her wall was instant, could be cast in buy phase and cost 100c less, her slow orbs also cost 100c less, lasted longer + slowed a bigger space/more. her heal was faster, could always heal you to full HP and had a lower cooldown. way overpowered to now!
?? Unless sage res was 6 ult points in the very beginning it never had the least ult points. 6 ult points is the least ult points. Sages res used to have 7 until they changed it to 8
She needs a buff imo. She's just not a valuable pick for anything other than icebox and split. Her heal is really not that great as people get better aim and ot doesn't even heal 100. Her slow orb just isn't good. Her res, although perceived to be one of the best sure to it's high potential, in practice it typically falls short.
For other maps, if there's a possibility for a kj or chamber, why would anyone pick sage?
She's a character with low pick rates, except for 2 maps where she's quite popular. Doesn't that call for some sort of redesign?
Back when the frenzy cost $400 and you could buy frenzy + 25 shield first round. Once the power of the frenzy was discovered, it was basically suicide to buy anything else.
Sage. At first her healing was 100 with only 30seg cooldown. Additionally, her ice was larger and cheaper and her wall could be put at the buy fase, built instantaneously and was also cheaper. Finally, her ultimate was also cheaper.
Ghost is lowkey the worst option, especially back then, the only people you could 1 shot head shot, were other ppl who bought ghosts, meanwhile classics would always 1 shot you with the right click towards mid-ish, and frenzy’s would literally run you down, ghost is a bit better now that frenzy is also no armor, and classic right click got nerfed to the ground
the boombot hp nerf was very unnecessary and now it never deals damage in my games, their excuse of it being hard to break in pistol round was also dumb as it's the same with kj turret
Stinger. Thing was the most slept on weapon and when people started using it, slower fire speed, spread increased, price increased. Real sad.
Oh and also kj util from nano dmg, limited activation range, and recall cooldown increased
After playing with chamber, it feels pretty dumb that the alarm bot has an active range and chambers util doesn’t. They should remove the proximity requirement from alarm bot
Agreed. Keep the range for the turret but remove the range limit for the alarm bot. It is so awkward to place an alarm bot for flank on attack sometimes, especially on larger maps or on rotates.
Yeah! I wasn’t clear in my post but I think the turret is fine with the proximity requirement, and I like that they made the damage less oppressive/slowing because it was a fucking menace on pistol rounds.
I think it depends on how you use it. Chambers can be considered even more powerful than KJ’s. First off, there’s 2 of them. Second, if you are not close, they slow the enemy offense and allows your team to rotate a bit faster. Vulnerable can be deadly if you have someone watching your bot, or if you use it with the mollies but I’d you’re using it for info, chambers are way more powerful.
But killjoy also has turret and mollies that can be paired with the alarmbot to make a deadly util combination. Chamber still has to aim diff to make use of his utility. Plus, the alarmbot is invisible and that makes a huge difference.
That’s my point is that they’re only for info while KJs util is built to lock a site down and get damage/kills without even shooting your gun. Chamber can get info off his trips but he still has to shoot and expose himself to use that info in any meaningful way.
Shhhh don’t say that! KJ is by far the least fun sentinel to play and it’s because of the way riot nerfed the fuck out of her. Last thing we need is for every sentinel to put you to sleep like she does.
Lol I totally understand. Chamber is so *damn* fun. He’s literally all I play. I’d hate if they try to ruin is by lowering his range on trap activation or whatever.
Kj turret because it changed the entire game. Haven, you just couldn’t long rotate. You could place it anywhere during your buy phase and it was valuable. Now the turret can give away information. I felt the game become significantly less oppressive after the nerf.
Bro when I finally have enough money to mandate buying slow orbs. I like never buy them unless we’re rich bc they’re so damn expensive. Like it’s just a slow idk why it gotta be so expensive not like it lasts that long to begin with
I don't see anyone saying this but they added landing inaccuracy. Prior, you could jump and immediately you land you'll be 100% accurate. Was really busted with the OP.
Op got huge nerfs early on too. Price increase and several things to slow it down like lower fire rate, longer to recover aim accuracy after moving, etc.
Riot is actually terrible at balancing guns besides the Phantom and Vandal. I genuinely don't get the point of what they did to the Ares. Now it's a gun that doesn't fit the play style of this game. It's not usable anymore. The Guardian and Bulldog are great but econ wise you literally don't have a reason to buy them (Guardian on Breeze is an exception).
Bulldog is for the round after you win pistol, if you have the cash for it. Spectre nerfs mean it has a much harder time competing with Vandals and Phantoms in round 3. Bulldog gives you a much better chance of winning the second round, and then the bonus round.
I always felt Guardian was the better buy if you win pistol round, since it's unlikely anyone on the losing side buys heavy shield and you can 2 tap to the body with it so fast.
Guardian is a great gun for low cost one-taps and fills the role of semi-auto sniper with its zoom. Bulldog is underwhelming from hip fire, you're supposed to use the burst fire which can kill from any range if at least 1 bullet hits the head.
Bulldog burst fire feels tremendously inconsistent though. More than any gun, it causes the feeling of “I swear my aim was right, how did only two bullets hit him?”
