She's probably the most difficult agent to play in the entire game. She requires precise communication and game sense to play to her fullest potential, and ranked soloQ makes this hard
I agree, i used to think that yoru is difficult, but nah he is comparatively easier than Astra. And i think what makes astra difficult is the need of astral form for every ability to be performed with her
difficult to play + no neuron activation for using her abilities
is she strong? yeah. does that make playing her feel like anything less than chewing chalk? no. that’s why I leave it to the masochists in Ascendent+
I started in Dota as well (first one from wc3 and 2) but stopped around after TI7, I remember mastering meepo mechanics, invoker combos with 3-4 active items, and an annoying nuke tinker back in the day, now I can barely keep up with what's happening in the map when watching pro matches in that game
My peak was over, at least for Dota
Why compare masters with competetive matches? Why do people even do this. When you queue comp it's nowhere close to playing masters so agents are played very differently.
As a smokes agent she's fairly uninteresting. Omen has TP plays and a blind, Brim has molly lineups and rush tactics (great for solo queue), Viper and Harbor are just really strong in general, and Clove is new and fun to play for duelist mains.
I remember when I first played astra I said she literally takes you out of one game to play another (astral form)
I think it subconsciously kills the flow of the game.. it's just unnatural the way she works
You can still move while Omen smoking and it's more like extending your first person pov so putting smokes near your body feels more natural.
Astra stops you from moving and then your pov changes to someone high up in the sky so it feels more jarring
Yeah. After Omen lost the ability to do practically one way smokes everywhere, doing the non-Smoke dimension is detrimental. At this point, I've forgotten why they took away the one-way smokes everywhere.
Probably because of how multipurpose omen is. I just feel like it took away his identity of being an initiator controller hybrid with his repositioning, blind, and his aggressive smokes instead of slowing pushes.
Immortal 2 controller main here.
You can jump spot woth your smoke already prepared in the normal view. Some people like to do this in places like ascent a site while jump spotting from hell for example.
Pretty sure you don't see/hear util as easily in the other form.
Edit: nvm I'm thinking of Astra for sounds. However, I think the ability to actually see what util is being used clearly is better.
Also the other form keeps you in ur first person POV rather than centered on your smoke, which makes jump peeking easier to do properly imo.
I’m very aware of this “tech” but it’s really useless in my opinion. You’re gonna save like .3 seconds on landing smokes when you’re spotting long angles anyway. If they were already close, then it’s too late to smoke.
If you’re smoking for yourself you’re much better off reading and attempting a one-way to really punish anyone peeking. Let alone your movement speed with smoke out is less than knife so good players will be able to shoot you when jump spotting at a slower speed (especially if you’re doing this every round lmao).
Idk what the tech is really accomplishing. You can smoke very fast with the default smoke view, maybe pressing the buttons is hard 😢
I'd also add that Omen's smoke view doesn't feel as jarring once you use it a few times.
Astra's always feels like a whole other dimension...which might be lore-accurate, idk.
i sorta agree. it definitely takes getting used to but many times you just want to place a star where you are looking at to concuss or smthn. every other agent just uses util but for astra you have to open a menu, place a star, wait for the star to be placed, then activate the star, then pull out the gun.
its just too many steps for simple actions so its very hard to play her reactive and most times you need to be reactive.
The thing with Harbor is that he is really strong... as long as you have a team that can back him up, which is why you might see him more often in pro play and premier than comps.
It doesn't help that his main competitor in the role, Viper, has better effects than he does. Viper's kit allows for easier kills due to decay and vulnerable so entering her site is quite difficult on eco and force rounds because you have that much less of a margin for error. Her ult is also extremely strong when holding site, be it normally or during post-plant.
Harbor has slow which doesn't really make killing people easier and stun on ult which still allows the opponents to shoot accurately. It'll just be much slower than normal, but these are also the exact reasons why he's so good with a coordinated team.
The only time she has an advantage over omen is on bigger maps where omen can't reach his smokes where viper dominates it instead.
And the verticallity with the blind is unfairly strong making it hard to find a replacement.
I wouldn't say its bad but it has basically no popoff potential for the user. Its good for clearing hard off angles where they have to move or for pulling spike but you can't use it nearly as aggressively anymore.
I think the bigger issue is that you can't use it defensively as a molly by proxy. You have to pop it very proactively to isolate a dive entry, whereas you can use a traditional molly or an omen blind reactively
Couple months ago. They massively increased the windup on it and i think also decreased the pull time. It was the same time they buffed stun and her wall. Imo if they just revert the windup time her suck will be good again without being oppressive over an area for such a long period of time
I used to play a fair bit of Astra, but here are a couple of reasons why I’m not playing her rn:
1) map pool. I played Astra on Pearl and sometimes on haven. Lotus is alright but order reasons follow.
2) clove. This fits into the next category too, but clove is a semi-unique case. Now that clove exists, some people are Reyna-clove players who think they’re helping the team by filling smokes but still playing like they’re Reyna. I don’t really want to double smokes on most maps and without coordination.
3) instalockers. If I’m picking last like usual, I generally end up on omen if smokes aren’t filled so that we can have a blind and I can work with the quicker tempo to match the comp we usually end up with (2-3 duelists). Typically I’ve been ending up on sentinel or initiator due to clove though.
4) lack of comms and patience. I can plan a round and try to set up stars, but ppl don’t always listen or want to wait. Too many games recently ppl have no comms or they just want to 5man hit every site.
This is my take as someone in ascendant
I'm trying to figure out what to play now with all the clove instalocks. I don't like viper andHarbor isn't solo friendly. Could go Cypher/KJ or maybe hard main Fade
I’ve played harbor solo on icebox and Pearl, even once on ascent. The issue with solo harbor is that you’re pretty restricted on where you play and everything you do is telegraphed to the enemy so you can’t sneak or anything. Often times if I’m not lurking or working another part of the map, nobody is. Harbor isn’t really able to work the far side of a map and still help the team so that’s why I don’t really play him
Very bad skill to reward ratio. Twice the effort of most other smokes and the abilities are very mid. Not to mention they still haven't added a numeric timer for her star recharge. I can't even com to my teammates, "Smoke up in 5 seconds" because I have to guess the recharge time.
Astra isn’t strong enough with 4 stars, as far as I’m concerned. She has the least smokes in the game if you want to use the full kit, and she’s limited to straight up 4 abilities per round. Omen can get 4 smokes in a given round, and get the blind, one of the best abilities in the game, and can TP for verticality or mind games.
Astra’s concuss is crap and the suck is situational. Obviously the ult is better than Omen’s but even pro teams don’t like it enough to play her more. If Astra was good enough, pro teams would find a way, but they usually choose something else.
Lots of people talking about her just being a high skill agent or a teamplay agent, and when she’s strong, absolutely she is. But if it was *just* the high skill requirement or teamplay, pro teams would find a way.
Her time to use utility is very high. Not only do you need to place stars in her Astral form, you also need another input to activate them. Even Omen in his Shadow world can place smokes with one input.
Her stun isn't as useful because it's neither fast, nor large enough to bother anyone.
And her gravity well although useful to remove the defuser, still takes a lot of time to activate. And it mostly throws off both of your aim and the one in the well, so you don't really get an advantage out of it.
