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Win your games in droves with Clove: A VALORANT Agent Guide
Learn all the skills and knowledge needed to bring out your best, and second best, with our Clove guide!
Equipped with abilities that can disrupt and debuff others, while hasting and even resurrecting herself, Clove can decisively change the battlefield as the rounds rage on, even after getting eliminated.
You read that right, Clove can use their signature ability, Ruse, even after getting eliminated in a round. Ruse is a vision blocker, or smoke, that can be dropped within a certain radius. This ability functions similarly to Astra’s Stars but is less potent. UsingRuse after death is a substantial tradeoff when comparing between the two agents’ vision blockers, after all.
Additionally, Clove can toss a small fragment that causes the decay debuff. Enemies hit by a decay debuff, temporarily lose their health while affected. Look at Viper with her Toxic Screen and Poison Cloud for an example of effective use of the debuff. For Clove, the decay ability is called Meddle. In addition to inflicting debuffs, Clove can also regain health with her other ability. Whenever an enemy that Clove assists in eliminating or eliminates themselves, they can siphon temporary health that overheals them and grants them a momentary movement speed boost.
Last but not least, Clove’s Ultimate allows them to resurrect for a short duration. If Clove gets an elimination, or assists in obtaining one before the timer runs out, they can stay alive. However, if they fail to achieve any of those conditions, then they return to being eliminated.
Ruse (E Ability)
Ruse is Clove’s signature ability. It can be used twice in a round and costs 150 credits. Once activated, the minimap enlarges, allowing the deployment of one or both smokes over a certain radius. As you move, the radius will reposition with you, adapting to your new position. Once a point on the minimap is selected, a size preview of the smoke size is displayed until deployment is confirmed. This is helpful in determining how much space you can visually block and to see if it is viable for Clove or the rest of the team’s position. The overview is a top-down view of the map and doesn’t provide any more information other than its layout.
Once deployed onto the field, the smokes operate as most others would. What separates this smoke ability from others isn’t its orbital deployment, but rather Clove’s distinct ability to utilize this signature ability after having been eliminated. Similar to when Clove is alive, when they are eliminated and spectating a teammate, they can activate their ability to open a much smaller minimap with a further reduced radius and provide a smoke anywhere available in that minimap.
Moreover, Clove can switch between their teammates and get a top-down view of the minimap of their teammates which includes their location in the map (as opposed to Clove’s own location if they’re alive). Despite having an inherently smaller minimap, this allows Clove to deploy smokes in a much wider range due to being able to switch between teammates, therefore providing a coordinated response even while being eliminated. Simply being able to affect the map from different corners and different states of playing is new to VALORANT, one that promotes an active playstyle over a passive one.
Pick-me-up (C Ability)
Despite being able to use some abilities even in death, being alive is still (obviously) a better alternative and much more valuable to your teammates as well. So much so, that Pick-me-up is an ability dedicated to keeping Clove alive. Pick-me-up is a buff ability that costs 100 credits and can be used once per round. After assisting or getting an elimination, Clove can activate this ability and gain an overheal and movement speed buff.
Overheal is used specifically because it’s important to differentiate temporary health and maximum health. Overheal does not replenish an agent’s maximum health or shields, it only temporarily boosts their health but it cannot exceed the maximum of 100 health and 50 additional shield. This means that once the duration of the overheal buff is over, Clove will return to the amount of health and shield they had previously. Alternatively, if Clove receives healing that replenishes their health, then the overheal buff is interrupted and removed.
As mentioned before, Clove also receives a movement speed buff as well. This movement speed buff is not as fast as Neon’s but still substantial when compared to a normal speed buff.
Meddle (Q Ability)
Meddle costs 250 credits and can be used once a round. Once equipped, Meddle is a grenade-type ability that applies a decay debuff on anyone affected. Unfortunately, this includes teammates and can be a devastating mistake without coordination. Decay is an effective debuff that temporarily lowers the maximum health of anyone affected. After debuff’s duration concludes, an agent’s health will slowly return to its original value or to its newer value if they have been damaged or healed.
What makes Meddle so devastating is that, unlike other methods of applying the decay debuff from Viper or Fade for example, once it sets in after hitting any terrain or horizontal surface it applies a 90 health reduction. Being able to sever between 90 percent to 60 percent (if they have full shield) of an agent’s health is a substantial debuff and nothing to scoff at.
Although the application of Meddle does require line of sight and can’t be used on walls, combining this ability with Ruse or even using it to quickly re-engage while having Pick-me-up ready to activate promotes an active playstyle as a Controller and demands team-oriented plays as well.
Not Dead Yet (Ultimate)
While Ruse can be used after getting eliminated, making Clove more involved than any agent after defeat, the ability is still limited in what it can accomplish. However, Not Dead Yet takes the resurrection mechanic to another level. A combination between Phoenix's Run It Back and Sage’s Resurrection, Clove’s Not Dead Yet takes mechanics and utility from those ultimates and turns their implementation into something unique. Within a brief time window after being defeated, Clove can activate their ultimate and come back to life.
This ability has a few stages before returning Clove to life or death. In the beginning, Clove is intangible and cannot be damaged for a few moments. While intangible, Clove can move but cannot use their abilities or shoot their weapons. This intangibility can be ended early, and once it does end, a timer starts. Before that timer ends, Clove must assist in scoring an elimination or accomplish one themselves. If they do so, they stay alive after the duration and for the rest of the round. If they are unable to achieve either assist or elimination, then they are eliminated once more.
