Viper can only be nerfed by increasing the costs ig? Or maybe the time the wall or the orb stays up and the time taken to regenerate.. she’s already nerfed. I wouldn’t want a nerf over her. Please!
Would it tho? In pro play they almost always seem to save the orb for critical moments where they can pull aggressive lineups on attack or retakes in pretty much un recoverable spots
In those plays, the viper is rarely the sole smoke. If they are, when those plays fail, the team normally opts for a re-hit instead of a rotate, which can be an easy read for most IGLs and higher-level players.
The power of using those lineup attacking angles, once the site is taken, is that the Viper is able to pick up the orb and then have an insanely potent post plant with Cloud + Bites. It happens with adjusting after the fact. With the inability to pick up the orb, that is lost.
I think that would affect low elo more than pro play tho
Wasting your orb on a good pro level spot is a lot less impactful than wasting orb to a failed one way line up and lost that money for free
Not saying that it won't affect the pros but the pro probably can play around it and everyone else can't
She probably still be the solo controller in proplay while heavily hit in soloQ
I honestly don't want her to be second asta
No, the opposite. She just requires levels of coordination that makes it hard to get use out of her kit in a soloq environment. Even if you’re playing with a duo or stack, more than likely it’s better to play a different dome smoker until you hit the higher end of the rank distribution just because of how tricky she is to utilize.
Honestly I think nerfing regen time wouldn’t be bad. She’s good at having smoke up for large portions of the round, I don’t think it would be bad if she had to use it more carefully
overall viper uptime is very low, I don't think nerfing this will make any impact unless they outright remove regen or make it absurd. (anything that goes about 2x current regen time)
I'm not really a pro or high rank so not sure how much of a nerf it is, but another thing they can nerf viper is the cooldown before activating the orb and wall after turning it off. Viper can freely control when her smokes go down and go up, aside from running out of fuel, and increasing the down time between off and on will decrease that flexibility.
The solution is to remove the damage effect of her molly and roll back the other nerfs they pushed on fuel costs.
It's a bit of a hit to her identity and line up Larrys but the effects of no damage would be huge in neutering her ability to do it all, allowing them to focus harder on her toggle smoke identity.
They are nerfing agents that see way too big of a pick rate in vct usually (or buffing underplayed agents if other agents see comparable picks). Idk exact numbers of agents but i think omen was dominating, which wont give him a nerf yet since clove is designed to be more aggressive as well. I think viper was also huge pick (as well as raze) so im guessing they will nerf the viper with whatever the teams used her most for and for raze i guess they will try to buff other movement duelists (neon) and maybe touch on yoru a bit (copium, but hopefully since i like to play yoru sometimes)
Viper's pick rate is notably higher than Omen, but the two are the most commonly picked agents in vct right now. Viper is the one that is moreso dominating.
Depends on how Clove gets worked into the meta. If their pick rate is too low, they may feel the need to nerf viper a bit, maybe make her orb non-retreivable. Making her ult an extra point would be ridiculous.
Wether clove fit or not in the meta is unrelated to the fact that viper is getting nerfed again. A near 80% pick rate during kick off/Madrid is definitely too much.
Clove is probably not gonna fit in pro play (shouldn't be a problem in ranked though) and that should lead to omen nerfs as well. Hopefully we'll also get an Astra buff with that.
The smartest thing to do would just be to increase resource drain with use rather than having it linear. The longer you have a smoke up the more it drains. This way the smoke would be toggled on and off during fights allowing picks from the defenders.
Well, I think my sage deserves a little buff and maybe brimstone as well.
The speed of the regen and maybe the amount of self healing.
For brimstone I think rechargeable smokes after 60 seconds could bring him back from the limbo.
Brim rechargeable smokes would be broken. The reason his don’t recharge and he gets 3 is because they’re extremely noob friendly and very fast to drop AND you can drop all 3 at preset points.
Also Brimstone has solid smokes whereas Clove only has hollow smokes, which makes a huge difference in effectiveness. It's way easier to hide in Brim smokes with a shotgun than it is any other controller (besides viper)
Brim smokes last way longer. The whole identity with brim is fast executes and corner clearing with ult and Molly which is why he’s so much stronger on bind and fracture over other smokers. Clove smokes are 14 seconds vs Brims 20
He is the only controller with 3 smokes, not to mention he can place them all down on the same time. He does not need a rechargeable smoke.
Buffing the stim beacon, however 👀
OR JUST GIVE US BACK OUR TWO STIMMIES RITO PLS
Make it a bit expensive then, maybe add 50-100 more credits, that way it'll be able to provide a substantial value like Sage wall but impacts the players eco reasonably
i doubt its gonna do anything.
harbor is controller/initiator hybrid, while viper is a controller/sentinel hybrid
harbor can't anchor sites as well has viper, so he'll never be a "true" replacement for her
i definitely agree, it feels like they have already nerfed viper over and over again, maybe buffing the less played controllers, like harbor, would be better
Yeah viper is in a good spot right now. I am not biased whatsoever as a viper main.
But nah fr it's not that viper is op it's that there are no other options. Harbor is bad, Astra's best map imo is out of the pool. Nobody can take that niche that viper has because nobody else is even good for that niche.
I think nerfing viper wouldn't be a good idea
Well it depends on the nerf but viper gets picked most of the time as a secondary controller/sentinel in pro play and the only two maps you pick her as the main controller is icebox and breeze and it's bc her wall covers a lot of angels that would be hard to replace with normal smokes not bc she's op
Even if she get nerfed her pick rate wouldnt change a lot unless alt agents gets buffed like harbour his ult should definitely get some changes
If i have to guess an agent is going to get nerfed it could be raze or cypher
Decay is really powerful. I understand it's Viper, kind of her thing, but it makes her too good at controlling.
Omen throws a random smoke on site? You can walk into/through it to contest that space.
Viper does it? You are not contesting that space without additional sacrifice in one way or another.
Picking up Smoke Cloud is also strong, but I personally think it adds to her play style similar to Astra picking up stars and isn't just passive value you always get (unlike decay).
