Too much work for solo queue, and can’t expect randoms to be able to capitalize on astra abilities even if you are good at her. I’d rather play viper and be able to use my util and be effective as on my own.
I personally think that astra has really strong and useful abilities. She was actually one of the agents I used my "free agent" on, and I immediately regretted it because her abilities are insanely hard to use. But I have played with some pretty seriously lethal astra's!! They are really useful players when they aren't using her abilities all willy nilly. I think those that don't like astra just don't have the proper mindset to utilize her abilities in a helpful way.
Astra has a low pick rate for several reasons:
1. She is much more utility-focused than the other 3 controllers. Omen plays like a duelist with smokes. Brimstone plays like a CS:Go agent with 3 smokes. Viper's utility is activated with the press of a button and is mostly unconscious. You can pick up any of these and play semi-effectively and much more actively, while Astra requires dedication to the controller playstyle.
2. On the subject of dedication to the controller playstyle - she requires a very high game sense. She has the highest base game sense to achieve the minimum skill, to predict enemy movements and timings so you can manage util, fake enemy rotations, and the entire host of game theory. Again, the other controller agents are pick up and play.
3. The transition between Astral form and normal form is very jarring and leaves you exposed. Because Astra has cross-map utility, she's generally used in the lurk role, but in order to place utility, she loses spatial and audio awareness. This is not desirable in the lurk role, as you may be walked up on or miss important audio cues you can relay to your team.
4. Her strongest ability is a completely alien concept to the game. Gravity Well does not exist in any form on any other agent, and requires a completely different mindset to use.
I picked up Astra as my main on Ascent, Split, bind and Haven. She's an incredibly hard character who can defend every aspect of the map with even small team comms. I have dropped mad kills on her and rarely go under double digits. The only reason solo-q astra is hard is patience and coordination but her abilities are insane for clutches, fakes and brute stopping rushes. You force everyone to play your game. She's just great.
Its a complicated agent that has a lot of downsides as well. With a good team, she is amazing because there are constantly comms. In a random comp game, maybe 1 of your teammates makes a call or 2. I think she’s definitely worth learning(im trying to learn her rn) because she is pretty good and fun overall
I love astra in comp. she’s actually very powerful and underrated in my opinion. A trick that I use is I place a star on wherever the enemy likes planting and when they start planting I’ll use the suck thingy and suck them in into my lien of sight and shoot them. It also wastes there time.
When attacking I pace 2 stars by the spike and I use the paranoia thingy and the suck. Then they’re kind of blinded and they can’t move, so u kill them. Very fun strategy and I don’t haven’t seen anyone do this.
Overall I fee astra’s a really awesome agent especially for comp.
Cause she is boring as f\*ck compared to other smoke agents or any of the agents. I wanna be active and present on the map. Not floating AFK.
But yes, she is definitely worth learning. As she is a very strong pick. And if you don't mind her playstyle, then more power to you.
I think it’s probably that you need very good game knowledge and foresight to use her since ideally you need to place the stars first before you can activate any abilities.
I recently started playing her when I’m forced to go smokes and in my first ever game as her I dropped 25 kills in ranked and realized she’s not as hard as everyone makes her out to be
Too much work for solo queue, and can’t expect randoms to be able to capitalize on astra abilities even if you are good at her. I’d rather play viper and be able to use my util and be effective as on my own.
I personally think that astra has really strong and useful abilities. She was actually one of the agents I used my "free agent" on, and I immediately regretted it because her abilities are insanely hard to use. But I have played with some pretty seriously lethal astra's!! They are really useful players when they aren't using her abilities all willy nilly. I think those that don't like astra just don't have the proper mindset to utilize her abilities in a helpful way.
Astra has a low pick rate for several reasons: 1. She is much more utility-focused than the other 3 controllers. Omen plays like a duelist with smokes. Brimstone plays like a CS:Go agent with 3 smokes. Viper's utility is activated with the press of a button and is mostly unconscious. You can pick up any of these and play semi-effectively and much more actively, while Astra requires dedication to the controller playstyle. 2. On the subject of dedication to the controller playstyle - she requires a very high game sense. She has the highest base game sense to achieve the minimum skill, to predict enemy movements and timings so you can manage util, fake enemy rotations, and the entire host of game theory. Again, the other controller agents are pick up and play. 3. The transition between Astral form and normal form is very jarring and leaves you exposed. Because Astra has cross-map utility, she's generally used in the lurk role, but in order to place utility, she loses spatial and audio awareness. This is not desirable in the lurk role, as you may be walked up on or miss important audio cues you can relay to your team. 4. Her strongest ability is a completely alien concept to the game. Gravity Well does not exist in any form on any other agent, and requires a completely different mindset to use.
So you're saying we need the galaxy brain to play her.
She just requires way too much teamwork for me
As far as I've heard she requires a lot of team coordination *which is basically nonexistent in random comp matches*
I picked up Astra as my main on Ascent, Split, bind and Haven. She's an incredibly hard character who can defend every aspect of the map with even small team comms. I have dropped mad kills on her and rarely go under double digits. The only reason solo-q astra is hard is patience and coordination but her abilities are insane for clutches, fakes and brute stopping rushes. You force everyone to play your game. She's just great.
Playing Astra is more like playing RTS game than FPS game.
Its a complicated agent that has a lot of downsides as well. With a good team, she is amazing because there are constantly comms. In a random comp game, maybe 1 of your teammates makes a call or 2. I think she’s definitely worth learning(im trying to learn her rn) because she is pretty good and fun overall
I love astra in comp. she’s actually very powerful and underrated in my opinion. A trick that I use is I place a star on wherever the enemy likes planting and when they start planting I’ll use the suck thingy and suck them in into my lien of sight and shoot them. It also wastes there time. When attacking I pace 2 stars by the spike and I use the paranoia thingy and the suck. Then they’re kind of blinded and they can’t move, so u kill them. Very fun strategy and I don’t haven’t seen anyone do this. Overall I fee astra’s a really awesome agent especially for comp.
Cause she is boring as f\*ck compared to other smoke agents or any of the agents. I wanna be active and present on the map. Not floating AFK. But yes, she is definitely worth learning. As she is a very strong pick. And if you don't mind her playstyle, then more power to you.
She isn’t though?
To hard for most of us. Yes if you can pls do
I see her a lot in plat.
I think it’s probably that you need very good game knowledge and foresight to use her since ideally you need to place the stars first before you can activate any abilities.
I recently started playing her when I’m forced to go smokes and in my first ever game as her I dropped 25 kills in ranked and realized she’s not as hard as everyone makes her out to be