role for the team and prefers being in the backline when things get rough. Her importance lies primarily on her ability to keep other agents safe and out of harm’s way. In this Sage guide, we will be discussing her importance as a healer but what makes her really valuable to the team is her ultimate ability, which allows her to resurrect a nearby allied corpse. Players who don’t have the confidence to run straight into battle and prefer a more passive role might want to consider playing this agent.
Sage’s General Playstyle
Sage is a tried and true support unit that prefers to stay out of the frontline. Her ability as a healer can benefit the team both offensively and defensively to give her team the advantage in skirmishes. Sage prefers to stick with one or more teammates at all times to fully utilize her skill but her skills can also be beneficial when dueling. However, this Sage guide focuses more on her supportive abilities rather than fighting abilities.
Sage Guide: Skills and Rotations
Unlike a lot of agents, Sage’s skillset doesn’t contain abilities that deal damage to the opponent. Instead, her kit relies mostly on delaying the opponent or healing allies. Her character design does well to emphasize her role as a support unit as to discourage players from trying to play her as an offensive carry. Despite her abilities not being suitable for more aggressive roles, she makes up for it by being a reliable backline support which will be discussed further in this Sage guide.
C: Barrier Orb
Active: Sage casts an orb in a targeted area that erects a destructible wall made from crystalline particles. The wall is divided into segments that need to be destroyed one by one.
Toggle: Pressing the ability before use can change the direction of which the wall is facing.
Enemies can’t see through nor normal jump up the wall. The wall dissipates after 30 seconds.
Sage’s Barrier Orb is an excellent tool to deter opponents from trying to reach the target area. Use the wall to discourage enemies from moving towards a point or force them to use up bullets to try and destroy it. When you cast the wall under your feet, it will raise you up and give you an excellent vantage point. The wall can also be used to support your Entry Fragger, giving them more cover to try and secure the area without taking too much damage. Keep in mind that the wall is destructible so use it wisely.
Q: Slow Orb
Active: Sage casts an orb in a targeted area which explodes on contact and spreads the crystalline essence on the floor. The crystallized floor slows opponents that walk on top of it and create crackling noises when moving.
Slow Orb is another ability that helps zone off opponents or catch them off guard. Opponents that are caught in the crystallized floor will be slow so it will prove difficult for them to try and dodge your attacks. Opponents moving through the slow field will create a loud crackling noise that will give away their location even if they try to walk slowly. Use this advantage to launch an easy counter-attack that will give you a high chance of success.
E: Healing Orb
Active: Sage prepares an orb which she can bestow on her allies or herself. The orb heals the target overtime for 60 health points overtime, casting this ability on herself will take longer to take effect. (Allies can’t be healed over 100% of their total health points)
Healing Orb is Sage’s signature ability and helps your allies stay in battle a little longer. Make sure to stick with your strongest ally to keep him in battle a little longer. You can also use this ability on yourself when you’re in a pinch so that you’ll be able to help out more in the long run. While healing the ally with the lowest health is the most ideal usage, you need to consider the usefulness of the player you’re healing in the team so that the cooldown will not be wasted.
X: Resurrection
Active: Sage channels the life-energy surrounding an ally and brings them back to life. The ally is resurrected with full HP and all the skill points they had before dying.
**Note: Resurrected allies pick up weapons on top of their bodies. If there are no weapons on their body upon resurrection, the agent will spawn with only their default weapons.
Resurrection is Sage’s ultimate skill, allowing her to revive an ally of her choice. When using resurrection, consider the state of the round and whether the match is still winnable even if you revive your best player. Keep in mind that Resurrection uses up a lot of Ultimate Orbs so you won’t be able to use this ability as often if you don’t secure a lot of kills in the game. Be careful resurrecting allies since the long animation time allows them to be gunned down right after they have been revived.
