Raze’s unreliable ultimate is still a major problem in VALORANT—and Riot needs to do something

Raze’s Showstopper ultimate in VALORANT has proven to be consistently inconsistent as time and time again, the ability detonates on top of an opposing player and doesn’t kill them. With each new clip that releases, it’s a worse look for Riot Games.

Clips of the ultimate not connecting when it should be have become commonplace on sites like Twitter and Reddit. Just today, a post on the main VALORANT subreddit shows Raze firing her Showstopper from the B site on Haven toward a Sova, only for the projectile to detonate right next to him and leave him alive.

If you freeze on the moment it detonates, Sova can clearly be seen in the Showstopper blast radius. In the post-death damage outlook, it’s even more confusing as one part of the interface says Sova took 147 points of damage, but it also indicates that the Showstopper dealt 148 points of damage.

While it didn’t cost Raze’s team the round as their own Sova was able to flank from Mid Window and take down the enemy Sova that was on two to three points of health, it’s still frustrating to watch. While Raze’s ultimate is supposed to do lesser damage to players on the edge of the explosion, there appears to be a lack of consistency regarding what counts as a direct hit.

In reference to the clip above, another player said the missing kill might be because of the steps that lead upward from the bottom of Mid to the B site, claiming that they have experienced other instances in which an opponent survived a direct Raze ultimate blast because they were on some stairs.

While others in the comments argued about whether that clip in particular showed a direct hit or not, there’s still a strong consensus that the Showstopper is one of the most inconsistent ultimates in VALORANT.