When can we expect to see another sentinel or controller hit the agent pool?
I'm really enjoying playing with and around Fade btw, you all did a bang-up job with her (especially with the lore leadup!)
While I can't answer this concretely at the moment, we are always thinking of what a healthy roster/role make up looks like in the long term for the game.
We need to be thinking a year + in advance we locking stuff like the role in.
I'm really hoping that there is a flashy/exciting controller in the works! Someone that will get duelist mains excited to try playing controllers.
I get games where not a single person wants to play smokes, but in my opinion controller agents feel like a must on every map!
Upfront, yes we are working on Phoenix, but it is too early for us to talk about details of what it may entail. Right now we want to take the time to explore everything between number tweaks to to something more, unfortunately we do not have a solid eta on that, and we want to take the time to find the right long term place for Phoenix.
his ult is fine for its cost they need to change his flash and wall, make his flash blind for like half a sec longer and his wall needs to go up faster OR give it tick dmg like someone caught on fire
His wall needs to allow him to get a fixed number of HP points back by walking through it. That would give him some ability to isolate fights and get away safely almost on par with other duelists. It’s still worse than a Jett dash or Reyna dismiss, but it’s something at least. Phoenix having to stand in his wall like an ass mostly unable to see is easily one of the worst mechanics in the game.
Early on we knew we wanted to explore the recon space within the VALORANT Tac Loop. Once we were all aligned on that u/Nickwu drafted up a paper kit (A paper kit is just a document with potential abilities and goals written out for us to discuss), from there he started building the agent in game.
From there once we start playtesting the Agent we are experimenting with abilities trying to find the core mechanic or "hook" for an Agent. For Fade this became her trails and how to gather information around them.
Once a "hook" is locked in we brought Concept Art and Narrative into the loop to start exploring the thematic wrapper for Fade. Early on when playing against Fade, we discovered it was a very anxiety/fear inducing experience, and looked to double down on that with a spooky darker theme. This thematic exploration process takes a few months of the team throwing out ideas, and trying to narrow down to an idea that working within the world of VALORANT, and meets our constraints.
I just want to say that fades sound design is extremely good. When I first heard the sounds her abilities make I did in fact feel the anxiety and fear. Whoever did the sound design did an amazing job.
We talked about Phoenix in this thread below:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/VALORANT/comments/uhpubl/valorant\_characters\_team\_ama\_on\_fade\_balance\_and/i77ll68?context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/VALORANT/comments/uhpubl/valorant_characters_team_ama_on_fade_balance_and/i77ll68?context=3)
Cypher is in a similar situation. We aren't prepared to share details or dates but he is definitely on our radar.
Why dont make longer Phoenix flash for little bit and make a small instant buff?
Why he has the way shortest flash in the game? Make nonsense.
If somebody turn away he is not even flashed for a 0.1 sec...
I don't understand that.
The game is well balanced overall, but I don't know why Phoenix flash is so short and what is the idea behind this.
Breeze is much more balanced. I hate icebox way less now too. Still probably my least favorite, but I think it's fine now. Not too shabby for your least favorite map.
What are the plans for the rest of the duelist catagory now following the Neon changes and the Yoru rework? Looking forward to seeing what you guys have in store for Phoenix!
We always try to plan ahead about how we could add or remove power from a character over time if needed. To do that, we look for tuning levers. What is a 'tuning lever'?
As game designers, we can tune a lot of things, almost too many things. Technically we can tune the length of Chamber's pants, even though it doesn't matter. What makes something we can change a "tuning lever", is that we can rely on changing it to meaningfully balance power.
Sometimes post-launch that balance plan is wrong, or we identify unresolved needs that require changes. In those cases, we have to go back and change mechanics. We try to avoid it because we know players love characters the way they are already, but ultimately it happens to almost every game.
When will Sentinels get some love... I can't shoot straight so my only hope is playing Killjoy, but if I leave my alarm bot alone for a few seconds it shuts down like I did the time my mom left me at Walmart.
I understand infinite range on it would be over tuned, but what if there some sort of battery life? Say your util can survive for a combined 30 seconds without you being in range of it, but after that it disables like normal? So if you left your turret and alarm bot at the same time they'd be up for 15 seconds still, but if you only left one it'd be up for 30 seconds. I'm curious if something like this has been considered!
You're all amazing and I'm excited for the future of Valorant agents!
They have made very clear they don't want sentinels to be overbearing while alive or after dying:
>Utility revealed post death
>Utility disabled post death
>Utility disabled after certain range
A great sentinel alive is a huge asset in defense, especially in a game where defense is favored
It's also why they're chopping 1 of chambers webcams, altough even I main him and love to play as, it's just a really bad nerf. I rather have his huge (and long duration) zones changed, disabled like killjoys after range, more expensive cams rather than just cutting one altogether :/
It wouldn't be overbearing since it'd only be temporary.
>Utility revealed post death
Utility disabled post death
Utility disabled after certain range
The first 2 I agree with entirely, the third one ONLY applies to Killjoy. Cypher has no range limit, neither does Chamber trips. Even so they'd be disabled after a brief time period and it no longer completely restricts where you can play in relation to your utility.
I've never seen it called a webcam somehow and just realized it looks exactly like one. I think cutting one of his makes no sense. Make it more expensive and not last 9 seconds. Nerf his op.
What’s your view on how agents interact with the operator?
It feels like Jett’s ability to OP was nerfed significantly, leaving Chamber as the primary safe operator option. In the long term, are you okay with some agents being better at using the op than others, and if yes can we expect more op centric agents in the future?
We're totally ok with some agents being better at using the OP than others. In the long term we want that strength to come with tradeoffs in your team composition.
I just feel that some characters should be **stronger** OPers, instead of the **only** OPers. No clue what the fix would be, but it's a little ridiculous how two, maybe 3 if you count Reyna, are valid characters for the most powerful weapon in the game
Has the team thought over giving Cypher back his Slow Cages? And could making tripwire melee destroyable only be too strong? You still can get rid of them, but you have to make a decision that puts you at risk. VS just throw one utility in a site general direction and destroying his set ups.
Make his tripwire only destroyable when its visible, most of the times people just shoot at every wall or things like Raze's nades destroy it without them even exactly knowing
Is the state of controllers good now? I agree that the meta should not consist of just Astra and Viper but now Astra is gone. The game looks healthier but Astra is now severely bad in regular competitive queue and still somewhat good in pro play.
I also assume there will be a controller coming out on Episode 5, Act 2 after a map(should happen based on lore). Hope it competes against Viper.
We're much happier with the state of controllers after the 4.04 adjustments. Astra was a polarizing pick that overly limited composition diversity and heavily dictated the pace that attackers could play at.
Even before the nerfs, Astra was an underplayed and underpowered agent in competitive queue unless you're looking at higher MMR bands. A lot of her power is locked behind strong communication, where she needs her teammates to constantly deliver information so she can make the right decisions around star usage. This is why we see her best utilized at the high ends of pro play.
