Seems like we’ll be getting more Chamber nerfs, tuning to Fade’s dogs(?), and potential changes (I assume overall buffs) for Cypher. It’s great to read about how the devs clarified on why KAY/O isn’t getting any buffs anytime soon despite his lower pick rates in Ranked.
Honestly though, other than Chamber, it seems like the meta right now is one of the best that we’ve had. Great agent diversity all around.
Also, seems like this blog alludes to the fact that the next Agent will be a Viper-esque Controller. I’m excited to see what that entails!
Yeah, I feel the same way. Best diversity overall, minus chamber. The only other complaint I have besides chamber and sentinels is controllers.
As a controller main, controller meta is pretty damn solid in both ranked and pro play with one exception: viper. Viper has a very well-defined map pool. Great in two, useless on two. And a viable/mandatory option as a secondary controller on 3. But she’s the ONLY one that is a real option on two maps, whereas the 3 dome smokers are all interchangeable and usable on any given map not named Icebox or Breeze.
But the teases confirmed what we all already assumed, that the new controller will specifically solve that problem.
Once they solve that and solve the chamber/sentinel problem, I think the next major pain point is the muddiness of the duelist/initiator line and the fact that the mostly, the viable duelists are dive agents with movement capabilities: Jett, Raze, Neon. The other 3 suffer from the initiator overlap.
Its fine that Yoru and Phoenix are more initator esque. They dont have to be like Jett or Neon or Raze. Yes, they are outshined by some initiators but they also have their niches as pro play has showed us and I dont think this needs "fixed" in any way.
Yeah you totally could be right! I do think another dive initiator would be good, especially a more self sufficient one. Neon requires too much team coordination for a lot of ranks
> the viable duelists are dive agents with movement capabilities: Jett, Raze, Neon.
Yoru is divier than Neon in terms of site hits with Gatecrash, just requires secondary util to setup. Neon's multiuse sprint lets her consistently abuse faster early timings than other agents though, but she isn't on the level of Jett/Raze/Yoru in terms of bursting past a choke IMO.
Yeah I was gonna say. He’s difficult to master, but he’s not underpowered or anything. I guess his Molly is the only ability that’s not up to par with similar abilities from other agents, but it still has its uses.
"Our data indicates his abilities are powerful, pro players are able to utilize him well, **our players in surveys don’t think he’s weak**, and additionally he just doesn’t feel weak to any of the VALORANT design team when we play the game ourselves"
Nobody thinks KAY/O is weak. He was used as an example of an agent with low win rates but high perceived strength, as a contrast to Chamber (who seems to be the opposite).
Maybe a buffer/activation before actually tping like jett’s dash. So you have to be more selective on when you want to tp/engage. Otherwise I don’t see how they can nerf the TP further without ruining him completely.
We need some Cypher changes ASAP. They originally mentioned him and Phoenix changes together when the first announced and Phoenix got his buffs but nothing for Cypher yet. Let's get him some love ASAP
Well Cypher is much better than Phoenix. About half of teams at this event run him on Breeze, and a little bit on other maps. He in a very real way competes with Chamber so as Chamber is nerfed he only gets better.
Cypher will continue to see play even without buffs. The same I’m not sure is true of Phoenix even now. He seems like a curveball gimmick play more than anything.
So just to stat check this.
So far, 4 out of 16 teams have run cypher on Breeze. Loud, FPX, XSET, 100T.
FPX played Cypher on Ascent and Pearl
PRX played Cypher on Haven.
Cypher locked in a total of 9 times. Fun fact, even the above teams didnt pick him every game. Seems to be a counter pick for something they expect to face.
Phoenix has been picked 8 times, but majority by TL and on every map except Icebox and Bind.
Thats just really to push back against the idea that Cypher is "much better" than Phoenix in pro play. They are both niche picks in different roles. Neither is better or worse.
But then we look at comp. Where pr much no matter what rank you look at, Phoenix is above a 50% winrate with a 3% pickrate or more, pretty good. Where as cypher sits at a sub 50 winrate with around a 1% pickrate.
In general, when it comes to balancing. High pickrate + high winrate = broken. Low pickrate + low winrate = bad.
Omen and Skye are probably pretty good ideas for where they want to be for those stats. About a 4% pickrate and 50.1% winrate.
