Fade plays the role of an initiator in your team’s composition. The agent also introduces a new debuff mechanic, Trail, in the game, and it adds a lot more complexities to creating the perfect team. She is known as the game’s bounty hunter, and her information-gathering abilities are unique compared to other initiators in the game.
It would be best to learn some lineups for Fade’s abilities, but nothing too complicated as the distances for Fade’s skills aren’t that long. However, there are a few mechanics you need to learn and utilize to effectively use Fade’s skills because her Seize and Haunt abilities are projectiles that can be dropped on command.
In this guide, you will learn how to play Fade in Valorant effectively and use these tips and tricks to get the advantage for your team to win. Fade can be a little complicated to learn at first, but she is decent enough to play the main role as the information-gathering initiator for the team.
Fade Team Synergies
Fade’s abilities are unique among all the agents out there, and she has everything you want from an initiator on your team. She has information-gathering abilities that can spot the enemies’ exact location through a scan (Haunt), an ability to clear angles and gain more information (Prowler), and a good defensive ability to stop pushing on their tracks (Seize).
Other than Sova’s Owl Drone and Recon Bolt and Cypher’s Neural Theft ultimate ability, there aren’t any abilities that can ping the enemy’s exact location. This is why Sova is extremely powerful and is one of the most used agents in professional play. Fade will be a good alternative in any team composition just because of her Haunt ability.
Imagine attacking a site, and the enemy team has a well-placed smoke on the entrance. With Fade’s Haunt ability and a perfectly timed blind from a teammate, you can get a perfect entry on the enemies. You can even shoot the enemy while inside the smoke if ever you can react fast enough to the enemies pinged by your Haunt ability.
For some team compositions, going for a double initiator on your team has been extremely viable in high-level play. You can go for a Jett, Breach, Fade, Chamber, and Viper for a map like Fracture. Jett doesn’t necessarily need to enter for your team on certain maps because she can control a big area of the map with an Operator.
This makes Fade a little more viable on entries when paired with another initiator that can provide support with a blind utility. Fade can check close corners with her Prowler, and a Skye or a Breach can flash and help you pick enemies off on entry.
Fade can also be a decent anchor to defending a site with her Seize ability. When paired with other agents that can slow down enemy pushes like Killjoy’s Nanoswarm or Viper’s Snake Bite, the enemy team can take serious damage whenever they commit to a push since her Seize will force enemies that are hit to stay inside the radius and take up all the damage from other utilities.
Overall, she fits really well in most team compositions and is a good alternative to Sova for gaining information on the whereabouts of the other team. If you want to use both Sova and Fade on the same team, it can be a little awkward because you will be sacrificing a good deal of utilities like flashes, stuns, or a good sentinel to watch flanks and control the map.
Fade’s Skills
Prowler
FIRE after equipping to send a creature out which will travel in a straight line looking for enemies AND/OR Trails. HOLD FIRE AND MOVE MOUSE to steer the creature in the direction you are facing. When the creature finds a trail or enemy, it will move toward them. Upon reaching the enemy, it will start a .5s cook time and then NEARSIGHT the closes enemy for 3s. Only one Creature can latch onto a TRAIL ever.
In short, Prowler is like a combination of Skye’s Trailblazer and Raze’s Boom Bot. The creature will trail the first enemy it senses and move towards them like Raze’s Boom Bot. You can control the creature to turn until you find someone to trail or latch onto. Once it finds a target, it will never switch to another player.
Once it hits the enemy, they will be nearsighted for 3 seconds. The skill usage of Prowler is a combination of gaining information and putting pressure on the enemy. It can delay a push from their entry duelist, but it is mostly for tracking enemies and getting defenders out of a good angle coverage.
You can also use it to open the door on Fracture, and since the Prowler’s movement is a bit slow, you will have the time to set up your aim until it opens. As long as it senses something, you can even shoot through the walls if you do not have a clear vision.
The Prowler also acts like Skye’s Seekers, so they could shoot it down and destroy it when it trails an enemy. It is also an excellent trick to fool enemies, as it can soak up a few shots while you peek with your Prowler.