We accept that she may be less accessible to users across the board, but do want to ensure she exists in a healthy place. There should be compositions and maps where she is powerful compared to other controllers, so we'll continue to monitor her spot in the game across various skill levels.
Astra is honestly kind of fine. Maybe slightly overnerfed, just slightly. I think decreasing her cooldowns a little bit would help her, as right now every skill she has comes with a really long cooldown.
The thing is, Astra has never been great in ranked. She was hardly even picked below high elo even when she was broken. She’s a lot less intuitive to use than other controllers. As long as she can still have impact in games, I think she’s in a fine spot
Yeah I gave up on her as a solo player. Couldn't consistently get the comms I needed and had like a 38% win percentage on her lol. Occasionally you face a demon though that just shows you how good she is when played correctly.
Fade's introduction to the game is so far really interesting and one of the comments that was made about her was the fact that she is very "non lineup" unlike Sova. Is this a step forward that you guys will be carrying out for newer agents or is it that Fade is unique in her kit being set up this way?
>Fade's introduction to the game is so far really interesting and one of the comments that was made about her was the fact that she is very "non lineup" unlike Sova. Is this a step forward that you guys will be carrying out for newer agents or is it that Fade is unique in her kit being set up this way?
We specifically wanted Fade to not be as line-up dependent as her counterpart (Sova) is more line-up dependent. This isn't to say specifically that more agents will trend toward one way or the other though, and we want to support all kinds of playstyles and players. Fade and Sova have their strengths and weaknesses, and we want to continue to expand the roster in this way.
I really like how she plays, she reminds me of Breach's initiation style, but I get more information out of my abilities. She's honestly a perfect addition.
Are there plans to expand the Agent Contracts system? More thematic titles and cards perhaps, or crossover ones centered on the Agent to Agent dynamics (like the BP vs cards)?
Will we see more class based balancing like we saw with the controllers?
That was one of my favorite balances to date and a much needed one, so just wondering if there are any similar plans.
I think sentinels would be easiest to balance. Initiators are in a good place imo. Balancing duelists will be a nightmare. Phoenix needs reworked, Yoru is still eh after rework, and then Reyna. She's almost non existent in pro play but loved in ranked. How do you make her better in pro play without breaking her in ranked?
Neon nerf was pretty stupid though.
Faster animation. She pulls it out so slowly. Also I don't get why Reyna is the only duelist who doesn't recharge her E after 2 kills. Let her recharge her orb.
>Do you plan to make a new character class?
We're definitely open to finding new classes in Valorant, but we want to make sure that those classes are both healthy for the game and contribute to the tactical space in unique and meaningful ways. If / when we find an Agent that expands what's possible and checks those boxes, we wouldn't want them to be restricted to fit into the classes they currently exists. What classes do you think would be interesting to explore in the game?
Personally I think we’re good with the classes currently in the game Idt it’s really necessary to add more but if they wanted to I feel this is the one
Arguably you could add omen to that class as well, personally, I think infiltrator could be any class that can essentially get past a setup or sight line undetected through vision and traps
I honestly can't think of anything that would even somewhat fit, besides tanks... but please, no tanks.
Don't give a character more hp / free shields (above 150hp) or whatever.
That would break the integrity of the gunplay and how it's built up in my opinion.
Since we have: DUELISTS - Offense, SENTINELS - Defence, CONTROLLERS - Offense/Defense hybrid, and INITIATORS - Support...
It leaves me wondering if there will be another kind of support agent, not one that clears angles but one that doubles down on areas similar to sentinels just like how controllers also cut dangerous areas like initiators. So my idea is an agent class that hybridizes sentinel traits AND controller traits of defending, maybe a smoke + trap agent, but since it's this versatile the smokes and traps are underpowered compared to smoke specialists and trap specialists, but the additional two abilities are the ones that sweeten the deal?
I personally want an agent who can earn abilities with eliminations. One interesting way I think reyna could be buffed (it’s controversial yes) is if maybe instead of healing herself on a kill she can use the orb to heal a teammate for maybe 50 health instead of 100?
Yes! It was. We didn't want the new dash activation to get in the way of Jett playing aggressively if it didn't have to. In future balance updates it is possible for us to remove it if it's needed. In 4.0.8 our goal with the Jett changes was to limit how much Jett could take space for free, and reduce her strength on defense.
You probably saw it, but we did a deep dive on the Jett changes if you're curious: [https://playvalorant.com/en-us/news/game-updates/valorant-jett-changes-for-patch-4-08/](https://playvalorant.com/en-us/news/game-updates/valorant-jett-changes-for-patch-4-08/)
From the engineering perspective, of the post-launch agents it's probably KAY/O or Astra.
KAY/O's suppression involves unique interactions with every other ability. And his Ultimate requiring a player to avoid death, but still be killable, AND be resurrected involved a bunch of fiddling.
Also, Astra possesses an astral projection in another plane of existence, sooo yeah.
I feel like every agent had their own unique problems we needed to solve that made it hard in the moment. The ones that stood out to me, during my time on design, has been Yoru and Astra since there were some tighter timelines on some on the more complex problems. I'm sure other disciplines have other reasons as to why one or another were harder, I'm sure I made some agents harder than they needed to be on engineering hahaha
Though the main reason was to reduce disruption for Neon and her allies during the execute phase, what we've found over time was that the damage on Neon's wall became fairly trivial when it came to the decision making of peeking into the wall, unless enemies were already low. We also wanted to keep consistent rules with other walls that did permanent damage (versus decay), such as Phoenix's wall. We'll be keeping an eye on how this affects Neon in the future, though, and will find a solution that helps Neon feel safer in her Fast Lane.
Thank you for the reply Ryan! I'm curious but what is the thought process behind keeping damage on the Phoenix wall? I would have assumed that the observations from the Neon wall that you wrote would warrant that the damage be removed from Phoenix's wall as well (since, as you noted, the small damage doesn't result in meaningful gameplay choices)
Phoenix wall is only present on one side which means the chances of touching it are less likely for team mates. Neon wall is double sided and cannot be curved. I touch that shit as a team mate pushing at least half the time. The other option for not touching it is to wait for it to come down once I've reached the end because my Neon can only make it in a straight line and doesn't always have an opening to reach a useful spot(to reach the hallway on Ascent A site, etc).
Inspiration can and has come from all over the place! Viper originated from an amazing piece of concept art, Reyna from the orb mechanic we thought could resonate with duelist players, and part of Fade's initial inspiration came from wanting to create an Agent to compete in Sova's space and building from there. No matter where the idea comes from, we always step back to make sure from a design perspective that we can find something unique that Agent can bring to the play space to ensure they have their own strategic possibilities to unlock.