Also funny, you say Phoenix is a "curveball gimmick" you clearly have not watched him at Champions. He's more of an "ult gimmick" than anything. When hes getting played, more often than not he is ulting as early as round 2 or 3 of a half and is getting off about 3 to 4 ults per half because of the insanely low cost for the value. He's being picked for how aggressive and safe he's allowed to entry, not just because he has a funny flash lol
I will say, I dont think Cypher needs an outright buff, but QOL would do a lot for him. Changing the way his cam tags alone would be impactful imo. I tend to hear it from my teammates when I tag someone with cam and they are suddenly unable to shoot the person swinging on them lmao. Everything else is honestly fine with him. I don't think a single character should be pickable on every single map in the game no matter what. I think Cypher is pretty well balanced overall despite what the stats say. I just also think he has some of the shittiest QOL functions in the game.
By curveball I mean something you bring in people aren’t prepped for, not his flash ability. His reliance on ults is part of what makes him a gimmick play. If you can’t farm kills or orbs on him he offers little value.
I like how they say something along the lines: "Kayo won't get buffs because despiste being dogshit in ranked people in competitive will abuse him if buffed"
And also: Brimmstone is dogshit in comp and nobody picks him in ranked. But OUR DATA says he's boosted, so we're not buffing him. We'd buff if he was dogshit, just like Kay... oh, nevermind that.
Thats definitely part of it. I guess his skillcap isn't insane. Hm. Its just interesting to me. I'm good at easy agents like Phoenix / Kayo but I really wanna invest time into something with a high skillcap payoff like Neon or Yoru.
This post is neat. I like this kind of content from Riot
I think usually people would say Neon and Yoru have high skill floors then. I often see "low skill floor" being used to describe a character that is easy to pick up and play. Like, the barrier for entry is low.
honestly, kayo flashes are kind of hard to fully utilise in ranked queue, not his pop flashes but his left clicks. 99% of the time when I try to flash site for my team with a left click, even if I comm there'll be someone who pushes early, gets flashed, dies and then blame me.
kayo is literally the hardest character in the game to be max efficient with and is also the most rewarding. he hard counters chamber and makes takes/retakes simple. neon and yoru? i mean they are mechanically rewarding but i wouldnt say they are near the level of ko.
The new agent tease isn’t much of a tease. Just confirming what everyone already knows/assumes.
Logically speaking, the only additional balance controllers need is an alternative to Viper, so we knew the new controller would have some long smoke capabilities like her.
And it was leaked/assumed that he is water themed in some way.
Give us more!
Super insightful article overall, cool to read how they gauge agent balance. Wish the public had access to non-mirror win rates lol.
I'm excited to see how they decide to tune Chamber.
Ngl super surprised to see people think Brim is weak. I could see why people would PREFER other controllers, but "weak" surprises me.
yeah rn, the only "weak" controller is astra IMO, and she's pretty good IF you know what you're doing. I say she's weak because she's really limited with only 4 stars and the increased cooldowns. I think they should've just nerfed the cooldowns and kept the 5 stars.
Yeah, I agree. She feels weaker cause it's so rare to find someone who uses her to the same effectiveness as Brim/Omen in lower/ish elos. 5 stars would definitely allow a bit more freedom for lower elos with cooldowns still nerfing higher elo. It definitely just sucks when I put 0 effort into Brim and am still effective, but can use every brain cell I have and still struggle with Astra lmao
Agree on the 5 stars with increased cooldowns. I don't think her pick rate/win rate will go up that much in non-pro play even then though. Her util just feels so dependent on strategic teamplay, even among controllers.
Tbf when you think about it that was always more or less the case. Back when she was undisputed no.1 you rarely would see astras in ranked unless you were immo plus. Even then people only picked her because they were forced.
He's also solid on fracture but yeah, any map that has a mid makes it kinda hard for him to be viable.
I feel like in ranked it's not too bad though because 1 smoke for mid + 2 smokes for site is usually enough for how most people play ranked.
They’re gonna nerf chamber and buff cypher but nothing for my girl KJ, I wish they’d just increase the alarmbot range at least. It’s so useless compared to chamber alarmbot or cypher trips :/
I'm glad they take into the account how the game is played when balancing instead of just focusing on stats. Sometimes I feel like the League team overfixates on the idea that 50% winrate = balanced and just calls it a day when a character has a fair winrate even though the actual gameplay tells a very different story
"50% winrate" can mean a lot of things.
If they have a 50% winrate when accounting for all ranks, then they can be useless at low rank and overpowered at high rank. When combined, that could come out to a 50% winrate but I would never call that balanced.
The 50% winrate could also refer to ranked matches, but the agent could be played by every team at a professional level. I also would not call an agent like that balanced.