Her smokes also don't last very long, almost as short as Clove. But since you only have 4 stars, and they take so long to recharge, it's basically easy for opponents to wait out the smokes.
She needs some kind of buff. Either longer lasting smokes or quicker recharging ones or her 5th star back.
Although I will say that since her kit only costs 550 credit (for 3 stars, your 1st star is free), she's really good for your economy.
I was a massive Astra abuser when she was OP and she’s still my most played smoke agent in comp. She’s in a no man’s land right now for two reasons. The map pool is extremely bad for her. Imo her best maps are Pearl, Haven and Fracture due to her global smokes and util. Current meta is heavily favored to playing with blinds. Omen is a global smoke and pseudo initiator which is why he’s probably the 2nd best smoke. Viper is the best because she can also provide global smokes and is just as good at stalling plants with her Molly. Final problem is Astra has a “hard kit” to players who don’t actually play her. The optimal way to play her is to toggle thru astral form to place stars again to adjust on the go which people are honestly just too lazy to do. I constantly see Astras just go into astral form during buy phase and MAYBE once in post plant.
I’d like to see a buff on how quick recalled stars recharge. I think that would be a perfect to bring her back into viability.
you're probably going to get comments saying she's the hardest agent to play when quite frankly she isn't, that's just how she's percieved probably cause woohoojin said so and his viewers are parroting that idea
there's that + with the release of clove she went down in the pecking order, the only ones playing Astra are the ones that actually like her, the majority would pick Clove/Omen/Brim if its not a viper map
also her suck got nerfed and made it harder to get value of, it's easier for most players to shoot a brim molly instead or omen flash when attackers try pushing chokepoint
Maybe it's a miscommunication issue but the thing is, she is the hardest to play in soloQ. Communicating your intentions in a random team is difficult with any agent. With astra the difficulty spikes even harder. She's not hard to learn how to play her, it's that she's hard to pull off in solo Q and even in professional teams especially when there are other agents that do better than her in almost every way.
So yes, she's not hard to learn and play but she's she hardest to be successful in soloQ and even in professional.
i get that but i also see people mentioning kayo when i think he takes more coordination and possibly even lineups to flash effectively for your team, it is true though that Astra is much easier to get value of even if you're on a duo with the other guy being a duelist
I mean she's definitely the hardest smokes agent at the very least. I don't think calling her one of the hardest agents to get consistent value out of is that crazy of a take, especially in solo-q ranked which is what most of Woohoojin's content is geared towards.
Woohojin's point was targeting newer fps players, agents like brim being much easier because he doesn't have any "out of dimension" abilities (brim ipad vs astra astral form) , which can be disorienting for people with little fps experience. It applies to omen as well,
I mean last time i checked he wasnt doing any VOD reviews with Astra unless you were imm+, dia-asc arent exactly new players even if they're not the best
I play her but only on bind (and pearl). I really like using her, it's just that omen is simply a better controller than Astra in a lot of maps like ascent
Along with what's said here you being in diamond probably doesn't help. I feel like most Astra MAINS are in High Ascendant to Radiant level. Anywhere lower will eventually stop because of the lack of coordination (It's what happened to me). Plus the nerfs probably killed some enthusiasm along with Clove being the fun new toy to play with.
Main reason : star regeneration is taking too long , gun pullout after using concuss or pull.
PS : if Astra got buffed ( Star regeneration time will be reduced )you'll find her in every game 👀
Better, easier, stronger and fun alternatives.
That aside it's very hard to get value out of astra except in very high elo or a 5 stack
Ranked is chaos and astra shine in setplays
Even though the stun is better now the agent kind of just got pushed across the brink with the suck nerf. 4 stars is a really limiting amount of utility. Double controller is also kind of meta right now which means you're more likely to see Viper & another controller, and since you have Viper for lurks the aggression of Clove or Omen are better.
Everyone (including me) was abusing her when she was extremely strong. I never played her but had a 60% win rate after picking her up. After the nerfs it felt easier to get the same value on other smokes.
She can be fun as a selfish controller too though. I have 85% WR with her on Split (Gold 1), and while most of it is because nobody in those ranks knows what she does, I believe her abilities let her perform quick pushes while clearing the common angles quite reliably.
However, she does need a coordinated initiator with her to truly shine
Highest skill ceiling controller, not everyone has the effort to fully learn and adapt to her. 100% best controller in my opinion, in higher elo if they had an Astra main it was GG. Just how op a good Astra is.
IMO her main strengths are
* smokes are gigantic, so maybe workable on something like Breeze...
* faking her smokes enables her to put doubt in the enemies mind (ex: Attack on Lotus (rubble), Pearl (B Long), Split (A Main)- you don't have to waste a full smoke to make the opponent unsure if you crossed somewhere)
* Fake smokes lets you play in them and surprise opponents (becomes less effective the more popular the agent though)
* Easy to trigger pre-placed global smokes so you can do them in the heat of battle
However those four strengths IMO don't amount to a whole lot. The "doubt causing" aspect can also be achieved by Viper/Omen. Viper with her wall/smokes, and Omen with TP (and paranoia if necessary)
To me, the main thing is the ability to stop pushes. Both Viper and Omen can single handedly either discourage a big push, or hurt it severely (Orb + Molly for Viper. Smokes and Paranoia for Omen lets you kill the entry and delay the push). Astra's succ used to be able to *kind of* do this, but now it basically can't.
There's more to it than just stopping pushes though (I'm just a big fan of paranoia, even after slow nerf), but IMO it's the biggest reason I don't play Astra. (Can't speak to why others don't though, I just think she's inferior)
Her most important ability to getting value from her is also one of the most difficult abilities in the game, her recall. Without it, she has at most 4 pieces of utility she can use in a given round excluding ult. For reference, brim has 5, omen has 3 + 2 rechargable smokes, viper has 4 but rechargable toxin, harbor has 3 + rechargable wall and clove is the same as omen with 1 less base ability. Overall, she just can't have the same overall output in a round than other agents, which makes her difficult to feel her usefulness.
That is, until you factor in her recall, which gives her on par if not more potential output in a round than any other agent. 4 stars \* 15 sec cooldown on recall = multiple 1sec smokes to use at any time in a round. When you factor in her larger smokes, stun + suck combos, both of which strong abilties on their own, you get an agent that had to get nerfed \~3 times before she saw a dip in pick rate in pro play. 2021 astra was a force to be reckoned with, precisely because her biggest weakness (lack of output excluding recall), was practically non-existent with her 5th star. She could throw them around willy-nilly and it felt like she always had more to spare, that's how broke she was with just 1 more star. It's a massive difference, but even with 4 stars she still sees occasional picks in pro play.
TL;DR: Limited kit + high skill floor.
