Valorant: Shotgun meta gets a hit, Vandal fans get some love

Valorant has enjoyed a high level of success since the release of its closed beta but after the game was officially launched, many professional players had mixed opinions about the tactical shooter.

Nevertheless, the Valorant tournaments have been quite successful across Europe and other countries, with some of the best teams competing against one another.

Sage is one of the Agents whose overpowering abilities were the subject of complaints by many players. Some abuses of the Shotgun weapons like Shorty, Judge and Bucky with the fast-paced abilities of Agents like 'Jett' were also criticised.

Patch 1.07 has arrived with our first Killjoy update, changes to shotguns, a remake option, and those hit reg visual improvements you’ve been asking for. And those are just the highlights! Read the full patch notes here: https://t.co/i5JZBkPYPt pic.twitter.com/BDTl6uIbe9
— VALORANT (@PlayVALORANT) September 1, 2020

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Riot Games were quick to notice these continuous pattern complaints from the Valorant community and have now addressed these problems with their newest patch v1.07.

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New Shotgun Nerfs in Valorant patch v1.07

Here are some of key nerfs to all the shotguns in Valorant:

1) All shotguns will have a lower aim punch when they are being used to headshot an enemy.

2) Past 10 metres, all shotguns will have a brand new tag value apart from the standardised tagging numbers in the game. The new tag value is 30% slow for .5 seconds on a smooth curve going back to normal speed.

3) Shorty was the cheapest two-barrel shotgun in Valorant and had its headshot multiplier decreased from 3x to 2x, which is the same as Judge and Bucky.

4) Judge also had a $100 increase in its overall price in-game, which will prompt the player to make a choice between buying armour or Judge in the half-buy rounds.

These changes should prohibit players from utilising the shotguns from a long distance. Players using Jett's E dash to close the distance and secure the eliminations will need to walk an extra mile and use the shotguns like they were meant to be used: in short encounters with enemies.

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Vandal gets some much-needed love from the Valorant devs

Vandal is one of the assault rifles in Valorant (Image Credit: Riot Games)

The Vandal has been the go-to weapon in competitive tournaments for big professional players like ScreaM because of its one-shot capability. However, many other professional players feel that the Phantom is a better weapon than the Vandal because of its rate of fire and lower recoil rate.

This has led many amateur players with inaccurate aim to prefer the Phantom over the Vandal in the game. The developers have now made some buffs to the Vandal and increased the overall damage of the weapon from 39 to 40 as well as its fire rate from 9.75 to 9.25 in order to compensate for its recoil reset time in Valorant.