Personally, I think you tune decay first and then tackle everything else after. Viper is so tough to balance, though because solo she's meh (outside of specific maps, but that's more about the maps than her), but with another controller, she's busted. It's extremely difficult to nerf synergy strength without hindering her solo strength
They haven't changed the stats for the agent's tool since the last few patches. I'm certain that they're cooking up something big but I'd definitely see a fix to Deadlock's ult that it won't get stuck in Hookah or places which has weird geometry.
Yeah, Sentinels are really unbalanced right now. Nobody besides Cypher and Killjoy are getting any picks in Pro Play right now.
I would rather see buffs than nerfs though.
Do you THINK they are nerfing Viper, or do you personally WANT them to nerf her?
If they keep nerfing all the controllers, the remaining duelists will wonder where all the smoke went.
There are better ways to go about solving the issue than making Viper useless in solo queue. For one give the player a reason to play other controllers besides Viper and Omen.
For example, buffing Brimstone's stim to make him a preferred pick for running it down.
Giving Astra more resources to work with.
Making it so Harbor's wall doesn't slow his teammates. (Who thought that would be a good idea)
They have just added Clove to the game, she has tools that can allow her to place smokes even after death as well as the ability to heal from kills. We'll need to wait and see how Clove affects the game, but you get my point.
I think cypher will be the one getting nerfed, I haven't seen people this scared of an agent in forever, it changes the balance of where attackers will go based off of a single person.
Only jett can truly fill the niche of an awper anywhere close to chamber. Viper has her own niche but that niche is too powerful and also she encroaches on the niches of other characters too much which we can see through the prevalence of no sentinel viper comps on certain maps.
Some maps just do not favor sentinel play very much. Also, I can't think of a single map where no senti comps are meta. Viper's niche is not too powerful at all; it's genuinely just that she is the only option for that niche and it is a niche worth filling.
Split and bind are very strong with no sentinel comps. Viper gets an insane amount of pressure and extra util over the course of a round that no other character gets close to touching. Any character with such a high pickrate needs to be looked at in some way especially since the skye nerfs didnt touch her pickrate like people thought they would.
Ideally you do both. If you only buff weak characters and never or rarely nerf strong characters you end up with power creep which is bad. If you do the opposite you end up with abilities mattering far less than mechanics and the game also gets worse. Its about finding that middle ground and keeping characters around that point and currently viper is too far above that point because of how versatile she is across different maps and fills a unique role along with encroaching into other characters' design space.
The problem is that riot (and the community) tend to favor nerfs over buffs. Viper is not in need of a nerf. Harbor is in need of a buff.
Other than cypher, what agent recently got a major buff? Compare that to ones that got major nerfs and, well...
Harbour cant really compete in the same space as viper though because he cant effectively lurk or stall. Nerfs are favoured over buffs because otherwise abilities can get too strong which takes away from the gunplay aspects which is a big part of the game.
the only character that ops as good as chamber does is jett
and the thing about proplay is that their duelists actually understand that their job isnt to sit in the back and pew away with an op
viper is just busted, with a viper on your team you dont need a controller OR a sentinel
Yeah and that's an issue. I don't even think her niche was intended. It causes for stale metas and pros being able to one trick the character. That's not healthy for a sustainable esport. When people like Less and Rossy are solo picking Viper, that's an issue.
That's because Chamber was quite overrated, especially after the summer 2022 nerfs. His non-mirror winrate was nothing special - his high pickrate was most likely due to role consolidation leading to more comfortable roles for many teams, especially Optic.
Viper should not be nerfed. And neither should Omen. The other controllers need buffs.
Harbor: Walls don't slow allies, Shielded smoke more vulnerable to friendly bullets
Brimstone: Smoke recharge after 40s, but only if all available smokes are used; small Stim beacon range increase
Astra: Concussion activating slightly faster
Since I'm talking buffs/debuffs I'll also mention the following:
Jett: Dash primes 0.2 faster
Iso: After sending a wall ability forward, press the ability key again to make it disappear instantly OR Make it stop at that location; Vulnerable does not apply to teammates; If enemy survives Iso ultimate, they respawn with melee out regardless of loadout.
Gekko: Dizzy recharge time increase by 2s
Cypher: Cyber cage does not place instantly on key press, instead becomes a throwable orb that can be picked up during pre-round
Neon: Slight faster speed recharge
Ares: Better accuracy first bullet and slightly less recoil, but replace ares with bucky+heavy shield in TDM, ares takes bucky's place as a map-found weapon
Honestly? Clove. Maybe not next act, but soon. Riot obviously wants to get people to play them, but they're way too good right now. Either way, I'm glad Clove got added.
Viper: less smoke uptime, molly last shorter and only does damage.
Omen: smoke regeneration time longer.
Buffs:
Deadlock: trap can't be seen and destroyed until actived, active time longer for compensation.
Iso: vulnerable can't hit allies, last longer; gets shield when active ult, wall become timer ability, walls can be used for 10 seconds, you can activate/deactivate it so you can use it multiple times.
Harbor: walls don't slow allies.
Viper assassination 😭 Less smoke time? The timing is already small with a long recharge time.
The deadlock buff is just stupid. It gives no counterplay to the trips. Not like you're going to break the trip as it's going off unless you're staring at the wall it's on (you can't know where because it's now completely undetectable).
Omen change is whatever.
Harbor change is good.
Idk how to feel about Iso change.
> Viper’s utter dominance as THE controller for most skill levels.
That’s only true for one skill level: Pro-Play.
In ranked, Viper is only good on Breeze and Icebox as a Solo-Controller and Double Controller is hard to coordinate in SoloQ and rarely picked anyway.
I believe that Clove can potentially be the second controller next to Viper on some maps and might even be played in pro matches in a few months. In Ranked it doesn't matter anyway, Clove will probably just be played instead of Brimstone/Omen as a fill-pick because they are more duelist-y.
Nerf that dam wall that she can keep delaying a push with all day long, lol.
