Riot addresses how Raze, a damage-oriented agent, “can exist in the tactical shooter space”

VALORANT features 10 unique agents with their own individual abilities. But Raze’s kit appears to be a huge point of contention among the community.

Riot Games addressed its most polarizing agent in today’s VALORANT update, explaining the developers’ philosophy behind Raze’s damaging abilities. While devs are nerfing Raze, they do believe players will learn how to work around her lethal abilities.

“The value of lethal abilities is to create temporary areas of denial that require opponents to quickly reposition from that space,” VALORANT lead game designer Trevor Romleski said. “As awareness and quick response to lethal abilities increases, the value should shift from outright killing someone to the other areas of value this ability type provides.”

The common way that Raze’s lethal abilities will be used is to zone and deny enemies off positions. If the enemy doesn’t respect the explosives, they’ll die. But players should die less often to the ability as their awareness and game experience increases, especially at higher levels of play.

Related: How to play Raze, VALORANT’s explosive duelist

Riot wants players to have genuine audio and sound cues so that they can react properly—especially when a rocket launcher might be pointing in their direction. So the company also adjusted audio to be easier to hear in “hectic scenarios.”

You can read about Raze’s nerfs in the full patch notes for update version 0.47 on VALORANT’s website.