Sage Guide: Team Roles
In this Sage guide, we’ve learned how important Sage is as a primary support. Let’s take a closer look at each of her roles to explain how she works in the teamplay aspect. Each agent has a contribution to bring to the team and Sage’s role is extremely obvious. However, this doesn’t mean that she can’t play anything other than a supportive role just because her kit highlights more of her defensive capabilities than her offensive ones.
Support
We’ve mentioned over and over in this Sage guide how her primary role is support. To explain what a support does, it is a role that takes a more passive role in fights and prefers a position where they can reach their allies more easily compared to strategic fighting positions. Supports act with reservation, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t take part in the gunfight. Supports should be active in the fight but should also closely monitor that team’s situation.
Crowd Control
Sage, as a support, doesn’t just mean that she’s just there to act like a walking healing potion that her allies can use. Her other abilities play an important role as well. Barrier Orb can give your allies cover to hide while they reposition themselves or escape. Slow Orb is useful in deterring enemies from following you into a strategic retreat. Finally, Resurrection gives your team a second chance on attacking the enemy with a number’s advantage.
Reconnaissance
Sage is excellent at holding a point all by herself. You can place majority of your force in one point of the map where you expect the enemy will make a full frontal attack. Meanwhile, Sage can deploy walls to cover entry points which will reveal whether the enemy is trying to engage the area she’s trying to defend by herself. Slow Orbs will also slow down their advance to ensure that it’ll take more time for them to plant the spike before your reinforcements arrive.
Sage Guide: Phases
The Pistol Round
At the beginning of the match, Sage would like to be more reserved with her purchases and prefer to begin saving up for economy right away. Her healing ability provides allies with an excellent way to sustain from the weak pistol shots for free and win the round despite only having the Classic at the start of the match. There is also no need to buy any skill points since enemies would rather wait out the effects of the skills than expend bullets.
Later Rounds
Sage would prefer to keep on killing enemy agents to stack her ultimate orbs faster. However, as a Support, she should be more reserved in the way she purchases weapons and sacrifice her own offensive capabilities to buy weapons for her allies instead. She should ensure that all her abilities are full before the round starts and buy full armor points so that you don’t get easily taken down right after the match starts. Needless to say, a dead healer is a useless healer.
Sage Guide: Stages
Sage’s playstyle completely changes depending on whether she’s an attacker or defender. Knowing how to approach the fight depending on which side she’s in will definitely prove to be a useful strategy to learn when playing this agent. When playing Sage, it’s important to note that she’ll be playing a more reserved style throughout the map. She will try to get into fights only after her teammates have engage with the enemy to have a better chance of surviving.
As the Attackers
Sage’s skills play a different role when playing as the attacker. Barrier Orb will either serve as a wall to prevent her team from being flanked from behind or as a shield for the Entry Fragger to get better positioning when taking a point. Slow Orb should not be thrown when taking a point since it’s more likely that the enemies are already stationed so it’ll hinder your allies instead. Sage should stay behind the fight and watch your teams flank and provide support and healing if needed.
As the Defenders
As a defender, Sage can play solo and try to defend a point all by herself to gather information on the enemy’s whereabouts. She can position herself more offensively without having to worry about being close to an ally at all times. Her Slow Orbs and Barrier Orbs both work to try and deter the enemy from trying to advance in her territory and make it difficult for enemies to rush into the fray without suffering heavy consequences thereafter.
Sage Overview
Sage might seem like an extremely passive character to play but her learning curve is very high. Players who aren’t adept in gunfights might want to play this agent so that they still have a purpose in the team regardless of their performance when it comes to skirmishes. She is a highly contested pick and seeing her kit makes it easy to understand why she’s one of the best agents to use. Mastering Sage will ensure that your team is extremely hard to kill and very annoying to deal with.
How many healers does Valorant have?
Currently, Valorant has two dedicated healers in the game. The first agent is Sage and the second one is Skye who is yet to be released. They are both able to heal allies from a distance and are primarily used for supporting their teammates.
What is Sage’s real name?
Sage’s real name is Mirai Kimur. Her biography suggests that she is Chinese in origin. She wears eastern-style clothing and tries to speak with an eastern accent.