I'm bored. I'm gonna try to balance every duelist.

#1

cloudberry

Warning: this is a very long thread.

I'm a sleep-deprived theory crafter and this is my half-hearted and pretty far-fetched take on balancing every agent in VALORANT. For the sake of the thing, I'm gonna make changes to every single agent, even the ones I think are actually okay.

(This was originally meant to be for all the agents, but it took way too long so I just did the duelists. I'll do the other classes another time.)

Jett is a very interesting agent who always seems to have her place in the meta; long ago it was because of her power, especially on certain maps, but nowadays I feel it's more due to get familiarity. So many pros are so experienced with Jett that she sees play on maps where you may not even need a duelist, such as Icebox, or maps where may be better alternatives, such as Sunset. These changes aim to close the gap between Jett and other underplayed duelists (such as Yoru, Neon, or Phoenix) and give Jett advantages and disadvantages instead of simply being the go-to pick.

Tailwind (E) no longer accepts directional input (i.e. you can only dash forward)
Cloudburst (C) radius decreased from 3.35 >> 2.75 m
Updraft (Q) charges increased from 1 >> 2

Raze is in a very peculiar position in the meta currently, where she sees play on a lot of maps in rotation, but is no longer the definitive meta duelist in pro play on any of those maps, with the exception of Bind. This is typically a good spot to be in, but there is one ability in particular that I believe was tweaked in the wrong sense. These changes intend to create a more definitive use case for Raze's satchels. A nice quality of life change was thrown in as well.

Blast Pack (Q) can only move Raze upon detonation (i.e. no knockback dealt)
Blast Pack (Q) cost increased 200 >> 250 credits
Blast Pack (Q) audio for second cast has been reverted to pre-patch 8.11 (i.e. no high-pitched second satchel)

Neon is a duelist that has risen in popularity since patch 8.11. She's seeing a lot more play, both professionally and casually. However, her ultimate doesn't seem to find very much success in the former case. These changes to Neon's ultimate ability are an effort to increase both the cost and the reward.

Overdrive (X) is now almost fully accurate in the air
Neon's running speed is increased by 15% when Overdrive (X) is active
Overdrive (X) cost increased from 7 >> 8 ultimate points

Yoru is another agent that has seen more play this year, especially on larger maps such as Breeze. However, since Breeze was taken out in patch 8.11, Yoru has seen significantly less play. This patch aims to present Yoru as a more convincing option for a duelist, including some major quality of life changes.

Gatecrash (E) timer increased from 30 >> 40 seconds
Gatecrash (E) timer will not deplete during the buy phase
Gatecrash (E) can no longer be destroyed
Blindside (Q) cost decreased from 250 >> 200 credits

Phoenix is an agent that has been unloved in the pro scene for a very long time. His strengths are overshadowed by the fact that his duelist counterparts (and even agents in other classes) are often times more reliable picks. These buffs to Phoenix's kit are meant to push Phoenix in the right direction, and to incentivize choosing him over more traditionally played duelists.

Blaze (C) no longer stops when it comes into contact with a wall (i.e. it can go through walls)
Blaze (C) no longer deals damage to allies
Curveball (Q) cost decreased from 250 >> 200 credits
Hot Hands (E) charges increased from 1 >> 2 (second charges costs 200 credits)
Run It Back (X) duration increased from 10 >> 12 seconds

Iso is the newest duelist in VALORANT, yet he's seen quite a lot of success since his inception. However, there are a few parts of his kit that have proven a little lackluster in some areas. These changes are meant to serve as quality of life changes, both for Iso and for those playing around him.

Contingency (C) width increased by 50%
Undercut (Q) vulnerable duration increased from 4 >> 6 seconds
Kill Contract (X) can no longer kill Iso (i.e. he respawns if he loses)

Reyna is another agent that saw changes in patch 8.11. However, although her changes fixed her ranked dominance, her entry power seems to have gone down, if anything. This change aim to give Reyna new life when it comes to entry potential.

Dismiss (E) can now be cast once without requiring nor consuming a soul orb (i.e. she gets a free dismiss. You don't need to buy this extra dismiss, it's just there until you use it. If you have a soul orb available it will use the soul orb and not the free dismiss)

Alright, those are my takes. If you have any comments feel free to share. I'll answer any questions when I wake up.