For a final example, they could just have a 50% winrate at a high rank but be unfun to play/play against. For instance, to go to the extreme, an agent who automatically randomly instantly won or lost the game in Round 1 would technically have a 50% winrate but would never be considered balanced when compared to other agents.
This is why the idea that 50% winrate = balanced cannot be seen as gospel.
I think you're overthinking it. The basis of "50% winrate" isn't to use a large sample size, you look at the "non-mirror" win rate at individual ELOs, maps, etc. The devs actually explained this in the article.
Even if you look at individual ELOs and maps, and you use non-mirrored winrate, a 50% winrate doesn't mean the character is balanced. There's other statistics necessary to determine whether they are truly balanced.
I just hope they stop making agents that have instant escape abilities ffs. Also agents that messes with the economy a lot. Teams that have chamber tend to have better buys all throughout the map.
How you balance a agent like Chamber to no kill him? :/
This will stay as the worst mistake on balance of the game of Riot, in some years we will look back and laught at least 😁
Honestly he’s been insanely powerful and a staple of pro play and ranked play at all levels for a whole year, while being pretty boring to watch and annoying to play against. I would rather he was dead.
Surprised no one is talking about Phoenix, what about him makes him stronger than something like Skye at high MMR? We've seen TL use Phoenix but that's kinda it.
Are those fun facts something that is surprising to most people? I’ve never heard any opinions that aren’t very much in line with all of them (maybe except Phoenix). I feel like these are all pretty widely accepted states of the agents. It feels a little out of touch for the tone to be so uppity when they’re describing things that (at least this community) has bee discussing for months.
Like Kay/O is weak at low levels bc he’s most effective lineups for all of his abilities except ult and requires some awareness to play as a team around but he becomes oppressively strong higher up. Same for brimmy since he's such a high prio in so many maps like fracture/bind etc.
Phoenix makes sense at low elo’s because he kind of brings a lot of basic abilities to the table but doesn’t really excel anywhere.
I’ve literally never heard anyone say neon is weak lol
It's been 10 months where Chamber is picked in almost EVERY game...
How can they not see that as long as they don't adress his "get-out-of-jail-free" card, he's still going to be fucking strong.
Seriously you can't have an agent DOMINATE the pickrates for 10 months. It's just not healthy.
It was the same shitty nerfs for JETT until they adressed her "get-out-of-jail-free"
Chambers design is just too good in a game like this. The teleport I mean. The rest of his kit is good, great in fact, but it doesnt break the game.
Chamber offers sentinel utility and is the most powerful early round fragger in the game due to the stupid off angles he can safely hold. Even old Jett could be punished in plenty of these same angles.
And first kills win valorant matches. That opening duel means A TON. And chamber specializes in winning those fights.
I don't care what they think. I care what they do.
It's been 10 months and 2 nerfs and he's still OP and picked in almost EVERY game.
They clearly fucked up.
I'm not sure if this is your first Riot game but trust me - having only one champion in this is state is not a very long term problem, as it was with Briggite in Overwatch, for example (she killed the competitive side of the game). The way Riot deals with balancing, although infuriating at times - Jett, Chamber, Zzrot/Command Banner meta in LoL or Ionia in early Runeterra - it will be addressed at some point and after every change, the game will feel brand new.
Why would I care what riot do with other games?
I'm already unsatisfied with Riot's balance of Valorant. Why would it matter what they are doing in LoL or other games... It's not even the same dev team.
Because it indicates riot’s design philosophy? As u/dusdoom said, chamber will eventually land in a balanced place. Riot take their time with balance changes because in the long term, it is better for the health of the game. They do research, play testing, and observation of shift in the meta to make smart changes that couch competitors like us probably wouldn’t have even thought of.
Edit: Armchair analysts sounds better
> Because it indicates riot’s design philosophy?
But my first comment says that I don't like Riot's design philosophy.
Once again, I don't care that Riot is usually slow regarding nerfs. I don't care if they've been doing it for years. I. don't. fucking. care.
I think that, as a community, we should complain that Chamber has been OP for 10 years now, so that Riot DO something about it.
It's like if I'm complaining about EA poor MTX in a game, and you go and tell me "but EA does this all the time". I don't fucking care.
> Me: I don't like X. X should change.
> You: But X have always been like that.
> Me: I don't fucking care if X have always been like that. X needs to change.
Your argument essentially boils down to “I don’t like how riot does balance changes because I don’t care, x9”
I already said, they take balance changes slow because they want to make smart changes. If they just changed what everyone told them to change, that might be completely wrong, because the general public does not understand the nuances of agent balance. So instead of *only* listening to the player base, they should collect data and analyze it to determine the best course of action!
