Currently, Valorant has four agent roles, each with a somewhat distinct set of responsibilities but an equal amount of importance. Having that said, every Valorant game is not all about the duelists who can rack up multiple kills round after round. In reality, all roles have the capability to carry the game, provided that they know what they’re doing.

Sentinels are known for their patience and laidback playstyle; that’s quite the opposite of what duelists do. These agents heavily rely on their abilities to hold and secure areas for the team and are a massive nuisance when defending sites. Although their contributions are sometimes overlooked, skilled Sentinel play can single-handedly win a game, especially with their sneaky plays. Wanna know how to become the best Sentinel in Valorant? Read the whole Valorant Sentinel guide to find out more.

What is the Sentinel role in Valorant

Sentinel is one of Valorant's four roles and is sometimes, ironically underappreciated.

Their kit serves a different purpose, and their skills center on aiding the group. Unless you're Chamber, the odd one out, playing sentinel needs a more passive and laid-back approach than the duelists and initiators.

Sentinel's skill mostly consists of support abilities focusing on aiding their team through map controls and sustain. But that doesn't mean they have no ability to carry the game. Here are some tips that you can apply on your next game as a sentinel.

How to defend sites as a Sentinel in Valorant

Sentinels shine the most when defending sites, thanks to their abilities capable of holding sites and making sure no one gets in. Even when they did, a good sentinel can surely punish them and make sure they won’t ever come back.

Here are some tips that you can apply as a Sentinel when defending sites.

Use your abilities and don’t waste them.

With abilities such as traps, bots and wall combined with good game sense, entering the site without a doubt will be difficult. Having that said, it is apparent that sentinels heavily rely on their skills to become effective. If you’re not using any of them to your advantage, you’re doing it wrong.

Learn lineups and setups

Learning and making setups is a must for every sentinel. Some examples of such measures are the use of traps, one-way cages and more. These setups will help you get some frags, gain information about the whereabouts of your opponents, or at least make sure they will at least be afraid to enter the site you’re holding, therefore giving you a higher chance of winning the rounds.  If you want to learn setups and lineups for your desired agent, make sure to check out Tracker's VALORANT Lineup tool and start outwitting your opponents.

Keep in mind that your strategies will need to adapt to the enemies' movements. Take into account their attacking strengths and plan accordingly. Learn to be flexible and switch things up every once in a while so you don't become predictable.

Play mind games with your foes

If you’re the type of player who thrives on the challenge of using wits and pulling off sneaky plays, then the sentinel role is for you. That’s what Sentinel agents do best. For instance, a Cypher can stay inside the site and remain hidden to his opponents. But little did they know that passing through his traps would lead to their own demise as he activates his cage and spray through it from a safe and unknown location. In Valorant, attacking a site that an excellent sentinel heavily guards is one of the things you would want to avoid.

While learning a setup or a lineup can increase your chances of winning, it is not advisable to stick with the same one for the rest of the game. For instance, if you find success in scoring multiple kills from placing mollies on B lane on Ascent, your opponents will most likely make a way to counter it, rendering it useless. Next time they attack your site, they’ll surely look for your traps and disable it as soon as possible. Hence, it is advisable to learn more than one setups or opt for setups that are almost hidden or indestructible.

Also, if you’ve noticed that you’re not getting any info, frags or anything from your setup, you need to do something. One skill you should have as a sentinel is reading your opponent like a book. Learn how they attack sites, and their strengths as an attacker and make some strategy on how you’re going to counter it.

Another example, say you’ve managed to perfectly defend one site on your own with your trapwires and cages, and managed to send the message, there’s a chance that they’ll avoid the site you’re holding. On the next round, you can head to the other site and place your setup there instead to surprise them. Another, your team can put more pressure on the site you’re not defending by having at least three of them defend it, so they’ll have no other choice but to attack yours. After all, having effective communication and excellent teamwork is vital in every Valorant game.

Position

When defending a site, positioning is also important. As a sentinel, playing off of your abilities is important. Having that said, you won’t have to play aggressively and face multiple opponents head-on by pushing your opponents. Instead, lure them into your traps and let your setups do the work for you. But do remember that your setups and placeable abilities go off when you die, except for Sage’s wall. Hence, your positioning is important, also for these reasons.