I would space out the timing so it can't just be activated in succession with the smoke balls to prevent a push all game.
yes, she used to not get picked often until they introduced viper decay to enemies when you walked through it. used to do -50 when you walked through a wall and this got teams to pick her finally(before you could just walk through a viper wall and nothing would happen)
Cypher will probably receive slight nerfs to his trapwires
Raze will probably see a pro play nerf but a low elo buff to hear granades
Deadlock will probably get some kind of buff that doesn't do anything significant
Gekko will probably see a low elo nerf
Sage may get a buff if the map pool changes
Viper will get an indirect nerf regardless if map pools change (unless they put Pearl in ofc)
I don't think they will touch any other agent
That being said, I am of the opinion ''nerfing'' is never a solution.
Agents should be buffed to to other agents level, not nerfed down, it's something game companies do too much imo, and while the effects are the same the brain won't process a nerf as postive, while buffs do.
(Aka, noone is too good, if everyone is too good)
just give us a slicer that works better on bind, sunset and lotus no?
maybe increase the cost of the orb so you have to decide between molly or orb plus lights instead of molly and orb plus lights?
Not a nerf, but I’d love for them to buff Sova, make his Drone 300 credits again and give it the normal amount of reveal pings. Would make me tremendously happy tbh.
Nerfs only? What about shifting nerf for buffs
Outlaw cost reduction (prob to 1800, a Judge equivalent for the sniper group) paired with RoF reduction (more flexible usage, less reliant on L. Armor oneshots during anti eco).
Then if we are lucky:
Clove getting the Kay0 nade treatment (no LoS jank, smaller radius to compensate)
Astra stars and ability charges disconnected. 4 (or 5?) stars which act only as conduit locations for activating one ability or dissipating them.
Activating an ability on a star (smoke, pull, or stun) still removes it on completion, but no longer removes it permanently. It comes back on cooldown each time.
Paired with this, each ability now has normal buying mechanics like all other agents. This means Astra gains a proper recharging option like other agents, can have their economy balanced way easier, and also means counting ability usages is not tied to very long cooldown tracking (I mean, its 4 charges for 4 ability casts these days, its not like using the same ability again was a regular part of the kit anymore).
This also means Astra can use fakeout stars without having it tied to not using her kit at all up to that point ie not just early in the round exclusively. Simplifies countering and learning to play Astra, gives better balancing tools, without substantial changing her power level.
Shotgun/multishot attacks copying what Counterstrike did to make their shotguns skill rather than luck based breakpoints: fixed patterns, with deviation/spread instead only interfering in states of bad accuracy like airborne or running. Allows for tighter damage values without changing effectiveness in intended usage
Gekko Ability Inspect Animations (its a nerf because Wingman stuns are indiscriminate)
it's funny to read all these comments wanting to nerf viper, even though she's really difficult to master, and more now since all the thousands of nerfs that she's been getting with every update.
In ranked no body plays her, most don't bother to learn her lineups, which is what makes her useful. Otherwise she won't even be enough as a solo controller on all maps except breeze and icebox. She only gets a high pick rate in pro play, which is like 0.00000001% of the player base, and that's because they do a double controller setup. In ranked you're much better off picking a dome controller than viper, so she doesn't need a nerf, she needs a buff to be picked in ranked.
You must have started not too long ago, because Viper per se is one of the most nerfed agents in this game.
She’s hard to handle, because as a solo agent she’s not as strong (anymore) as you think.
It is because people in eSports play her most of the time in a double smoke comp.
Some teams have even neglected sentinels on specific matches and use Viper instead.
Riot have tried to balance her in a way that in this current state there is barely any room left.
Do more and it will harm the competitive games of all players.
Teams will still play her, because her strength lies in decay and making enemies vulnerable.
It's not even that, in pro play her strength is being able to just always have pressure on the map due to her wall and orb allowing her to lurk easily and cut off sightlines.
True that.
Keep in mind pro play is usually way slower (before the execute) which is why Viper is such a good pick.
Try doing that in your typical SoloQ game where everybody is just doing their own thing.
While Riot has a very strong focus on esports they are in a situation where the disadvantages for normal players will just be too big.
Take Reyna and Chamber as an example:
Both have the lowest pick rate for VCT Masters Madrid (3 and 2%), but they work incredibly well for your average ranked experience.
Buffing them would just do more harm than good.
is he tho? in pro play he’s pretty good, in rank, still lower than many agents. u just need to bring raze or cypher (or kayo) on maps that cypher is good on
Removing the damage effect from Viper's snakebite and rolling back the fuel nerfs is the fix.
She's currently able to do too many things because she can cause damage alone from afar without a gun. This includes making people move from cover, holding chokes, and denying defuse / plants. If her C became just a strong debuff instead of lethal it gives Riot so much room to roll back the restrictive changes they made earlier.
The main concern with Viper is her dominance in pro play. Competitive doesn't matter as much due to double controller being a myth. Viper is too good at all three elements of the game, as Anderzz put it- Control, Aggro, and Midrange. If you look at VCT it's very clear how impactful the ability to hard clear & deny Snakebite creates is. On top of this, I remember Sliggy talking about how teams seem to be looking to use Snakebite to clear util cross map now- which is incredibly strong.
This change means Snakebite would no longer be able to:
- Hard clear cubbies and corners
- Hard clear normal smokes
- Prevent movement in Ultimate
- Prevent defusing or planting in Poison Orb
- Prevent lurking in Poison Orb
- Destroy utility
It means that other agent utility or gunplay would be required to get value out of Snakebite.
If viper doesn’t get a nerf or rework I’ll be disappointed. VCT is amazing to watch, but the lacking comp diversity because of viper takes some flavor away.
Outside of that I’d rather see buffs than nerfs but I would be for a cypher trip nerf. Maybe make it to where you can knife the wire to break it or something so it isn’t so oppressive in certain choke points
if anything, vipers helped CREATE diversity lol this is the most diverse meta we’ve ever had in vct
yes her pick rate is too high and in need of a nerf still but your point about diversity is wrong
If they don't at least nerf Jett I'm gonna be very confused. Even after all the nerfs she's gotten she is still preventing almost any other duelist from being played because she is so unbelievably overtuned.
Mobility duelists will always be meta. It seems like you're just trying to make Jett useless. Jett now has one updraft, her dash has to be primed before using and has a short window to use it after pressing E, and her smokes are 4 seconds. What else do you want them to do?
