Total Shorty Kills
Valorant Patch 2.03 has the community split on Reyna’s usability
Gabriel Ionica
02/19/2021
Valorant’s Patch 2.03 landed on February 17 and the part that has divided the community was the change to Reyna and her Soul Orbs.
As a reminder, they reduced her maximum Devour and Dismiss charges from 4 to 2. Riot also increased their cost from 100 to 200.
In addition, enemies that Reyna has damaged in the last 3 seconds now drop Soul Orbs, even if she did not actually kill them.
From our observations, there are three main opinions surrounding the nerf: “it killed Reyna”, “this is actually a buff”, or “the nerf isn’t that bad.”
Patch 2.03 Killed Reyna
Some believe that giving Reyna only two ability charges AND increasing their cost has made her useless. They believe that she is now worse than the other duelists and that her aggressive playstyle of killing and healing is gone. Combine that with the Frenzy and Stinger nerf, which some say were her weapons of choice, and you have a paperweight of an agent. This also strained her ability of winning 1vX scenarios, where she typically excelled.
Patch 2.03 Actually Buffed Reyna
Others, including NRG streamer Brandon “Ace” Winn, see this as a buff. The fact that she can heal even from an assist is huge. If you’re in the middle of a firefight with low health and your teammate comes along and kills the enemy you got a shot off on in the last three seconds, you get a free heal. It’s almost like you get a participation trophy.
Reyna is still Fine
The most balanced response is that even post-patch, Reyna’s role remains the same. Even if she only has two charges now, it was very rare to see all four charges being used in one round. More often than not, Reyna would get two kills and then die. If anything, the nerf ensures that smurfs won’t use four orbs on lower-ranked players and ruin their game. As for the assist heal, assists usually happen when the enemy doesn’t see you or when you die trying. In either of those situations, the heal would be useless.
The Conclusion
It is still too early to see which of these opinions is right. We will continue analyzing the way the pros use Reyna and whether her pick rate changes. To make sure you don’t miss that, remember to follow us at Run it Back and join our Discord for all your latest news, extensive guides, and exclusive interviews in the world of Valorant.
