It’s not the most game-changing buff that VALORANT fans have seen in patch notes, but an upcoming change to Cypher’s ultimate in Patch 7.07 should make players more willing to risk their lives to gain valuable information.
Included in the Public Beta Environment (PBE) notes for Patch 7.07 is a “bug fix” for Cypher that effectively serves as more of a buff than a fix. Cypher’s Neural Theft (X) ultimate ability will now fully complete, pinging all alive enemies twice, even if Cypher dies during the cast.
Prior to this fix, Neural Theft was cut off unceremoniously and rudely by Cypher’s death if it occurred during the two-second cast when his hat was interacting with an enemy corpse. This isn’t the first time that Cypher’s ultimate has necessitated a fix. In Patch 6.02, Riot fixed a bug that interrupted Neural Theft if he was killed after its deployment, denying the second enemy ping.
These fixes and improvements come after the major buffs that Neural Theft received in Patch 5.10, when the maximum cast distance increased from 12 to 18 meters, a second ping was added, the revealed silhouettes were improved, and the time restriction to cast on enemy corpses was removed.
All of these changes in recent months have resulted in Neural Theft becoming an even more valuable piece of utility. Now, with this latest fix, players playing Cypher could be more willing to push out and risk death just to reach an enemy corpse as they only need a split second to secure the cast even if it costs them their life.
Still, players should be cautious about when to use the ultimate. In a one-vs-x situation, a Cypher shouldn’t risk the ultimate if casting it will get them killed, because it will just go to waste. And even when cast successfully, knowing enemies’ whereabouts in a one-vs-x scenario does little to help since it will only confirm that the opposing team has set up a crossfire that’s nearly impossible to break.
Published: Oct 2, 2023 11:14 am