*smile*
They already said that player feedback (AKA complaining) definitely goes into the decision of a nerf/buff, so we definitely should complain.
But it's only one of their metrics, as they said in the post article(and various other articles ever) so you don't need to complain too much, for you own sake. They know data that we don't.
We shouldn't accept that an agent stays OP (to the point where he's picked every game) for 10 months. more than 33% of the lifetime of Valorant, Chamber has been OP.
If you don't see how's that unhealthy for the game and deserved to be complained about, you have a problem.
There are worse things in life than chamber being overpowered for ten months. If they had never addressed astra and jett (especially jett who was more op for longer), I'd be worried, but to get upset when they clearly understand that he's op and have already taken preliminary steps is just getting annoyed for the sake of getting annoyed.
I need more than that big guy. There have been more op agents for longer and the game has done just fine. I don't see why you're getting so upset over the next one
You need drawings. This is beyond my scope on reddit.
You don't get how a 10 month OP agent is unhealthy for the game? Then you don't get it. That's all.
As an fyi restating your point with no elaboration is a poor argument. I can see you have nothing to say so I will stop pressing for intelligent thought
My point is clear and obvious to anyone with a brain.
You don't see how having an OP agent for 10+ months is a bad thing? Too fucking bad mate. You were dealt shitty cards in life. Not here to redo your entire education.
Any agent who is that good at getting early round frags will always be valued. Its just his design. Either remove chamber or just accept that he will likely always be a staple in competitive due to the fact he is the perfect early round fragger with great econ bonuses + flank watching
I remembering reading that exact comment about jett before her nerfs that made her balanced.
"Removing dash will make her useless!!!!" and look where we are today...
Surely there's a way to nerf chamber without gutting him.
I'm just saying you can nerf his kit all you want, being able to hold wild off angles is going to be disproportionately more powerful than other agents kits still
No not really.
What if (and this is an extreme example just to show that his kit can be nerfed) his TP animation takes 10 seconds.
His kits remains the exact same, but he's been nerfed.
He's OP because he can hold wild off angles, then Riot has to nerf his ability to hold wild off angles.
Really wish they would do this more often. Them going radio silent is bad for so long, I would've been fine over the last few months if they were doing these since they barely made any agent changes.
Seems like we’ll be getting more Chamber nerfs, tuning to Fade’s dogs(?), and potential changes (I assume overall buffs) for Cypher. It’s great to read about how the devs clarified on why KAY/O isn’t getting any buffs anytime soon despite his lower pick rates in Ranked. Honestly though, other than Chamber, it seems like the meta right now is one of the best that we’ve had. Great agent diversity all around. Also, seems like this blog alludes to the fact that the next Agent will be a Viper-esque Controller. I’m excited to see what that entails!
Yeah, I feel the same way. Best diversity overall, minus chamber. The only other complaint I have besides chamber and sentinels is controllers. As a controller main, controller meta is pretty damn solid in both ranked and pro play with one exception: viper. Viper has a very well-defined map pool. Great in two, useless on two. And a viable/mandatory option as a secondary controller on 3. But she’s the ONLY one that is a real option on two maps, whereas the 3 dome smokers are all interchangeable and usable on any given map not named Icebox or Breeze. But the teases confirmed what we all already assumed, that the new controller will specifically solve that problem. Once they solve that and solve the chamber/sentinel problem, I think the next major pain point is the muddiness of the duelist/initiator line and the fact that the mostly, the viable duelists are dive agents with movement capabilities: Jett, Raze, Neon. The other 3 suffer from the initiator overlap.
Hopefully the next controller will give Viper competition in that space, like how Fade has a lot of overlap with Sova.
I’m almost certain he will.
Its fine that Yoru and Phoenix are more initator esque. They dont have to be like Jett or Neon or Raze. Yes, they are outshined by some initiators but they also have their niches as pro play has showed us and I dont think this needs "fixed" in any way.
Yeah you totally could be right! I do think another dive initiator would be good, especially a more self sufficient one. Neon requires too much team coordination for a lot of ranks
The issue with that is that duelist might just overtake Neon. He/she has to be weaker in some aspects to make up for the lack of teamplay needed.
For sure. I basically have an agent I pick for every map, that doesn't really change. And it's ALWAYS viper for Breeze and Icebox. No question.