#2

kanyefan4238173

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holy fuck neon ult is way too strong

#8

cloudberry

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Do you really think so? I'm making it an 8 cost ult and making her a bit faster and a lot more accurate in the air. It's not like she has updrafts or something, so the most she can really do is ferrari peek you or jump shot with her ult. I don't think that's too strong. If it was fully accurate in the air like Jett knives, maybe, but when I say almost completely accurate I'm imagining the first bullet accuracy of a classic

#31

chrlxz

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this isnt quake

#36

cloudberry

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I don't know what that is

#45

Sushi_

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A halfway decent Immo1 could 1v5 2022 loud with that neon ult bro

#55

NA_BEST_COUNTRY

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After watching keznit using neon ult vs fnatic you'd think her ult is the worst in the game

#3

Froggy0_0

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i aint reading allat

#9

cloudberry

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Feel free to just read the bullet points then

#10

Froggy0_0

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uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

#25

cloudberry

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https://imgur.com/a/5OWNAsB

#26

Froggy0_0

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uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

#27

cloudberry

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uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

#28

Froggy0_0

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uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

#33

UREK

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uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

#34

Froggy0_0

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uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

#4

zhongZHI

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Iso a bit toooo op. but thats it. that ult is too good then

#11

cloudberry

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I guess that is a bit op. But this is kinda what everyone was asking for when he first came out, right? "Why can you die in your ult? Make it like Phoenix ult!" You do have a point, though. Iso ult is very different than Phoenix ult, so giving it the Phoenix ult treatment might make it broken. We could either scrap that change, or change the ult in some way. My idea is removing the two shields for Iso so that each agent has only one shield.

#32

Conceit

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The difference is that now Iso has become good since people were asking for that. Him being able to pop his shield before ulting, and also then not dying if he loses that fight is insane. Unironically probably the best ult in the game because there is no risk and you are favored to get a kill

#37

cloudberry

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That's a good point. I don't know, honestly. We probably just scrap that ult change, I think.

#5

ct_fd_str

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Absolute genius

#13

cloudberry

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Thank you!

#6

shrike-

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i feel like removing the ability for iso to die in his ult makes it too overpowered, a lot of duelist ults are capable of taking space and creating chaos in different areas of the map, but all of them have ways in which they can be punished and i think this idea removes that for iso

#17

cloudberry

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It could be overpowered, as I admitted in #11. Even though you can technically punish it like a Phoenix ult, because of the range it's not obvious where you're ulting from. So you could either scrap the Phoenix ult-esque no death treatment, or you could reduce the range of the ult, or do something else with the ult to make it less oppressive.

#7

butterdog_dogwithdabutter

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these changes are actually pretty good wtf but I feel like ur overpowering neon a lil too much

#18

cloudberry

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I don't think it's too powerful, honestly. It could be a little overtuned, but I think that puts it in line with other 8 cost ults. All I'm really doing with this change is increasing multikill potential and the number of things you can do with the ult. I talked about this a bit more in #8 so feel free to check that.

#12

Froggy0_0

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common cloudberry W

#19

cloudberry

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Ty!

#14

botfragger432

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nah iso not dying in domain expansion is criminal and way too overpowered in my opinion.

#20

cloudberry

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I think I did make it a bit more powerful, but there are changes we could make to circumvent that. Maybe giving Iso one barrier instead of two to negate that advantage inside the ult, or lessening the range to make it more punishable when you come out of the ult, or something like that. Do you have any ideas?

#15

acels

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phoenix and iso way too broken, yoru way too weak

#21

cloudberry

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The Yoru buffs are mainly quality of life changes, as I think Yoru's already a really good duelist and people just need more incentive to try to play him, especially in the pro scene where you still only see two or three duelists the majority of the time.

The Phoenix buffs might be a bit over the top, but because he doesn't have movement or teleports or invulnerability or anything of the sort, I feel he needs his clear strengths for him to be considered over other duelists. If people want to lean into more supportive utility instead of the ability to take space, then I feel that's the only way for him to genuinely see play.

As for Iso... yeah, I did make the ult a little broken. I proposed in other replies to either revert the no-death change, or to nerf the ult in some other way, like reducing the range or giving Iso one barrier instead of two.

#16

Hynix

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jett smoke radius decrease is crazy, 0.6m radius decrease means 1.2m diameter decrease which makes it stupid easy for jett to be spammed on entry, and also prevents jett from some entries such as ascent A generator entry and haven B (jett's head will poke out of a smaller smoke) you want to nerf jett more than raze when raze is a better agent rn?

also 2 mollies for phoenix doesn't make sense, whole new post plant strategies will be built around phoenix, akin to when viper had two mollies that lasted 3 billion years

#22

bonkashi

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in comparison phoenix mollies dont last as long and have a much shorter range due to falling midair, so probably wouldnt be as bad

#24

cloudberry

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That's true, but Phoenix molly is bigger and does 60 damage per second, so it's a bit more akin to if we have Brimstone two mollies.