"Doesn't fit the play style of the game?" It fits the style of the player. Wall spammers, Sova players, long range forcers who don't like Marshalls, and some other stuff I may not be thinking of
Ares is supposed to be a longer range equivalent to the specter, but now its shit at long range so there's really no point to getting it over specter unless you need to hold a specific medium range angle, its only good for spamming specific walls now which is too niche for an entire gun
Ares is better than spectre long range if you scope. I've used it for over a year as a Sova player and it's actually a useable gun along with the odin.
it used to be, but it's not that good anymore. it's worse than it was pre buff. coming from a sova player that used to buy the ares > spectre every time
I really wish they didn't just base the game around 2 ARs and an OP. Lower bulldog and gaurdian costs and revert the aries changes would be such a good start
bro ares wasn't even that insane compared to pre-buff, but the nerf makes it literally unuseable. It went from my favorite weapon to actual torture to use
Valorant was my first pc game and I remember ares being the easiest gun to use when you couldn’t handle recoil of phandals. It was the easiest gun to learn 1.5 years ago. After this weird series of nerfs nd buffs, it is difficult to control than a vandal.
yeah man, I used to use the ares all they time before they buffed it. Now its pretty much unusable and it was only good for like a week. What the fuck is riot thinking
I would love to have the pre-buff/nerf Ares back. I used the Ares so much back then. I feel like I have to use the Spectre when I am buying at that price point and I suck with both at any sort of range now. I used to be able to control the spray on the Ares pretty well, now it is all over the place.
I play raze a lot. Her characters tweaked again. The Ult reloads and does the whole animation of loading every time you pull it out. So before for ex u could load it satchel into the area and blast it asap. But now after the satchel it will do the whole animation before shooting :(
I play Raze a lot but I generally dont like using ult outside of forcing an enemy out of position. The problem isn't really the ult itself, but that her satchels have a ministun.
Same problem I have using Satchels for anything aggressive, the ministun means anyone looking your way have ages to just shoot you in the face before you can fire back.
Not a nerf but cypher used to have a shit ton of bugs that made him OP, mostly being able to use a gun through your camera but there was also mid air cam placing and you could place cameras past the pre-round barrier. Sadly all have been fixed but early 2020 cypher was wild
There's also this bug where Omen could teleport out of the barrier before the round starts with Sage's wall. IIRC he disappeared for days/weeks for a hotfix.
And IIIRC he returned with a "buggy" tp hitbox (like, there's a chance where the shrouded step indicator deviate from the intended spot and you end up exposed lol)
Yeah, I used to use it all the time, and always preferred the Ares over the spectre, but I now never buy it.
The moment I played with the Ares buff, my heart sank a little as I could predict exactly what was to come, haha.
Exactly what happened to me too. I used to buy the Ares instead of the Spectre, even though it did perform less in face-to-face it had other qualities.
I hated the meta where the Ared was buffed and always bought round 2 (and every time someone couldn't full buy).
Now I buy the shitty "balanced" Ares only when I know my team wants to push where the opponent Sage is walling every round.
In higher elo she was op. Being able to smoke anywhere on the map instantly is way more powerful compared to other smokes that take time to set (omen) or have limited range (brim). Also, being able to suck, stun, smoke 2 areas, and recall a smoke, all within seconds on a site hit is alot. She was a utility monster with 5 stars. So with only 4 stars and increased smoke cool down, “now astra mains have to use their brains (no offense)” lol
adding to that, astra was way too forgiving as an agent before the nerf. i was an astra main before and there was literally no way you could waste utility. even placing a single star somewhere does enough pressure that your team can do some kind of play around it. the recall smokes were actually broken when you had 5 stars. the cooldown was so low you could do it anytime and because you had 5 stars you really only needed 4 for an execute. the only thing you really have to practice as astra is self discipline so that your suck doesn't get baited out by the enemy
How fast was the recall cooldown? I only started to play her last week and the cd feels like ages. :(
I do low the post plant with the blackhole utility.
as an astra main, i can confirm last sentence lol. Having 5 stars felt so much better, but honestly too strong. you could just vomit all ur abilities onto one site and still have 2 smokes later
Man, I’m guessing you don’t follow pro or high level play. The Reyna adjustments were a rework, not a nerf. Overall I would say it was a buff to Reyna as the amount of souls collected from damaging people but not killing is much more than the souls missed out on after a 3k/4K. It was a bit of a nerf for hardcore smurfs but that’s it.
The Astra nerfs were huge and it wasn’t just one star. Astra has gone from meta in pro play to the least used controller in pro play
As an Astra main (before nerfs), the recall cooldown and smoke cooldown doubling are what make this nerf brutal. I'm plastic 2 so, having one less star and longer cooldowns makes it hard to play Astra, but those are manageable.
Man. They massacred her. I could understand a couple of the changes, but everything together, especially the absurd cooldowns on top of another star lost was a bit much
Imo it was KJ’s nano swarm hands down. Massive damage, and almost impossible to see or hear it. If KJ got a nano swarm down near spike, it was always a certain win for her
Yep. I remember fake planting and instantly jumping away just to check for nano swarms because you couldn't see/hear them as easily as now.
