A Radiant Player’s VALORANT Wishlist (5 Changes for Episode 3)

5 Balance Changes VALORANT  Needs

Firstly I’d like to outline that VALORANT is quite well balanced at the moment and I wouldn’t say that there are any broken agents or busted abilities.

It is important for me to assure you that this is by no means an effort to criticize the current meta because I actually think the devs have done a pretty good job thus far.

In saying that, some agents are definitely stronger than others and there are a few abilities that are seriously underused.

This article is going to be my personal take on how some of the weaker agents could be made more relevant in competitive play.

Additionally, there will be some discussion around popular abilities that deserve some rework or buffs, as well as my hopes for the new agent, ‘Deadeye’.

1. Rework Yoru

Personally, I think Yoru as a character and all the ideas behind his abilities are very cool. I like how his power as a duelist revolves around trickery and map manipulation.

I think there is room for a deceptive agent like that in VALORANT. Unfortunately, he is extremely under-picked in pro play and ranked games.

If you lock him in during ‘agent select’ most of the time your teammates will think you are trolling. You know an agent’s kit is underwhelming when simply selecting him can cause a war of words with teammates.

The first main problem that is holding Yoru back is that abysmal footsteps ability. Fakeout is a cool concept; being able to distract opponents with an audio queue of one or two agents walking.

However, if the enemy decides to take a quick peek they can easily discern that you are trying to duke them out, and very quickly your plan of faking a site will be squashed.

I think Yoru’s Fakeout should be buffed so that an actual model of ANY agent (your choice) from your team appears walking and peeking angles. This will be so much more believable don’t you think?

Similar to the champion Neeko, from League of Legends, she is able to morph into any character from her team whilst also sending a clone charging any direction she wishes.

Yoru’s Fakeout should function in a similar way, two casts of any agent marching in a path chosen by the player.

Another issue I have with Yoru is how Gatecrash is quite an ineffective way of escaping danger.

For example, if Reyna is being peeked by two enemies and manages to kill one, she can activate her Dismiss to instantaneously retreat to safety. As soon as you press your ‘E’ key with Reyna you will immediately be safe.

Sadly for Yoru, pressing ‘E’ to Gatecrash out of danger doesn’t work as well.

The animation is quite slow and it feels as though it takes a full second for Yoru to actually teleport out. It would be a nice touch to see this become instant the same way Reyna’s Dismiss works.

This would make him a hell of a lot harder to trade out, and make his capacity to escape on par with other duelists like Jett and Reyna.

Furthermore, his Gatecrash is often given away by the loud audio queue of him activating it and then again, of where he actually teleports to.

It is hard to trick opponents and successfully get behind them unless you are combining it with your own flash or a lot of other utility from your teammates.

I could see Yoru being more self-sufficient if the SFX of his Gatecrash was toned down. The radius of the Gatecrash needs to be halved and the noise it makes needs to be altered.

Right now it is too obvious Yoru has activated his Gatecrash and too predictable where he is going to teleport to.

2. Rework Cypher’s ultimate, Neural Theft

It can’t just be me who has activated Neural Theft and died seconds later all because that enemy who peeked you magically cloned themselves.

Neural Theft is quite a strong ability but I just wish it was slightly reworked so that it doesn’t benefit the enemy in any way shape or form.

Right as Neural Theft activates, an outline of your opponent appears from your perspective and you can see them regardless of where they are on the map.

This is very valuable information for you and your team, and is a very helpful ability when you are unsure of where the enemy are and what they are doing.

Unfortunately, sometimes if the enemy is smart enough, they will decide to peek at you right as the Neural Theft blinks to reveal their location.

From your perspective, it can often appear as though you just got peeked by two people standing side by side and in that split second it can be very difficult to figure out which body is actually the enemy agent. It is a shame that the enemy has the power to turn your ultimate ability on its head.

I would like to see the ultimate reworked so that the enemy location is revealed for maybe 2-3 full seconds as opposed to just a flash image.

This image serves as a point of reference but it’s not the best example. It was tough to recreate the level of confusion that can occur in games. In the heat of the moment, it can be tough to tell the difference when the flashed body is overlapping the other. Overlapping is what causes the greatest trouble and leads me to argue that the ‘blink’ of Neural Theft should be changed.

This will be much more helpful for information gathering, delaying purposes, and it will eliminate the confusion that the flash image can cause.

3. Buff Brimstone

Brimstone’s Stim Beacon is about as useless as Yoru’s footsteps. Yes okay, maybe on pistol rounds you might be able to shoot down a wall much faster, and yes you will shoot your gun faster when stimmed but spraying was never the aim of the game. C’mon now this has to be one of the worst abilities in VALORANT.