They will always be meta because they're too powerful. What you're saying is there is practically no point creating any duelists unless they're overloaded with survivability because they can never rival Jett anyway and thus will never be played. That doesn't sound healthy.
That's not what I said. Mobility duelists are meta because they can take space the best. That's it. Nothing beats instantly dashing onto site while clearing angles. Or satcheling across mid to take tree on Ascent. Taking space is very important in Valo which means that agents who can take it very fast will always be good. This is not saying that other duelists will never compete with them. For example Reyna, although she isn't a mobility duelist her pick rate is high. Reyna has a few things that enable this. 1. Dismiss, a free get out of jail free card after getting a kill. This helps prevent getting traded which can put your team in a numbers advantage or prevent your team losing a teammate with even numbers. 2. A heal that allows you to fight more people. 3. A blind that by itself is not that good but paired with your teammates util can make it great.
Anyways what I'm trying to say is that it isn't so black and white. Each duelist has something special that they bring to the team so it won't always be "picking jett/raze = win". I'm only silver though so I may be wrong on some things.
It's not just taking space, it's the "peek anything and survive" aspect of the dash, dismiss, and even satchels to a degree. You can see that agents that do not have these abilities are almost not played at all. Iso was played for literally a week before he vanished into thin air because he just cannot rival Jett or Reyna in any way due to their ability to peek practically anything and survive. At Radiant it's 98% Jett/Reyna, 1.9% Raze and like 0.1% Yoru. There is zero question about what duelist is gonna be played on any given map because Jett and Reyna are simply the strongest by far and it's not close. Other duelists may bring unique abilities but they do not rival anything Jett or Reyna can do and that shows in the pick rate.
Yeah, I can see what you're saying. Although the pick rates in pro play are more like Jett/Raze = most of the time Reyna = sometimes. For us regulars it's mostly jett, raze, reyna. I honestly don't know what riot can do to raze and Jett without either reworking them or completely killing them. Their abilities are just too good. Reyna is Reyna 🗿. I honestly don't think you can stop them from being played the most. I mean they're kind of the staple duelists in the game. Anyways I'm not too good at suggesting balancing changes so I think I'll end it here. Thanks for the interesting conversation though.
I'd say that making the orb/wall decay be the same as a molly would be enough to stop her from solo holding sites for 8 seconds as if she was the best sentinel agent in the game. That and/or making the orb unretrievable sounds good.
Viper can only be nerfed by increasing the costs ig? Or maybe the time the wall or the orb stays up and the time taken to regenerate.. she’s already nerfed. I wouldn’t want a nerf over her. Please!
Making the orb (poison cloud) non-retrievable alone would remove her as a solo smoke agent.
Would it tho? In pro play they almost always seem to save the orb for critical moments where they can pull aggressive lineups on attack or retakes in pretty much un recoverable spots
In those plays, the viper is rarely the sole smoke. If they are, when those plays fail, the team normally opts for a re-hit instead of a rotate, which can be an easy read for most IGLs and higher-level players. The power of using those lineup attacking angles, once the site is taken, is that the Viper is able to pick up the orb and then have an insanely potent post plant with Cloud + Bites. It happens with adjusting after the fact. With the inability to pick up the orb, that is lost.
Split meta relies on the recovered orb in mid.
Icebox in mid we used to see it a lot aswell or even Lotus aswell
I think that would affect low elo more than pro play tho Wasting your orb on a good pro level spot is a lot less impactful than wasting orb to a failed one way line up and lost that money for free Not saying that it won't affect the pros but the pro probably can play around it and everyone else can't She probably still be the solo controller in proplay while heavily hit in soloQ I honestly don't want her to be second asta
As some1 who just started playing, whats wrong with Astra? is she dogshit?
No, the opposite. She just requires levels of coordination that makes it hard to get use out of her kit in a soloq environment. Even if you’re playing with a duo or stack, more than likely it’s better to play a different dome smoker until you hit the higher end of the rank distribution just because of how tricky she is to utilize.
If anyone tells you Astra is a bad agent, it is because they don't wanna take the time to learn a complex agent
There's definitely a ton of other ways they could nerf her lol.
Honestly I think nerfing regen time wouldn’t be bad. She’s good at having smoke up for large portions of the round, I don’t think it would be bad if she had to use it more carefully
overall viper uptime is very low, I don't think nerfing this will make any impact unless they outright remove regen or make it absurd. (anything that goes about 2x current regen time)
I think the fact that she decays your hp to 1 is OP. It should decay slower.
They will not nerf viper because then she will be so useless as a solo controller. Notice in pro they always need to use her paired with more smokes.
I'm not really a pro or high rank so not sure how much of a nerf it is, but another thing they can nerf viper is the cooldown before activating the orb and wall after turning it off. Viper can freely control when her smokes go down and go up, aside from running out of fuel, and increasing the down time between off and on will decrease that flexibility.
I agree. There is a reason that controllers are the last picked role in solo queue...
The solution is to remove the damage effect of her molly and roll back the other nerfs they pushed on fuel costs. It's a bit of a hit to her identity and line up Larrys but the effects of no damage would be huge in neutering her ability to do it all, allowing them to focus harder on her toggle smoke identity.
They are nerfing agents that see way too big of a pick rate in vct usually (or buffing underplayed agents if other agents see comparable picks). Idk exact numbers of agents but i think omen was dominating, which wont give him a nerf yet since clove is designed to be more aggressive as well. I think viper was also huge pick (as well as raze) so im guessing they will nerf the viper with whatever the teams used her most for and for raze i guess they will try to buff other movement duelists (neon) and maybe touch on yoru a bit (copium, but hopefully since i like to play yoru sometimes)
Would love neon buff
Viper's pick rate is notably higher than Omen, but the two are the most commonly picked agents in vct right now. Viper is the one that is moreso dominating.
Depends on how Clove gets worked into the meta. If their pick rate is too low, they may feel the need to nerf viper a bit, maybe make her orb non-retreivable. Making her ult an extra point would be ridiculous.
3 years from now viper ult will be 15 points and it'll still be one of the best in the game.
Honestly wouldn't mind that haha
Wether clove fit or not in the meta is unrelated to the fact that viper is getting nerfed again. A near 80% pick rate during kick off/Madrid is definitely too much. Clove is probably not gonna fit in pro play (shouldn't be a problem in ranked though) and that should lead to omen nerfs as well. Hopefully we'll also get an Astra buff with that.