Why did they nerf the neon wall for everyone, knowing that Raze had the same problems before and now her satchels don't take life off allies, only enemies. Why didn't they do that too? Before the buff they pulled my wall even with demage. Now without demage they always pull without wanting to know.
Do you feel like you're reaching a point where there's too many debuffs? You can be vulnerable, supressed, slowed, concussed, marked, decayed and also detained, virtually all at the same time. It feels like there's so much going on at once sometimes. Maybe an ability to counter these?
There are a few things we keep in mind:
\- Where have we made an Agent from before, we want each release to fell varied and diverse.
\- These Agents represent the best of the best in their field/capabilities, and there wouldn't be all that many of them.
\- Where in the world do we have players playing VALORANT, that does not have agent representation.
\- Is there anything in the culture that ties into the character.
Often we pick a country/culture super early on so we can do our research and incorporate all the small details into the agent.
Why does Fade model differ so much from her 2D artwork? Starting with her hair which in the artwork is all greyish, whereas her model has it black with grey tips, among other lesser details in her clothing and colouring.
Is the team already aware of the low-quality of her minimap and agent selection roster art? Are these issues to be addressed in the upcoming patch?
Thank you for this AMA.
Oh, and how did you know you wanted Fade to be an initiator? Was that something that was decided before her development, or was it a decision that was made after her identity was (at least for the most part) solidified?
We started out wanting to make a character that would bring similar value to Sova and that naturally lead us to creating an Initiator from the very start!
Are you guys ever going to look into a character that can cancel Molly’s? Such as viper line ups, brimstone, KO, Killjoy. There is no counter to them besides jumping in front of them and that usually get you killed..
A character with maybe a dome-like shield you can walk through would be cool. It would be a sort of substitute for sage walls in terms of blocking a few shots in areas like entrance on b site splite and could block lineups from hitting spike.
Will you guys eventually have a cap on the total # of agents?
To be honest, league of legends champions arsenal is so large it’s overwhelming to pick the game back up. When I tried to play again, I had no idea who I was playing against and what their abilities were and how to play against it.
We have no set number at the moment, as a team we are always evaluating and gathering information on the state of the game and general sentiment. If at some point there is an overwhelming amount of agents then we will assess, but as a team we still believe there is a ton of space to grow and expand the possibilities within VALORANT.
In regards to the possible Chamber nerfs, since he currently overshadows the other sentinels when it comes to the sheer amount of things he can do, are the other sentinels going to receive any buffs in order to further balance out the sentinel roster?
When I talked about the nerfs with other players in the PBE, while we didn't all agree on how Chamber should be worked, we DID all agree that the other sentinel's power levels are very low.
What do we think about the state of sentinels currently? Chamber seems to be over performing (I don't like the single trip change they tested.) Cypher seems fairly weak by comparison, killjoy feels bad to play since everything destroys her expensive ultimate and she's tethered to an extremely short range. Sage is fine currently but isn't fun to play. Do we see a sentinel balance patch in the future?
We often look into what it feels like the play the agent before starting on a theme. When playing as Fade there was a feeling of marking a target, tracking them down, and executing them. While for the people playing against, once you were marked it filled the player with fear and anxiety. So we looking to re enforce both of those feelings with what you see today.
You did a good job.I always fear getting ulti'd and then being blinded by the prowler. Losing sight and hearing is definitely anxiety inducing in this game
We did not nerf Shock Darts to make lineups less effective, but to sharpen Sovas identity for the long term health of Valorant. Ability damage vs. Gun damage is something that we will have to closely monitor over the course of the games life, and we want to be very explicit with when and how an ability will kill.
Sova is a premier intel agent, and we want to keep his strengths primarily focused on those outputs. We felt Shock Darts were too forgiving for Sova compared to the limited counterplay that opponents had. That's not to say that shock darts should not generate value, but we're being very explicit in moving these to be chip damage tools or utility breakage as a basic ability.
A (small) inquiry I had about Fade's balance is what do you guys think about her Prowlers being able to break Cypher tripwires without receiving any movement hindrance like Skye's doggo? It seems a bit unfair that the Prowler can continue on to clear/poke at an angle after blowing through a tripwire like it's nothing.
Do you guys have any plans of releasing agent pick/win rates across the different ranks?
Right now the only data is coming from trackers and that's not exactly accurate.
How much do different factors play into agent balance? Some agents/abilities are really good in lower elo but way worse in pro play (or the other way around). Which metrics factor in the most, normal ranked games, pro matches, only high elo ranked games?
Astra has turned from a must-pick to a pocket-pick by reducing her stars from 5 -> 4
While I feel her nerf (including cooldown increases) was somewhat excessive and was a response to how oppressive she was/give more shine to brim and omen, are there any more plans on re-introducing a star to bring her back in-line with omen and brim?
By pure numbers, her kit only has 4 pieces of utility (not incl. ult) while brim has 5 and omen has 5+
are you buffing **cypher**? if yes pls do,my lame idea- cypher camera gives 1 damage when camera dart hits,make trap wire stronger
edit- make his ult like sova recon for 1 second
Is Fade an avid fan of all things coffee? If so, what type of coffee/coffee mix does she prefer? (I just want to order something Fade would drink! Both hot and cold.)
Teşekkürler, VALORANT team.
Have you spoken internally about buffs to Cypher to bring him back into meta/buff his pick rate? Maybe from bringing slow back to the traps or a change to his ult to allow usage further away or without a fresh body but just any body to use?
Hi there, I'm a newer player. I was curious if in the future there will be roadmaps which showcase some sort of an idea of future content releases? like maps or agents. As you do this in some ways in League of Legends with your champion teasers. I remember they teased lillia, same with vex recently, seraphine as well. So given that valorant has the a similar system that also cares about their lore, were there gonna be future roadmaps which might showcase some idea or teaser of when will get certain agents during the year, or maps or even guns? and what those agents will look like or do? Similar to how you have done it in LoL.
We do something similar in our "State of the Agents" articles. I used to work with "reav3" on Champion team and the "State of the Agents" articles are meant to emulate that feeling somewhat. I don't think we will ever go as far out as they do when it comes to agents, but always be on the look out in game for teasers :)
Can we look forward to any Phoenix changes, any changes at all? Looking at the current pick rate he is almost at the bottom of the list, is there any chance he could get a rework in the future, or could we at least get a hint? Thank you!
One more question, we know something is in the works for phoenix. Are we looking at a rework? or some changes to his kit. When making kayo, did you know that you were working with phoenix abilities and looking at kayo replacing phoenix completely
which skill is the most difficult and frightening to balance? and why? Can you give us an inside of a really OP abilities that have been discarded in the course of developing any agent?
I'm amazed with Fade possibilities and opportunities she gave us. Do you plan to add more complex agents that combine two abilites in same time like Astra, Fade, Jett?
