Why was Harbor disabled from Valorant’s Competitive queue?

Harbor, Valorant's newest Agent, has been temporarily removed from the game's competitive queue, according to Riot Games' announcement on November 17, 2022.

Players will not see him on the available character roster while in the 'Agent Select' lobby for ranked games. One can still play the water-based Controller Agent in Custom, Unrated, and Spike Rush modes as usual. Sadly, officials haven't shared anything about when the restrictions will be lifted.

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Valorant removes Harbor from the competitive queue due to an annoying bug

According to the Riot Games development team, Harbor's Ultimate, Reckoning, has been causing 'unintentional lag spikes' in certain cases. Per online reports, players are experiencing massive stutters and network lags when the Agent uses his Reckoning.

To avoid affecting the player experience negatively, the team chose to remove Harbor from the competitive queue and address the issue as an urgent matter. However, there's no ETA on when the solution will be deployed.

Riot Games is usually pretty fast with resolving game-breaking bugs, one of which is currently affecting Harbor. One can expect Harbor's return to Valorant's Competitive mode in the next few hours or by the end of the day.

Harbor's Ultimate is undoubtedly the strongest ability in his kit. It lets him summon a geyser pool, which gives rise to successive geyser strikes that concuss players.

Reckoning is not only a strong site-control utility but also acts as a good 'Initiator' ability. Enemies on defense are forced to move away from their hiding spots or get concussed.

Reckoning is a very useful utility on the attack, letting Harbor and his teammates conquer and clear the site aggressively.

Riot Games launched Harbor in Valorant with Episode 5 Act 3 last month. Despite the massive pre-launch hype surrounding the Indian Agent, players quickly realized his limitations.

Harbor hasn't been able to find much popularity in ranked games since his launch. Players are still trying to figure out how to utilize his kit in the most efficient manner. As a result, his temporary removal doesn't seem to affect many people.

Ever since his launch, fans have been demanding a rework of Harbor's abilities. According to popular belief, his kit is very weak when it comes to stopping a push and controlling a site from a distance.

Following this feedback, the Valorant developers decided to buff Harbor slightly by adding a second charge to one of his basic abilities, Cascade. With this improvement, the Agent's defending strengths have slightly increased. However, the change may not be significant enough for most players.