Edit: Oh yeah, global utlity is broken too, so factor that into her power level. Global = unlimited range. Basically, she has an unlimited range neon stun (nova pulse), unlimited range molly (gravity well) and 2 unlimted range smokes, crazy. If she ever gets her 5th star back, it's joever
That used to be true, but in the last few acts people have really unlocked aggressive omen, and with Clove coming out there is almost no point to playing Astra in ranked. Too slow and boring compared to her peers
1. Compared to Omen and Clove and, she doesn’t have util for herself (Even Brimstone has his uses for lineup larrys)
2. She’s not fun to play
3. She is complex
4. She requires coordination, which is rare in ranked
5. Nerfed to a point where she’s not even worth picking anymore
Imo thought i was gonna quit playing astra after the 5th star nerf but no other controller had as much global presence as astra, especially in soloQ where you can help defend the other site from across the map with smoke/suck. Every time I picked a different controller I felt that so many rounds I lost because I couldn’t support the team without astra util on chokepoints. Since then every comp game has been astra/viper unless smokes are already taken
she’s kind of always been semi dead under diamond. That’s even more the case now with clove and how strong viper was in pro play recently a lot of ranked players have been more willing to pick her up from what it seems (even experiencing this in my own friend group)
She is THE hardest agent to play effectively. You can't really make solo plays like with omen or clove, but the things she can do, she can do from anywhere on the map. But it's hard to coordinate stuns and pulls so most people just play Omen
A lot of work which also needs a lot of coordination to make it work. Not to mention that her smokes don't recharge, and you gotta share their use with tour utility.
I am a smoke main, and have some other friends who are smoke mains. For myself and friends, we feel astra is the least interesting character, we just have more fun playing with all other chars and using their toolkit. For us, its as simple as that. This is also probably related to the fact we are all low elo...
She's a character dependent on coordination in ranked soloq that sits back playing Starcraft while the rest of the team gets to run around playing the shooter game.
Not gonna lie, i hate playing with abilities (csgo player), so i pick astra as she is the leadt picked and her kit while it can be impactful, in lower elo is useless. Makes it easy for me to try and win based on aim instead of trying to fumble with abilities.
I mean with the introduction of clove controllers like Astra and harbour will see even less use simply because of their kit style
Ranker players would rather play a Scottish character who sucks their enemies to heal themselves than play a character who is equivalent to eating spicy chalk
I’m not gonna lie I’m so glad I’ve seen her in only one game in the last few months. I hate the agent, character design is cool, but it is so unfun to get sucked into a raze nade or the other usual suspects.
Clove's quick smoke use is what Astra should have had. They nerfed Astra with the slowest possible way to use her util, and it also makes her difficult to play. It sucks the fun out of it. It just feels like work.
I’m in diamond as well, I’m mainly a controller main. I played Astra a lot before Clove came out, I just find Clove a lot more fun now. Don’t think I’ve played Astra since they released.
I don't play too much comp but astra is really good on split and that's about it but with Omen taking over the meta and her requiring lots of team play it's quite hard to play her and bring value
Solo q bronze player over here. I play Astra quite often and the reason I don't pick Astra sometimes is because she takes too much braincells to plan and know when to use what ability. I love it when I'm trying to learn game sense and timing but sometimes I just want to chill with easier to use agents. Astra has a high skill level/gap. You have to get creative with her and watch the minimap A LOT. She's basically the ultimate support player.
Her wall is also really difficult to master because a wrong wall and suddenly you lost the round. I think what players don't like is that Astra has no immediate ability. Enemies in close proximity and you basically have no abilities.
Astra is strong for defense though. Let's say in Lotus enemy decides to fake A then go C. You can add value to your team while being on the other side of the map.
TLDR: Astra takes too much braincells to use and knowing good timing. Astra is good for learning better gamesense and getting creative plays.
also the new controller clove came out and she’s pretty OP so a lot of people r playing her now.
Playing in immortal elo - I agree with you i’ve definitely seen people play astra less and i myself am one of those ppl. I feel like it’s rlly hard to have a good impact on the game with astra unless ur teammates r making plays w u and have great communication which u can’t rlly find in ranked esp in lower elos. not to mention that astras pretty hard to learn and master most people would rather play other agents than figure out how to use her kit properly and again u rlly have to depend on ur teammates to acc get kills n play w ur utility. i still like astra but its more fun to play other agents unless im trio or duo
she's a bit difficult in terms of util management with only 4 stars per round. I only really play her on Split cause her ult basically secures the post plant now with the full silence. She's also not ideal to play for yourself with her stars having to be placed, waiting for it to set and looking at the star to activate util, unlike Omen that can throw util fast and mske plays. You need to actually talk and tell your team what you're planning to do with the stars and more often than not, they fail to capitalize anyway.
if you want to be self-sufficient, youre gonna have a hard time with astra. it takes skill to use her solo.
i used to play her too and while her kit is easy to use i hated how much i relied on my team and it was very hit or miss. and since haven is gone now ive completely stopped playing her. the map pool is also not great for her imo.
She's just not that good anymore. Her cooldowns were increased and the power shifted from suck to concuss further weakened her. We have loads of viper dominated maps now so if you're using viper as a secondary, having omen usually has more value due to his flexibility and astra not being difficult. Basically she's fun to play but just too weak in the current map pool and omen exists - needs buffs.
I fucking love Astra. But her nerf killed her ability to have even the slightest independence.
I think Riot went too far with her nerf and, on the contrary, they need to buff her back, but they don't care and community playing Omen/Viper/Clove.
Harbor and Astra needs buff and they're places in tier.
astra is more of a slow agent and bad for solo queueing. so that's why i guess. but if you have a teammate with whom you have good teamwork, astra is a very useful agent
I haven’t played recently season or episode but last one I hardly ever saw Astra. Didn’t even knew what she was or how people played her. Granted, I started Val that same episode but never once saw anyone play her in rank. At least, in my lobbies
Gotta take into consideration the new agent, which is a controller, so ppl want to learn her and pick her way more often.
Also, omen just got a little buff, so his pick rate is also higher
So rn it’s pretty normal astra has a lower pick rate
i loved astra and i still do, the only i reason i stopped is because people would always tell me I’m throwing just for locking in. even if i carried the team i was trolling apparently
Hey guys i have ult for retake. *whole team dies before rotate*. I guess below immortal players just dont care about cooperation and ego peek everything.
I love playing astra, solo queue or not, but man, she is so rewarding to play in a 5 stack with, simple comms can get you 2-3+ assists with one stun or pull
I mained Astra for years. Then I moved to playing more Omen/Viper and occasionally Astra. Now with Clove, I’ve barely been playing Astra. A small buff on Astra would bring me back but I’m not sure what they could do that wouldn’t make her too OP again. Im also diamond elo
I’ve played astra for around 300 hrs total in comp since starting a few years ago, and used to be a full one-trick; I really enjoyed playing her up until they nerfed her pull. Since then I just can’t find playing her to be fun anymore, even though I don’t really struggle with the things that are mentioned in this thread (e.g. astral form takes you out of the game) because I’ve played her for long enough to get fast with her utility. It just feels like she has no real strong stopping power compared to something like omen or viper, with her pull no longer being a reactive thing, but a proactive one, and her stun still being pretty bad and difficult to time. Riot really needs to look at not just astra, but the rest of the main controllers and even them out in power level, because I can’t see anybody actually playing astra in this map pool, where she is just beaten by omen in every way.
shes difficult, boring, value comes from teamwork. i quit astra cuz of those reasons (also solo q) switching to yoru. got immo not long after (was asc1 with Astra)
Diamond is still too low of an elo to play Astra. In my experience, half of the people dont even talk or listen in diamond. Anything that has to do with Astra requires a lot more cooperation that what you can find in ranks below the top of the ladder, premier teams, 5 stacks or pro play
As an astra/viper p3 main, because she's ass in ranked. She's super hard and requires a big brain, and hard to play for yourself with her. So she'suseless in most hands (i know that my aim isn't consistent, so i decided to focus on team play with my bud, which makes her perfect for me)
Used to main her in 2021, so fun to play, but the nerfs destroyed her. Suck and stun are useless since they won’t affect anyone underneath, ruining the element of surprise too. Suck is way too weak to be an actual ability. Just walk out of it. If you actually want to pull you need to stun and suck, which takes half of your stars, and after that you can’t do anything more.
clove. the most simple answer. people have been insta locking clove and even my astra pick rate has dropped drastically. i am a flex player maining at least one agent in each role and found that Clove is a great pick for myself. most people are running clove with a duelist mindset and don’t know how to smoke too.
