Viper and Cypher faced heavy nerfs this past week, raising questions about their impact in the game now. To be honest, defensive setups dominated the past couple of Valorant acts, largely led by Viper and Cypher. It makes sense for Riot to make changes to these agents, but they were hit harder than many expected. In a recent leak, Riot plans to implement more changes to the game, including both agent adjustments and highly anticipated map changes. Let’s delve into the confirmed changes.
Raze Might Be The First Valorant Agent In line For Nerfs.
The first major announcement regarding the incoming update was about making Valorant more balanced overall. By “balanced,” Riot refers to the state of the agents. Leaks have confirmed that duelists are the primary focus for changes, with adjustments expected soon. Raze currently stands as the strongest pick in professional play and is likely to face nerfs after the Master Shanghai event. For those who recall, Raze was significantly more potent at launch than she is today. Armed with two grenades and an overpowered boom bot, Raze has undergone several changes in the past.
Despite these nerfs, Raze continues to dominate the duelist picks. At one point, Jett was nearly a 100% pick in professional matches. However, after Jett’s nerf, Raze emerged as a staple pick among duelists, and Riot does not seem impressed with her dominance.In all fairness, Riot has to impose these changes to increase the pick rate of other duelists like Iso and Neon.
Iso has struggled to see any kind of action in terms of pick rate. Instead, he is still considered a casual agent, maybe picked in ranked matches every once in a while. Nerfing the other agents might result in players starting to grind more with Iso. I’m assuming this is the thought process behind the team at Riot.
New Valorant Map Incoming!
Finally, Riot has made well-deserved changes to the maps in Valorant. Besides the agent nerfs, Riot has decided to change the map pool for competitive play. A fresh set of maps, including a new one, is set to be launched after Master Shanghai. As of now, the existing map pool was getting boring, and a ton of players called Riot out on it. Many expect the return of Haven, which is still considered Valorant’s iconic and first “three bomb site” map.
We’ll have to wait for further announcements regarding whether the new map will also have three bombsites. It is highly unlikely because Lotus still struggles to get the compliments it needs. Three bombsites are still something that needs a lot of work, and maybe Riot will save such maps for a well-planned future release.
