Killjoy and Sage nerfed in September VALORANT patch
Well, they've finally done it. Riot Games' newest VALORANT patch includes the imperative Killjoy nerf that has been anticipated since her arrival into the game. *Inserts pun regarding players joy being killed.*
Alongside the Killjoy nerf, adjustments have also been made to Breach, Sage, Sova, and Viper. The patch also includes weapon balances, specifically shotguns, of which their aimpunch and tagging has been tuned. Hit registration clarity has also been improved amongst several visual adjustments.
KILLJOY
The tech mogul has been forced to downgrade her Nanoswarm ability for fears that nobody can counteract it. It takes an incredible amount of luck and skill to dodge her ability, but these recent changes have been targetted to help players swerve the Nanoswarm, without making it redundant. The changes are as follows:
- Nanoswarm
- Added a brief windup before being activated.
- Damage Per Second cut by a third, from 60 DPS to 40.
- Visual effects have been added to make it easier to spot the grenade on the ground. Stealth audio range has been slightly increased.
- Turret
- No longer revealed by Sova’s Recon Bolt.
- More effectively shoots at an enemy’s last known location.
BREACH
This comes as just the start of the intended changes to Breach, with Riot confirming more to come, 'potentially'. The VALORANT September patch buffs Breach slightly, after noticing that his abilities were seldom capitalised on. The changes give the attacking brute more chance of success by increasing the number of charges he can use.
- Flashpoint
- Charges increased from two to three.
- Windup reduced from 0.6 seconds to 0.5 seconds.
- Off-screen flashes now match the behaviour of flashes within the game, aggressively applying a minimum amount of flash.
- Rolling Thunder
- Detonation delay between blasts decreased from 0.3 seconds to 0.255 seconds.
- Concussion
- Now prevents concussed enemies from scoping down sights.
Click to enlargeSAGE
Riot's goal with Sage's adaptations is to reduce the amount of healing that she can do throughout the round and to add an incentive to heal teammates rather than herself. Her Barrier Orb has also been changed slightly, adding a more tactical element to the healer rather than placing frantic walls around the map.
- Heal
- Heal reduced from 100 health in 5 seconds to 60.
- Self heal reduced from 100 health in 5 seconds to 60 in 10 seconds
- Slow Orb
- Size reduced by 30%.
- Barrier Orb
- Cost reduced from 400 to 300.
- Wall forms at 400 HP, but increases to 800 HP after a 3-second delay.
SOVA
Only small details were refined on Sova:
- Updated the physics on Sova’s cape so that it should wiggle outside his hitbox less frequently
- Polish work on Sova’s 1P hands to bring them up to the fidelity bar of the rest of our agents
VIPER
Viper undergoes a pretty hefty buff in the VALORANT September patch. Allowing for much more confusion about her whereabouts and removing collateral friendly fire damage, Viper becomes a much more viable option.
- Toxic Screen
- Can now be placed during the buy phase of rounds, through spawn barriers
- Toxic Screen now goes up faster along its full length, once it starts to form
- Decay
- Decay on all smoke abilities no longer affects allies
- Viper's Pit
- The area of Viper’s Pit is now shown on her team’s minimap when deployed
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Image via Riot Games