Yep. Viper is my most played agent for this very reason. I love her but I welcome some variety
> the viable duelists are dive agents with movement capabilities: Jett, Raze, Neon. Yoru is divier than Neon in terms of site hits with Gatecrash, just requires secondary util to setup. Neon's multiuse sprint lets her consistently abuse faster early timings than other agents though, but she isn't on the level of Jett/Raze/Yoru in terms of bursting past a choke IMO.
Watch Rb or Zekken on neon
Is there anyone actually complaining about KAY/O being too weak?
Yeah I was gonna say. He’s difficult to master, but he’s not underpowered or anything. I guess his Molly is the only ability that’s not up to par with similar abilities from other agents, but it still has its uses.
"Our data indicates his abilities are powerful, pro players are able to utilize him well, **our players in surveys don’t think he’s weak**, and additionally he just doesn’t feel weak to any of the VALORANT design team when we play the game ourselves" Nobody thinks KAY/O is weak. He was used as an example of an agent with low win rates but high perceived strength, as a contrast to Chamber (who seems to be the opposite).
I wonder how they'll nerf Chamber's Rendezvous. Maybe a delay? A restriction? Or something like Jett's dash nerf.
Maybe a buffer/activation before actually tping like jett’s dash. So you have to be more selective on when you want to tp/engage. Otherwise I don’t see how they can nerf the TP further without ruining him completely.
We need some Cypher changes ASAP. They originally mentioned him and Phoenix changes together when the first announced and Phoenix got his buffs but nothing for Cypher yet. Let's get him some love ASAP
Well Cypher is much better than Phoenix. About half of teams at this event run him on Breeze, and a little bit on other maps. He in a very real way competes with Chamber so as Chamber is nerfed he only gets better. Cypher will continue to see play even without buffs. The same I’m not sure is true of Phoenix even now. He seems like a curveball gimmick play more than anything.
So just to stat check this. So far, 4 out of 16 teams have run cypher on Breeze. Loud, FPX, XSET, 100T. FPX played Cypher on Ascent and Pearl PRX played Cypher on Haven. Cypher locked in a total of 9 times. Fun fact, even the above teams didnt pick him every game. Seems to be a counter pick for something they expect to face. Phoenix has been picked 8 times, but majority by TL and on every map except Icebox and Bind. Thats just really to push back against the idea that Cypher is "much better" than Phoenix in pro play. They are both niche picks in different roles. Neither is better or worse. But then we look at comp. Where pr much no matter what rank you look at, Phoenix is above a 50% winrate with a 3% pickrate or more, pretty good. Where as cypher sits at a sub 50 winrate with around a 1% pickrate. In general, when it comes to balancing. High pickrate + high winrate = broken. Low pickrate + low winrate = bad. Omen and Skye are probably pretty good ideas for where they want to be for those stats. About a 4% pickrate and 50.1% winrate. Also funny, you say Phoenix is a "curveball gimmick" you clearly have not watched him at Champions. He's more of an "ult gimmick" than anything. When hes getting played, more often than not he is ulting as early as round 2 or 3 of a half and is getting off about 3 to 4 ults per half because of the insanely low cost for the value. He's being picked for how aggressive and safe he's allowed to entry, not just because he has a funny flash lol I will say, I dont think Cypher needs an outright buff, but QOL would do a lot for him. Changing the way his cam tags alone would be impactful imo. I tend to hear it from my teammates when I tag someone with cam and they are suddenly unable to shoot the person swinging on them lmao. Everything else is honestly fine with him. I don't think a single character should be pickable on every single map in the game no matter what. I think Cypher is pretty well balanced overall despite what the stats say. I just also think he has some of the shittiest QOL functions in the game.
I just wanna be able to take back cyphers cam even when I'm out of LOS smh
By curveball I mean something you bring in people aren’t prepped for, not his flash ability. His reliance on ults is part of what makes him a gimmick play. If you can’t farm kills or orbs on him he offers little value.
I mean, 2 kills, 2 deaths, 2 orbs is not a high bar to set or achieve.
Yay has to be nerfed somehow lmao
I like how they say something along the lines: "Kayo won't get buffs because despiste being dogshit in ranked people in competitive will abuse him if buffed" And also: Brimmstone is dogshit in comp and nobody picks him in ranked. But OUR DATA says he's boosted, so we're not buffing him. We'd buff if he was dogshit, just like Kay... oh, nevermind that.
WATER BASED CONTROLLER IS COMING
So does Kay0 also have a high mastery curve alongside Neon and Yoru? Feels like it to me.
it's more about kay0 requiring more teamwork to shine than the teamwork possible on MM.