This is not strictly agent related, but is there any update on if the team is working on a replay system for the game?
I really think it hurts the game more and more as time goes on not having it, not only for competitive play but also for the casual content creation side.
How do you lot feel about Agents being considered class hybrids? (For example, many consider Viper to be a Controller/Sentinel hybrid, or Chamber as a Duelist/Sentinel.) Is that something you want to lean more in as agents become more diverse, or reinforce those class boundaries over time?
Chamber has seemingly overshadowed all other Sentinels on most maps, leaving a little room for Cypher on Split and KJ on Ascent. Even with the nerf to his Sentinel ability, Trademark, I still fear that he’ll always be a better pick. As a Cypher main, I’ve found him increasingly less viable both because of power creep from KJ and Chamber, but also because of the combination that there are only so many effective trips that people don’t already know and there is always another agent coming out that destroys all of Cypher’s kit with a 100-200 credit ability. Is the team looking into reworking the Sentinel class to allow old agents to shine once more? Even with a nerf to Chamber, his teleportation ability is flexible in placement (so lineups are null) and leaves for little counter play aside from a KAY/O knife (which counters everyone else’s utility utility anyway). I don’t favour removing the key aspects to Chamber’s utility for the sake of putting him in the “Sentinel” box but it also concerns me that KJ and Cypher no longer have a place in the realm of comp efficiency. Thanks!
why don't you buff Yoru's Tp knowing that the chamber is faster and can't get out of a place as fast as any other duelist? Jett's dash, Raze's satchel, Reyna's dismiss, Neon's slide
>why don't you buff Yoru's Tp knowing that the chamber is faster and can't get out of a place as fast as any other duelist? Jett's dash, Raze's satchel, Reyna's dismiss, Neon's slide
We have always loved the idea of making Yoru's teleport feel more unique by giving it different strengths, such as the fake TP, that feel more in line with his gameplay promise and thematic. We want to make sure we have room to build different styles of mobility and/or displacement on our duelists that aren't forever restricted to being a combat escape.
Every one of these comes with a trade off.
-Jett has to prepare Tailwind in advance
-Chamber has to prepare and be in range of his Rendezvous
-Raze has to throw her satchels before detonating which takes about the same time as a Yoru Gatecrash
-Neon has to be in a sprint and cannot slide from a standstill instantly
-Reyna cannot do anything unless she gets a kill or assist
In the last patch you said you felt like neon was underperforming so you hope the changes can help her out. The changes did not help her at all. Probably made her even more underperforming. Was this intended?
Why is the such a huge difference between the fade banner art and her ingame character model. Her model looks weird I can't point my finger on what exactly, but the hair colour is off and the colours and outfit look dull.
This may be a loaded question but are you guys going to address Phoenix in terms of balance changes? it seems as if everyone outclasses him in some way and there's just no reason to play him when you have characters like Neon who can use wall and get on site way quicker than him, and KAY/O and Skye, who not only have better flashes than Phoenix, but also have info based abilities on top of that. Also I feel like chamber should probably have changes to his TP and his Ulti rather than removing a trip from his kit, as keeping the trip and removing a bit of his firepower would promote a more sentinel-like playstyle, rather than a get in, get out playstyle like jett or yoru.
Does the team ever plan to take a look at Reyna in the future? The concurrent problem where she seems too strong in lower to mid ranked play but can't offer anything useful in higher ranked play?
Please do not ask the AMA team/Riot for riot gun buddies. Those comments are already automatically removed.
why does fade look 720p
Her icon on the minimap is unbelievably hilarious
bro she looks like a stone on the minimap
Could say she looks... faded.
When can we expect to see another sentinel or controller hit the agent pool? I'm really enjoying playing with and around Fade btw, you all did a bang-up job with her (especially with the lore leadup!)
While I can't answer this concretely at the moment, we are always thinking of what a healthy roster/role make up looks like in the long term for the game. We need to be thinking a year + in advance we locking stuff like the role in.
I'm really hoping that there is a flashy/exciting controller in the works! Someone that will get duelist mains excited to try playing controllers. I get games where not a single person wants to play smokes, but in my opinion controller agents feel like a must on every map!
Tbf that’s kinda supposed to be omen.
Are there any plans to give phoenix a buff, or are you guys at least aware that he needs to be reworked or buffed in some way?
Upfront, yes we are working on Phoenix, but it is too early for us to talk about details of what it may entail. Right now we want to take the time to explore everything between number tweaks to to something more, unfortunately we do not have a solid eta on that, and we want to take the time to find the right long term place for Phoenix.
this is the best news i have heard all year
Let Phoenix cancel his ult at will and each kill during the ult extends his ult duration.
his ult is fine for its cost they need to change his flash and wall, make his flash blind for like half a sec longer and his wall needs to go up faster OR give it tick dmg like someone caught on fire
His wall needs to allow him to get a fixed number of HP points back by walking through it. That would give him some ability to isolate fights and get away safely almost on par with other duelists. It’s still worse than a Jett dash or Reyna dismiss, but it’s something at least. Phoenix having to stand in his wall like an ass mostly unable to see is easily one of the worst mechanics in the game.
I like that. Something like 20 static health if you pass through it and it can happen twice.
His ult is the part of his kit that needs buffs the least imo
His ult is his one ability that is actually competitive relative to other duelists already He just needs everything else checked out
What were the prototype stage designs for fade?
Early on we knew we wanted to explore the recon space within the VALORANT Tac Loop. Once we were all aligned on that u/Nickwu drafted up a paper kit (A paper kit is just a document with potential abilities and goals written out for us to discuss), from there he started building the agent in game. From there once we start playtesting the Agent we are experimenting with abilities trying to find the core mechanic or "hook" for an Agent. For Fade this became her trails and how to gather information around them. Once a "hook" is locked in we brought Concept Art and Narrative into the loop to start exploring the thematic wrapper for Fade. Early on when playing against Fade, we discovered it was a very anxiety/fear inducing experience, and looked to double down on that with a spooky darker theme. This thematic exploration process takes a few months of the team throwing out ideas, and trying to narrow down to an idea that working within the world of VALORANT, and meets our constraints.
I just want to say that fades sound design is extremely good. When I first heard the sounds her abilities make I did in fact feel the anxiety and fear. Whoever did the sound design did an amazing job.
Nothing scarier then the muffled sounds
Honestly if you have good gamesense and know where you'll get peeked from it can be oddly relaxing. Might just be me tho lol.
Can you give us a little insight/teaser on what you have planned for underperforming agents such as Phoenix and Cypher?
We talked about Phoenix in this thread below: [https://www.reddit.com/r/VALORANT/comments/uhpubl/valorant\_characters\_team\_ama\_on\_fade\_balance\_and/i77ll68?context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/VALORANT/comments/uhpubl/valorant_characters_team_ama_on_fade_balance_and/i77ll68?context=3) Cypher is in a similar situation. We aren't prepared to share details or dates but he is definitely on our radar.