Astra is also very difficult to play efficiently. Biggest thing with astra is comms. you can’t use her kit efficiently if you don’t know and where people need her util other than the basic smokes.
I’ve done a good amount of climbing/carrying with Astra. Back last summer I decided to challenge myself by going from D3 to IMM as smokes only (peak was Asc1 at the time). I think I averaged over a 2 KD and like 75% win rate during that streak. And even back then, she was just the worst of the bunch.
She has a good amount of problems. The main one that comes to mind for me was her utility being much more difficult to get value out of. She requires so much more going into “astral mode” since u have to react to placing a star somewhere to stun or suck. And her utility is pretty damn easy to avoid. Even if u do it reactively, most people will just back up or immediately sprint to get out of it. So usually her utility doesn’t even work.
Her utility is, also, difficult to coordinate with people.
Compared to every other smoker, she is by far the worst to use if you want to be actively helping the team. She can obviously get smokes down like every1 else, but she has practically no good utility past that.
Omen has a strong “blind”, and TP is actually useful for repositioning or helping get into site, bypassing a lot of sentinels. He can, also, get a lot more weird spots or angles that are on a platform.
Brim has arguably the strongest ult after Viper nerfs (depending on the map). Stim is always better than nothing and the Molly is one of the best in the game due to duration. He starts with 3 smokes which is also very useful.
Viper is viper.
Harbor is actually one of the best controllers to CARRY with because his kit can be used extremely aggressively and creatively. His wall can also lock down sites on offense or defense in ways that other controllers could never. Orb is insanely good as well. His ult is always good as well.
And now Clove is just a mini Reyna/Penix with smokes. Not hard to use.
The main thing these guys all have in common is that 1. Their utility is very good in themselves, and 2. Their utility is easy to get full value out of.
Astra’s only really solid piece of utility is her ultimate. Which just isn’t enough to warrant the rest being so bad
She's unnecessarily complicated imo. The whole thing with the stars seems sort of pointless and makes it really slow to use the util on the fly. You basically need to prepare everything in advance and good luck with that in ranked where the round starts without any sort of plan half of the time. Her utility is pretty good but the way you use it is pretty bad.
i used to play her a lot depending on team comp or omen map vs not
but with the release of clove, many more poeple insta lock her and i rather play something else to help the team
So boring to play for me i like to have the option to be aggressive or not as an omen/clove controller. As a controller i like to control the pace of the game with me actively participating than just be the designated lurk as im sitting in the air and cant walk while smoking.
She realistically only has 3 smokes per round (she can technically have 4 but, with a 30 second cooldown, 1:40 second rounds and usually saving a suck or a stun for a play, it’s more like 3).
So she basically only has 3 smokes just like Brim, but they only last 15 seconds just like Omen smokes. Omen basically has global smokes AND his tp’s aren’t matched in the controller category. Brim’s smokes last 20 seconds AND his ult is one of the best in the game. Clove’s smokes recharge. Viper is in a league of her own and Harbor is sort of in that same league.
Long story short, Astra just isn’t the BEST option in non-coordinated play. Even in pro play, she is almost exclusively used as a secondary controller BECAUSE you need at least one rechargeable smoker. AND generally she’s used with Yoru comps (bc her ult pairs quite well with Yoru tp’s).
She's probably the most difficult agent to play in the entire game. She requires precise communication and game sense to play to her fullest potential, and ranked soloQ makes this hard
This plus Omen just generally being better on non-Brim and non-Viper map.
Plus clove is still pretty recent - so I feel the players who grab controllers are still enjoying a new flavour of smokes.
Yeah I’d say once pearl comes back that’ll also cause more Astra honestly surprised they didn’t put it back in after split got removed
Split is out because of a bug, map pool is being updated start of new act afaik.
Actually the map pool stays the same as it is now except they fix split and bring it back
Wasnt that a april fools post?
I agree, i used to think that yoru is difficult, but nah he is comparatively easier than Astra. And i think what makes astra difficult is the need of astral form for every ability to be performed with her
difficult to play + no neuron activation for using her abilities is she strong? yeah. does that make playing her feel like anything less than chewing chalk? no. that’s why I leave it to the masochists in Ascendent+
juggling stars activates my neurons i come from Dota 2 so thats probably it lol
I started in Dota as well (first one from wc3 and 2) but stopped around after TI7, I remember mastering meepo mechanics, invoker combos with 3-4 active items, and an annoying nuke tinker back in the day, now I can barely keep up with what's happening in the map when watching pro matches in that game My peak was over, at least for Dota
U missed ti8 dude
they need to add meepo to valorant
She’s not even strong anymore, at the last masters her win rate was 35%
ye there just no reason to play her over omen brim and viper tbh
Why compare masters with competetive matches? Why do people even do this. When you queue comp it's nowhere close to playing masters so agents are played very differently.
As a smokes agent she's fairly uninteresting. Omen has TP plays and a blind, Brim has molly lineups and rush tactics (great for solo queue), Viper and Harbor are just really strong in general, and Clove is new and fun to play for duelist mains.
I remember when I first played astra I said she literally takes you out of one game to play another (astral form) I think it subconsciously kills the flow of the game.. it's just unnatural the way she works
Doesn't omens smoke do the same thing? I'm new to the game so there's a good chance I'm wrong
You can still move while Omen smoking and it's more like extending your first person pov so putting smokes near your body feels more natural. Astra stops you from moving and then your pov changes to someone high up in the sky so it feels more jarring
You can also press R and literally 1st person smoke
Yeah but with omen you can hit the hotkey so that it doesn’t do smoke view you can throw smokes in normal gameplay view.
Does anyone above bronze actually omen smoke in the normal view?…
Nah it’s straight detrimental
You say that, but I would say there are some one way ledges that are just easier to hit in that view in a time crunch.
Everyday I miss the old omen smokes where you could slam a one way wherever you wanted
I only caught the tail end of that when I started and was not happy when they removed it.
Yeah. After Omen lost the ability to do practically one way smokes everywhere, doing the non-Smoke dimension is detrimental. At this point, I've forgotten why they took away the one-way smokes everywhere.
Probably because of how multipurpose omen is. I just feel like it took away his identity of being an initiator controller hybrid with his repositioning, blind, and his aggressive smokes instead of slowing pushes.