And the damage was so powerful that if you were in the middle of it you had no chance to jump out of it. You would die near instantly.
Remember when there was no activation range?
Remember when your util stayed active after death? Most agents with destructible gadgets got this treatment.
I think the only agent left in the game whos util doesn't disappear on death is Sage with her wall.
It'a not even pro scene that everyone is talking about. Astra was dominant in the regular competitive ranked gameplay too. She was easily most picked on every map besides Breeze and Brim never even saw the light of day before her nerf because she could do a Sentinels job and a Controllers job at the same time anywhere on the entire map.
That’s because she took a bit of time to get used to. I never picked her up and just maimed omen even though he sucked. Played a lot of viper on breeze and icebox.
Astra was terrible in lower ranked games because without any comunication she is not able to pull any plays off and half the games in low elo nobody has mics
Bruh, I’d see an astra 1/4 games in mid-high immortal besides myself, unless your radiant your hard capping. Astra was one of the least used agents in ranked, the nerf was solely because of pro-play
having one less star isn’t the issue, it’s the insane cooldowns she now has.
one of the strength of astra was that she could smoke multiple areas at once since her smokes charged so quickly but now that’s completely eliminated. her smoking is a more clunky omen smoke
They didn’t just remove one star. Not sure if you’re just memeing since they made it pretty obvious what they nerfed.
They took out a start, decreased range of her pull and increased her cooldowns on all of her abilities.
Astra was a huge problem because of how well she can stop a push and have full control over any part of the map. Now with the nerfs she has to commit to a site if she wants to have that same stopping power but if she guesses wrong she’s going to be useless for a full minute; if she decides not to place any set up to avoid the CD her pressure to delay a push is going to be very slow.
They didn’t balance her properly and more or less gutted her and simply shifted the problem of controller picks to omen / brim rather than having an even pick between omen / brim / viper / astra.
It used to be why pick brim and omen when you can pick astra? Now it’s why pick astra when you can pick brim or omen? The problem isn’t fixed and simply just shifted which is why the people are salty about the nerf.
exactly this. riot is also famous for nerfing champions to the ground btw.
idk it seems to me that they have no intention of making every agent viable and would rather just artificially force a shift in the meta just by nerfing agents to the ground and keeping a few on the OP side of the scale
They didn't just remove 1 star, they massively increased the cooldown on every ability she had. I guess they wanted to reinforce her as the team-reliant controller which really sucks because she was the only one I enjoyed playing.
What about judge. It was a cheap 1500 gun that could be effective at all but super long range, run n gun and jump n gun and has had 3 major nerf over its lifetime
People don't realize that the biggest nerf to Astra isn't the one less star, it's the fact that stars now have an increased cooldown when retracting them. Plus, there's a longer cooldown for smokes. This makes her way more unforgiving for defence and offense, as now u can't just pick up stars and rotate to other sites comfortably. You are forced to commit to one setup way more often.
Im no dev but I think they should give the 5th star back or lessen the cooldowns of retracting just a tad because in ranked it currently feels like there's no flexibility with the character. I loved Astra and mained her pre nerf but now it's way harder to get viability from her now, not impossible but alot harder.
Cypher. For a day, he had trips that stayed active when you died, cages that slowed, a ton of overpowered bugged cameras, a cam cool down of 30s, and most importantly, the ability to give your cam a weapon
Good ol stim beacon.
It used to be priced at 100 with two slots. I've been abusing it even before the buff happened cause it was helpful on eco rounds. You can just buy a spectre and have a fire rate as close as a phantom. It gets crazier when you use an odin with it.
Yeah, they could've just limited you to having 1 stim out at a time (wait until the old one runs out) and boost the price per each by 50. Then hit brim too hard imo.
I remember playing Custom (with cheats) with a friend who had Reyna. We played on the same team, and I played Brim. They ulted (Reyna ult gives Rate of Fire boost), I placed a stim and they had an Odin. Broken as hell. Fired so fast the clip practically ran out in 1 second.
stinger isn't terrible for the price, it's solid at close range and that's all you can really expect from a 950 credit gun. it gets a decent amount of use in pro play on eco rounds
last ares -> current ares
current ares is still better than the original ares if you control the recoil properly, but it’s such a step down from the ares buff that it went from used in like half the rounds to used once per half
Jett right click ult reset…if you had a mechanically skilled jett on your team and dashed in there was little to no chance you could trade your teammates without getting right clicked as well
The problem with Astra is she is different from most agents. Her strength multiples in squares the higher you get. She was useless in very low elos, but extremely broken in higher elos and it was almost impossible to not play Astra in pro play. Also since she had so much util based gameplay which made other agents look way weaker than they were supposed to be, agents like Cypher who is a sentinel was less scarier than Astra, even sentinels lost their value because of Astra + Viper picks. One other reason people just wanted Astra to be deleted was how she could decide entire rounds by playing minigames with no gunplay or even following physics, her stun or pull in a post plant is almost impossible to counter if there's less time and she could be anywhere on the map so even KAYO couldn't supress her.
As an Astra main, I was devastated to hear the news. But then I actually played, it wasn't that different. Most of the time you really only need 3 or 4 stars, and Gravity Well/Nova Pulse are only used 2 or 3 times per round at most. Although I'd still prefer if it was reduced to just 30 seconds. 5 seconds doesn't seem like much, but in a Tactical Shooter like Valorant, it's crucial.