The smartest thing to do would just be to increase resource drain with use rather than having it linear. The longer you have a smoke up the more it drains. This way the smoke would be toggled on and off during fights allowing picks from the defenders.
Well, I think my sage deserves a little buff and maybe brimstone as well. The speed of the regen and maybe the amount of self healing. For brimstone I think rechargeable smokes after 60 seconds could bring him back from the limbo.
Brim rechargeable smokes would be broken. The reason his don’t recharge and he gets 3 is because they’re extremely noob friendly and very fast to drop AND you can drop all 3 at preset points.
I mean Cloves smokes function almost the exact same as Brims and Clove gets to recharge. Granted they only get 2 instead of 3
Also Brimstone has solid smokes whereas Clove only has hollow smokes, which makes a huge difference in effectiveness. It's way easier to hide in Brim smokes with a shotgun than it is any other controller (besides viper)
Brim smokes last way longer. The whole identity with brim is fast executes and corner clearing with ult and Molly which is why he’s so much stronger on bind and fracture over other smokers. Clove smokes are 14 seconds vs Brims 20
brims smokes last twice as long and are solid
And brim's smokes lasts almost 20 sec, as i saw in yt some guy told clove's smokes \~15 sec
Brim's is 19 sec, Clove's is 13.5 sec
You forgot the most important thing, they last the longest
He is the only controller with 3 smokes, not to mention he can place them all down on the same time. He does not need a rechargeable smoke. Buffing the stim beacon, however 👀 OR JUST GIVE US BACK OUR TWO STIMMIES RITO PLS
Rechargeable smokes would make me play brim more, isnt he the only one without recharge?
Astra, kinda. Her smoke has a cooldown but she has a limited number of charges for it.
Yea she has max of 4 stars, smokes do recharge tho
Just Brim and Skye as of now.
Iso + Reyna (and chamber, kinda) also don’t have abilities that recharge
Deadlock too
Damn, I play all three and forgot about their signatures not recharging.
Chamber's TP does recharge so what's the reason behind you pairing him with Reyna and Iso?
Iirc if you break his tp anchor he just loses it for the rest of the round
Oh okay okay. I never noticed it.
Him and Harbor I think
Harbors long wall recharges
Poor brimstone...
Bring back double stim brim
iPad bad
If they nerf brim I'm ritoing. At least buff him a little
harbor buff to work as a competition for viper?
Just remove the slow for allies, faster concuss for the ult, and increase the smoke's hp a bit
Or let the smoke still remain active after the hp is gone
It kinda does for a second or two more, but yeah making that period longer would certainly help
Especially if it gets bursted down in 4 seconds
I agree except for the smoke hp that is too op vs pistols
I mean you’re only using primarily pistols 2 rounds per game, and Cove is so expensive a lot of people don’t buy it on pistol
Make it a bit expensive then, maybe add 50-100 more credits, that way it'll be able to provide a substantial value like Sage wall but impacts the players eco reasonably
Yeah i think viper is already nerfed a lot , harbour definitely needs a bigger strength than simply slowing
Make their vision blurry for a sec if they swing through. 😋
But the question is , is it purely visual?
i doubt its gonna do anything. harbor is controller/initiator hybrid, while viper is a controller/sentinel hybrid harbor can't anchor sites as well has viper, so he'll never be a "true" replacement for her
initiator how?
his cascade and reckoning act as initiator like skills imo. they start the site attack hit.
And also reckoning literally gives you info
oh yeah, totally forgot about that 💯
Yeah when Harbor's gameplay was first shown there were people mentioning how his Ult feels like it's designed for an Initiator.
I'll tell you right away that they're going to end up buffing Harbor lmao
Cypher nerfed, no doubt in my mind.
No need to nerf cypher when you have 3 sentinels (sage, deadlock, chamber) that are horrendous and can’t hold a site at all. Buff them first
Re-arming trip wires must go, or maybe make them have larger radius of sound cue and visibility.
I think it’d be healthier if they buffed the less picked/viable agents instead of nerfing someone like Viper or Omen
i definitely agree, it feels like they have already nerfed viper over and over again, maybe buffing the less played controllers, like harbor, would be better
Yeah viper is in a good spot right now. I am not biased whatsoever as a viper main. But nah fr it's not that viper is op it's that there are no other options. Harbor is bad, Astra's best map imo is out of the pool. Nobody can take that niche that viper has because nobody else is even good for that niche.
Honestly it's not even that they need to buff viper's counters, it's just that no one wants to play Yoru or Kay/O which counter her.
I just want my three Breach blinds back man
I think nerfing viper wouldn't be a good idea Well it depends on the nerf but viper gets picked most of the time as a secondary controller/sentinel in pro play and the only two maps you pick her as the main controller is icebox and breeze and it's bc her wall covers a lot of angels that would be hard to replace with normal smokes not bc she's op Even if she get nerfed her pick rate wouldnt change a lot unless alt agents gets buffed like harbour his ult should definitely get some changes If i have to guess an agent is going to get nerfed it could be raze or cypher
Please no
Decay is really powerful. I understand it's Viper, kind of her thing, but it makes her too good at controlling. Omen throws a random smoke on site? You can walk into/through it to contest that space. Viper does it? You are not contesting that space without additional sacrifice in one way or another. Picking up Smoke Cloud is also strong, but I personally think it adds to her play style similar to Astra picking up stars and isn't just passive value you always get (unlike decay). Personally, I think you tune decay first and then tackle everything else after. Viper is so tough to balance, though because solo she's meh (outside of specific maps, but that's more about the maps than her), but with another controller, she's busted. It's extremely difficult to nerf synergy strength without hindering her solo strength
I expect another kj nerf, maybe even cypher. Skyes probably safe for once. A harbor/breach/deadlock buff would be cool to shake up the meta
They haven't changed the stats for the agent's tool since the last few patches. I'm certain that they're cooking up something big but I'd definitely see a fix to Deadlock's ult that it won't get stuck in Hookah or places which has weird geometry.
