Valorant Raze Guide: Blazing the Field

Even with the introduction of Neon, Raze is probably the agent with the most dynamic movement due to the flexibility of her blast packs. Aim is equally as important as air strafing and tracking on the move if you want to truly get the upper hand against your opponents. In this article, we’ll explain everything you need to know about her abilities to explode into your games!

Boom Bot

• Cost: 300 credits
• Duration: 10s
• Health: 100hp
• Damage: 30-80 (outer-inner explosion radius)

The boom bot shares information gathering capabilities with Sova’s drone and Fade’s prowlers, except you can’t control its movement. It will roll towards wherever you’re facing when you use it, changing direction whenever it hits a wall. For this reason it’s important to think carefully about the angle you deploy it to make sure it creates as much space as possible. There’s plenty of clips out there of “roombas” getting stuck in corners, which may be pretty funny, but it can also ruin a round if you were relying on that info!

Like an owl drone, you want to send the bot ahead of you to make your push much safer. You can quickly clear angles and force enemies to fall back or reveal their position. If you time it right, you can even catch them off guard as they attempt to escape or destroy it. Get a teammate to push behind it to get a good timing, or if it explodes, clean up with an easy pick!

Of course, you don’t need to push the same place as your roomba. You can simply deploy it to clear an angle and then fall back to go elsewhere with your team, listening out to learn more about the other team’s positioning from whether it reveals anyone in the area nearby. You can take advantage of the fact that you aren’t stuck controlling it like a drone or prowler until it despawns.

If you want to peek aggressively on defense, the boom bot is your friend. It’s most effective in areas without open spaces (it won’t do as much for you C long on Haven for example, as it has to travel so far) and if it explodes, it can damage multiple enemies at once. Again, they have to mess up their crosshair placement to destroy it, which can help you get an opening pick before quickly satcheling away.

Blast Pack

• Cost: 200 credits
• Time to detonate: 5s
• Damage: 5-15s (instant), 20-50 (after arming), 600 (objects)

Raze’s blast pack is the key to her dynamic movement as it launches her quickly in a certain direction, depending on how you time it. Just be cautious as your enemy can break them, disrupting your plans!

The most basic element of satchel peeking is using a single blast pack to wide-swing or cross over a chokepoint. You can ruin the opponents’ crosshair placement using it in this way. It can also often get you out of a bind if you’re trapped in a corner by launching you to safety.

Of course, the mechanic every Raze main needs to learn is how to double satchel! By throwing a second blast pack underneath you while already riding the momentum of your first, you can cover large distances incredibly fast. It’s great for entrying onto a site by suddenly appearing at the back or up close, catching everyone looking the wrong way!

You’ll often see Raze players buying some kind of shotgun on an eco round to take advantage of the additional ground you can cover. Strafing is also a key skill to pull off the perfect double satchel, so definitely spend some time on custom maps practicing in key spots to gain a huge advantage.

If you find yourself with spare blast packs, there are some other uses too beyond movement. Since they deal damage, you can throw them strategically to deter a push, force an enemy out of position, or even speed up breaking Sage walls. (Of course, you can also use it to jump over walls!)

In some cases, you can even use a satchel to force an enemy off the spike – this could potentially win crucial rounds for your team. In general though, there are only limited situations where this is better than simply peeking and shooting, such as if you don’t have time to get close enough to see them.

The best way to master these maneuvers is by spending some time in custom maps and watching videos showcasing the best spots to blast into. Having one or two set entries in your back pocket for each site will make you unstoppable as even if the enemy expects where you’ll land, it’s still very difficult to deal with your high speed, especially if you use a specter or shotgun.

Paint Shells

• Cost: Free, 2 kill recharge
• Damage: 15-55 per explosion (outer-inner explosion radius)

Paint shells are one of the most powerful abilities in the game for dealing damage due to their secondary explosion mechanics. Not only do you inflict damage on the first charge, but it also subsequently forms several more explosions which also hurt the enemy. This makes them very difficult to escape from and have great potential to kill if they hit multiple times.

It’s pretty easy to use these nades on the fly, either left-click throwing to achieve a greater distance or right-clicking to catch opponents close to you. However, there are some awesome line-ups you can learn to reach the greatest area with your explosions and therefore deal maximum damage.

There are also certain locations in the map where you’re more likely to get kills as it’s harder for enemies to escape, such as vents on Split. Even if they have time to get on a rope, at least one of the charges will hit them, and you can do the rest when they’re forced to peek you.

On defense, it’s fairly common for players to use the paint shells early in a round to create more space and enable them to push up further to get better angles. For example, immediately nading B main on Ascent through the windows gives a teammate time to cross and hide in the cubby on the right side to hold a crossfire with you from stairs.

You can completely devastate a push with a well-timed nade, making it a lot easier to anchor a site. Also, the fact that it regenerates after 2 kills means you’re pretty likely to be able to almost immediately nade again if you throw your first one at the right time!

You can also play off info gained with your boom bot. If you hear it be activated by a nearby enemy, you know exactly where to throw your paint shells to deal even more damage!

Showstopper

• 8 points
• Duration: 10s
• Damage: 30-150 (outer-inner explosion radius)

The showstopper functions like a rocket launcher. Once you activate your ultimate, you have 10 seconds to fire it before it runs out. You can use your blast packs while you have your ult equipped, so you can satchel or double satchel towards the enemy team and make it impossible to escape.

The main disadvantage of this weapon is that you can be quite vulnerable in gun fights, since you can only fire once. Due to the time it takes to fire and then for the rocket to travel, you might often find yourself getting traded – it’s also quite common to get a kill after you’ve already died! It also has quite a small zone where the damage dealt is lethal, so you’ll need to be fairly accurate with it for it to pay off.

Despite this, it can be a pretty effective deterrent. When your opponent hears the voice cue to alert them that you’ve activated your ult, they’re likely to fall back or actively try to avoid you, at least until the 10 seconds is over. This means you can waste time while they’re too scared to push.

Keep in mind that they might also often sit deeper and hold off angles to try to get the kill on you before you can fire, knowing that you’re likely to be more aggressive. This is another reason why using your satchels can be a big help as it makes your movement much less predictable, and enables you to actually find someone to shoot at before the timer runs out! The last thing you want is to waste your ult by having to fire at a random location and hoping to get lucky with timing.

That’s it for our Valorant Raze guide – now you’re ready for some explosive entries (and a lot of fun with fast-paced gameplay!). If you found it helpful, be sure to check out our site for more!