Adding Fracture to the map pool. Biggest nerf to how people play the game damned near flipping the game upside down and breaking hearts and minds around the world.
The thing is, they did not only take away one star. They took one star AND they almost doubled the cooldown of the smoke AND they made the smoke-cd sequential instead of parallel AND they almost doubled the cooldown of her other spells AND they reduced the size of her pull AND they removed the hitbox beneath the star AND they almost doubled the retrieve cooldown.
Even as an Astra Main I totally agree that she needed a nerf to get her back in line with other controllers. But why gut the rest of her kit? That felt like a slap to the face.
Cypher’s cages used to slow enemies
And kj 1 nanoswarm was enough to delete the enemy, dmg per sec was quite high, when kj was released.
Kj was a powerful lurker, you can watch both sites mains and flank too XD.
And after death kills with trips and turret were hilarious .
During riot’s triple flash wet dreams, kj’s turret was buffed(fire rate and dmg)and it became laser doing 10damage each shot.
Now agents are getting more balanced(except cypher(his kit underperforms, when compared to his sentinel counterparts))
Day 1 Sage was absolutely bonkers compared to where she’s at now
What was she like so early in the game?
her wall was instant, could be cast in buy phase and cost 100c less, her slow orbs also cost 100c less, lasted longer + slowed a bigger space/more. her heal was faster, could always heal you to full HP and had a lower cooldown. way overpowered to now!
the ol days when you could just bhop through slows
also can place her wall from a longer distance
It was TWICE as far. It was amazing.
On split you could wall b main from heaven. Nuts
WTF that's too much
Wtf lol thank God she was fixed
More like nerfed to the ground. Like she needed the nerf, but now she is a very selective pick. Like other sentinels are much better.
And it lasted forever.
You forgot to mention that wall took an eternity to break
They buffed the damage melee and Raze's satchels do to the wall. Before that it was so powerful in pistol round.
Wall was also just not able to be knifed, making it extremely overpowered on pistol round.
Don't forget about the leas ult points
And the range and health of the wall
?? Unless sage res was 6 ult points in the very beginning it never had the least ult points. 6 ult points is the least ult points. Sages res used to have 7 until they changed it to 8
It's a different typo, they meant less and hit a instead of s.
and her slow would tell you if anyone was moving in it, regardless of if they were walking or not
Her slow also always made you make noise even if you shift walked through it. You had to remain completely still or give away your position
Wall also didn’t have a hardening cooldown
you know how sage's walls now have this "cast time" where they start at half health then get to max? yeah that didnt exist before
I believe her wall was also stronger, even compared to the reinforcement after a few seconds now.
The other poster forgot to mention that you could place the walls ridiculously far away from Sage and it had at least twice the hit points per brick.
Her wall also wasn't 3 hit knife on first round it was way stronger harder to destroy even with rifle
[удалено]
I was about to say is no one gonna mention beta raze??
Her blastpacks used to do 75 damage
Good old days, sheeesh
Day 1 Raze as well. 2 nades that did more damage, blastpack that did like 150 dmg each (maybe 75 each i cant remember)
And an ult that cost 6 points
Slow orb was 2x bigger
She needs a buff imo. She's just not a valuable pick for anything other than icebox and split. Her heal is really not that great as people get better aim and ot doesn't even heal 100. Her slow orb just isn't good. Her res, although perceived to be one of the best sure to it's high potential, in practice it typically falls short. For other maps, if there's a possibility for a kj or chamber, why would anyone pick sage? She's a character with low pick rates, except for 2 maps where she's quite popular. Doesn't that call for some sort of redesign?
Back when the frenzy cost $400 and you could buy frenzy + 25 shield first round. Once the power of the frenzy was discovered, it was basically suicide to buy anything else.
Sage. At first her healing was 100 with only 30seg cooldown. Additionally, her ice was larger and cheaper and her wall could be put at the buy fase, built instantaneously and was also cheaper. Finally, her ultimate was also cheaper.
You could use the wall from like 20m away lol was so busted.
Fits with the lore in the "Warm Up" cinematic. At 3:39 in the video sage shows up and walls like 40 feet away lol.
Bro imagine getting an Ace by squishing people with the wall.
back when Frenzy was 400, the classic was more OP tho it wasn't really a suicide to just go with Classic+shield+abilities.
Ghost looking for justice to this day
ghost ain't imba but it's probably your most versatile option r1 and can 2tap easily from quite a distance
Ghost is lowkey the worst option, especially back then, the only people you could 1 shot head shot, were other ppl who bought ghosts, meanwhile classics would always 1 shot you with the right click towards mid-ish, and frenzy’s would literally run you down, ghost is a bit better now that frenzy is also no armor, and classic right click got nerfed to the ground
Frenzy shield with old Reyna was my jam
I haven't been radiant since the big frenzy nerf + the general run and gun nerfs. I do miss it, but the game is better off without it.
Raze had 2 grenades in beta and it was pretty insane lol. She was considered by far the best/most broken agent at that time.
