Riot Games admitted today that Sage is too powerful in the latest patch notes for VALORANT and made a few nerfs to her Slow Orb ability that gives opponents fits.
Sage’s utility has been unquestioned from the release of VALORANT’s beta early last month. She can resurrect a teammate with her ultimate ability and her signature healing orb and basic abilities, which include barriers and slows, can be invaluable in the right hands.
In addition to decreasing the duration of the Slow Orb from nine to seven seconds, the developers have also reduced the effectiveness of the ability from 65 percent to 50 percent in the latest patch for the VALORANT beta.
“We all know Sage is OP,” Riot said. “We’ve decided to try to reduce some of her stopping power while still allowing her to fulfill her role as the premier staller in VALORANT. These changes aim to reduce the overall efficacy of her Slow Orb, especially if they are chained back-to-back.”
Related: Riot ups ability costs for Sage, Raze, Phoenix, and Brimstone in VALORANT Patch 0.50
This pair of nerfs to her Slow Orb comes shortly after Riot reworked the way that the ability gave information to Sage.
On April 21, Riot’s update made it so that players could no longer jump through a Slow Orb to mitigate it’s slowing effects. But in return, Riot made it so that Sage was no longer immediately informed when someone walked through it.
While the change was a little bit of give-and-take, it was ultimately seen as a nerf because of the value that information like positioning has in tactical shooters like VALORANT.