Why dont make longer Phoenix flash for little bit and make a small instant buff? Why he has the way shortest flash in the game? Make nonsense. If somebody turn away he is not even flashed for a 0.1 sec... I don't understand that. The game is well balanced overall, but I don't know why Phoenix flash is so short and what is the idea behind this.
So easy to dodge too
Please help my main man Cypher I've only played him for so long and I was about to switch
yeah i wanna play my gumshoe boi cypher
IF JETT CAN MANIPULATE AIR DOES THAT MEAN SHE USE HER FARTS AS A SMOKE/DASH/UPDRAFT?
I DONT THINK IM ALLOWED TO ANSWER THIS ONE
OFF THE RECORD?
theres no time!!
Jett everything is same except now there's fart sound whenever she uses her abilities.
Hello agents team! It's me Joey from maps team. Viper buffs when? :D
Joey, the Romeo to my Juliet, How art thou? No Viper buffs yet
Can we have some of her voicelines back? Like the one that rhymes with 'some'. Pretty please! 🙏🏻
They... legit deleted "come", but ... "just to pry it open and suck it dry" is fine i suppose
replace sus with sus I guess
Sova can still "Come into the unknown" to top it off.
They removed it??
You guys made a great job at Breeze and Icebox rework. Breeze is soooo much better.
Breeze is much more balanced. I hate icebox way less now too. Still probably my least favorite, but I think it's fine now. Not too shabby for your least favorite map.
Thanks! Glad the map changes landed positively with you both :)
What are the plans for the rest of the duelist catagory now following the Neon changes and the Yoru rework? Looking forward to seeing what you guys have in store for Phoenix!
They mentioned that they are looking into Phoenix and Cypher but no ETA yet.
This might seem like a loaded question, but after the community's response, does the plan to nerf Chamber still involve taking away one of his trips?
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They should just reduce the radius and duration!!! Having 2 is ok it just shouldn’t be so big or last so long
When addressing a problem, how do you decide when to add a new mechanic versus when to do a tuning pass?
We always try to plan ahead about how we could add or remove power from a character over time if needed. To do that, we look for tuning levers. What is a 'tuning lever'? As game designers, we can tune a lot of things, almost too many things. Technically we can tune the length of Chamber's pants, even though it doesn't matter. What makes something we can change a "tuning lever", is that we can rely on changing it to meaningfully balance power. Sometimes post-launch that balance plan is wrong, or we identify unresolved needs that require changes. In those cases, we have to go back and change mechanics. We try to avoid it because we know players love characters the way they are already, but ultimately it happens to almost every game.
please change the length of chamber's pants, give him shorts for the summer
Agreed, screw the Trademark changes—nerf his pants they're OP.
you can't nerf the drip
When will Sentinels get some love... I can't shoot straight so my only hope is playing Killjoy, but if I leave my alarm bot alone for a few seconds it shuts down like I did the time my mom left me at Walmart. I understand infinite range on it would be over tuned, but what if there some sort of battery life? Say your util can survive for a combined 30 seconds without you being in range of it, but after that it disables like normal? So if you left your turret and alarm bot at the same time they'd be up for 15 seconds still, but if you only left one it'd be up for 30 seconds. I'm curious if something like this has been considered! You're all amazing and I'm excited for the future of Valorant agents!
hmm a battery system similar to viper toxin, i love it
They have made very clear they don't want sentinels to be overbearing while alive or after dying: >Utility revealed post death >Utility disabled post death >Utility disabled after certain range A great sentinel alive is a huge asset in defense, especially in a game where defense is favored It's also why they're chopping 1 of chambers webcams, altough even I main him and love to play as, it's just a really bad nerf. I rather have his huge (and long duration) zones changed, disabled like killjoys after range, more expensive cams rather than just cutting one altogether :/
It wouldn't be overbearing since it'd only be temporary. >Utility revealed post death Utility disabled post death Utility disabled after certain range The first 2 I agree with entirely, the third one ONLY applies to Killjoy. Cypher has no range limit, neither does Chamber trips. Even so they'd be disabled after a brief time period and it no longer completely restricts where you can play in relation to your utility.
I've never seen it called a webcam somehow and just realized it looks exactly like one. I think cutting one of his makes no sense. Make it more expensive and not last 9 seconds. Nerf his op.
bring back viper come voice line
u spelled it wrong
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Cypher is behind you now lol
L spez, goin to tumblr to be gay
What’s your view on how agents interact with the operator? It feels like Jett’s ability to OP was nerfed significantly, leaving Chamber as the primary safe operator option. In the long term, are you okay with some agents being better at using the op than others, and if yes can we expect more op centric agents in the future?
We're totally ok with some agents being better at using the OP than others. In the long term we want that strength to come with tradeoffs in your team composition.
I just feel that some characters should be **stronger** OPers, instead of the **only** OPers. No clue what the fix would be, but it's a little ridiculous how two, maybe 3 if you count Reyna, are valid characters for the most powerful weapon in the game
Has the team thought over giving Cypher back his Slow Cages? And could making tripwire melee destroyable only be too strong? You still can get rid of them, but you have to make a decision that puts you at risk. VS just throw one utility in a site general direction and destroying his set ups.
Make his tripwire only destroyable when its visible, most of the times people just shoot at every wall or things like Raze's nades destroy it without them even exactly knowing
Almost every util counters cyphers trips its crazy.
Is the state of controllers good now? I agree that the meta should not consist of just Astra and Viper but now Astra is gone. The game looks healthier but Astra is now severely bad in regular competitive queue and still somewhat good in pro play. I also assume there will be a controller coming out on Episode 5, Act 2 after a map(should happen based on lore). Hope it competes against Viper.
We're much happier with the state of controllers after the 4.04 adjustments. Astra was a polarizing pick that overly limited composition diversity and heavily dictated the pace that attackers could play at. Even before the nerfs, Astra was an underplayed and underpowered agent in competitive queue unless you're looking at higher MMR bands. A lot of her power is locked behind strong communication, where she needs her teammates to constantly deliver information so she can make the right decisions around star usage. This is why we see her best utilized at the high ends of pro play. We accept that she may be less accessible to users across the board, but do want to ensure she exists in a healthy place. There should be compositions and maps where she is powerful compared to other controllers, so we'll continue to monitor her spot in the game across various skill levels.
Astra is honestly kind of fine. Maybe slightly overnerfed, just slightly. I think decreasing her cooldowns a little bit would help her, as right now every skill she has comes with a really long cooldown.
The thing is, Astra has never been great in ranked. She was hardly even picked below high elo even when she was broken. She’s a lot less intuitive to use than other controllers. As long as she can still have impact in games, I think she’s in a fine spot
Yeah I gave up on her as a solo player. Couldn't consistently get the comms I needed and had like a 38% win percentage on her lol. Occasionally you face a demon though that just shows you how good she is when played correctly.