#29

bonkashi

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nope its like if brimstone had one molly. phoenix is 4s brim is 8. they have the same dps, and brims can go much further

#30

cloudberry

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Fair lol

#23

cloudberry

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I guess the Cloudburst change is a bit excessive, now that I think about it.

The Phoenix change is a bit nuts now that I'm reading it back as well, too. Two mollies definitely isn't a good idea, especially when you can kill two people and get a third. You could either remove the second charge or remove the kill reset like with Iso shield.

#35

lelouch526

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leave jett pls

#38

cloudberry

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I'm guessing you one-trick Jett

#39

lelouch526

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no man but I regret not to use jett when jett has no time in dash
at that time I was chamber one trick lol

#40

Epicgamer69

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bro did not cook

literally all you did was make jett and raze trash and the other duelists unreasonably overpowered

#41

cloudberry

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I made Jett dash a bit harder to use and gave her the second updraft back. I removed one use case from the satchel and made her total kit 100 credits more expensive. I buffed Neon ult but made it cost more, gave Yoru minor quality of life changes, buffed Iso a bit (albeit a bit too much), and gave Reyna a free use of her signature ability.

I didn't trash any agents, nor did I make anyone unreasonably overpowered. The only one you could argue I made too oppressive is Phoenix, and even then he still has no movement, no teleports, and no invulnerability, so people aren't gonna opt for him very often.

#43

Epicgamer69

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ok here is my take

the jett changes are problematic as it hyperfixates jett to be a "dive" agent, and removes most defensive capability of her kit. Jett just becomes retake simulator, the smokes are far too small and two updrafts doesn't change much.

Raze changes aren't necessary. I think her nade is the problematic part of her kit since its free and has excellent clearing potential, this would just make her kit more unbalanced than it needs to be

Neon is in a good place right now imo. pros are still figuring her out, although maybe some changes need to be made to her ult, I think the jumping accuracy would just make it too ridiculous

For Yoru, gatecrash buffs are overtuned. No piece of util should be unbreakable like this, it would force too much attention from enemies and adding 10 seconds is a massive number, although it may not seem like much. Although I like the idea of the TP timer not going down when placed before the round start.

Pheonix flashes are the best flashes imo since they are super hard to dodge perfectly so making it cheaper is a big deal, but the main problem being his 2 mollies. This gives so much clearing potential with one duelist, can potentially clear 4 angles with flashes and mollies, on top of a buffed wall, and again 2 seconds doesn't seem like much with the ult but that leaves 2-3 more angles that could be cleared during the entry.

Iso is good right now imo as well, and the ult buff is just ridiculous. Literally a no risk high reward ultimate

Reyna dismiss would just turn her into prenerf chamber 2.0 levels of OP. Getting a free dismiss is worse than the unnerfed jett dash and she would replace all other dive agents. Reyna is already amazing in ranked as well.

#48

cloudberry

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Great feedback, man, thanks for that. Here are my thoughts:

