This Viper bug is leaving Phoenix and Reyna players on the brink of death in VALORANT

As if Viper’s Decay debuff wasn’t challenging enough before, a new bug is leaving VALORANT players barely breathing with just a single health point to their name. Interestingly, the bug, which first appeared after Patch 7.0 went live on June 27, is only affecting a handful of agents, even when they’re not inside any of Viper’s toxic inventions.

Complexity player Rayse captured the notorious bug in action and posted it on Twitter on June 29, describing it as a “new Phoenix addition.”

Playing as Phoenix, Rayse activated Phoenix’s ultimate, Run It Back, in the small cubby between A Main and A Site, right behind Viper’s defense wall setup. The bug’s effect mimics that of Viper’s Poison Orb and her ultimate, decaying the player’s health to up to one HP. 

As soon as she respawned, the decay began, and within a few seconds, she was left with just one bullet’s worth of health—a major disadvantage.   

Rayse mentioned that the bug appears if Phoenix activates his ultimate near a Viper wall. But according to other players, it’s not limited to just Phoenix. 

Apparently, the bug also affects Reyna in her ultimate, Empress, reducing her health to one HP if her Dismiss ends near a Viper wall. Some players also reported facing this glitch while using Sage’s Resurrection and Yoru’s Dimensional Drift. 

Considering the chief complaints so far, it appears that the glitch affects other VALORANT agents only when they’re activating their ultimate abilities and could be related to Viper’s Pit. If you closely follow Rayse’s video, you’ll see that the enemy Viper’s Pit is active, probably deployed in Pearl’s B Site or elsewhere on the map. 

Related: Eerie silence: VALORANT update accidentally deletes key agent gameplay feature

From the looks of it, Viper’s Pit might be unintentionally interacting with other ultimates, causing her Toxic Screen or Poison Cloud to mimic its constant Decay status effect. Whatever the cause, it’s a game-breaking bug that needs immediate attention. 

Riot Games hasn’t acknowledged the bug’s presence yet; the developers may choose to go about it quietly. Either way, you may want to be prepared for Viper to be ‘temporarily disabled from the competitive queue’ until a fix is deployed.