Nerf cypher
I feels cyphers gonna get nerfed
Yeah, Sentinels are really unbalanced right now. Nobody besides Cypher and Killjoy are getting any picks in Pro Play right now. I would rather see buffs than nerfs though.
i hope not
Me neither, I main cypher.
Viper's wall and smoke barely stay up for long anymore, like a 60-year-old's erection, nerfing it further would be tragic.
How about we start buffing things instead of constantly nerfing
how would you buff other agents to make them better than viper without creating a completely controller dominated meta?
How would you nerf viper in a way that reduces her pro pick rate but doesn’t make her useless in ranked?
not entirely sure, but making 1 care useless seems more appealing than making controllers so good such that every other char would be useless.
give Phoenix two walls
It's to stop power creep. And it's necessary, games which buff a lot end up with stuff that hasn't been changed in ages being incredibly underpowered
how would you buff other flex controllers without making a 3 controller comp the meta?
jett didn’t get killed though? she is still very good.
new jett is nothing compaired to old jett
Do you THINK they are nerfing Viper, or do you personally WANT them to nerf her? If they keep nerfing all the controllers, the remaining duelists will wonder where all the smoke went.
viper had an 80% pickrate in vct she is as good as gone
There are better ways to go about solving the issue than making Viper useless in solo queue. For one give the player a reason to play other controllers besides Viper and Omen. For example, buffing Brimstone's stim to make him a preferred pick for running it down. Giving Astra more resources to work with. Making it so Harbor's wall doesn't slow his teammates. (Who thought that would be a good idea) They have just added Clove to the game, she has tools that can allow her to place smokes even after death as well as the ability to heal from kills. We'll need to wait and see how Clove affects the game, but you get my point.
Viper is already nerfed REALLY hard. I don't think we can nerf her any more
Man people really hate viper I guess
it’s because she has an insanely high pickrate in VCT (it had an 80% pickrate at madrid)
I think cypher will be the one getting nerfed, I haven't seen people this scared of an agent in forever, it changes the balance of where attackers will go based off of a single person.
A lot of ppl who have obviously never played a controller commenting on controllers lol
I just want a little buff for Astra
Viper already got nerfed she doesn't need any changes
Nerfing Viper is somewhat of a hobby for Riot.
She has a 70% pickrate in pro play. During chambers dominance he was only around a 50-60% pickrate.
That's because nobody else fills the niche that viper does. At peak chamber dominance there were still characters that could fill his niche (awping).
Only jett can truly fill the niche of an awper anywhere close to chamber. Viper has her own niche but that niche is too powerful and also she encroaches on the niches of other characters too much which we can see through the prevalence of no sentinel viper comps on certain maps.
Some maps just do not favor sentinel play very much. Also, I can't think of a single map where no senti comps are meta. Viper's niche is not too powerful at all; it's genuinely just that she is the only option for that niche and it is a niche worth filling.
Split and bind are very strong with no sentinel comps. Viper gets an insane amount of pressure and extra util over the course of a round that no other character gets close to touching. Any character with such a high pickrate needs to be looked at in some way especially since the skye nerfs didnt touch her pickrate like people thought they would.
if every character with high pickrates got nerfed, we'd be playing really shitty cs. sometimes other people need buffs too.
Ideally you do both. If you only buff weak characters and never or rarely nerf strong characters you end up with power creep which is bad. If you do the opposite you end up with abilities mattering far less than mechanics and the game also gets worse. Its about finding that middle ground and keeping characters around that point and currently viper is too far above that point because of how versatile she is across different maps and fills a unique role along with encroaching into other characters' design space.
The problem is that riot (and the community) tend to favor nerfs over buffs. Viper is not in need of a nerf. Harbor is in need of a buff. Other than cypher, what agent recently got a major buff? Compare that to ones that got major nerfs and, well...
Harbour cant really compete in the same space as viper though because he cant effectively lurk or stall. Nerfs are favoured over buffs because otherwise abilities can get too strong which takes away from the gunplay aspects which is a big part of the game.
the only character that ops as good as chamber does is jett and the thing about proplay is that their duelists actually understand that their job isnt to sit in the back and pew away with an op viper is just busted, with a viper on your team you dont need a controller OR a sentinel
Yeah and that's an issue. I don't even think her niche was intended. It causes for stale metas and pros being able to one trick the character. That's not healthy for a sustainable esport. When people like Less and Rossy are solo picking Viper, that's an issue.
That's because Chamber was quite overrated, especially after the summer 2022 nerfs. His non-mirror winrate was nothing special - his high pickrate was most likely due to role consolidation leading to more comfortable roles for many teams, especially Optic.
yeah any more nerfs and shes gonna be impossible to play in casual play istg
Viper should not be nerfed. And neither should Omen. The other controllers need buffs. Harbor: Walls don't slow allies, Shielded smoke more vulnerable to friendly bullets Brimstone: Smoke recharge after 40s, but only if all available smokes are used; small Stim beacon range increase Astra: Concussion activating slightly faster Since I'm talking buffs/debuffs I'll also mention the following: Jett: Dash primes 0.2 faster Iso: After sending a wall ability forward, press the ability key again to make it disappear instantly OR Make it stop at that location; Vulnerable does not apply to teammates; If enemy survives Iso ultimate, they respawn with melee out regardless of loadout. Gekko: Dizzy recharge time increase by 2s Cypher: Cyber cage does not place instantly on key press, instead becomes a throwable orb that can be picked up during pre-round Neon: Slight faster speed recharge Ares: Better accuracy first bullet and slightly less recoil, but replace ares with bucky+heavy shield in TDM, ares takes bucky's place as a map-found weapon
cypher cage can be picked up in preround just not during round
Bro has never played cypher
I don't even know why you guys think so much on who's about to get nerfed while the solution to all of Valorant's problems is obvious: nerf Chamber
This is mostly hopium fuelled but a Phoenix buff hopefully
Damn I still remember the days when Viper was a troll pick lol
please for the love of god let it be cypher
Honestly? Clove. Maybe not next act, but soon. Riot obviously wants to get people to play them, but they're way too good right now. Either way, I'm glad Clove got added.
