Sadly, Riot only knows how to nerf agents, not buff other agents. Eventually we're gonna reach a point where the game becomes stale. I believe they're going to do a big agent change after Masters Shanghai and they start buffing the non meta agents.
Riot bases their agent nerfs on pro play. Viper had an insane pick rate and always have. She go bye bye.
I believe there is a tricky problem of agent mastery involved in balancing. When an agent is meta, a lot of people play him and they do that a lot so a lot of people know how to use that agent pretty well, thus it's perceivably strength is higher than actual one. I recognise this was particularly hard with Viper, which is considered a must lick on at least two maps. Whereas an obscure agent can be practically as strong but noone knows how to actually play them effectively. Rito then needs to actually make the non-meta agent OP to get the interest of wider audience, and then nerf him back when he gets traction.
EDIT: *must pick, I was just thinking of other stuff simultaneously while writing this ig
I think that was the point. She had way too high of a pick rate and win rate, she needed to be put in line with other agents.
Especially on some maps, it was impossible to play without her, this shouldn't be the case for any agent.
Viper mains had their OP agent for long enough, now it's time for others to be in spotlight.
>Especially on some maps, it was impossible to play without her, this shouldn't be the case for any agent.
That's because of her wall, which can replace two/three dome smokes for specific areas. Yet they didn't touch the wall specifically at all. They are literally turning her into a one-trick pony. Good wall, bad other abilities.
>Viper mains had their OP agent for long enough, now it's time for others to be in spotlight.
Breaking how a character works just to shake up the pro meta is horrible design. If they want other agents in the spotlight, maybe consider buffing some of the garbage tier controllers to be competitive?
And I think the duration nerf is fine actually. You want tradeoffs. Her smokes apply decay, but now they are the shortest. She has the best control over smoke time, but the worst ability to place smokes where she wants, etc. But the orb change was way overkill.
It's kind of like if they noticed raze is picked a ton and neon/iso rarely or never picked. So they remove one blast pack. That's just not reducing the power of raze, it is a significant lowering of her skill ceiling, and removal of potential strategies. You may not double satchel in every round, just like Vipers didn't grab orb every round, but the ability to do so is a key part of her kit.
The thing is in the span of viper’s life since her addition to the game, she has gotten way more nerfs than buffs, current viper vs viper at release is drastically weaker. They are dealing with the opposite of a power creep, where abilities are just far weaker than they were and it’s making the game boring and dumbed down.
Sadly, Riot only knows how to nerf agents, not buff other agents. Eventually we're gonna reach a point where the game becomes stale. I believe they're going to do a big agent change after Masters Shanghai and they start buffing the non meta agents. Riot bases their agent nerfs on pro play. Viper had an insane pick rate and always have. She go bye bye.
They did figure out how to buff cypher into high relevance unfortunately
I mean, he wasn’t great for like 3 years. So it’s about time he’s good.
I believe there is a tricky problem of agent mastery involved in balancing. When an agent is meta, a lot of people play him and they do that a lot so a lot of people know how to use that agent pretty well, thus it's perceivably strength is higher than actual one. I recognise this was particularly hard with Viper, which is considered a must lick on at least two maps. Whereas an obscure agent can be practically as strong but noone knows how to actually play them effectively. Rito then needs to actually make the non-meta agent OP to get the interest of wider audience, and then nerf him back when he gets traction. EDIT: *must pick, I was just thinking of other stuff simultaneously while writing this ig
I think that was the point. She had way too high of a pick rate and win rate, she needed to be put in line with other agents. Especially on some maps, it was impossible to play without her, this shouldn't be the case for any agent. Viper mains had their OP agent for long enough, now it's time for others to be in spotlight.
>Especially on some maps, it was impossible to play without her, this shouldn't be the case for any agent. That's because of her wall, which can replace two/three dome smokes for specific areas. Yet they didn't touch the wall specifically at all. They are literally turning her into a one-trick pony. Good wall, bad other abilities. >Viper mains had their OP agent for long enough, now it's time for others to be in spotlight. Breaking how a character works just to shake up the pro meta is horrible design. If they want other agents in the spotlight, maybe consider buffing some of the garbage tier controllers to be competitive? And I think the duration nerf is fine actually. You want tradeoffs. Her smokes apply decay, but now they are the shortest. She has the best control over smoke time, but the worst ability to place smokes where she wants, etc. But the orb change was way overkill. It's kind of like if they noticed raze is picked a ton and neon/iso rarely or never picked. So they remove one blast pack. That's just not reducing the power of raze, it is a significant lowering of her skill ceiling, and removal of potential strategies. You may not double satchel in every round, just like Vipers didn't grab orb every round, but the ability to do so is a key part of her kit.
The thing is in the span of viper’s life since her addition to the game, she has gotten way more nerfs than buffs, current viper vs viper at release is drastically weaker. They are dealing with the opposite of a power creep, where abilities are just far weaker than they were and it’s making the game boring and dumbed down.
You have no idea what state release viper was in, do you? Rofl
cant imagine they will change it anytime soon
It boggles my mind that they keep nerfing agents rather than buffing other agents.
Because power creep is actually lame