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.
This video shows you a rundown of the entire battle pass:
Riot tightened up the rank spread for team matchmaking again. So you have to be within 3 tiers so a Gold 1 and Queue with up to a Plat 1.
You can select your preferred server, so even though its not guaranteed , you should still experience more consistent ping overall.
Personal performance no longer matters in immortal or higher ranks. Your elo gain or loss will only be determined by the end result of winning or losing.
The community has spoken and there was demand for another Valorant Tournament!
Gather your teammates and sign up! The prize pool has been up this time to $100 for a free entry tournament. The Valorant tournament will commence on October 24th.
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.
Valorant released details on the new ranking system and new agent leaks
Ranking has been the root cause of much tilt and anger among all Valorant players. Understandably, deranking stresses everyone out and tough games against hackers and smurfs doesn’t help any. Riot has released details on their latest overhauled ranking system which introduces a ton of interesting features and mechanics.
Big changes:
They will display Act Ranks which are essentially a summary of your games for the season
You will have a badge that acts like a heat map that shows your best wins of the season at the highest level you have reached
A new “proven skill” concept will be shown which is the 9th best game you had of the season
Games at higher ranks will push out your lower ranked games
Act I may not get this new badge according to Riot’s post
Your act rank will be a compilation of your wins at the highest levels you played at
This new concept should help curve the smurfing problem as people will be motivated to keep playing on their mains since losses will be scrubbed out as you win more games at higher ranks. Many people are achieving a rank that they are happy with and preserving their accounts while creating new ones to stomp on lower ranked players. At the end of it all, only your highest ranked and best game wins will matter and be displayed.
BONUS for you guys, the new agent has leaked – Killjoy. More details to follow soon. Stay tuned.
Shroud may be forming a new Pro Valorant team with “mOE”.
Ever since the shut down of Mixer and merging with Facebook Gaming, many big time streamers have been in limbo leaving many viewers in dark about their plans. Some embraced Facebook Gaming and kept their contracts from Mixer, while others have gone quiet or explored streaming on other platforms like YouTube.
Ninja did a stream on YouTube and people went nuts over it, but no formal announcements were made. Now we are hearing news about Shroud’s move. Supposedly Shroud did not accept a contract with Facebook and is currently not regularly streaming anywhere.
On a recent live stream from mOE Assad, he casually mentioned that he was starting a Pro Valorant team with Shroud and Just9n. He said he was speaking it into existence. Could this statement hint at the future for Shroud going Pro in Valorant?
Shroud mentioned before about how being a full time streamer and going Pro directly conflicts with each other. If he wanted to do one, he could not do the other. He goes into detail on how streaming his play style and tactics, would give competitors a blatant advantage as they can study everything that he does.
So that being said, now that Mixer is gone and he is out of a streaming contract, this opens up the avenue and opportunity for him to take a break from streaming and focus on going Pro. Shroud does have a big announcement coming soon, so we’ll see what he truly wants to do going forward.
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.
Riot claims there is a bug that is deranking people faster than it should.
Many people have been complaining that climbing ranks has been extremely difficult and/or they are losing ranks far faster for losses. Even Ninja has chimed in on twitter stating that he was deranked after only 1 loss against higher ranked players. He even flamed the Riot ranking system in the same tweet, saying it was so toxic.
I have experienced the same difficulties with my rank, having to win 8+ games before seeing a rank up and losing ranks with only 2-3 losses. Although not as extreme as Ninja’s case. Riot released a statement saying there is a bug in the system and that your “hidden” rating will be retained. Winning a game will supposedly restore the correct visible rank… We’ll see how this gets resolved. So maybe you don’t suck as much as you think you do.
Another issue Riot has yet to acknowledge let alone tackle is…smurfing. Smurfing has become a huge issue in Counter Strike and Valorant is very closely following in its path. Even in the lowest rank possible in CSGO, players were still godlike at aiming, so either they were mega smurfs or hacking…a new player in the lowest tier should not be able to headshot and ace the other team every round.
The same is beginning to happen in Valorant as the barrier to entry to ranked is extremely low. You only need 20 games on a brand new account to begin ranking again. Anyone could pump out a new smurf everyday if they wanted to. If you observe the high ranked streamers, you can see them all playing on multiple accounts. I’ve even seen people log into new accounts mid stream going from immortal to gold. I’m sure many have noticed that one gold game is a pub stomp, then suddenly the next gold game is a blowout loss. Ever seen a random silver player wipe a gold/plat game?
Hopefully Riot acknowledges this and provides some kind of balancing to combat smurfs. Although, it would be to their benefit to have players keep making new accounts and padding their player count.
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