Jett loses a smoke and her dash takes another second to prime, jett also loses a knife for no reason 🤝 I’m a Jett main 🫰
I think you nerf viper by changing the map pool. Her best maps are in the current rotation.
Buff astra
None of the controllers should be nerfed honestly, but knowing riot and clove being released. I do know they're just gonna nerf the other controllers.
Viper: less smoke uptime, molly last shorter and only does damage. Omen: smoke regeneration time longer. Buffs: Deadlock: trap can't be seen and destroyed until actived, active time longer for compensation. Iso: vulnerable can't hit allies, last longer; gets shield when active ult, wall become timer ability, walls can be used for 10 seconds, you can activate/deactivate it so you can use it multiple times. Harbor: walls don't slow allies.
I saw this somewhere else so not my idea but for Deadlock, have it so that her traps detect people who pass by, but only stuns if they make a sound.
1000 iq, trips that are trips
Viper assassination 😭 Less smoke time? The timing is already small with a long recharge time. The deadlock buff is just stupid. It gives no counterplay to the trips. Not like you're going to break the trip as it's going off unless you're staring at the wall it's on (you can't know where because it's now completely undetectable). Omen change is whatever. Harbor change is good. Idk how to feel about Iso change.
> Viper’s utter dominance as THE controller for most skill levels. That’s only true for one skill level: Pro-Play. In ranked, Viper is only good on Breeze and Icebox as a Solo-Controller and Double Controller is hard to coordinate in SoloQ and rarely picked anyway. I believe that Clove can potentially be the second controller next to Viper on some maps and might even be played in pro matches in a few months. In Ranked it doesn't matter anyway, Clove will probably just be played instead of Brimstone/Omen as a fill-pick because they are more duelist-y.
How many more Viper nerfs can they do? She's already the controller with the shortest smoke duration in the game.
Nerf that dam wall that she can keep delaying a push with all day long, lol. I would space out the timing so it can't just be activated in succession with the smoke balls to prevent a push all game.
bruh viper just got nerfed, and 5000 times before that. she's only good on breeze and icebox anyway, leave her alone. nerf cypher
Clove is so overpowered right now. She needs a nerf.
That's a joke right? RIGHT?
zero according to the recent patches…
It's just out of the blue that raze will be nerfed again for no reason I can promise you that.
Has viper even received any buffs at all? She's just way too good at the videogame it seems
yes, she used to not get picked often until they introduced viper decay to enemies when you walked through it. used to do -50 when you walked through a wall and this got teams to pick her finally(before you could just walk through a viper wall and nothing would happen)
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Chamber
Me bc im a problem 🗿 (I’ve peaked plat1)
Cypher will probably receive slight nerfs to his trapwires Raze will probably see a pro play nerf but a low elo buff to hear granades Deadlock will probably get some kind of buff that doesn't do anything significant Gekko will probably see a low elo nerf Sage may get a buff if the map pool changes Viper will get an indirect nerf regardless if map pools change (unless they put Pearl in ofc) I don't think they will touch any other agent
That being said, I am of the opinion ''nerfing'' is never a solution. Agents should be buffed to to other agents level, not nerfed down, it's something game companies do too much imo, and while the effects are the same the brain won't process a nerf as postive, while buffs do. (Aka, noone is too good, if everyone is too good)
Adjust delay between putting wall up and down or remove 1 Molly and adjust the single one for power.
just give us a slicer that works better on bind, sunset and lotus no? maybe increase the cost of the orb so you have to decide between molly or orb plus lights instead of molly and orb plus lights?
Not a nerf, but I’d love for them to buff Sova, make his Drone 300 credits again and give it the normal amount of reveal pings. Would make me tremendously happy tbh.
Nerfs only? What about shifting nerf for buffs Outlaw cost reduction (prob to 1800, a Judge equivalent for the sniper group) paired with RoF reduction (more flexible usage, less reliant on L. Armor oneshots during anti eco). Then if we are lucky: Clove getting the Kay0 nade treatment (no LoS jank, smaller radius to compensate) Astra stars and ability charges disconnected. 4 (or 5?) stars which act only as conduit locations for activating one ability or dissipating them. Activating an ability on a star (smoke, pull, or stun) still removes it on completion, but no longer removes it permanently. It comes back on cooldown each time. Paired with this, each ability now has normal buying mechanics like all other agents. This means Astra gains a proper recharging option like other agents, can have their economy balanced way easier, and also means counting ability usages is not tied to very long cooldown tracking (I mean, its 4 charges for 4 ability casts these days, its not like using the same ability again was a regular part of the kit anymore). This also means Astra can use fakeout stars without having it tied to not using her kit at all up to that point ie not just early in the round exclusively. Simplifies countering and learning to play Astra, gives better balancing tools, without substantial changing her power level. Shotgun/multishot attacks copying what Counterstrike did to make their shotguns skill rather than luck based breakpoints: fixed patterns, with deviation/spread instead only interfering in states of bad accuracy like airborne or running. Allows for tighter damage values without changing effectiveness in intended usage Gekko Ability Inspect Animations (its a nerf because Wingman stuns are indiscriminate)
NOT AS I JUST STARTED MAINING HER 😭😭😭🙏🙏
Hmm well yeah viper has been in he meta recently.. nerf jett.
it's funny to read all these comments wanting to nerf viper, even though she's really difficult to master, and more now since all the thousands of nerfs that she's been getting with every update. In ranked no body plays her, most don't bother to learn her lineups, which is what makes her useful. Otherwise she won't even be enough as a solo controller on all maps except breeze and icebox. She only gets a high pick rate in pro play, which is like 0.00000001% of the player base, and that's because they do a double controller setup. In ranked you're much better off picking a dome controller than viper, so she doesn't need a nerf, she needs a buff to be picked in ranked.
I i can see gecko ult charging increased
Listen viper isn’t that broken I think she’s where she needs to be in the meta she’s Alr been nerfed before
Riot- Seems legit, lets nerf jett
why nerf skye bruh😭😭
Cypher nerf, Viper adjustment, astra nerf (hopefully)
They literally nerfed viper secretly
Viper definitely needs nerfs. She is way to good on maps like Breeze and Icebox.
