Lets break down what we know so far about Episode 2 of Valorant, which begins on January 12th!
Quick list:
Classic burst fire update
Omen Nerfs
Brimstone Buffs
New Battle Pass
New Agent Yoru
Classic pistol burst fire gets a small nerf, it seems the recoil just increases if you spam the right click a lot, but it doesn’t look like it should affect gameplay that much.
Here are changes to Omen and Brim. Omen has been a long time high pick hero, while Brim has become one of the least picked heroes since most teams only end up with 1 smoke hero and Omen being preferable almost every time. These new changes could shakeup the pick with 2 big nerfs to omen and brim getting a buff on almost all his skills.
Everything Valorant Episode 2 So Far 1
This video shows you a rundown of the entire battle pass:
Valorant Act II is just around the corner and it’s bringing a new Agent with it.
Along with an overhauled ranking system, that I’m hyped for – Killjoy will be introduced. Her skill set details have been released:
Alarm Bot
Essentially a landmine version of Raze’s boombot. You can throw it down and it will go dormant, if someone enters its range, it will walk up to them and explode in the fasion of Raze’s boombot.
Turret
Self-explanatory turret, you throw it down and it covers a 180 degree cone and will shoot any enemy that enters that field of vision.
Nanoswarm
Looks like an AOE damage grenade. You can throw it like a grenade and then activate it to create a circle area of damage that lasts for a few seconds.
Lockdown
Looks like you place it down (can’t throw it) and it needs to wind up for about 10 seconds. Once it winds up it will cause a slow effect on anyone within a *very large radius*. The slow lasts for 8 seconds and also disarms them.
Thoughts
Killjoy is looking to be a very viable hero. Her defensive capabilities and even offensive both look strong af. I can sense a cross between Cypher and Raze.
On defense, her turret can quite literally cover an entire extra angle for you. The Alarm bot can work just as well as a Cypher trip wire to alert you when an enemy is entering and Nano swarm can slow a push from the enemy team. Not to mention lockdown can help push enemies off an entire site or force them to try to look for the device to shoot down, pushing them out of position. If you crossfire with your turret, enemies will have to choose between shooting you or the turret, either way you can deal some damage to them before they push the site.
Offensively, once again, lockdown can defend a site for an entire 10 seconds once you have the bomb down, or you can use it to push even. Grenades are always useful, so nanoswarm and even the alarm bot can clear deep corners if you don’t want to wide peek them. The turret remains useful for covering the bomb as well, so if you are the only player left, you get an extra set of eyes.
I get the feeling everyone will call Killjoy broken. Reyna definitely was overpowered on release, and she has since received some ninja nerfs making her more in line with the rest of the roster.
She can stand outside of her ult for 15 seconds now before it goes down, up from 5 seconds
She can end her ult early manually
Ult now obscures enemy mini map
Enemies are brighter in her ult near sight from afar (easier for Viper to see enemies)
Decay increased to 15 per second and stays for 2.5 seconds
Poison cloud and toxic screen don’t use extra fuel when both active
Raze & Brimstone ults now cost 7 instead of 6 ult charges
Brimstone stim beacon range no longer visible to enemies and can’t be used by enemies
Cypher can pick up his cages ONLY in buy phase
Fixed Classic pistol jumping full right click accuracy and buffed the pistol accuracy overall
Other UI polishing and improvements
So lets talk about these agent balance changes.
Viper got a massive buff, I already thought she was slightly underrated, but they completely buffed everything about her. I think we will be seeing viper is many more games now. She can juke more by leaving her ult and obscuring enemy mini maps and I already thought her visibility was fine inside her ultimate. Decay was a little weak, so I welcome to new effects to it.
Raze and Brim ult charge increase was a good change. Raze ult has definitely been controversial since the beginning, even having Shroud and Summit argue about it. It wasn’t uncommon for Brim to constantly clutch rounds by ulting the bomb. I am surprised they didn’t touch the Raze satchels though as pros satchel hopping across the map was supposed to get a nerf at some point. I do like the Brim beacon buff, letting enemies use it and being extremely visible was a terrible position giveaway, but now a well placed one can be hidden from enemy vision.
Cypher can pick up his cages ONLY during the buy phase, so they helps out newer players or people trying new cage spots as they can reposition them if they mess up their one ways or whatever. I still hate his camera though and how it can be placed so high up that you can’t see/hear/shoot it. I still think those cameras are borderline game breaking and people constantly find new obscure spots to put it in. A good Cypher can essentialy give a team pseudo wall hacks.
Classic pistol jump shotgunning is gone. Thank god.
If teams don’t win by 2, they may vote to call a draw
Some Spike Rush changes, but who cares.
Lets talk about these changes.
The guardian brings an interesting change. Essentially this nerfs its close range quickfire potential which used to be able to off someone quite fast. The price reduction is a decent buff, and with the increased penetration power, it can still be a solid choice for holding long positions. I imagine people who can get head shots off will be buying this gun a lot. The fire rate reduction doesn’t matter much, as firing it at full speed made it useless at mid to long range anyway.
The new sudden death will be MUCH MORE fair. After just coming off a 12-13 loss today, I welcome this change greatly. Especially since maps are often very bias towards either attacking or defending. Giving the teams a chance on both sides makes a lot more sense. The option for calling a draw is pretty cool too.
The patch should release soon. Here are the full notes
Riot released some pre-patch notes for the upcoming ranked patch. We mentioned last week that ranked should be releasing very soon. They are already teasing us with some details with many welcome changes.
Most importantly, they are making playing with friends easier than it was in beta in terms of rank disparity. A lot of people were finding it hard to keep playing with friends because someone only 6 ranks away was unable to queue up with their friends due to matchmaking restrictions. It didn’t help that people could rank up faster than their own squad mates by getting top frag and high combat scores.
Riot will still block players who have HUGE skill disparity, but for the most part it should be balanced out well enough to not make you lose your squad mates.
There has also been an update to the rank icons! I think people made a big stink at how ugly they were in beta, so they finally put some effort into them. They also swapped the top rank from Valorant into Radiant to avoid confusion.
No definite balance fix yet for solo vs 5 stacks, but they are still working on ways to balance that out as well. The release of ranked might come a few days after the patch, similar to beta, but we don’t know for sure. Either way its coming VERY soon, so ya’ll better get your aim good now.