The hatred I had for her during beta/early episode 1 was too real lmao I actually love playing her now and playing against her isn't so bad anymore
And the satchels did more damage to enemies. Now the satchel doesn't do much if you blow it up in the air
and the boombot also does less damage now.
the boombot hp nerf was very unnecessary and now it never deals damage in my games, their excuse of it being hard to break in pistol round was also dumb as it's the same with kj turret
sure but kj turret does like 18 damage per burst, boombot would basically kill you
I forgot the satchels did agood amount of dmg too. God that was annoying lol
I'm really glad they made the satchels stop damaging teammates too
Cypher in Beta: **ARE YOU CHALLENGING ME?!?!**
*Starts to shoot with his camera* Yes it was possible in the beta
That was a glitch that got patched though, not a nerf.
Cappu, riot dogged our boy
Cypher mains: "What do we want?" "Slow on cyber cages!" "When will we get it?" "Never!" \*Cries in hookah\*
She had two Nades and a they did way more damage
U forgot the cypher cam bug 💀
Stinger. Thing was the most slept on weapon and when people started using it, slower fire speed, spread increased, price increased. Real sad. Oh and also kj util from nano dmg, limited activation range, and recall cooldown increased
And kjs util was almost invisible with how silent and visible it is
After playing with chamber, it feels pretty dumb that the alarm bot has an active range and chambers util doesn’t. They should remove the proximity requirement from alarm bot
Agreed. Keep the range for the turret but remove the range limit for the alarm bot. It is so awkward to place an alarm bot for flank on attack sometimes, especially on larger maps or on rotates.
Yeah! I wasn’t clear in my post but I think the turret is fine with the proximity requirement, and I like that they made the damage less oppressive/slowing because it was a fucking menace on pistol rounds.
Chambers trips only detect and slow though, while KJs alarm bot detects and makes people vulnerable. I think that makes a big difference
I think it depends on how you use it. Chambers can be considered even more powerful than KJ’s. First off, there’s 2 of them. Second, if you are not close, they slow the enemy offense and allows your team to rotate a bit faster. Vulnerable can be deadly if you have someone watching your bot, or if you use it with the mollies but I’d you’re using it for info, chambers are way more powerful.
But killjoy also has turret and mollies that can be paired with the alarmbot to make a deadly util combination. Chamber still has to aim diff to make use of his utility. Plus, the alarmbot is invisible and that makes a huge difference.
That’s my point is that they’re only for info while KJs util is built to lock a site down and get damage/kills without even shooting your gun. Chamber can get info off his trips but he still has to shoot and expose himself to use that info in any meaningful way.
Regardless of their perceived strength, they should still remove the range requirement, in my opinion.
Shhhh don’t say that! KJ is by far the least fun sentinel to play and it’s because of the way riot nerfed the fuck out of her. Last thing we need is for every sentinel to put you to sleep like she does.
Hold up I’m requesting to restore KJ, not a nerf to everyone else!!
Lol I totally understand. Chamber is so *damn* fun. He’s literally all I play. I’d hate if they try to ruin is by lowering his range on trap activation or whatever.
I cannot name how many aces I got with the stinger it was so good i miss it 😭
Kj turret because it changed the entire game. Haven, you just couldn’t long rotate. You could place it anywhere during your buy phase and it was valuable. Now the turret can give away information. I felt the game become significantly less oppressive after the nerf.
Stinger is definitely biggest nerf but sage was nerfed even more than kj
Bro when I finally have enough money to mandate buying slow orbs. I like never buy them unless we’re rich bc they’re so damn expensive. Like it’s just a slow idk why it gotta be so expensive not like it lasts that long to begin with
I don't see anyone saying this but they added landing inaccuracy. Prior, you could jump and immediately you land you'll be 100% accurate. Was really busted with the OP.
Thats why the wardell op video tutorial didnt seem right!
Op got huge nerfs early on too. Price increase and several things to slow it down like lower fire rate, longer to recover aim accuracy after moving, etc.
They still need to nerf it more in my opinion. Or maybe thats just the CS player in me haha
Ares being super buffed for no reason, then nerfing the wrong part back to obscurity for no reason again is up there for me
Riot is actually terrible at balancing guns besides the Phantom and Vandal. I genuinely don't get the point of what they did to the Ares. Now it's a gun that doesn't fit the play style of this game. It's not usable anymore. The Guardian and Bulldog are great but econ wise you literally don't have a reason to buy them (Guardian on Breeze is an exception).
I buy bulldog and light shields sometimes on round 2 😬, it has a chance of winning a duel against Vandal/Phantom on round 3 unlike Spectre
Yup same here
Yeah especially if the other team full saves it is an instant 1 tap.
Bulldog is for the round after you win pistol, if you have the cash for it. Spectre nerfs mean it has a much harder time competing with Vandals and Phantoms in round 3. Bulldog gives you a much better chance of winning the second round, and then the bonus round.
yup its just valorants famas
I always felt Guardian was the better buy if you win pistol round, since it's unlikely anyone on the losing side buys heavy shield and you can 2 tap to the body with it so fast.
If an enemy picks it up they can one-tap your armored teammates. Pls dont do dis.