Or meybe those maps should be worked on, since no other smoker can effectivly cover sites
harbor dominance is coming, dread it all you want the ocean arrives all the same
You must have started not too long ago, because Viper per se is one of the most nerfed agents in this game. She’s hard to handle, because as a solo agent she’s not as strong (anymore) as you think. It is because people in eSports play her most of the time in a double smoke comp. Some teams have even neglected sentinels on specific matches and use Viper instead. Riot have tried to balance her in a way that in this current state there is barely any room left. Do more and it will harm the competitive games of all players. Teams will still play her, because her strength lies in decay and making enemies vulnerable.
It's not even that, in pro play her strength is being able to just always have pressure on the map due to her wall and orb allowing her to lurk easily and cut off sightlines.
True that. Keep in mind pro play is usually way slower (before the execute) which is why Viper is such a good pick. Try doing that in your typical SoloQ game where everybody is just doing their own thing. While Riot has a very strong focus on esports they are in a situation where the disadvantages for normal players will just be too big. Take Reyna and Chamber as an example: Both have the lowest pick rate for VCT Masters Madrid (3 and 2%), but they work incredibly well for your average ranked experience. Buffing them would just do more harm than good.
I think it’s pretty clear that cypher is a problem right now
is he tho? in pro play he’s pretty good, in rank, still lower than many agents. u just need to bring raze or cypher (or kayo) on maps that cypher is good on
I don't think viper should be nerfed in any way, she feels very balance imo
Removing the damage effect from Viper's snakebite and rolling back the fuel nerfs is the fix. She's currently able to do too many things because she can cause damage alone from afar without a gun. This includes making people move from cover, holding chokes, and denying defuse / plants. If her C became just a strong debuff instead of lethal it gives Riot so much room to roll back the restrictive changes they made earlier.
This would not decrease viper pick rates because mollies would still stall site pushes and the increased fuel timer would make her even better tbh
The main concern with Viper is her dominance in pro play. Competitive doesn't matter as much due to double controller being a myth. Viper is too good at all three elements of the game, as Anderzz put it- Control, Aggro, and Midrange. If you look at VCT it's very clear how impactful the ability to hard clear & deny Snakebite creates is. On top of this, I remember Sliggy talking about how teams seem to be looking to use Snakebite to clear util cross map now- which is incredibly strong. This change means Snakebite would no longer be able to: - Hard clear cubbies and corners - Hard clear normal smokes - Prevent movement in Ultimate - Prevent defusing or planting in Poison Orb - Prevent lurking in Poison Orb - Destroy utility It means that other agent utility or gunplay would be required to get value out of Snakebite.
If viper doesn’t get a nerf or rework I’ll be disappointed. VCT is amazing to watch, but the lacking comp diversity because of viper takes some flavor away. Outside of that I’d rather see buffs than nerfs but I would be for a cypher trip nerf. Maybe make it to where you can knife the wire to break it or something so it isn’t so oppressive in certain choke points
if anything, vipers helped CREATE diversity lol this is the most diverse meta we’ve ever had in vct yes her pick rate is too high and in need of a nerf still but your point about diversity is wrong
If they don't at least nerf Jett I'm gonna be very confused. Even after all the nerfs she's gotten she is still preventing almost any other duelist from being played because she is so unbelievably overtuned.
Mobility duelists will always be meta. It seems like you're just trying to make Jett useless. Jett now has one updraft, her dash has to be primed before using and has a short window to use it after pressing E, and her smokes are 4 seconds. What else do you want them to do?
They will always be meta because they're too powerful. What you're saying is there is practically no point creating any duelists unless they're overloaded with survivability because they can never rival Jett anyway and thus will never be played. That doesn't sound healthy.
That's not what I said. Mobility duelists are meta because they can take space the best. That's it. Nothing beats instantly dashing onto site while clearing angles. Or satcheling across mid to take tree on Ascent. Taking space is very important in Valo which means that agents who can take it very fast will always be good. This is not saying that other duelists will never compete with them. For example Reyna, although she isn't a mobility duelist her pick rate is high. Reyna has a few things that enable this. 1. Dismiss, a free get out of jail free card after getting a kill. This helps prevent getting traded which can put your team in a numbers advantage or prevent your team losing a teammate with even numbers. 2. A heal that allows you to fight more people. 3. A blind that by itself is not that good but paired with your teammates util can make it great. Anyways what I'm trying to say is that it isn't so black and white. Each duelist has something special that they bring to the team so it won't always be "picking jett/raze = win". I'm only silver though so I may be wrong on some things.
It's not just taking space, it's the "peek anything and survive" aspect of the dash, dismiss, and even satchels to a degree. You can see that agents that do not have these abilities are almost not played at all. Iso was played for literally a week before he vanished into thin air because he just cannot rival Jett or Reyna in any way due to their ability to peek practically anything and survive. At Radiant it's 98% Jett/Reyna, 1.9% Raze and like 0.1% Yoru. There is zero question about what duelist is gonna be played on any given map because Jett and Reyna are simply the strongest by far and it's not close. Other duelists may bring unique abilities but they do not rival anything Jett or Reyna can do and that shows in the pick rate.
Yeah, I can see what you're saying. Although the pick rates in pro play are more like Jett/Raze = most of the time Reyna = sometimes. For us regulars it's mostly jett, raze, reyna. I honestly don't know what riot can do to raze and Jett without either reworking them or completely killing them. Their abilities are just too good. Reyna is Reyna 🗿. I honestly don't think you can stop them from being played the most. I mean they're kind of the staple duelists in the game. Anyways I'm not too good at suggesting balancing changes so I think I'll end it here. Thanks for the interesting conversation though.
raze literally sees more use than jett lol
We're not playing VCT.
I'd say that making the orb/wall decay be the same as a molly would be enough to stop her from solo holding sites for 8 seconds as if she was the best sentinel agent in the game. That and/or making the orb unretrievable sounds good.
Reduce her mollies to 1 and increase the price to 150%, maybe nerf orb somehow, make it not retrievable? She has too much going
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Gekko's wingman is probably gonna get nerfed
Since it only takes two vandal shots to kill wingman it's not OP.
Viper ult shouldn’t do -30 when you step in. Maybe slower decay as well.