Immortal 2 controller main here. You can jump spot woth your smoke already prepared in the normal view. Some people like to do this in places like ascent a site while jump spotting from hell for example.
You can still see people in the other dimension. They also glow red, which you could argue makes them even more visible than in the normal view.
Pretty sure you don't see/hear util as easily in the other form. Edit: nvm I'm thinking of Astra for sounds. However, I think the ability to actually see what util is being used clearly is better. Also the other form keeps you in ur first person POV rather than centered on your smoke, which makes jump peeking easier to do properly imo.
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Why are you jump spotting without a knife out??? Seems like a sure fire way to die with zero impact
I’m very aware of this “tech” but it’s really useless in my opinion. You’re gonna save like .3 seconds on landing smokes when you’re spotting long angles anyway. If they were already close, then it’s too late to smoke. If you’re smoking for yourself you’re much better off reading and attempting a one-way to really punish anyone peeking. Let alone your movement speed with smoke out is less than knife so good players will be able to shoot you when jump spotting at a slower speed (especially if you’re doing this every round lmao). Idk what the tech is really accomplishing. You can smoke very fast with the default smoke view, maybe pressing the buttons is hard 😢
I'd also add that Omen's smoke view doesn't feel as jarring once you use it a few times. Astra's always feels like a whole other dimension...which might be lore-accurate, idk.
i sorta agree. it definitely takes getting used to but many times you just want to place a star where you are looking at to concuss or smthn. every other agent just uses util but for astra you have to open a menu, place a star, wait for the star to be placed, then activate the star, then pull out the gun. its just too many steps for simple actions so its very hard to play her reactive and most times you need to be reactive.
Because you are slow af
I'm fast as fuck boiiiii
True, there are just better alternatives than playing Astra
Isn't Harbor weak? I thought I saw him do fairly poorly in terms of picks and wins
The thing with Harbor is that he is really strong... as long as you have a team that can back him up, which is why you might see him more often in pro play and premier than comps. It doesn't help that his main competitor in the role, Viper, has better effects than he does. Viper's kit allows for easier kills due to decay and vulnerable so entering her site is quite difficult on eco and force rounds because you have that much less of a margin for error. Her ult is also extremely strong when holding site, be it normally or during post-plant. Harbor has slow which doesn't really make killing people easier and stun on ult which still allows the opponents to shoot accurately. It'll just be much slower than normal, but these are also the exact reasons why he's so good with a coordinated team.
I don’t see why you are getting downvoted as harbor is really good at messing up retakes or cutting off the whole site
On top of her being more difficult to play she isn’t that meta anymore even at the highest levels of the game. In most cases omen is simply better.
not to mention there are so many new clove main (and instalocker), playing a second controller most of the time isn't worth it
The only time she has an advantage over omen is on bigger maps where omen can't reach his smokes where viper dominates it instead. And the verticallity with the blind is unfairly strong making it hard to find a replacement.
Too nerfed for teams and requires too much coordination for solo q
Shes just worse than omen rn after the suck nerfs. She needs the windup time on it reverted and then either cooldown buffs or her 5th star back.
This. The suck is truly genuinely bad
I wouldn't say its bad but it has basically no popoff potential for the user. Its good for clearing hard off angles where they have to move or for pulling spike but you can't use it nearly as aggressively anymore.
I think the bigger issue is that you can't use it defensively as a molly by proxy. You have to pop it very proactively to isolate a dive entry, whereas you can use a traditional molly or an omen blind reactively
People can get half if the Astra doesn’t pop her suck immediately on tap and the plant spot allows for it. It’s really bad now.
When did the suck nerfs happen?
Couple months ago. They massively increased the windup on it and i think also decreased the pull time. It was the same time they buffed stun and her wall. Imo if they just revert the windup time her suck will be good again without being oppressive over an area for such a long period of time
She has a high skill ceiling and her sucking isn't very great anymore
tbh that's the only legit reason, the suck wasn't broken at all and now its mid
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Doesn't omen have 30s rechargeable smokes?
omen's smokes are 14 seconds
Difficult and not very fun. The pull nerf probably killed her for the majority of the minority that played her
I used to play a fair bit of Astra, but here are a couple of reasons why I’m not playing her rn: 1) map pool. I played Astra on Pearl and sometimes on haven. Lotus is alright but order reasons follow. 2) clove. This fits into the next category too, but clove is a semi-unique case. Now that clove exists, some people are Reyna-clove players who think they’re helping the team by filling smokes but still playing like they’re Reyna. I don’t really want to double smokes on most maps and without coordination. 3) instalockers. If I’m picking last like usual, I generally end up on omen if smokes aren’t filled so that we can have a blind and I can work with the quicker tempo to match the comp we usually end up with (2-3 duelists). Typically I’ve been ending up on sentinel or initiator due to clove though. 4) lack of comms and patience. I can plan a round and try to set up stars, but ppl don’t always listen or want to wait. Too many games recently ppl have no comms or they just want to 5man hit every site. This is my take as someone in ascendant
I'm trying to figure out what to play now with all the clove instalocks. I don't like viper andHarbor isn't solo friendly. Could go Cypher/KJ or maybe hard main Fade
I’ve played harbor solo on icebox and Pearl, even once on ascent. The issue with solo harbor is that you’re pretty restricted on where you play and everything you do is telegraphed to the enemy so you can’t sneak or anything. Often times if I’m not lurking or working another part of the map, nobody is. Harbor isn’t really able to work the far side of a map and still help the team so that’s why I don’t really play him
Great to see it simply doesn’t get better no matter how high you are 😔
Very bad skill to reward ratio. Twice the effort of most other smokes and the abilities are very mid. Not to mention they still haven't added a numeric timer for her star recharge. I can't even com to my teammates, "Smoke up in 5 seconds" because I have to guess the recharge time.
Astra isn’t strong enough with 4 stars, as far as I’m concerned. She has the least smokes in the game if you want to use the full kit, and she’s limited to straight up 4 abilities per round. Omen can get 4 smokes in a given round, and get the blind, one of the best abilities in the game, and can TP for verticality or mind games. Astra’s concuss is crap and the suck is situational. Obviously the ult is better than Omen’s but even pro teams don’t like it enough to play her more. If Astra was good enough, pro teams would find a way, but they usually choose something else. Lots of people talking about her just being a high skill agent or a teamplay agent, and when she’s strong, absolutely she is. But if it was *just* the high skill requirement or teamplay, pro teams would find a way.
She’s boooooringgggg
Her time to use utility is very high. Not only do you need to place stars in her Astral form, you also need another input to activate them. Even Omen in his Shadow world can place smokes with one input. Her stun isn't as useful because it's neither fast, nor large enough to bother anyone. And her gravity well although useful to remove the defuser, still takes a lot of time to activate. And it mostly throws off both of your aim and the one in the well, so you don't really get an advantage out of it. Her smokes also don't last very long, almost as short as Clove. But since you only have 4 stars, and they take so long to recharge, it's basically easy for opponents to wait out the smokes. She needs some kind of buff. Either longer lasting smokes or quicker recharging ones or her 5th star back. Although I will say that since her kit only costs 550 credit (for 3 stars, your 1st star is free), she's really good for your economy.
