Valorant has quickly become an esports favorite due to backing from creator Riot Games and the announcement of tournament partnerships in the form of the VALORANT Ignition Series. With newly released games comes the need for tweaks, though. Patches rain down on the game to try and get everything perfect. Valorant is no exception. Riot Games has confirmed in multiple places that big changes are arriving soon for some of the game’s most popular Agents.

Incoming Agent Changes

Viper

It takes a special someone to play Viper well. The toxic agent, who you can learn how to properly handle here, has made little to no impact in the current meta. Having already received buffs in the past, it seems they weren’t enough. A recent Reddit post pointed out how the buffs were just not enough and suggested ways to fix them. These suggestions included removing the faster depletion of fuel when using both abilities, allowing her to pick up her smoke in the same way Cypher can snag his camera and traps, and even making the Decay effect damage faster while taking longer to recover from. A Riot Games employee has been in the discussion, stating that if “all goes as planned” there will be more Viper buffs in the next patch.

Raze

In a recent Q&A livestream, Valorant character design lead Ryan Scott addressed nerfs coming to the explosives specialist. Raze is quite often used to rush bombsites by gaining momentum from her Blast Pack and sending enemies running with a precise toss of her Paint Shell grenade. The movement is described as “fine” and “too much fun” to nerf according to Scott. Instead, Riot is most likely to make changes to the Showstopper rocket ultimate ability. The nerf would allow more counterplay, but still allow it to be a “high impact kill moment.” It was originally planned to lower Raze’s mobility and nerf the Blast Pack, but Scott and the rest of the developers decided against it. Potential changes could include damage output, radius, or even upping the cost of her abilities and ultimate. When the nerfs will go live has not been confirmed, but it could very well be in the upcoming patch along with the Viper buffs.

Sage

Every team needs its healer. Sage and her abilities are arguably more important to a squad than any other Agent in Valorant. In the aforementioned Q&A livestream, Ryan Scott noted that Sage is “out of control.” Scott stated that “Sage needs pretty big work”, but “neutering her” to where she is zero fun to play is not the answer either. He did not go into specifics but insisted that her healing is not an issue. Balancing Sage will no doubt be a tough task to undertake for Valorant’s development team. One wrong adjustment and the impact of Sage could be completely gone. It seems that changes to all of her abilities could be incoming, but to what extent won’t be known until the patch releases.

Patch 1.04 is currently scheduled to go live on Tuesday, July 21^st.

For further Valorant updates, guides for your favorite Agents, and more, stay tuned to Run it Back!