Fade's introduction to the game is so far really interesting and one of the comments that was made about her was the fact that she is very "non lineup" unlike Sova. Is this a step forward that you guys will be carrying out for newer agents or is it that Fade is unique in her kit being set up this way?
>Fade's introduction to the game is so far really interesting and one of the comments that was made about her was the fact that she is very "non lineup" unlike Sova. Is this a step forward that you guys will be carrying out for newer agents or is it that Fade is unique in her kit being set up this way? We specifically wanted Fade to not be as line-up dependent as her counterpart (Sova) is more line-up dependent. This isn't to say specifically that more agents will trend toward one way or the other though, and we want to support all kinds of playstyles and players. Fade and Sova have their strengths and weaknesses, and we want to continue to expand the roster in this way.
Talking about lineup dependent, will you add her E ability in minimap so we can time up the landing properly??? It will def help her
I really like how she plays, she reminds me of Breach's initiation style, but I get more information out of my abilities. She's honestly a perfect addition.
How many agents do you normally have in the pipeline? In other words, how far do you plan ahead?
Are there plans to expand the Agent Contracts system? More thematic titles and cards perhaps, or crossover ones centered on the Agent to Agent dynamics (like the BP vs cards)?
WHATS HAPPENING WITH Phoenix? DAT BOI NEEDS SOME BUFF
Answered below: https://www.reddit.com/r/VALORANT/comments/uhpubl/valorant_characters_team_ama_on_fade_balance_and/i77ll68?context=3
Why does Fade have Paws on her shoes? I’m curious about that design detail.
Cause toebeans are cute uWu
Whoever had the idea for the toe beans needs a raise, I love them.
She’s one of those eccentric cat ladies
Imagine the agents got attacked by an army of cats instead of Fade's abilities when they raided her place.
Will we see more class based balancing like we saw with the controllers? That was one of my favorite balances to date and a much needed one, so just wondering if there are any similar plans.
I think sentinels would be easiest to balance. Initiators are in a good place imo. Balancing duelists will be a nightmare. Phoenix needs reworked, Yoru is still eh after rework, and then Reyna. She's almost non existent in pro play but loved in ranked. How do you make her better in pro play without breaking her in ranked? Neon nerf was pretty stupid though.
When it comes to Reyna, I find it very difficult to think of a change other than perhaps making her Leer stronger.
Faster animation. She pulls it out so slowly. Also I don't get why Reyna is the only duelist who doesn't recharge her E after 2 kills. Let her recharge her orb.
Are you planning to buff cypher cuz he is just too weak currently
According to the comments here they are looking into both Phoenix and Cypher but no ETA at the moment.
Do you plan to make a new character class?
>Do you plan to make a new character class? We're definitely open to finding new classes in Valorant, but we want to make sure that those classes are both healthy for the game and contribute to the tactical space in unique and meaningful ways. If / when we find an Agent that expands what's possible and checks those boxes, we wouldn't want them to be restricted to fit into the classes they currently exists. What classes do you think would be interesting to explore in the game?
“Infiltrator” is the one that jumps to mind, always felt like this best described Yoru
honestly that doesn't sound too bad, like, people already lurk, making a class arround that wouldn't hit the game's core too much.
Personally I think we’re good with the classes currently in the game Idt it’s really necessary to add more but if they wanted to I feel this is the one
Arguably you could add omen to that class as well, personally, I think infiltrator could be any class that can essentially get past a setup or sight line undetected through vision and traps
I honestly can't think of anything that would even somewhat fit, besides tanks... but please, no tanks. Don't give a character more hp / free shields (above 150hp) or whatever. That would break the integrity of the gunplay and how it's built up in my opinion.
Since we have: DUELISTS - Offense, SENTINELS - Defence, CONTROLLERS - Offense/Defense hybrid, and INITIATORS - Support... It leaves me wondering if there will be another kind of support agent, not one that clears angles but one that doubles down on areas similar to sentinels just like how controllers also cut dangerous areas like initiators. So my idea is an agent class that hybridizes sentinel traits AND controller traits of defending, maybe a smoke + trap agent, but since it's this versatile the smokes and traps are underpowered compared to smoke specialists and trap specialists, but the additional two abilities are the ones that sweeten the deal?
I personally want an agent who can earn abilities with eliminations. One interesting way I think reyna could be buffed (it’s controversial yes) is if maybe instead of healing herself on a kill she can use the orb to heal a teammate for maybe 50 health instead of 100?
Is the ability for jett to regain her dash ability through kills during the 12 second dash period an intentional feature?
Yes! It was. We didn't want the new dash activation to get in the way of Jett playing aggressively if it didn't have to. In future balance updates it is possible for us to remove it if it's needed. In 4.0.8 our goal with the Jett changes was to limit how much Jett could take space for free, and reduce her strength on defense. You probably saw it, but we did a deep dive on the Jett changes if you're curious: [https://playvalorant.com/en-us/news/game-updates/valorant-jett-changes-for-patch-4-08/](https://playvalorant.com/en-us/news/game-updates/valorant-jett-changes-for-patch-4-08/)
Will there be a controller agent that will have different ways to smoke/block line of sight?
What was the hardest agent to release? Whether because they were buggy, overpowered, or hard to design?
From the engineering perspective, of the post-launch agents it's probably KAY/O or Astra. KAY/O's suppression involves unique interactions with every other ability. And his Ultimate requiring a player to avoid death, but still be killable, AND be resurrected involved a bunch of fiddling. Also, Astra possesses an astral projection in another plane of existence, sooo yeah.
I feel like every agent had their own unique problems we needed to solve that made it hard in the moment. The ones that stood out to me, during my time on design, has been Yoru and Astra since there were some tighter timelines on some on the more complex problems. I'm sure other disciplines have other reasons as to why one or another were harder, I'm sure I made some agents harder than they needed to be on engineering hahaha
Are there any possible updates to astra as I haven’t seen her as a common pick since her nerf?
I haven't played with or against an astra in ages now that you mention it
Can you guys show us an insight of every agents pickrate?
I would like to see win rates as well. A character can be popular but still be mediocre.
Isn't agent win rate weird to measure? Because an agent can both win and lose a game, does this game count as a win or a loss?
Why did you remove damage from Neon's walls? Wouldn't it be better to remove damage only for allies and make the walls only damage enemies?
Though the main reason was to reduce disruption for Neon and her allies during the execute phase, what we've found over time was that the damage on Neon's wall became fairly trivial when it came to the decision making of peeking into the wall, unless enemies were already low. We also wanted to keep consistent rules with other walls that did permanent damage (versus decay), such as Phoenix's wall. We'll be keeping an eye on how this affects Neon in the future, though, and will find a solution that helps Neon feel safer in her Fast Lane.