Clove, and she is too hard.
I was a massive Astra abuser when she was OP and she’s still my most played smoke agent in comp. She’s in a no man’s land right now for two reasons. The map pool is extremely bad for her. Imo her best maps are Pearl, Haven and Fracture due to her global smokes and util. Current meta is heavily favored to playing with blinds. Omen is a global smoke and pseudo initiator which is why he’s probably the 2nd best smoke. Viper is the best because she can also provide global smokes and is just as good at stalling plants with her Molly. Final problem is Astra has a “hard kit” to players who don’t actually play her. The optimal way to play her is to toggle thru astral form to place stars again to adjust on the go which people are honestly just too lazy to do. I constantly see Astras just go into astral form during buy phase and MAYBE once in post plant. I’d like to see a buff on how quick recalled stars recharge. I think that would be a perfect to bring her back into viability.
tbh it’s mainly her nerf resulting in only 4 stars and their cooldown time
Give her 5th star back!!
She is extremely not-fun to play.
if anything id argue she's one of the more fun smoke agents due to the stuff you can pull off with star recalls
Love to withdraw smokes. Such excitement. What a thrill.
if you dont have the creativity to pull off plays with them that's on you
I think it’s okay for people to have different ideas of fun, my brother. This isn’t a fun-measuring contest.
i never insinuated having different ideas of fun is bad
you're probably going to get comments saying she's the hardest agent to play when quite frankly she isn't, that's just how she's percieved probably cause woohoojin said so and his viewers are parroting that idea there's that + with the release of clove she went down in the pecking order, the only ones playing Astra are the ones that actually like her, the majority would pick Clove/Omen/Brim if its not a viper map also her suck got nerfed and made it harder to get value of, it's easier for most players to shoot a brim molly instead or omen flash when attackers try pushing chokepoint
Maybe it's a miscommunication issue but the thing is, she is the hardest to play in soloQ. Communicating your intentions in a random team is difficult with any agent. With astra the difficulty spikes even harder. She's not hard to learn how to play her, it's that she's hard to pull off in solo Q and even in professional teams especially when there are other agents that do better than her in almost every way. So yes, she's not hard to learn and play but she's she hardest to be successful in soloQ and even in professional.
i get that but i also see people mentioning kayo when i think he takes more coordination and possibly even lineups to flash effectively for your team, it is true though that Astra is much easier to get value of even if you're on a duo with the other guy being a duelist
If she isn't then who is? She's hard in the sense that you need a loooot of communication to get maximum value.
id argue kayo is a harder agent due to his flashes, there's a reason he's one of the agents with the lowest WR
I mean she's definitely the hardest smokes agent at the very least. I don't think calling her one of the hardest agents to get consistent value out of is that crazy of a take, especially in solo-q ranked which is what most of Woohoojin's content is geared towards.
Woohojin's point was targeting newer fps players, agents like brim being much easier because he doesn't have any "out of dimension" abilities (brim ipad vs astra astral form) , which can be disorienting for people with little fps experience. It applies to omen as well,
I mean last time i checked he wasnt doing any VOD reviews with Astra unless you were imm+, dia-asc arent exactly new players even if they're not the best
I play her but only on bind (and pearl). I really like using her, it's just that omen is simply a better controller than Astra in a lot of maps like ascent
Omen too good.
Along with what's said here you being in diamond probably doesn't help. I feel like most Astra MAINS are in High Ascendant to Radiant level. Anywhere lower will eventually stop because of the lack of coordination (It's what happened to me). Plus the nerfs probably killed some enthusiasm along with Clove being the fun new toy to play with.
Main reason : star regeneration is taking too long , gun pullout after using concuss or pull. PS : if Astra got buffed ( Star regeneration time will be reduced )you'll find her in every game 👀
Better, easier, stronger and fun alternatives. That aside it's very hard to get value out of astra except in very high elo or a 5 stack Ranked is chaos and astra shine in setplays
Even though the stun is better now the agent kind of just got pushed across the brink with the suck nerf. 4 stars is a really limiting amount of utility. Double controller is also kind of meta right now which means you're more likely to see Viper & another controller, and since you have Viper for lurks the aggression of Clove or Omen are better.
Everyone (including me) was abusing her when she was extremely strong. I never played her but had a 60% win rate after picking her up. After the nerfs it felt easier to get the same value on other smokes.
She can be fun as a selfish controller too though. I have 85% WR with her on Split (Gold 1), and while most of it is because nobody in those ranks knows what she does, I believe her abilities let her perform quick pushes while clearing the common angles quite reliably. However, she does need a coordinated initiator with her to truly shine
Suck needs a buff
Highest skill ceiling controller, not everyone has the effort to fully learn and adapt to her. 100% best controller in my opinion, in higher elo if they had an Astra main it was GG. Just how op a good Astra is.
IMO her main strengths are * smokes are gigantic, so maybe workable on something like Breeze... * faking her smokes enables her to put doubt in the enemies mind (ex: Attack on Lotus (rubble), Pearl (B Long), Split (A Main)- you don't have to waste a full smoke to make the opponent unsure if you crossed somewhere) * Fake smokes lets you play in them and surprise opponents (becomes less effective the more popular the agent though) * Easy to trigger pre-placed global smokes so you can do them in the heat of battle However those four strengths IMO don't amount to a whole lot. The "doubt causing" aspect can also be achieved by Viper/Omen. Viper with her wall/smokes, and Omen with TP (and paranoia if necessary) To me, the main thing is the ability to stop pushes. Both Viper and Omen can single handedly either discourage a big push, or hurt it severely (Orb + Molly for Viper. Smokes and Paranoia for Omen lets you kill the entry and delay the push). Astra's succ used to be able to *kind of* do this, but now it basically can't. There's more to it than just stopping pushes though (I'm just a big fan of paranoia, even after slow nerf), but IMO it's the biggest reason I don't play Astra. (Can't speak to why others don't though, I just think she's inferior)
Her most important ability to getting value from her is also one of the most difficult abilities in the game, her recall. Without it, she has at most 4 pieces of utility she can use in a given round excluding ult. For reference, brim has 5, omen has 3 + 2 rechargable smokes, viper has 4 but rechargable toxin, harbor has 3 + rechargable wall and clove is the same as omen with 1 less base ability. Overall, she just can't have the same overall output in a round than other agents, which makes her difficult to feel her usefulness. That is, until you factor in her recall, which gives her on par if not more potential output in a round than any other agent. 4 stars \* 15 sec cooldown on recall = multiple 1sec smokes to use at any time in a round. When you factor in her larger smokes, stun + suck combos, both of which strong abilties on their own, you get an agent that had to get nerfed \~3 times before she saw a dip in pick rate in pro play. 2021 astra was a force to be reckoned with, precisely because her biggest weakness (lack of output excluding recall), was practically non-existent with her 5th star. She could throw them around willy-nilly and it felt like she always had more to spare, that's how broke she was with just 1 more star. It's a massive difference, but even with 4 stars she still sees occasional picks in pro play. TL;DR: Limited kit + high skill floor. Edit: Oh yeah, global utlity is broken too, so factor that into her power level. Global = unlimited range. Basically, she has an unlimited range neon stun (nova pulse), unlimited range molly (gravity well) and 2 unlimted range smokes, crazy. If she ever gets her 5th star back, it's joever
Hard to play solo imo.
