I’m not going to dilute it; I’m not a fan of the Valorant Haven map. At first I thought it was because it had three sites, but then Riot released Lotus. The three-point layout always makes Haven matches make me groan, but there’s another reason Lotus is less boring than its FPS counterpart; in fact, it can even border on entertaining, but only from time to time.
Like Haven, Valorant’s lost city Lotus is large and divided into three bomb shelters. But, compared to Haven, this old place is well balanced on both sides. With numerous shortcuts and zip lines connecting each production site, Lotus stood out as a map of three sites. So obviously triple points can work in Valorant, but not without significant design details.
Lotus Proves Valorant’s Three-Site Layout Is Right
Those who enjoy playing Haven and consistently winning games generally fall into one of three categories: appearing first on offense, playing a full stack of five, or having exceptional mental toughness. If you don’t have any of these three, good luck going crazy changing from 3 to 9 guards.
In Valorant, the game isn’t over after the switch, but if your team only catches three Ws on defense in Haven, coming back in the second half is going to be an uphill battle. Sadly, that’s mostly the case, as winning a majority in Haven’s defense is no walk in the park. Haven is a map with strong offensive sides, and this imbalance is not so much due to its three points, but due to the location. Lotus favors defenders a bit, but its hotkeys smooth out the imbalance that often occurs on three-point maps.
If you’ve played ranked solo in Haven, you’re probably familiar with this strategy. A false A: the rest go to B. You’d think a repetitive strategy like this would lose its effectiveness at some point, but it works great every time, it’s the Haven pattern. Going from A to C and back is a nightmare unless you’re racing on the Stimmy Brimmy.
Lotus, on the other hand, offers shortcuts through breakable doors and cable cars, in addition to the usual routes to another site. This helps offset some of the issues associated with large map sizes that can negatively affect defenders. Because of this, Lotus is ten times better than Haven, proving that Riot’s unique triple-site idea is not real problem.
It wasn’t balanced, but that’s not a lost cause.
Despite the imbalance, Haven is one of the most popular Valorant maps. Players can often exploit the imbalance and win more rounds offensively, resulting in an easy win. For this reason, it is popular among professional players. They have the luxury of choosing the first team, which is not available in the regular rankings.
But Haven could also be the standings favorite with a few tweaks. In one of the upcoming map rotations, Riot may turn off Haven and update it with tags. For example, the path between A and C is too long, sometimes resulting in repeated fakes that never work in favor of defenders. Haven needs a zipline between two of the three sections to improve maneuverability. Binding-type teleports would be ideal, but that’s probably a long way to go.
Visually, Haven is my favorite Valorant map. Perfectly designed bomb shelters with just the right amount of angles at the entrances to allow the drivers to shine through, Haven is a masterpiece of design. However, it may not be the best map for a quick ranked game, especially if you’re at a lower level of the game. Winning in Haven requires a well thought out strategy, the right team, and the right pace. In fact, these things are rare at ranks below Diamond.
However, Haven could be a great map after a major overhaul that will change how each site connects to the other. But until Riot does, low-level players need to equip themselves with the best operators on Valorant’s tier list and one of Valorant’s best scopes if they want to get a copy of Haven.
Source : PC Gamesn