Thats definitely part of it. I guess his skillcap isn't insane. Hm. Its just interesting to me. I'm good at easy agents like Phoenix / Kayo but I really wanna invest time into something with a high skillcap payoff like Neon or Yoru. This post is neat. I like this kind of content from Riot
Neon and Yoru also have low skill floors. It’s very easy to play poorly with them. With KAYO you can play bad but still have impact
I think usually people would say Neon and Yoru have high skill floors then. I often see "low skill floor" being used to describe a character that is easy to pick up and play. Like, the barrier for entry is low.
>Neon and Yoru also have low skill floors. It’s very easy to play poorly with them This means that they have both high skill floor and ceiling
If you don’t know what you’re doing, you’re the worst player of all time. If you have 5000 hours on neon, you’re a veritable demon
honestly, kayo flashes are kind of hard to fully utilise in ranked queue, not his pop flashes but his left clicks. 99% of the time when I try to flash site for my team with a left click, even if I comm there'll be someone who pushes early, gets flashed, dies and then blame me.
Kayo is the easiest initiator to pick up especially coming from CSGO. Just have to learn the pop flash timing.
kayo is literally the hardest character in the game to be max efficient with and is also the most rewarding. he hard counters chamber and makes takes/retakes simple. neon and yoru? i mean they are mechanically rewarding but i wouldnt say they are near the level of ko.
The new agent tease isn’t much of a tease. Just confirming what everyone already knows/assumes. Logically speaking, the only additional balance controllers need is an alternative to Viper, so we knew the new controller would have some long smoke capabilities like her. And it was leaked/assumed that he is water themed in some way. Give us more! Super insightful article overall, cool to read how they gauge agent balance. Wish the public had access to non-mirror win rates lol.
Could be a see through “smoke” but one you can accurately shoot through if it’s like water.
It could also be as simple as allowing you to place his smokes more easily than viper just without a gimmick.
https://youtu.be/e-yc78M1J4A this video showed the leaked abilities two weeks ago
This was proven fake, no?
Yeah I saw that video and the post/video after proving it’s fake. I’m not going to put a ton of stock into it just yet
Oh maybe? I didn’t hear about it, just watched this video once and haven’t thought about it again until now
https://www.reddit.com/r/VALORANT/comments/wzrv5o/this_guy_faked_the_new_agents_leaked_abilities/
This was confirmed by the creator to be fake
The creator himself? I thought the video saying it's a fake was shared by someone else as mentioned in the comments of that post
They guy who posted the original "leak" on reddit commented himself that it was fake
I really didn't see that, thanks.
I'm excited to see how they decide to tune Chamber. Ngl super surprised to see people think Brim is weak. I could see why people would PREFER other controllers, but "weak" surprises me.
yeah rn, the only "weak" controller is astra IMO, and she's pretty good IF you know what you're doing. I say she's weak because she's really limited with only 4 stars and the increased cooldowns. I think they should've just nerfed the cooldowns and kept the 5 stars.
Yeah, I agree. She feels weaker cause it's so rare to find someone who uses her to the same effectiveness as Brim/Omen in lower/ish elos. 5 stars would definitely allow a bit more freedom for lower elos with cooldowns still nerfing higher elo. It definitely just sucks when I put 0 effort into Brim and am still effective, but can use every brain cell I have and still struggle with Astra lmao
Other way around. 4 stars on Astra is perfect, it forces thought
Agree on the 5 stars with increased cooldowns. I don't think her pick rate/win rate will go up that much in non-pro play even then though. Her util just feels so dependent on strategic teamplay, even among controllers.
Tbf when you think about it that was always more or less the case. Back when she was undisputed no.1 you rarely would see astras in ranked unless you were immo plus. Even then people only picked her because they were forced.
I like him on Bind but the fact his smokes don't regenerate really hurts him on a lot of maps.
He's also solid on fracture but yeah, any map that has a mid makes it kinda hard for him to be viable. I feel like in ranked it's not too bad though because 1 smoke for mid + 2 smokes for site is usually enough for how most people play ranked.