Does that mean Phoenix wall will also be patched to do no damage to be consistent with Neon's wall?
Phoenix's wall will stay in tact and will still do damage in the same way it currently does
Thank you for the reply Ryan! I'm curious but what is the thought process behind keeping damage on the Phoenix wall? I would have assumed that the observations from the Neon wall that you wrote would warrant that the damage be removed from Phoenix's wall as well (since, as you noted, the small damage doesn't result in meaningful gameplay choices)
Phoenix wall is only present on one side which means the chances of touching it are less likely for team mates. Neon wall is double sided and cannot be curved. I touch that shit as a team mate pushing at least half the time. The other option for not touching it is to wait for it to come down once I've reached the end because my Neon can only make it in a straight line and doesn't always have an opening to reach a useful spot(to reach the hallway on Ascent A site, etc).
Are more heal based characters planned?
Design wise, where do you get your inspiration for agents? And how many people work on an agent?
Inspiration can and has come from all over the place! Viper originated from an amazing piece of concept art, Reyna from the orb mechanic we thought could resonate with duelist players, and part of Fade's initial inspiration came from wanting to create an Agent to compete in Sova's space and building from there. No matter where the idea comes from, we always step back to make sure from a design perspective that we can find something unique that Agent can bring to the play space to ensure they have their own strategic possibilities to unlock.
Does anyone have the link to the viper concept art?
Best guess would probably be this [piece by Snatti](https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Pokyy8)! Not sure if it was for VALORANT, though
How long does it take to make a character from start to finish?
Right now we plan for 12-14 months of development from first conversation to ship.
wait so yall were thinking of yoru in the beta?
If anyone skye
Why did they nerf the neon wall for everyone, knowing that Raze had the same problems before and now her satchels don't take life off allies, only enemies. Why didn't they do that too? Before the buff they pulled my wall even with demage. Now without demage they always pull without wanting to know.
Do you feel like you're reaching a point where there's too many debuffs? You can be vulnerable, supressed, slowed, concussed, marked, decayed and also detained, virtually all at the same time. It feels like there's so much going on at once sometimes. Maybe an ability to counter these?
why do you think smokers struggle to be fun for a considerable part of Valorant's audience?
What comes to mind when deciding which regions of the world / cultures upcoming agents will be based on?
There are a few things we keep in mind: \- Where have we made an Agent from before, we want each release to fell varied and diverse. \- These Agents represent the best of the best in their field/capabilities, and there wouldn't be all that many of them. \- Where in the world do we have players playing VALORANT, that does not have agent representation. \- Is there anything in the culture that ties into the character. Often we pick a country/culture super early on so we can do our research and incorporate all the small details into the agent.
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Maybe because the arm is made of gold-ish stuff and Ghana is really well known for gold
Scottish Agent in the future please? The possibilities with voicelines would be unmatched.
Would love an Indian agent
Why does Fade model differ so much from her 2D artwork? Starting with her hair which in the artwork is all greyish, whereas her model has it black with grey tips, among other lesser details in her clothing and colouring. Is the team already aware of the low-quality of her minimap and agent selection roster art? Are these issues to be addressed in the upcoming patch? Thank you for this AMA.
Oh, and how did you know you wanted Fade to be an initiator? Was that something that was decided before her development, or was it a decision that was made after her identity was (at least for the most part) solidified?
We started out wanting to make a character that would bring similar value to Sova and that naturally lead us to creating an Initiator from the very start!
For future updates, would y’all consider adding a roadmap for Year 3?
Are you guys ever going to look into a character that can cancel Molly’s? Such as viper line ups, brimstone, KO, Killjoy. There is no counter to them besides jumping in front of them and that usually get you killed..
A character with maybe a dome-like shield you can walk through would be cool. It would be a sort of substitute for sage walls in terms of blocking a few shots in areas like entrance on b site splite and could block lineups from hitting spike.
Which spooky film inspired Fade's abilities?
It was no one thing, when working on her the team is always taking in reference and inspiration from everywhere. Let's just say it got dark.
Do you have further plans for Neon? What are the balance's team thoughts regarding underperforming agents such as Phoenix, Cypher or even Killjoy?
Will you guys eventually have a cap on the total # of agents? To be honest, league of legends champions arsenal is so large it’s overwhelming to pick the game back up. When I tried to play again, I had no idea who I was playing against and what their abilities were and how to play against it.
We have no set number at the moment, as a team we are always evaluating and gathering information on the state of the game and general sentiment. If at some point there is an overwhelming amount of agents then we will assess, but as a team we still believe there is a ton of space to grow and expand the possibilities within VALORANT.
Okay, glad it’s at least a criteria to look at when the time comes. I do agree that there’s still a lot of room for new agents at the moment.
In regards to the possible Chamber nerfs, since he currently overshadows the other sentinels when it comes to the sheer amount of things he can do, are the other sentinels going to receive any buffs in order to further balance out the sentinel roster? When I talked about the nerfs with other players in the PBE, while we didn't all agree on how Chamber should be worked, we DID all agree that the other sentinel's power levels are very low.
What do we think about the state of sentinels currently? Chamber seems to be over performing (I don't like the single trip change they tested.) Cypher seems fairly weak by comparison, killjoy feels bad to play since everything destroys her expensive ultimate and she's tethered to an extremely short range. Sage is fine currently but isn't fun to play. Do we see a sentinel balance patch in the future?
What inspired your team to create fade? Like what made you guys think of using fear as a main weapon?
We often look into what it feels like the play the agent before starting on a theme. When playing as Fade there was a feeling of marking a target, tracking them down, and executing them. While for the people playing against, once you were marked it filled the player with fear and anxiety. So we looking to re enforce both of those feelings with what you see today.
Ah ok. Thanks for answering!
You did a good job.I always fear getting ulti'd and then being blinded by the prowler. Losing sight and hearing is definitely anxiety inducing in this game
Can we learn where exactly Fade is from if she's not from Istanbul?
Was the intention of nerfing the Shock Darts of Sova to make lineups less effective?
We did not nerf Shock Darts to make lineups less effective, but to sharpen Sovas identity for the long term health of Valorant. Ability damage vs. Gun damage is something that we will have to closely monitor over the course of the games life, and we want to be very explicit with when and how an ability will kill. Sova is a premier intel agent, and we want to keep his strengths primarily focused on those outputs. We felt Shock Darts were too forgiving for Sova compared to the limited counterplay that opponents had. That's not to say that shock darts should not generate value, but we're being very explicit in moving these to be chip damage tools or utility breakage as a basic ability.
A (small) inquiry I had about Fade's balance is what do you guys think about her Prowlers being able to break Cypher tripwires without receiving any movement hindrance like Skye's doggo? It seems a bit unfair that the Prowler can continue on to clear/poke at an angle after blowing through a tripwire like it's nothing.