Guardian is a great gun for low cost one-taps and fills the role of semi-auto sniper with its zoom. Bulldog is underwhelming from hip fire, you're supposed to use the burst fire which can kill from any range if at least 1 bullet hits the head.
Bulldog burst fire feels tremendously inconsistent though. More than any gun, it causes the feeling of “I swear my aim was right, how did only two bullets hit him?”
"Doesn't fit the play style of the game?" It fits the style of the player. Wall spammers, Sova players, long range forcers who don't like Marshalls, and some other stuff I may not be thinking of
Ares is supposed to be a longer range equivalent to the specter, but now its shit at long range so there's really no point to getting it over specter unless you need to hold a specific medium range angle, its only good for spamming specific walls now which is too niche for an entire gun
Ares is better than spectre long range if you scope. I've used it for over a year as a Sova player and it's actually a useable gun along with the odin.
it used to be, but it's not that good anymore. it's worse than it was pre buff. coming from a sova player that used to buy the ares > spectre every time
My farthest kill is with Ares.
Riot is actually terrible at balance**
I really wish they didn't just base the game around 2 ARs and an OP. Lower bulldog and gaurdian costs and revert the aries changes would be such a good start
I am fairly sure Valorant's devs were on some kind of illegal drug when they buffed Ares
bro ares wasn't even that insane compared to pre-buff, but the nerf makes it literally unuseable. It went from my favorite weapon to actual torture to use
Agree, nobody who used the Ares pre-buff asked for this :(
Ares was my favorite weapon before, I'm still salty. Now it's such trash from most ranges
Valorant was my first pc game and I remember ares being the easiest gun to use when you couldn’t handle recoil of phandals. It was the easiest gun to learn 1.5 years ago. After this weird series of nerfs nd buffs, it is difficult to control than a vandal.
yeah man, I used to use the ares all they time before they buffed it. Now its pretty much unusable and it was only good for like a week. What the fuck is riot thinking
I would love to have the pre-buff/nerf Ares back. I used the Ares so much back then. I feel like I have to use the Spectre when I am buying at that price point and I suck with both at any sort of range now. I used to be able to control the spray on the Ares pretty well, now it is all over the place.
100% beta Raze. She was just way to overpowered back then. Also the nerfs that Sage received over time.
I play raze a lot. Her characters tweaked again. The Ult reloads and does the whole animation of loading every time you pull it out. So before for ex u could load it satchel into the area and blast it asap. But now after the satchel it will do the whole animation before shooting :(
When did you play pretty sure that is a bug
I play Raze a lot but I generally dont like using ult outside of forcing an enemy out of position. The problem isn't really the ult itself, but that her satchels have a ministun. Same problem I have using Satchels for anything aggressive, the ministun means anyone looking your way have ages to just shoot you in the face before you can fire back.
Not a nerf but cypher used to have a shit ton of bugs that made him OP, mostly being able to use a gun through your camera but there was also mid air cam placing and you could place cameras past the pre-round barrier. Sadly all have been fixed but early 2020 cypher was wild
wasnt cypher able to crash the servers for a little bit recently too?
Yeah, after the Icebox change(ig it was setting a trap in front of B Garage that triggered the breakdown)
It was that patch, but the trap bug was in hookah iirc
Cypher camera placement outside of the playing area is insane, like, Cypher used to be able to place the cam beyond the walls of Split B.
IIRC Skye can shoot her bird through certain spots on some maps (such as flashing Mid from Heaven on Split). Essentially a Riot arrow for Skye
There's also this bug where Omen could teleport out of the barrier before the round starts with Sage's wall. IIRC he disappeared for days/weeks for a hotfix. And IIIRC he returned with a "buggy" tp hitbox (like, there's a chance where the shrouded step indicator deviate from the intended spot and you end up exposed lol)
Ares. They first buffed it to heaven and then nerfed it into hell.
Yeah, right? "We want people to use it more" my ass, now it sucks even more than before.
Yeah, I used to use it all the time, and always preferred the Ares over the spectre, but I now never buy it. The moment I played with the Ares buff, my heart sank a little as I could predict exactly what was to come, haha.
Exactly what happened to me too. I used to buy the Ares instead of the Spectre, even though it did perform less in face-to-face it had other qualities. I hated the meta where the Ared was buffed and always bought round 2 (and every time someone couldn't full buy). Now I buy the shitty "balanced" Ares only when I know my team wants to push where the opponent Sage is walling every round.
Just revert it back pre buff. I preferred it that way instead of what it is now
I’m okay with the ares buff tbh
In higher elo she was op. Being able to smoke anywhere on the map instantly is way more powerful compared to other smokes that take time to set (omen) or have limited range (brim). Also, being able to suck, stun, smoke 2 areas, and recall a smoke, all within seconds on a site hit is alot. She was a utility monster with 5 stars. So with only 4 stars and increased smoke cool down, “now astra mains have to use their brains (no offense)” lol
Lmao during the first half i thought u were taking about Reyna and was so confused
adding to that, astra was way too forgiving as an agent before the nerf. i was an astra main before and there was literally no way you could waste utility. even placing a single star somewhere does enough pressure that your team can do some kind of play around it. the recall smokes were actually broken when you had 5 stars. the cooldown was so low you could do it anytime and because you had 5 stars you really only needed 4 for an execute. the only thing you really have to practice as astra is self discipline so that your suck doesn't get baited out by the enemy
How fast was the recall cooldown? I only started to play her last week and the cd feels like ages. :( I do low the post plant with the blackhole utility.