I don't think Jett's role would change much here. You can still dash directionally by flicking and dashing (pros are already comfortable doing this). I will admit I may have made the cloudbursts too small but this was an in-my-head type of estimate, as I can't playtest these changes. I think 3 meters would've been a better number, thinking back.
The nade is definitely a good piece of util, but in my opinion the biggest problem with Raze's kit is her blast pack, because of how many different things you can do with it—entry, reposition, throw off people's crosshairs, boost teammates, get people off the spike, peek quickly, destroy sentinel utility, and more—for only 150 credits. That's what I had in mind when I made those changes. Raze nade is definitely the best molly/nade in the game, but I don't think it's too busted.
Neon is in a good place right now, but I don't see her ultimate getting too much value in pro play. A lot of the time they're kind of just running at an enemy and getting tapped. This buff tried to change that, not only making you harder to hit, but also making the ult easier to hit as well. Now, I did think it would be broken if it was just fully accurate in the air, so I made it not fully accurate (think classic pistol accuracy—I probably should've specified that now that I think about it) and cost 8 ult points instead of 7.
I definitely overcooked the Yoru change. Now that I'm thinking about it, not being able to break the teleport is stupid. If I were to remake this thread, I'd leave that out and keep everything else in.
Phoenix having two mollies was also pretty far-fetched. I think just having the one is good, especially since you get a second after getting two kills. If there's any way to buff them, it would probably be the size of the molly, but anything other than that would either break lineups be an overtune.
I didn't think about the new implications of Iso's ultimate when I thought of that change; I was thinking of what people were saying when he first came out, that it was dumb that you could invest an ultimate and just straight up die and get no value. I do like having Iso not die, but I'd probably implement another change or two to the ult as well (I mentioned them in other replies in this thread, but maybe giving Iso one barrier instead of two, or shrinking the range of the ult, or even making it more obvious where Iso is ulting from to the enemy team), something to counteract the buff.
The way I see the Reyna change I made is the same way I see the Iso shield buff. Before the buff, you got no value unless you killed an opponent. You can't really rely on killing a person to entry, especially when they have to be in line of sight. That's what the change was meant for: space making and entry power. I didn't think of opping power when I made that change, but that honestly could be a reason to pick her over other duelists. Definitely would make the duelist class a lot more interesting. All that being said, though, I don't think she can really full replace Jett, Raze, Yoru, or even Neon as a dive entry, because you can still be seen during the entire dismiss and you don't really have any cover once you enter your dismiss unless you combo with a Jett smoke or Harbor cove or something of the sort.

#42

aartagnan

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A very nice thread but i have to disagree with some parts:

Jett updraft is one of the most underrated ability of her. Verticality is always a massive advantage in the game. In fact, this ability was part of the jett's meta era with op for such a long time.
Raze is in a good position for now but i still believe that her nade is simply too strong. A free ability that can destroy multi traps, clear angle, and kill people? On top of that, she can use it more than once.
Neon buffs was on point. The changes to her ult (X) will make the game heavy unbalanced especiallly with the full accuracy in the air.
I would love to see yoru's gatecrash getting buff. Small fundamental changes would make him in a perfect situation.
Phoenix has been forgotten in the meta, so any buffs will help him to sneak to the competition.
Iso's buff is kinda tricky bcs he's so broken in ranked but okay in the pro play. But i'd love to see his Contingency (C) gets a buff.
Reyna needs massive rework? idk.

#44

ascention

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allat (your changes are pretty cool but I need rocket jumping for raze back)

#49

cloudberry

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Sure we can throw that in, why not. I don't think it was announced when they took it out, so I'll just put it back in unannounced

#46

toelover123

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-change for jett tailwind is so braindead like why even play jett at that point
-why are u trying to reduce radius of cloudbrust like in what sense is a 2.5 sec smoke broken

leave her alone leave her alone leave her alone leave her alone leave her alone leave her alone leave her alone leave her alone leave her alone leave her alone leave her alone leave her alone leave her alone leave her alone leave her alone leave her alone leave her alone leave her alone leave her alone

#47

Kaitou

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new reyna OP for OPers, better version than jett u shoot OP and then insta dismiss out

#50

cloudberry

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I didn't even think of that when I made the change. That's actually a really interesting observation. I wonder if Reyna would see play on more op-heavy maps like Ascent or Abyss because of that. Fun to think about for sure

#51

akimb0_

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Neon and Iso ults are too strong and you basically made reyna the dream agent for any awper, even better than chamber and jett since her Dismiss has more speed now.

Yoru's buffs are nice but feels underwhelming.

Phoenix as an agent sucks because there are better versions of him in other roles: molly and flash? Kayo and he can get info of players + skill denial in a whole bombsite with his ult. Wall? Harbor and Viper owns him in every way, viper even having an arguably stronger molly. The only way I could see him being consistently picked in pro play apart from PRX is they rework his kit entirely.

Jett's cloud being so small makes it almost useless for entry, dash is kinda ok but that second updraft might spice things up.

Raze is fine the way it is.

#52

Waking_W

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Honestly, if you cant hear the gatecrash passing you, it would probably be the best buff to yoru

#53

Jasvindaloo

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Phoenix wall already goes through walls just need to aim properly

Edit: I THINK I haven't played in ages but I thought if you just aimed up it goes through

#54

cloudberry

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Unfortunately I don't think you can, no

#56

Aayan

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I think you've overall nerfed the duelists, but I think they are fine as they are now (I agree with your Phoenix and Yoru though). But honestly I would aim to have sentinels/defensive util nerfed, ranked is literally just a game of avoid the cypher, hell even some pros are doing it.

#57

Clucker

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Bro just wants pheonix and yoru to be the only duelists worth playing