Jett and Skye are among the eleven agents that are set to receive big changes to their abilities in the VALORANT 7.04 update.
Riot Games has announced that a lot of agent balancing changes are heading our way in the upcoming 7.04 update for VALORANT. Changes could spell disaster for many agents, including the ever-popular duelist, Jett. Here is what we know so far.
VALORANT Developers aim to reduce utility spam in patch 7.04
Episode 7 Act 2 will soon be upon us in VALORANT and it would appear that the game's developers have been doing a lot of tinkering to their characters. And not all of is sitting well within the VALORANT community. Most of these changes are fairly tame despite affecting half of the agents on the roster. But their particular focus on Jett and Skye has drawn the most ire due to how the developers have fiddled with their abilities.
In a recent game update, posted to the VALORANT website earlier today, the developers state that they had been looking to minimize the amount of utility spam that often occurs in games. They stated that they had noticed that when players are "faced with multiple pieces of utility or larger scale ultimates, their avenues for counterplay can sometimes be overloaded." In layman's terms, they are looking to counteract utility spam. So, to deal with this issue they focused on doing the following:
- Reducing the frequency of large area of effect ultimates.
- Reducing the amount of time utility is active in the world.
- Reduce the HP of shootable utility.
- Increasing the amount of ult charges necessary to utilize high-impact a.o.e ultimates to create both a better pacing of the round-defining abilities and a clearer choice competition between high and low-cost ults.
VALORANT 7.04 update changes
In addition to the changes to utility duration and impact, several agents have also received changes. Here's everything that's new in VALORANT 7.04 update.
Astra:
- Gravity Well
- Start up time increased from .6 to 1.25 seconds
- Gravity time duration decreased from 2.75 to 2.0 seconds
- Nova Pulse
- Startup time decreased from 1.25 to 1.0 seconds.
- Cosmic Divide
- Audio is now completely blocked instead of just muffled.
Breach:
- Aftershock
- Ticks reduced from 3 to 2.
- Damage increased from 60 to 80 per tick.
- Rolling Thunder
- Ultimate points increased from 8 to 9.
Brimstone:
- Orbital Strike
- Ultimate points increased from 7 to 8.
Fade:
- Prowler
- Time to re-equip gun takes longer after using the ability (they didn't specify how long).
Gekko:
- Mosh Pit
- The impacted area deals 10 damage per second before exploding.
- Wingman
- HP decreased from 100 to 80.
- Thrash
- Thrash's explosion has been modified to make it easier for players to understand how it has impacted a target area.
Jett:
- Tailwind
- Dash window decreased from 12 seconds to 7 in order to reduce any sort of randomness occurring from players using it.
- Activation windup increased from 0.75 seconds to 1 to make it more difficult for players to use the ability if caught off guard or looking for a safe exit from a team fight.
- Cloudburst
- Duration decreased from 4.5 seconds to 2.5
- Time to re-equip gun takes slightly longer after using the ability. Making it less safe for Jett to linger in the smoke while also forcing players to make quicker decision.
- Updraft
- Charges decreased from 2 to 1 to make it harder for players to escape from bad-situations with the ability.
- Bladestorm
- Ultimate points increased from 7 to 8.
Killjoy:
- Lockdown
- Ultimate points increased from 8 to 9.
Omen
- Paranoia
- No movement velocity imparted when casting (you can't make it go faster just by running).
Skye:
- Guiding Light
- Max duration while casting reduced from 2.75 to 2 seconds.
- Trailblazer
- HP reduced from 100 to 80.
- Seekers
- Ultimate points increased from 7 to 8.
- HP reduced from 150 to 120.
Sova:
- Recon Bolt
- Total number of scans reduced from 3 to 2 (the amount of pulses it does).
Viper:
- Viper's Pit
- Ultimate points increased from 8 to 9.
And that about sums up all of the agent changes coming to VALORANT in update 7.04. Do you agree with the changes, or perhaps think some are a bit harsh?