While Astra can use a Gravity Well to pull opponents whenever she wants and wherever she wants, Brim is stuck with the lousy old Stim Beacon. This ability needs to be completely scratched and swapped for a new one since it is keeping him behind other controllers like Astra and Viper who have better utility for their team.

Astra harnesses the power of the cosmos and uses stars to alter gravitational forces to pull opponents into a well. In other words, her abilities match her character design. Maybe Brim, who is a suspected former soldier and war commander, could have an ability related to his persona too.

Perhaps his Stim Beacon can be swapped for another piece of military equipment. Maybe he could drop a singular ‘bullet-proof’ vest for a teammate each round that grants the user a health bonus of 50-100 for the body only.

Maybe that is not on theme enough with his ‘controller’ role and he should have something more like an army radio which has a small radius and alerts him when an enemy is near. When I think of a controller agent, I think of map control, so I guess something like that helps manage flanks, but it still doesn’t seem like the right fit for him.

Moreover, a lot of agents are already proficient at controlling flanks, like Cypher and Killjoy. Maybe something like a cluster grenade that is thrown and when activated leaves mines on the ground that don’t deal lethal damage but instead slow and deal partial damage to enemies that pass through it, kind of like Ziggs’ Hexsplosive Minefield from League of Legends. This might be a viable option.

Lastly, there is nothing wrong with Brimstone’s smokes themselves, but the fact he only gets three and can only use them within a certain radius is pretty awful. Astra and Omen can smoke repeatedly throughout the round and they can place the smoke wherever they want. Meanwhile, Brim is limited by distance.

It would be nice to see Brim have the power to reach the entire map as he then wouldn’t be forced to play mid on maps like Bind, Haven, or Ascent then.

4. Add new interactives on maps

Ziplines are getting a bit old now don’t you reckon. In my opinion, there are enough maps that have random and obscure flying foxes on them.

It’d be cool to see something new on the next map. Bind has teleporters, Breeze has a chute, Icebox and Fracture have ziplines.

It would be interesting to see something different like an elevator or a teleporter tube.

The Riot team are always pushing the boundaries when it comes to conventional map design for tactical shooters and I am sure with the ingenuity and creativity they have shown recently, the next map will have a unique interactive aspect to it.

It would be cool to see them design a map that has a lot of verticality to it, and no I am not talking about something like Icebox either.

I am talking about “Watch out, they have an Operator up on that tower” sort of design. I am confident that Riot are easing us into more and more peculiar map designs. I’m all for it and think it’d be cool to see new and outlandish creations.

5. Give Deadeye a successful launch

From the Fracture preview and various images that have been circulating of Deadeye it is apparent that this massive sniper-esque weapon is his most prized possession.

I wonder how you could make this weapon stronger than the Operator which is already a one-shot machine at any distance to the chest. I’m not too invested into VALORANT lore as I find it very confusing with the limited detail that has been released up to date.

But I am aware that there is some sort of mirror universe and I have heard theories that Deadeye is in some ways a counterpart to Sova. Similarly to Sova, Deadeye has a marking that comes down his forehead across his right eye.

Gathering from these images, maybe his right eye is not an ordinary eye. Given his name… ‘Deadeye’, maybe he lost his eye and it is now replaced by some sort of futuristic piece of technology with immense potential and power.

With his suspected relation to Sova, I am assuming maybe in his ultimate he will be able to see through walls when scoped in with his rifle? It is assumed from the Fracture map reveal video that Deadeye was responsible for shooting the collider in the middle of the map which supposedly split earth one and two. If his bullets are capable of this level of penetration I am also going to assume that he may have the power to one-shot any agent anywhere.

It would be cool to see infinite penetrability, this idea is consistent with Sova again, since Sova can use his Hunter’s Fury through any objects and terrain. I’m going to guess he will have some setbacks like only being able to slot one bullet in the chamber before having to reload, or a very obvious audio queue or something similar that will balance out how strong his ultimate will be.

That’s my hope for Deadeye though, it would be cool to see something stronger than the Operator, and an ability that relies on aim.

Like I said, VALORANT is in quite a good place right now and I don’t think I ever find myself thinking, damn that is broken or that ability needs to be nerfed. Despite this, there are a few underwhelming abilities from agent’s like Yoru and Brimstone and it would be nice to see things like Fakeout and Stim Beacon reworked or swapped out for completely new ones.

I am very interested to hear what you guys would like to see changed or added to the game. Let us know in the comments section what you’re thinking!