Bro, stop flashing me: Why being a VALORANT initiator is the most difficult job

After VALORANT Patch 8.08 led my favorite controller to her grave, I decided to give what I’d call the shooter’s trickiest role a serious try. And if you are wondering how my “initiator experience” has been, I don’t have an easy answer.

From Skye to Sova, I gave each of these supposedly “overpowered” VALORANT agents a chance to win my heart. After all, I wanted a new main for myself following Viper’s demise, and they had to be someone I could terrify my enemies with, like I did with the poison queen. 

Now that my search has ended, Fade and Skye are my clear winners—but that’s only if I choose to avoid all the nagging I had to endure while being my team’s initiator. This brings us to today’s topic: Is being an initiator the most painful experience in VALORANT?

I swear, even the most stubborn VALORANT players—who refuse to enable their microphones to offer crucial calls—don’t miss out on the obligatory “Stop flashing me, bro” remark in my matches. 

You can time and throw the most perfect pop flash, hoping to help your team. You can alert your team repeatedly about your idea. But you may still annoy that one teammate who’ll readily choose to run into your flash’s trajectory and then blame you for team flashing. 

In a lobby as high as Ascendant, you’d expect your teammates, especially duelists, to know how to turn and dodge pop flashes. Surprisingly, this isn’t the case, limiting your potential as KAY/O, Skye, or Breach. Neither do most know how to take advantage of your utilities, so expect your team-centric efforts to be in vain almost every match. You may catch all five enemies in Breach’s Fault Line, but what’s the point if your team’s duelist lurks on a different site? 

Don’t get me wrong: It’s hard to master initiators and some players just don’t know how to throw their utility. This is especially true in low Elo, where most are still learning the quirks or filling for the team. It’s easy to make mistakes with flash and recon trajectories. I find myself apologizing profusely for a bad flash in almost every game.

Even pros occasionally blind their teammates and make mistakes with their recon lineups. Instead of playing the blame game, however, they understand the complexities of the initiator role and plan accordingly.

All things considered, my respect for players who regularly play this role has only increased in the past few weeks. Despite all the pain, I continue to instalock my lovelies—Skye and Fade— in my ranked VALORANT games. As I continue to improve at throwing pop flashes for myself and the team, in case you are wondering what it takes to be someone like todo (Pocket KAY/O) and paxieh (Duelist Skye), here’s what I learned from my experience so far:

1. Being an initiator is all about playing with the team. Please don’t lurk. 
2. Learn flash lineups. They are incredibly handy if you want to coordinate with your team easily. 
3. Mini-map reading is key, especially when playing Sova, Fade, and Breach.
4. Gekko may seem to be the easiest initiator agent, but you are wrong. And please, don’t send the Spike in before taking the site. 
5. Having a working microphone is non-negotiable if you are playing an initiator. Please speak up. Communicate where and how you will use your utility, even if the rest of the team chooses not to. 
6. Yeah, I know flashing is hard. But that isn’t an excuse to keep blinding your teammates. Always try to check your teammate’s position and situation before throwing a utility.
7. Last but not least, if your teammate is being toxic and refuses to coordinate, just mute them. The best thing about being an initiator is that you don’t really need your team to push into sites. Put on the cap of a duelist and run it down. It may not be easy being that aggressive as someone destined to be a support, but it isn’t impossible. 
8. As someone who can flash, stun, and reveal location, trust me when I say you have the potential to become your enemy’s worst nightmare in every game you play. Use it. 
9. Not every initiator is suitable on every map. Check out our guide to pick the best one.

All in all, I can confidently say that being an initiator main in VALORANT is a grueling experience. At the same time, I also haven’t had this much fun—tilting the enemies with unexpected recons, pop flashes, and whatnot—in a long, long time. Initiating is a bittersweet experience, and I will keep indulging in it until Riot Games decides to rebuff my Viper (please, devs, just let her pick her orb up).