VALORANT Map Guide Fracture
Welcome back to the final instalment of our map guide series where I will be focusing on VALORANT’s newest map, Fracture. The aim of this guide is to give you all the tools you need to excel on the map and ultimately help you hit your goals in ranked.
What are the callouts on Fracture?
Understanding and using the callouts on every map is incredibly important. It allows you to convey information in the most efficient way. It’s even more important on Fracture as this map is incredibly complex and unique, knowing the names of every area will go a long way.
These are the basic callouts given by Riot in the game and form the fundamentals of the callouts for the map. For a more detailed breakdown of each and every callout that you’ll need for the map, you can check out our Full Fracture Callout Guide.
What's the gimmick?
Every map in VALORANT has some unique feature, be that in map design or interactable features. In fracture, the map design is obviously different from the others. The defenders start in the centre of the map and there are essentially two attacker spawns on each side.
This gives the map a truly unique feeling from any other FPS game. The attackers are always set up to crunch the sites and the defenders have to react accordingly. Mastering this map is much more difficult than any other due to this design. You can quickly access the other half of the map as an attacker using the zip lines under the map. Be careful though as they can give audio cues.
The A site
Now let’s take a look at the sites, starting of course with A. The A site sits on the desert half of the map and has a pretty interesting design. It’s accessible through Dish and A main for a split attack. It has an interesting two-tier design. This creates a lot of tricky places for defenders to sit or hide utility so it’s very important to clear the site properly.
When attacking A, it’s important to smoke or cover the Defender entrance from spawn as that is the faster route to rotate. Also, when attacking through main, you can go through the side doors to scale up as a team. This will help you properly clear the surrounding areas and even cut off defenders' rotates.
The B site
The B site sits in the jungle half of the map and is drastically different from A. You can access it through B main and Arcade. This site is home to some very long site lines from CT for defenders to hold and fight over, coming from canteen and Defender spawn.
Arcade is by far one of the most interesting locations on the map as it presents 3 unique lanes. Underpass on the left leads to B main, the central lane leads directly to the site, and on the right-hand side, you can go upwards into Tower. This presents the attackers with so many different options to swarm the defenders and makes it very tricky to play on site.
By far the most important area of the B site is Tower. You absolute cannot plant without controlling it and you cannot defuse without it being cleared or appropriately covered, make sure to not neglect this area.
How to attack on Fracture?
Fracture is considered ever so slightly attacker sided so you should have a little bit of an easier time on this half. By far the most important piece of advice for this half is attack from both sides. The map and the sites, in general, are designed to be taken from both sides together, that’s why attackers have two options from spawn. To attack a site only from one side will put you at a massive disadvantage on this half and you will be naturally funnelled.
Another suggestion is to try to cut off the defender’s quick rotates. The map is designed in such a way that the only way for defenders to quickly move between the sites is through their own spawn in the middle of the map. Otherwise, they have to flank and that takes a long time because of the map’s size. Getting into a position to intercept these faster rotates can net you easy kills and buy your team a lot more time on the site to set up properly.
How to defend on Fracture?
Defending on Fracture is naturally a little more tricky as you are automatically surrounded by your opponents. On any other more straightforward map, being constantly pressured from both front and behind would be very difficult, but on Fracture, you have a lot more options.
The most important thing is to no find yourself trapped on the site. If you give the defenders too much space and only control the on-site areas you’ll find yourself getting shot in the back of the head a lot. Instead, try to take information early and often to figure out the attacker's movements and fill the space they leave behind. Try to either fight or take info on each of the 4 lanes and fall back to site only when you need to. Delay the attackers away from the site so you hold as much space as you can for your own team.
What agents are good on Fracture?
It’s always important to look at what professional players are doing in terms of agent picks to help understand who is good. This is the most played composition on the professional level for Fracture.
This composition looks very different to the other most played compositions on different maps. We see both Astra and Viper for the double controller with Viper acting as a pseudo-sentinel too. It’s also worth noting that Raze is far more popular than Jett because of how effective her utility is for clearing angles on this map
My recommendation for this map has to be Breach. He has a 99% pick rate on this map at the pro level. His stun is just so oppressive and covers the width of almost every lane and corridor. His aftershock will help you clear tricky locations behind boxes or hiding on site, and finally his ultimate is fantastic for both taking and retaking the sites. If you’re struggling for ideas in the agent select screen of Fracture, Breach is literally never a bad option.
I hope this guide has helped you through some of the basics of the map and will help you get more wins when this map pops up in your rank queue.
