What’s worse than battling an entire half for a VALORANT ultimate to unlock just once? A no-ultimate half, of course. If your playstyle is defensive, get ready, because Patch 7.04 is set to bring some painful changes—unless you’re willing to master some ‘precise gunplay’ and improve your frag output.
In a dreaded tweet on Aug. 24, Riot Games dropped the Patch 7.04 notes, nerfing (and negligibly buffing some) almost half of VALORANT’s agent roster. While the update majorly appears to be a brutal attack on the game’s Jett experts and a little bit on Skye, the ultimate point changes aren’t any less of a heartbreak.
In fact, players think the changes are too “drastic and sudden,” as can be summarized from a Reddit post uploaded by a user named u/probablyjade on Aug. 24.
“I thought the agent changes were a joke at first,” probablyjade said, and it sure seemed like it at first. Besides the huge Jett nerfs, there are a lot of subtle, random changes, which, according to the player, is “a bit much for one update.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for agent changes and adjustments, but having it all thrown in at once seems a bit much and will really shake up the meta, rather than the meta being evolved overtime,” they said. “In between Harbor to Deadlock, we’ve only really seen a few updates to the agents.”
Amidst the disappointment, however, there were players who rationalized with Riot’s approach, saying that the VCT off-season is the perfect time for any major meta changes.
“If there’s a time to make drastic changes, it would be during the off-season around the time champs ends,” a Reddit user named u/Revenore said. “This way it doesn’t affect competition and teams aren’t scrambling to change too much for a big circuit that starts in a month. Instead, they have an entire 6-month offseason to do so (which IMO is a problem in itself) So… now.”
Yes, it’s probably the perfect time for esports professionals to get hit with major changes, leaving them enough time to adapt to it. But it doesn’t change the fact that some of these nerfs are too difficult to emotionally adapt to.
Related: ‘RIP Jett’: VALORANT players mourn agent’s impending nerfs in Patch 7.04
Starting with Episode Seven, Act Two, three of the most influential ultimate abilities in VALORANT—Viper’s Pit, Breach’s Rolling Thunder, and Killjoy’s Lockdown—will cost nine ultimate points, while Brimstone’s Orbital Strike, Skye’s Seekers, and Jett’s Bladestorm will cost eight ultimate points.
One point may not seem much of an increase, and it definitely isn’t bad for a duelist like Jett who’s built to gather frags. Skye, Killjoy, and Breach don’t look bad either, especially Breach who will now sport a more potent Aftershock. Nerfs for Jett and Skye were inevitable, considering how dominant they had become.
What’s worrying is how the increase in ultimate cost will affect Viper and Brimstone. Yes, Viper’s Pit and Orbital Strike are two of the deadliest ultimates in the game, and they deserve to be hard-earned.
But with nine and eight ultimate points to collect respectively, Viper and Brimstone will have to break past their comfortable defensive style and play for kills to get their ultimates online in a half.
Considering the number of nerfs Viper’s kit has gotten in the past, some of which made her the worst solo controller in VALORANT, was this change needed? The esports meta which promotes double controller compositions isn’t going to suffer, but the ranked meta will.