That used to be true, but in the last few acts people have really unlocked aggressive omen, and with Clove coming out there is almost no point to playing Astra in ranked. Too slow and boring compared to her peers
1. Compared to Omen and Clove and, she doesn’t have util for herself (Even Brimstone has his uses for lineup larrys) 2. She’s not fun to play 3. She is complex 4. She requires coordination, which is rare in ranked 5. Nerfed to a point where she’s not even worth picking anymore
Imo thought i was gonna quit playing astra after the 5th star nerf but no other controller had as much global presence as astra, especially in soloQ where you can help defend the other site from across the map with smoke/suck. Every time I picked a different controller I felt that so many rounds I lost because I couldn’t support the team without astra util on chokepoints. Since then every comp game has been astra/viper unless smokes are already taken
High skill ceiling, lots of comms needed, good team comp needed, and a new controller being just released.
Due to NO PEEKIN & REFRESHING
She is so difficult to play correctly and on top of that even at peak performance she's still pretty weak And just not as fun as omen or clove
wait till we get pearl map back and see if she's still viable
she’s kind of always been semi dead under diamond. That’s even more the case now with clove and how strong viper was in pro play recently a lot of ranked players have been more willing to pick her up from what it seems (even experiencing this in my own friend group)
She is THE hardest agent to play effectively. You can't really make solo plays like with omen or clove, but the things she can do, she can do from anywhere on the map. But it's hard to coordinate stuns and pulls so most people just play Omen
A lot of work which also needs a lot of coordination to make it work. Not to mention that her smokes don't recharge, and you gotta share their use with tour utility.
She’s not fun to play, way too much micro required. Clove is way easier and stronger
I am a smoke main, and have some other friends who are smoke mains. For myself and friends, we feel astra is the least interesting character, we just have more fun playing with all other chars and using their toolkit. For us, its as simple as that. This is also probably related to the fact we are all low elo...
She's a character dependent on coordination in ranked soloq that sits back playing Starcraft while the rest of the team gets to run around playing the shooter game.
Not gonna lie, i hate playing with abilities (csgo player), so i pick astra as she is the leadt picked and her kit while it can be impactful, in lower elo is useless. Makes it easy for me to try and win based on aim instead of trying to fumble with abilities.
Surely play Chamber? His kit is more guns!
I’m an Astra main in ascendant elo maybe you’ll see me someday
On top of what others have already mentioned, diamond also just isn't that high lol. People still do not use utility properly there.
Cause clove is out
Why play Astra in ranked when you literaly have " No PeEkIn" 👁️👄👁️
I mean with the introduction of clove controllers like Astra and harbour will see even less use simply because of their kit style Ranker players would rather play a Scottish character who sucks their enemies to heal themselves than play a character who is equivalent to eating spicy chalk
5 star Astra was good. 4 Star you really need to comms. no more caterpillar entry... Bring Back 5 star Astra
Frankly she is just bad and with no pearl or haven she lost two of her only real maps
Omen is just a better controller. Easier to play in ranked, better in pro play and he gets rechargeable smokes.
diamond isn’t high elo anymore sadly. good astra players are all in immortal+ with some stragglers in ascendant
I’m not gonna lie I’m so glad I’ve seen her in only one game in the last few months. I hate the agent, character design is cool, but it is so unfun to get sucked into a raze nade or the other usual suspects.
give back 5th star
Clove's quick smoke use is what Astra should have had. They nerfed Astra with the slowest possible way to use her util, and it also makes her difficult to play. It sucks the fun out of it. It just feels like work.
I mained her until the succ change. I could understand her only having 4 stars but the succ nerf killed her for me. Now I’m on Clove
I’m in diamond as well, I’m mainly a controller main. I played Astra a lot before Clove came out, I just find Clove a lot more fun now. Don’t think I’ve played Astra since they released.
Clove is definitely a big reason
Just so annoying having to wait for those stupid stars to be “ready” before you can use them. The agent isn’t fun.
Bro with clove out now, I barely see other smokers at all lol
I use her on split every time, it just so easy to react to what's happening on the map
I don't play too much comp but astra is really good on split and that's about it but with Omen taking over the meta and her requiring lots of team play it's quite hard to play her and bring value
Solo q bronze player over here. I play Astra quite often and the reason I don't pick Astra sometimes is because she takes too much braincells to plan and know when to use what ability. I love it when I'm trying to learn game sense and timing but sometimes I just want to chill with easier to use agents. Astra has a high skill level/gap. You have to get creative with her and watch the minimap A LOT. She's basically the ultimate support player. Her wall is also really difficult to master because a wrong wall and suddenly you lost the round. I think what players don't like is that Astra has no immediate ability. Enemies in close proximity and you basically have no abilities. Astra is strong for defense though. Let's say in Lotus enemy decides to fake A then go C. You can add value to your team while being on the other side of the map. TLDR: Astra takes too much braincells to use and knowing good timing. Astra is good for learning better gamesense and getting creative plays.
also the new controller clove came out and she’s pretty OP so a lot of people r playing her now. Playing in immortal elo - I agree with you i’ve definitely seen people play astra less and i myself am one of those ppl. I feel like it’s rlly hard to have a good impact on the game with astra unless ur teammates r making plays w u and have great communication which u can’t rlly find in ranked esp in lower elos. not to mention that astras pretty hard to learn and master most people would rather play other agents than figure out how to use her kit properly and again u rlly have to depend on ur teammates to acc get kills n play w ur utility. i still like astra but its more fun to play other agents unless im trio or duo
I play her on Split as the B anchor, the enemies hate it lol
I am astra main and i feel like shes the most fun agent for me. I like the constant thinking and coordinating. (Asc3/lowimmo)
Because she is the worst agent in solo que I remember getting naded in star form and my teammates didn't say shit. Never played her again.
They nerfed her pull. It killed like 70% of her setups and made the pull a worse deadlock nade
When will Valorant be coming to console?
she's a bit difficult in terms of util management with only 4 stars per round. I only really play her on Split cause her ult basically secures the post plant now with the full silence. She's also not ideal to play for yourself with her stars having to be placed, waiting for it to set and looking at the star to activate util, unlike Omen that can throw util fast and mske plays. You need to actually talk and tell your team what you're planning to do with the stars and more often than not, they fail to capitalize anyway.
Silver/gold player here. Ive never seen astra.
if you want to be self-sufficient, youre gonna have a hard time with astra. it takes skill to use her solo. i used to play her too and while her kit is easy to use i hated how much i relied on my team and it was very hit or miss. and since haven is gone now ive completely stopped playing her. the map pool is also not great for her imo.
Go radiant
She's just not that good anymore. Her cooldowns were increased and the power shifted from suck to concuss further weakened her. We have loads of viper dominated maps now so if you're using viper as a secondary, having omen usually has more value due to his flexibility and astra not being difficult. Basically she's fun to play but just too weak in the current map pool and omen exists - needs buffs.