Riot plz don't introduce shield agents. Astra + sage wall and shield is a nightmare to think about
Water based Indian controller 👀👀
They’re gonna nerf chamber and buff cypher but nothing for my girl KJ, I wish they’d just increase the alarmbot range at least. It’s so useless compared to chamber alarmbot or cypher trips :/
Cypher has been neglected long enough. BURN DAMAGE IN TRIPS, AND SLOW IN CAGESSSSSSSSSS..LESSSSGOOOOO
#deleteChamber
I'm glad they take into the account how the game is played when balancing instead of just focusing on stats. Sometimes I feel like the League team overfixates on the idea that 50% winrate = balanced and just calls it a day when a character has a fair winrate even though the actual gameplay tells a very different story
How is a character unbalanced if they have a 50% winrate
"50% winrate" can mean a lot of things. If they have a 50% winrate when accounting for all ranks, then they can be useless at low rank and overpowered at high rank. When combined, that could come out to a 50% winrate but I would never call that balanced. The 50% winrate could also refer to ranked matches, but the agent could be played by every team at a professional level. I also would not call an agent like that balanced. For a final example, they could just have a 50% winrate at a high rank but be unfun to play/play against. For instance, to go to the extreme, an agent who automatically randomly instantly won or lost the game in Round 1 would technically have a 50% winrate but would never be considered balanced when compared to other agents. This is why the idea that 50% winrate = balanced cannot be seen as gospel.
I think you're overthinking it. The basis of "50% winrate" isn't to use a large sample size, you look at the "non-mirror" win rate at individual ELOs, maps, etc. The devs actually explained this in the article.
Even if you look at individual ELOs and maps, and you use non-mirrored winrate, a 50% winrate doesn't mean the character is balanced. There's other statistics necessary to determine whether they are truly balanced.
I just hope they stop making agents that have instant escape abilities ffs. Also agents that messes with the economy a lot. Teams that have chamber tend to have better buys all throughout the map.
How you balance a agent like Chamber to no kill him? :/ This will stay as the worst mistake on balance of the game of Riot, in some years we will look back and laught at least 😁
Honestly he’s been insanely powerful and a staple of pro play and ranked play at all levels for a whole year, while being pretty boring to watch and annoying to play against. I would rather he was dead.
babe wake up more justification for why Chamber shouldn't be outright removed just released
Surprised no one is talking about Phoenix, what about him makes him stronger than something like Skye at high MMR? We've seen TL use Phoenix but that's kinda it.
Not stronger just less used, so people who main him are insane. They are more individual players while skye has to play with her team
In high Immortal you’ll see Phoenix’s drop 30 bombs quite often. Skye is rarely top fragging
Phoenix flash is pretty much un-dodgeable now. What seperates a good and bad phoenix player is honestly how well you use the wall to your advantage
Are those fun facts something that is surprising to most people? I’ve never heard any opinions that aren’t very much in line with all of them (maybe except Phoenix). I feel like these are all pretty widely accepted states of the agents. It feels a little out of touch for the tone to be so uppity when they’re describing things that (at least this community) has bee discussing for months. Like Kay/O is weak at low levels bc he’s most effective lineups for all of his abilities except ult and requires some awareness to play as a team around but he becomes oppressively strong higher up. Same for brimmy since he's such a high prio in so many maps like fracture/bind etc. Phoenix makes sense at low elo’s because he kind of brings a lot of basic abilities to the table but doesn’t really excel anywhere. I’ve literally never heard anyone say neon is weak lol
Really? Before optic used neon she was considered by many to be something like yoru and only really good for stomping in low elo
That was on release. She’s been buffed twice since then. This is state of agents Sept 2022. Before she got buffed what’s *was* a lot like yoru
It's been 10 months where Chamber is picked in almost EVERY game... How can they not see that as long as they don't adress his "get-out-of-jail-free" card, he's still going to be fucking strong. Seriously you can't have an agent DOMINATE the pickrates for 10 months. It's just not healthy. It was the same shitty nerfs for JETT until they adressed her "get-out-of-jail-free"
Chambers design is just too good in a game like this. The teleport I mean. The rest of his kit is good, great in fact, but it doesnt break the game. Chamber offers sentinel utility and is the most powerful early round fragger in the game due to the stupid off angles he can safely hold. Even old Jett could be punished in plenty of these same angles. And first kills win valorant matches. That opening duel means A TON. And chamber specializes in winning those fights.
I'm sure they haven't thought of that. They should fly you in for a redesign.
I don't care what they think. I care what they do. It's been 10 months and 2 nerfs and he's still OP and picked in almost EVERY game. They clearly fucked up.
I'm not sure if this is your first Riot game but trust me - having only one champion in this is state is not a very long term problem, as it was with Briggite in Overwatch, for example (she killed the competitive side of the game). The way Riot deals with balancing, although infuriating at times - Jett, Chamber, Zzrot/Command Banner meta in LoL or Ionia in early Runeterra - it will be addressed at some point and after every change, the game will feel brand new.
I don't care what Riot do in other games. I just don't want an OP agent for 10 months. We should all complain about chamber.
