The latest VALORANT public beta environment has players fuming this week, with the developers planning to nerf Viper’s arsenal of utility—likely leaving matchmaking games without smokes until one climbs back up the meta.
Viper’s fuel regeneration has been put under the microscope, with its time increasing from 20 seconds to 30 to fully recover. The amount she regenerates per second has been reduced from 5.5 percent to 3.3 percent alongside it.
VALORANT players flamed the developer’s choice to introduce changes that “no one asked for” via a May 27 Reddit post. The community agreed that it’s the last thing the controller class needs, and odds are we’ll be seeing fewer smokes in matchmaking games.
The weeks after it’s introduced will likely create a lull in Viper mains, and controller players—unfortunately, now it’s “even harder” than before, according to some players.
While this might be the case in some matches, Valorbuff stats show that Viper has only been picked roughly 14 percent of the time in the last 30 days.
Agents like Brimstone and Omen have been far and away the most picked controllers. Brimstone has been picked 28 percent of the time, with Omen leading the charge at 39.4 percent.
Related: Here are the early VALORANT Patch 6.11 patch notes
Another section of the community believes these changes mainly “cater” to professional play. Throughout the Champions Tour 2023: EMEA League, Viper was picked 47 percent of the time, only trailing behind Omen who sits out in front of both pro and matchmaking pick rates.
Some players believe this PBE is intended to tackle the Viper/Habor combo. The double-wall setup might be a less viable strategy now that you won’t be able to keep a wall up for large portions of the round.
Either way, it looks like VALORANT players will have to gear up for their favorite acid-shooting agent to cop a potentially significant blow.