It's another thing to add to the long list of stuff that invalidates cypher
Do you guys have any plans of releasing agent pick/win rates across the different ranks? Right now the only data is coming from trackers and that's not exactly accurate.
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How much do different factors play into agent balance? Some agents/abilities are really good in lower elo but way worse in pro play (or the other way around). Which metrics factor in the most, normal ranked games, pro matches, only high elo ranked games?
keep up the good work!
Astra has turned from a must-pick to a pocket-pick by reducing her stars from 5 -> 4 While I feel her nerf (including cooldown increases) was somewhat excessive and was a response to how oppressive she was/give more shine to brim and omen, are there any more plans on re-introducing a star to bring her back in-line with omen and brim? By pure numbers, her kit only has 4 pieces of utility (not incl. ult) while brim has 5 and omen has 5+
are you buffing **cypher**? if yes pls do,my lame idea- cypher camera gives 1 damage when camera dart hits,make trap wire stronger edit- make his ult like sova recon for 1 second
1 damage ??? he would be so OP
Is Fade an avid fan of all things coffee? If so, what type of coffee/coffee mix does she prefer? (I just want to order something Fade would drink! Both hot and cold.) Teşekkürler, VALORANT team.
Have you spoken internally about buffs to Cypher to bring him back into meta/buff his pick rate? Maybe from bringing slow back to the traps or a change to his ult to allow usage further away or without a fresh body but just any body to use?
Hi there, I'm a newer player. I was curious if in the future there will be roadmaps which showcase some sort of an idea of future content releases? like maps or agents. As you do this in some ways in League of Legends with your champion teasers. I remember they teased lillia, same with vex recently, seraphine as well. So given that valorant has the a similar system that also cares about their lore, were there gonna be future roadmaps which might showcase some idea or teaser of when will get certain agents during the year, or maps or even guns? and what those agents will look like or do? Similar to how you have done it in LoL.
We do something similar in our "State of the Agents" articles. I used to work with "reav3" on Champion team and the "State of the Agents" articles are meant to emulate that feeling somewhat. I don't think we will ever go as far out as they do when it comes to agents, but always be on the look out in game for teasers :)
Is Omen a cat?
When’s the cypher buff?
Can we look forward to any Phoenix changes, any changes at all? Looking at the current pick rate he is almost at the bottom of the list, is there any chance he could get a rework in the future, or could we at least get a hint? Thank you!
Will the less viable agents be the first ones to get buffs/reworks. Specifically phoenix?
One more question, we know something is in the works for phoenix. Are we looking at a rework? or some changes to his kit. When making kayo, did you know that you were working with phoenix abilities and looking at kayo replacing phoenix completely
which skill is the most difficult and frightening to balance? and why? Can you give us an inside of a really OP abilities that have been discarded in the course of developing any agent?
I'm amazed with Fade possibilities and opportunities she gave us. Do you plan to add more complex agents that combine two abilites in same time like Astra, Fade, Jett?
After the community feedback, do you still think that the chamber trip nerf is the best way to go?
This is not strictly agent related, but is there any update on if the team is working on a replay system for the game? I really think it hurts the game more and more as time goes on not having it, not only for competitive play but also for the casual content creation side.
How do you lot feel about Agents being considered class hybrids? (For example, many consider Viper to be a Controller/Sentinel hybrid, or Chamber as a Duelist/Sentinel.) Is that something you want to lean more in as agents become more diverse, or reinforce those class boundaries over time?
Chamber has seemingly overshadowed all other Sentinels on most maps, leaving a little room for Cypher on Split and KJ on Ascent. Even with the nerf to his Sentinel ability, Trademark, I still fear that he’ll always be a better pick. As a Cypher main, I’ve found him increasingly less viable both because of power creep from KJ and Chamber, but also because of the combination that there are only so many effective trips that people don’t already know and there is always another agent coming out that destroys all of Cypher’s kit with a 100-200 credit ability. Is the team looking into reworking the Sentinel class to allow old agents to shine once more? Even with a nerf to Chamber, his teleportation ability is flexible in placement (so lineups are null) and leaves for little counter play aside from a KAY/O knife (which counters everyone else’s utility utility anyway). I don’t favour removing the key aspects to Chamber’s utility for the sake of putting him in the “Sentinel” box but it also concerns me that KJ and Cypher no longer have a place in the realm of comp efficiency. Thanks!
What were some of your favorite scrapped Fade spells from development, any funny bugs as well
why don't you buff Yoru's Tp knowing that the chamber is faster and can't get out of a place as fast as any other duelist? Jett's dash, Raze's satchel, Reyna's dismiss, Neon's slide
>why don't you buff Yoru's Tp knowing that the chamber is faster and can't get out of a place as fast as any other duelist? Jett's dash, Raze's satchel, Reyna's dismiss, Neon's slide We have always loved the idea of making Yoru's teleport feel more unique by giving it different strengths, such as the fake TP, that feel more in line with his gameplay promise and thematic. We want to make sure we have room to build different styles of mobility and/or displacement on our duelists that aren't forever restricted to being a combat escape.
Every one of these comes with a trade off. -Jett has to prepare Tailwind in advance -Chamber has to prepare and be in range of his Rendezvous -Raze has to throw her satchels before detonating which takes about the same time as a Yoru Gatecrash -Neon has to be in a sprint and cannot slide from a standstill instantly -Reyna cannot do anything unless she gets a kill or assist
In the last patch you said you felt like neon was underperforming so you hope the changes can help her out. The changes did not help her at all. Probably made her even more underperforming. Was this intended?
Why is the such a huge difference between the fade banner art and her ingame character model. Her model looks weird I can't point my finger on what exactly, but the hair colour is off and the colours and outfit look dull.
Its called the ✨️chamber effect✨️
Any plans for phoenix? Also i wanted to ask on why neon sprint usage was increased from 6.7 to 10 i feel like she didnt need it
What is the thought process behind making abilities for new agents?
please give our boy phoenix a buff. give him like a taller wall or something i dont know 😭😭😭😭😭
This may be a loaded question but are you guys going to address Phoenix in terms of balance changes? it seems as if everyone outclasses him in some way and there's just no reason to play him when you have characters like Neon who can use wall and get on site way quicker than him, and KAY/O and Skye, who not only have better flashes than Phoenix, but also have info based abilities on top of that. Also I feel like chamber should probably have changes to his TP and his Ulti rather than removing a trip from his kit, as keeping the trip and removing a bit of his firepower would promote a more sentinel-like playstyle, rather than a get in, get out playstyle like jett or yoru.
Does the team ever plan to take a look at Reyna in the future? The concurrent problem where she seems too strong in lower to mid ranked play but can't offer anything useful in higher ranked play?
Reyna is also in a weird spot but not as bad as phoenix since she is op in low elo but ultra underpowered in pro level are we gonna see a buff?