VALORANT Phoenix Guide: Abilities, Gameplay, and More

This guide explores VALORANT’s Phoenix character, the Duelist representing the United Kingdom. Phoenix utilizes fire abilities to damage enemies while healing himself. He is a powerful solo character with great utility skills that come in handy more often than not.

Let’s dive into the VALORANT Phoenix guide and take a look at his abilities, gameplay, and some strategies to use him effectively.

Phoenix Abilities

Phoenix’s four abilities are Blaze, Curveball, Hot Hands, and Run It Back. Hot Hands is his signature ability, Run It Back is his ultimate, and Blaze and Curveball are utility skills that can be purchased from the weapon menu during buy time.

Phoenix Signature Ability: Hot Hands

Phoenix’s signature move is Hot Hands, which is essentially a Molotov he throws that ignites the ground and heals any other character that stands in it. Hot Hands, along with Blaze, both heal Phoenix over time while standing in the flames.

Phoenix can utilize this move to block off choke points, to flush enemies out of corners and camping spots, and also to heal himself. It’s comparative to the Molotov from Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. It lasts for a few seconds, and it recharges on its own since it’s Phoenix’s signature move.

Blaze

Phoenix’s “C” key ability is called Blaze. This is basically a wall of flame that you can bend when you throw it. Mastering this move is actually kind of tricky because you only have a very brief period of time where you can choose the path for Blaze. You have to drag your crosshair where you want the wall to bend by holding FIRE (left-click).

You can utilize this ability in many situations. First, it’s great for blocking vision. That’s what walls are for after all. Walling off areas can help you execute strategies on the attacking team, as well as prevent teams from pushing when you’re on defense. Players will not want to jump through the wall because they will get damaged and have a severe vision disadvantage.

Blaze is also great for healing yourself when you’re in a bind. Maybe your Hot Hands is on cooldown and you’re low on HP. Pop this skill down and stand inside of it to gain some health back. You can carry one of these per round and it costs 200 creds to purchase.

Curveball

Curveball is my favorite utility ability in VALORANT. This ability is basically a flashbang. The only catch is that you have to curve it to the left (left-click) or the right (right-click), and it cannot be thrown in a straight line. The throwing distance is also very weak so you need to be close to the corner you’re throwing it around or you’ll blind yourself and your whole team.

If you’ve played first-person shooters before, you probably already know how to use flashbangs. You use them before you and your team pop around a corner to make the enemy move or turn around for a second. You can also use them to slow down enemies from rushing a location. You can carry two of these, and they cost 100 creds each.

Run It Back

Lastly is Phoenix’s ultimate ability called Run It Back. Casting this move places a marker on the map. A timer then shows in the center of your screen. When the timer expires or you die, Phoenix gets transported back to the marker.

Run It Back is incredibly useful in tons of different scenarios. First off, it’s probably the best ability in the game for entry fragging. You have nothing to fear when this is active because if you die you just respawn back at your marker. Doing this also gives you intel as to where the enemies are so you can relay that information to your team.

Those are all of Phoenix’s abilities. I’ve personally found him useful in nearly every team composition. His Curveball ability is cheap to buy every round and incredibly useful to execute pushes and force players to give up angles.

Phoenix’s ultimate is also what makes him a great team player. The opposing team essentially needs to kill six players if you use this ability properly. The best situation to use this in is clutch situations and entry frag situations. Popping your ultimate and being the first one can set your team up for a trade kill, or best case scenario you get a few entry frags to open it up for your team.

Overall, he’s a very fun character to play and he has some witty voice lines he says during the match. I’d recommend him to anyone who enjoys playing duelist characters that can hold their own. His self-heal, flashbang and ultimate ability make him very self-sufficient.

To learn about the other character in the game, check out our VALORANT Characters guide.