In some agents, the player must be within the active range of their abilities (Killjoy’s bots and Chamber’s trap/tp). Placing yourself outside of the range renders it useless.

A sentinel player may also take position near the setups, without fully exposing himself to multiple opponents in a risky manner. This way, the player can take advantage of both their utility and guns to eliminate at least one opponent. This is mostly the case for Killjoy and Cypher.

In some cases where you got Kay/o on the enemy team, try to position yourself in a way that his knife won’t be able to reach you. Getting suppressed by his knife will disable your setup for a significant amount of time, and they may use this time to rush into the site.

How to attack as a Sentinel in Valorant

Defending sites is their best suit, but that doesn’t mean they’re ineffective during the attacking phase. On the attack side, sentinels’ abilities aren’t strictly needed to enter the site except for Sage but there is so much that you can do to help your team.

Watch flanks

During the attacking phase, it is mainly the sentinel’s role to ensure that the team is safe from an enemy who may try to attack from behind.  This is because it is them who have the power to do so. They got their anti-flank tools such as the alarmbot, turret, trapwire and trademark. This way, the team will be alerted should your enemy try to flank.

Lurk

Lurking is when a player decides to play elsewhere, away from their team to either apply pressure, gain information, or pick off at least one opponent. While anyone can lurk, using the best lurk agents for this is ideal. Ideally, the best agents that you can use to lurk with are the Sentinels. This is because, sentinels won’t have to watch for flank themselves, and instead have them leave their traps to handle it for them as they lurk. This is possible except for Sage. Sage’s heal and resurrection contribute a lot during executes, so she’s better off with her team instead.

Other tips that you can use as a Sentinel

Dont die

As mentioned above, sentinels heavily rely on their abilities to become useful and once they die, it goes off too. This alone is the exact reason why it's in the best interest of your team that sentinels should try to remain alive. This is especially true with Sage. Entering the site as Sage wouldn't be wise for most of the time, as she might end up dying first. The Radiant healer is capable of not just restoring health but can also get someone back on their feet with her revive. Instead, leave it to your duelists.

Practice

Learning setups is a vital part of your experience as a sentinel. This requires knowing the right spot where you should place your turrets, cages, walls. However, this shouldn’t stop there. This also requires being able to find the perfect timing which is very much useful to determine when and when not to activate Cypher’s cage, pop Killjoy’s nanoswarm and throw Sage’s slow orb. In addition, there are some lineups that you may not be able to execute on your first tries, like a Cypher one-way cage, a “Grim” wall, and more. So, why not try to hop in on a custom game?

Additionally, you may also try to watch pro players, streamers or one trick players like nAts, Suygetsu, Dapr or Less that use that particular sentinel to easily master them. But, feel free to unleash your creativity and don't be afraid to make some ways and setups on your own.

Dealing with counters

Aside from Kay/o’s ability to make your abilities useless temporarily, there are other agents that can counter sentinels. This includes grenades and mollies that can break utilities, Skye’s Trailblazer, Fade’s Prowler and Raze’s Boombot that counters Cypher’s trapwire, smokes that block off the vision of traps and mobility abilities such as Omen’s shrouded step, Jett’s updraft and Raze’s blast packs that allows them to get past through your setup and more. Be sure to check your foes’ team composition, determine which of their abilities they can use against you, and consider this when placing traps. For instance, if there’s a Fade on the enemy, you can set your tripwire somewhere else or place it low enough so that the Prowler won’t reach it.

Gain info and relay it to your allies

Sentinels do best at gaining information. This is especially true for all sentinel agents. Killjoy and Chamber can detect the presence of their opponents with a turret and alarmbot. Cypher’s trapwire also reveals them, while his spycam can precisely pinpoint their location. Sage on the other hand doesn’t have any in her kit that can detect their presence, but her wall changes appearance when someone tries to destroy it. Sage’s orb also makes Additionally, when her wall is destroyed, it will appear on the map, giving them significant information.

Aside from Sage’s, when setups and traps of other agents are destroyed, you and your team will see it on the map regardless of whether you are dead.

That concludes our VALORANT Sentinel Guide. Playing sentinels might sound easy at first, but there’s actually more to it that you should learn.

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