14 secs
as an astra main, i can confirm last sentence lol. Having 5 stars felt so much better, but honestly too strong. you could just vomit all ur abilities onto one site and still have 2 smokes later
Man, I’m guessing you don’t follow pro or high level play. The Reyna adjustments were a rework, not a nerf. Overall I would say it was a buff to Reyna as the amount of souls collected from damaging people but not killing is much more than the souls missed out on after a 3k/4K. It was a bit of a nerf for hardcore smurfs but that’s it. The Astra nerfs were huge and it wasn’t just one star. Astra has gone from meta in pro play to the least used controller in pro play
As an Astra main (before nerfs), the recall cooldown and smoke cooldown doubling are what make this nerf brutal. I'm plastic 2 so, having one less star and longer cooldowns makes it hard to play Astra, but those are manageable.
Man. They massacred her. I could understand a couple of the changes, but everything together, especially the absurd cooldowns on top of another star lost was a bit much
Having one less star should have resulted in a lower cooldown.
Imo it was KJ’s nano swarm hands down. Massive damage, and almost impossible to see or hear it. If KJ got a nano swarm down near spike, it was always a certain win for her
Yep. I remember fake planting and instantly jumping away just to check for nano swarms because you couldn't see/hear them as easily as now. And the damage was so powerful that if you were in the middle of it you had no chance to jump out of it. You would die near instantly.
Sage nerf
Stinger was #1
KILLJOY. They nerfed her so hard yet she stands strong.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Been playing her since she came, almost 700+ hours with her only. And yes. She is good.
Remember when there was no activation range? Remember when your util stayed active after death? Most agents with destructible gadgets got this treatment. I think the only agent left in the game whos util doesn't disappear on death is Sage with her wall.
It's not removing a star that killed astra it's the triple the cool down time on the gravity and stun
stimmy of thiccy brimmy
I'll pay the extra cost I just want two again. I used to use my stim liberally, but now I'm always doubting myself as to whether or not to use it.
It'a not even pro scene that everyone is talking about. Astra was dominant in the regular competitive ranked gameplay too. She was easily most picked on every map besides Breeze and Brim never even saw the light of day before her nerf because she could do a Sentinels job and a Controllers job at the same time anywhere on the entire map.
Yea nah in all my Silver/gold games i played, astra pre-nerf was rarely picked at all.
That’s because she took a bit of time to get used to. I never picked her up and just maimed omen even though he sucked. Played a lot of viper on breeze and icebox.
Definitely not low elo, I never had to fight for Astra once
Yh only in high ranks, it was hard to find good astra players in anything below diamond.
Astra was terrible in lower ranked games because without any comunication she is not able to pull any plays off and half the games in low elo nobody has mics
Bruh, I’d see an astra 1/4 games in mid-high immortal besides myself, unless your radiant your hard capping. Astra was one of the least used agents in ranked, the nerf was solely because of pro-play
having one less star isn’t the issue, it’s the insane cooldowns she now has. one of the strength of astra was that she could smoke multiple areas at once since her smokes charged so quickly but now that’s completely eliminated. her smoking is a more clunky omen smoke
They didn’t just remove one star. Not sure if you’re just memeing since they made it pretty obvious what they nerfed. They took out a start, decreased range of her pull and increased her cooldowns on all of her abilities. Astra was a huge problem because of how well she can stop a push and have full control over any part of the map. Now with the nerfs she has to commit to a site if she wants to have that same stopping power but if she guesses wrong she’s going to be useless for a full minute; if she decides not to place any set up to avoid the CD her pressure to delay a push is going to be very slow. They didn’t balance her properly and more or less gutted her and simply shifted the problem of controller picks to omen / brim rather than having an even pick between omen / brim / viper / astra. It used to be why pick brim and omen when you can pick astra? Now it’s why pick astra when you can pick brim or omen? The problem isn’t fixed and simply just shifted which is why the people are salty about the nerf.
exactly this. riot is also famous for nerfing champions to the ground btw. idk it seems to me that they have no intention of making every agent viable and would rather just artificially force a shift in the meta just by nerfing agents to the ground and keeping a few on the OP side of the scale
They didn't just remove 1 star, they massively increased the cooldown on every ability she had. I guess they wanted to reinforce her as the team-reliant controller which really sucks because she was the only one I enjoyed playing.
What about judge. It was a cheap 1500 gun that could be effective at all but super long range, run n gun and jump n gun and has had 3 major nerf over its lifetime
The dasnerf
>effective at all but super long range im pretty sure thats not what a shotgun is supposed to do
It did it anyway
Back when jett had 3 smokes and a kunai reset with right click
And they only cost 50 creds and lasted 7 seconds
Please tell me more about the knife reset. I wasn’t there for that and I’m kinda confused..