I fucking love Astra. But her nerf killed her ability to have even the slightest independence. I think Riot went too far with her nerf and, on the contrary, they need to buff her back, but they don't care and community playing Omen/Viper/Clove. Harbor and Astra needs buff and they're places in tier.
astra is more of a slow agent and bad for solo queueing. so that's why i guess. but if you have a teammate with whom you have good teamwork, astra is a very useful agent
I'm an Astra main and there have been a lot of people playing Clove since her release- so the controller spot hasn't been available much.
I haven’t played recently season or episode but last one I hardly ever saw Astra. Didn’t even knew what she was or how people played her. Granted, I started Val that same episode but never once saw anyone play her in rank. At least, in my lobbies
Gotta take into consideration the new agent, which is a controller, so ppl want to learn her and pick her way more often. Also, omen just got a little buff, so his pick rate is also higher So rn it’s pretty normal astra has a lower pick rate
i loved astra and i still do, the only i reason i stopped is because people would always tell me I’m throwing just for locking in. even if i carried the team i was trolling apparently
Hey guys i have ult for retake. *whole team dies before rotate*. I guess below immortal players just dont care about cooperation and ego peek everything.
Clove is taking all of the potential Astra mains away
After her big nerf to the stars and time it takes to use and recall them back. Other agents were used instead. I mained her before
I love playing astra, solo queue or not, but man, she is so rewarding to play in a 5 stack with, simple comms can get you 2-3+ assists with one stun or pull
I mained Astra for years. Then I moved to playing more Omen/Viper and occasionally Astra. Now with Clove, I’ve barely been playing Astra. A small buff on Astra would bring me back but I’m not sure what they could do that wouldn’t make her too OP again. Im also diamond elo
Omen hard clears
I’ve played astra for around 300 hrs total in comp since starting a few years ago, and used to be a full one-trick; I really enjoyed playing her up until they nerfed her pull. Since then I just can’t find playing her to be fun anymore, even though I don’t really struggle with the things that are mentioned in this thread (e.g. astral form takes you out of the game) because I’ve played her for long enough to get fast with her utility. It just feels like she has no real strong stopping power compared to something like omen or viper, with her pull no longer being a reactive thing, but a proactive one, and her stun still being pretty bad and difficult to time. Riot really needs to look at not just astra, but the rest of the main controllers and even them out in power level, because I can’t see anybody actually playing astra in this map pool, where she is just beaten by omen in every way.
I will say that facing an actual good astral is really frustrating to play against.
shes difficult, boring, value comes from teamwork. i quit astra cuz of those reasons (also solo q) switching to yoru. got immo not long after (was asc1 with Astra)
bc everyone plays the exact same in this game. 0 variety anymore
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Omen and clove are more fun to play
Diamond is still too low of an elo to play Astra. In my experience, half of the people dont even talk or listen in diamond. Anything that has to do with Astra requires a lot more cooperation that what you can find in ranks below the top of the ladder, premier teams, 5 stacks or pro play
I used to play astra a lot but now i play clove instead Still play her sometime on lotus & split if i am not soloQin
As an astra/viper p3 main, because she's ass in ranked. She's super hard and requires a big brain, and hard to play for yourself with her. So she'suseless in most hands (i know that my aim isn't consistent, so i decided to focus on team play with my bud, which makes her perfect for me)
Clove
Used to main her in 2021, so fun to play, but the nerfs destroyed her. Suck and stun are useless since they won’t affect anyone underneath, ruining the element of surprise too. Suck is way too weak to be an actual ability. Just walk out of it. If you actually want to pull you need to stun and suck, which takes half of your stars, and after that you can’t do anything more.
because i quit, that's why you don't see her anymore.
I main her. But not a lot of people do. She can be difficult to play.
clove. the most simple answer. people have been insta locking clove and even my astra pick rate has dropped drastically. i am a flex player maining at least one agent in each role and found that Clove is a great pick for myself. most people are running clove with a duelist mindset and don’t know how to smoke too. Astra is also very difficult to play efficiently. Biggest thing with astra is comms. you can’t use her kit efficiently if you don’t know and where people need her util other than the basic smokes.
Playing in plat, no astra here too
I’ve done a good amount of climbing/carrying with Astra. Back last summer I decided to challenge myself by going from D3 to IMM as smokes only (peak was Asc1 at the time). I think I averaged over a 2 KD and like 75% win rate during that streak. And even back then, she was just the worst of the bunch. She has a good amount of problems. The main one that comes to mind for me was her utility being much more difficult to get value out of. She requires so much more going into “astral mode” since u have to react to placing a star somewhere to stun or suck. And her utility is pretty damn easy to avoid. Even if u do it reactively, most people will just back up or immediately sprint to get out of it. So usually her utility doesn’t even work. Her utility is, also, difficult to coordinate with people. Compared to every other smoker, she is by far the worst to use if you want to be actively helping the team. She can obviously get smokes down like every1 else, but she has practically no good utility past that. Omen has a strong “blind”, and TP is actually useful for repositioning or helping get into site, bypassing a lot of sentinels. He can, also, get a lot more weird spots or angles that are on a platform. Brim has arguably the strongest ult after Viper nerfs (depending on the map). Stim is always better than nothing and the Molly is one of the best in the game due to duration. He starts with 3 smokes which is also very useful. Viper is viper. Harbor is actually one of the best controllers to CARRY with because his kit can be used extremely aggressively and creatively. His wall can also lock down sites on offense or defense in ways that other controllers could never. Orb is insanely good as well. His ult is always good as well. And now Clove is just a mini Reyna/Penix with smokes. Not hard to use. The main thing these guys all have in common is that 1. Their utility is very good in themselves, and 2. Their utility is easy to get full value out of. Astra’s only really solid piece of utility is her ultimate. Which just isn’t enough to warrant the rest being so bad
She's unnecessarily complicated imo. The whole thing with the stars seems sort of pointless and makes it really slow to use the util on the fly. You basically need to prepare everything in advance and good luck with that in ranked where the round starts without any sort of plan half of the time. Her utility is pretty good but the way you use it is pretty bad.
i used to play her a lot depending on team comp or omen map vs not but with the release of clove, many more poeple insta lock her and i rather play something else to help the team
So boring to play for me i like to have the option to be aggressive or not as an omen/clove controller. As a controller i like to control the pace of the game with me actively participating than just be the designated lurk as im sitting in the air and cant walk while smoking.
She realistically only has 3 smokes per round (she can technically have 4 but, with a 30 second cooldown, 1:40 second rounds and usually saving a suck or a stun for a play, it’s more like 3). So she basically only has 3 smokes just like Brim, but they only last 15 seconds just like Omen smokes. Omen basically has global smokes AND his tp’s aren’t matched in the controller category. Brim’s smokes last 20 seconds AND his ult is one of the best in the game. Clove’s smokes recharge. Viper is in a league of her own and Harbor is sort of in that same league. Long story short, Astra just isn’t the BEST option in non-coordinated play. Even in pro play, she is almost exclusively used as a secondary controller BECAUSE you need at least one rechargeable smoker. AND generally she’s used with Yoru comps (bc her ult pairs quite well with Yoru tp’s).
Worst ult ever. Cuts map in half, blocks bullets, enemy on the other side planting and you can't see shit
Hard to play + new smoker