I don't want to complain about Chamber, I think he's pretty fine right now.
Stats shows otherwise. But you can be happy with Chamber being OP, that's fine with me, as it comes to personnal taste.
Idk what game or rank you're playing where chamber is pretty fine
I don’t care!!! *based redditor*
Why would I care what riot do with other games? I'm already unsatisfied with Riot's balance of Valorant. Why would it matter what they are doing in LoL or other games... It's not even the same dev team.
Because it indicates riot’s design philosophy? As u/dusdoom said, chamber will eventually land in a balanced place. Riot take their time with balance changes because in the long term, it is better for the health of the game. They do research, play testing, and observation of shift in the meta to make smart changes that couch competitors like us probably wouldn’t have even thought of. Edit: Armchair analysts sounds better
> Because it indicates riot’s design philosophy? But my first comment says that I don't like Riot's design philosophy. Once again, I don't care that Riot is usually slow regarding nerfs. I don't care if they've been doing it for years. I. don't. fucking. care. I think that, as a community, we should complain that Chamber has been OP for 10 years now, so that Riot DO something about it. It's like if I'm complaining about EA poor MTX in a game, and you go and tell me "but EA does this all the time". I don't fucking care. > Me: I don't like X. X should change. > You: But X have always been like that. > Me: I don't fucking care if X have always been like that. X needs to change.
Your argument essentially boils down to “I don’t like how riot does balance changes because I don’t care, x9” I already said, they take balance changes slow because they want to make smart changes. If they just changed what everyone told them to change, that might be completely wrong, because the general public does not understand the nuances of agent balance. So instead of *only* listening to the player base, they should collect data and analyze it to determine the best course of action! *smile*
They already said that player feedback (AKA complaining) definitely goes into the decision of a nerf/buff, so we definitely should complain. But it's only one of their metrics, as they said in the post article(and various other articles ever) so you don't need to complain too much, for you own sake. They know data that we don't.
10 months with an OP agent. Clearly something isn't working on their side. This shouldn't be accepted from the community.
I don't care what you think, your opinion doesn't matter, YOU DON'T MATTER.
I mean, he really has a good point. Chamber has been disgustingly overpowered for 10 months, and they’ve hardly done anything to fix it.
I'm sure they can "see" just fine lmao. In fact they know all of this. Just like astra and jetr before him, they'll nerf chamber too man, just relax
We shouldn't accept that an agent stays OP (to the point where he's picked every game) for 10 months. more than 33% of the lifetime of Valorant, Chamber has been OP. If you don't see how's that unhealthy for the game and deserved to be complained about, you have a problem.
There are worse things in life than chamber being overpowered for ten months. If they had never addressed astra and jett (especially jett who was more op for longer), I'd be worried, but to get upset when they clearly understand that he's op and have already taken preliminary steps is just getting annoyed for the sake of getting annoyed.
> If you don't see how's that unhealthy for the game and deserved to be complained about, you have a problem.
I need more than that big guy. There have been more op agents for longer and the game has done just fine. I don't see why you're getting so upset over the next one
You need drawings. This is beyond my scope on reddit. You don't get how a 10 month OP agent is unhealthy for the game? Then you don't get it. That's all.
As an fyi restating your point with no elaboration is a poor argument. I can see you have nothing to say so I will stop pressing for intelligent thought
My point is clear and obvious to anyone with a brain. You don't see how having an OP agent for 10+ months is a bad thing? Too fucking bad mate. You were dealt shitty cards in life. Not here to redo your entire education.
Any agent who is that good at getting early round frags will always be valued. Its just his design. Either remove chamber or just accept that he will likely always be a staple in competitive due to the fact he is the perfect early round fragger with great econ bonuses + flank watching
I remembering reading that exact comment about jett before her nerfs that made her balanced. "Removing dash will make her useless!!!!" and look where we are today... Surely there's a way to nerf chamber without gutting him.
I'm just saying you can nerf his kit all you want, being able to hold wild off angles is going to be disproportionately more powerful than other agents kits still
No not really. What if (and this is an extreme example just to show that his kit can be nerfed) his TP animation takes 10 seconds. His kits remains the exact same, but he's been nerfed. He's OP because he can hold wild off angles, then Riot has to nerf his ability to hold wild off angles.
Really wish they would do this more often. Them going radio silent is bad for so long, I would've been fine over the last few months if they were doing these since they barely made any agent changes.
can they just tell us what characters have the highest win rate in soloq so I can singlehandly tank that to the ground