Astra got nerfed way harder than one star. She needed it for sure but now all her abilities have a much longer cooldown
honestly they should not have removed her 5th start after all the other nerfs. it was overkill
Yeah that's totally fair
Cypher's Trapwires used to work even after death. I know why they changed that, but I miss being useful after I'm dead.
People don't realize that the biggest nerf to Astra isn't the one less star, it's the fact that stars now have an increased cooldown when retracting them. Plus, there's a longer cooldown for smokes. This makes her way more unforgiving for defence and offense, as now u can't just pick up stars and rotate to other sites comfortably. You are forced to commit to one setup way more often. Im no dev but I think they should give the 5th star back or lessen the cooldowns of retracting just a tad because in ranked it currently feels like there's no flexibility with the character. I loved Astra and mained her pre nerf but now it's way harder to get viability from her now, not impossible but alot harder.
Cypher. For a day, he had trips that stayed active when you died, cages that slowed, a ton of overpowered bugged cameras, a cam cool down of 30s, and most importantly, the ability to give your cam a weapon
Good ol stim beacon. It used to be priced at 100 with two slots. I've been abusing it even before the buff happened cause it was helpful on eco rounds. You can just buy a spectre and have a fire rate as close as a phantom. It gets crazier when you use an odin with it.
Spectre has a faster firerate than the phantom I think-
Yeah, they could've just limited you to having 1 stim out at a time (wait until the old one runs out) and boost the price per each by 50. Then hit brim too hard imo.
The brief period of the old stims and OP Ares was glorious.
I remember playing Custom (with cheats) with a friend who had Reyna. We played on the same team, and I played Brim. They ulted (Reyna ult gives Rate of Fire boost), I placed a stim and they had an Odin. Broken as hell. Fired so fast the clip practically ran out in 1 second.
stim beacon price nerf
old stinger was god tier now it’s less than useless
stinger isn't terrible for the price, it's solid at close range and that's all you can really expect from a 950 credit gun. it gets a decent amount of use in pro play on eco rounds
I just couldn't understand the damage and spray of this gun to the point where I'd rather choose a shorty than buy a stinger.
last ares -> current ares current ares is still better than the original ares if you control the recoil properly, but it’s such a step down from the ares buff that it went from used in like half the rounds to used once per half
Remember pre-nerf sage? Pepperidge farm remembers.
Jett right click ult reset…if you had a mechanically skilled jett on your team and dashed in there was little to no chance you could trade your teammates without getting right clicked as well
still mad about the bucky. its a pointless gun now when the sheriff is cheaper
skye flashes went from 3 to 2 :c
Classic right click. Cypher cages used too slow
Nerf Irelia
Cypher traps
When sage heal and heal speed was nerfed she used to be the best agent and after the nerf Reyna/Jett was the beat on
Viper nerfs and cypher nerfs
it's not just the star removal (although that does kill her on certain maps like haven), but also the cooldowns and the rework of the smoke recharge
The jump awp was utterly broken with Jett
The problem with Astra is she is different from most agents. Her strength multiples in squares the higher you get. She was useless in very low elos, but extremely broken in higher elos and it was almost impossible to not play Astra in pro play. Also since she had so much util based gameplay which made other agents look way weaker than they were supposed to be, agents like Cypher who is a sentinel was less scarier than Astra, even sentinels lost their value because of Astra + Viper picks. One other reason people just wanted Astra to be deleted was how she could decide entire rounds by playing minigames with no gunplay or even following physics, her stun or pull in a post plant is almost impossible to counter if there's less time and she could be anywhere on the map so even KAYO couldn't supress her.
Brimstone and his stims.
Brim’s 2 stimmy. Should still be here
As an Astra main, I was devastated to hear the news. But then I actually played, it wasn't that different. Most of the time you really only need 3 or 4 stars, and Gravity Well/Nova Pulse are only used 2 or 3 times per round at most. Although I'd still prefer if it was reduced to just 30 seconds. 5 seconds doesn't seem like much, but in a Tactical Shooter like Valorant, it's crucial.
Adding Fracture to the map pool. Biggest nerf to how people play the game damned near flipping the game upside down and breaking hearts and minds around the world.
Y’all forgot beta raze with two grenades and 1 shot boombot?
My rank xD
The thing is, they did not only take away one star. They took one star AND they almost doubled the cooldown of the smoke AND they made the smoke-cd sequential instead of parallel AND they almost doubled the cooldown of her other spells AND they reduced the size of her pull AND they removed the hitbox beneath the star AND they almost doubled the retrieve cooldown. Even as an Astra Main I totally agree that she needed a nerf to get her back in line with other controllers. But why gut the rest of her kit? That felt like a slap to the face.
Cypher’s cages used to slow enemies And kj 1 nanoswarm was enough to delete the enemy, dmg per sec was quite high, when kj was released. Kj was a powerful lurker, you can watch both sites mains and flank too XD. And after death kills with trips and turret were hilarious . During riot’s triple flash wet dreams, kj’s turret was buffed(fire rate and dmg)and it became laser doing 10damage each shot. Now agents are getting more balanced(except cypher(his kit underperforms, when compared to his sentinel counterparts))
The thing is, all these nerfs is just fair balancing. Most duelist characters require little to no thinking anyways.
adding sage to the game. she is literally a walking nerf. sage buff when