In VALORANT's 1.04 patch, Viper received a series of massive buffs that the developers believe will bring her into competitive viability. Currently, the agent is seeing the lowest play rate throughout most ranks and rarely sees the light of day in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:professional tournaments.
The series of buffs begin with Viper’s ultimate ability. She can now spend 15 seconds, an increase from 5 seconds, outside of her ultima♉te. Viper players can now drop the ultimate early by holding down the ultimate key. Enemies in Viper’s ultimate now have their minimaps obscured, similar to Omen’s ultimate, and the enemy glow is brighter. The goal of these buffs is to give the agent more flexibility when she uses Viper's Pit.
Previously, enemies would take advantage of Viper being tied down to a certain location after its use. Riot states, “With Viper being allowed out of her ult for such a short period of time, we felt that she was not only limited in the plays she could make, but also gave too much continuous🥀 information to her enemies.” Enemies had the option of either rushing the Viper or just avoiding the area entirely. Now, she has more freedom when using Viper's Pit, and enemies can not simply trade her because of the minimap obscurity.
In addition to the ultimate buffs, the health decay enemies receive when walking through Viper’s smoke is increased from 10 health per second to 15. Once leaving the smoke, the decay stays on the enemy for 2.5 seconds. ☂Riot believed the decay previously limited the “advantage it provided and wasn't creating the threat꧃ we had hoped for as a result.” This buff should now allow Viper and her teammates to play more aggressively in and around her smokes. Also, players can use the Poison Cloud and Toxic Screen abilities at the same time at no additional cost to Viper’s poison gauge.
Compared to other agents with smokes, she feels very one dimensional. Viper's design intends for her to split and control sites with her smokes and wall. Unfortunately, other agents like Omen provide similar utility yet also force the enemy to rethink strategies and play differently. Once enemies move past her smokes, she provides very little additional utility. Omen, on the other hand, can reposition and flash multiple enemies, dissuading them from committing to a play. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Brimstone’s Molly and Ultimate both accomplish the same result. As it stands right now, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:VALORANT players have no reason to play Viper and Riot🦄 hopes these buffs will allow her to see the light of day.
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