Seize
EQUIP an orb. FIRE to throw the orb. The orb will travel in the air for 1.5s until it drops to the ground. Upon hitting the ground, it will be stuck in place and begin to cook for .5s. After .5s, a zone will expand out to 7m, and all enemies caught will be tethered to the center. Tethered enemies suffer 75 decay damage, are deafened, and cannot escape the zone by normal means for 5s. It can be reactivated in flight to drop earlier.
Seize is a unique skill where you can tether an enemy while inflicting 75 decay damage and deafening them at the same time. Anyone hit cannot escape the 7m zone for 5 seconds. When you get hit by this, you have an insane disadvantage from dueling other opponents. The debuffs are too much when you get hit by Seize, where you are practically a free kill already.
However, the distance of the projectile cannot reach that far because it drops down from the air after 1.5 seconds. This minimizes the usage of Seize lineups because you cannot hit far away areas, for example in Breeze. It makes it a bit easier to use because of its limitations. There are some ways you can use Fade’s Seize effectively.
Fade’s Seize shines more on the defending side. Imagine enemies throwing all their utilities, including their ultimates, to take over a site and having a perfectly placed Seize to keep them from pushing and entering the site. Once Seize hits the enemies, they are inflicted with Deafen and Decay but Seize’s best usage for defending is keeping enemies within the 7-meter radius, thus preventing them from doing anything.
Defenders and attackers will tend to trade utilities when playing in high-ranked games. The goal is to always get the advantage before dueling, like gaining information, throwing blinds and stuns, or playing numbers and trading each other. Once utilities have been exhausted, you can time your remaining utilities and force them to fight at a disadvantage.
Fade’s other skills, Haunt and Prowler, are decent for defending. Getting information will always be a good asset for the team. Seize is just there for an insanely good utility for stopping or slowing a committed push by the enemy team.
Haunt – Free Ability
This ability equips an orb. FIRE to throw the orb. The orb will travel in the air for a max time of 1.5s until dropping to the ground. Once it hits the ground, it rises back up and turns into an Eye that can be destroyed. If the Eye sees opponents, it will REVEAL them and apply TRAIL debuff that lasts 12s. Can be reactivated in flight to drop the projectile earlier.
Haunt is Fade’s main information-gathering ability. It is a free skill that you can use freely to reveal and track enemy movements. You will get to reveal the enemies temporarily, but on attacking, it isn’t as good as Sova’s Recon Bolt when it comes to information gathering.
Haunt is insanely good for revealing enemy pushes. Once an enemy team pushes, you can get a reveal with the Eye and apply the Trail debuff to the enemies. It will be easier to point out the exact locations of the enemy once they start setting up for post-plant situations because the debuff lasts for 12 seconds.
You will have to master the timing of the push and use the Haunt ability to keep track of the positions of the enemy when they start to take over. If you use it too early, your teammates wouldn’t even have the chance to look at the trails to deduce which angles they would hold.
For retake situations, Haunt is also insanely good at spotting enemies on corners. Since it works like Reyna’s Leer, as long as anyone has a line of sight with Fade’s Haunt, they will get tagged, and it will be ten times easier to retake the site with the information gathered.
In the image above, you can throw your Haunt just above the wall, and it should clear out 80% of the site already as it covers the close corners in the A Site, Graffiti, Sewers, and Default. You can even try to place the Haunt to land on the boxes near Default, so it has more coverage.
Nightfall
EQUIP this ability. FIRE to send out a wave of dar mist. If the mist comes in contact with an enemy, they will be TRAILED, DEAF, and DECAYED for 12s.
Nightfall is similar to Skye’s Seekers, but it does not pinpoint which direction the enemies are coming from. The Trail, Deaf, and Decay debuff are all decent for an ultimate ability, but the duration of the debuff is what makes it better. It is easy to hit the enemies with Nightfall, and the debuff lasts for 12 seconds.
Once enemies get trailed inside a site and try to peek, you can track their location when they retreat and pinpoint where they could be hiding. It makes site retakes or site pushes a lot easier because of this. The Decay and Deaf debuffs only make fighting easier, especially when your team is on a half buy and you are fighting against full rifles.
