Valorant tests potential Chamber nerfs in PBE patch 5.03

Riot Games is looking to nerf Chamber, Neon, and Jett in an upcoming patch for Valorant. Based on PBE patch 5.03, the developers at Riot are ready to make several significant changes to the Agents with the forthcoming update.

PBE patch 5.03 mainly centers around nerfing Chamber, with the other Agents being Neon and Jett. Chambers' strengths have far outshadowed his weaknesses and the developers are finally looking to nerf some of his abilities to balance him out with the rest of the roster.

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Valorant upgraded to Unreal Engine 4.26 in PBE 5.03 and introduced a few nerfs

With the introduction of new Agents in Valorant, the developers are working more on balancing the Agents to be equally powered in the game. The developers have done a lot to balance out some of the Agents recently, with Phoenix and Yoru getting buffed.

With the latest patch, 5.03, developers at Riot Games are looking to make significant changes to Chamber, Neon and Jett in Valorant. While Chamber and Jett have been nerfed in PBE patch 5.03, Neon has balanced out and it would be interesting to see how she fares in competitive after the update is pushed out.

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Potential changes to Chamber and the reason behind it

Chamber was introduced to Valorant last November with the launch of Episode 3 Act 3 with patch 3.10. The French Agent has seen one of the highest pick rates in competitive professional games over the last few months in Valorant.

However, players will see some changes brought to the Agent in the upcoming update. Chamber's Rendezvous ability may be affected by a forthcoming update in Valorant.

Rendezvous (E):

• Base Cooldown increased 20s >>> 30s
• Recall Cooldown increased 20s >>> 30s
• Cooldown set to 45s whenever a Rendezvous anchor is destroyed
• Radius Size decreased 21m >>> 15m

The developers are looking to balance Chamber's Rendezvous ability as it has been a menace in ranked and competitive matchmaking in Valorant. Valorant developers also revealed why they are looking to nerf Chamber's Rendezvous ability. They said,

"As players in both ranked and pro play have mastered Chamber, his strengths have started to overshadow his weaknesses, making the counterplay to Rendezvous and his arsenal not as effective as we’d hoped. Chamber’s overall power has also felt outsized, and we believe that we can reduce his kit while still keeping him competitive with the rest of the roster."

They added,

"Chamber’s Rendezvous is intended to be powerful at holding space, but the generous radius allowed him to take more space than intended. This change should require Chamber to exert more effort to access off-angles."

They further said,

"We hope that a harsher punishment for destroyed Rendezvous anchors, and the reduced radius will demand Chamber mains to be more careful in their use. This change also brings the counterplay of Chamber’s destructible objects more inline with the behavior of other destructible objects in the game."

In addition to the Rendezvous ability being balanced, the devs are testing out some nerfs with the Trademark, Tour De Force and the Headhunter abilities.

Trademark (C)

• Slow Duration decreased 9.5 >>> 6s

Tour de Force (X)

• Ultimate Points Required increased 7 >>> 8
• Slow Duration decreased 9.5 >>> 6s

Headhunter (Q)

• Bullet Cost increased 100 >>> 150

The developers revealed the reason for the nerfs to Chamber's abilities and they said,

"It’s important that Headhunter is a powerful sidearm for Chamber but at its current price point Chamber doesn’t have to engage in making difficult economic decisions as meaningfully as other Agents. This should most noticeably impact Chamber’s decision making on pistol rounds and save rounds."

The developers are looking to bring some changes to the damage taken by different body segments by some Agents. They said,

"We’re adding a breakup of ‘regional damage’ to all of the abilities that affect certain body segments differently—similar to our weapons—so that precision is rewarded (eg., a headshot vs a legshot)."

Neon

• Damage per shot reduced 22 >>> 18
• Killzone increased 15m >>> 20m
• Leg shot multiplier reduced 1.0 >>> 0.85
• Headshot multiplier increased 1 >>> 3

Chamber

• Tour de Force (X) leg shot multiplier reduced 1.0 >>> 0.85

Jett

• Bladestorm (X) leg shot multiplier reduced 1.0 >>> 0.85

In addition to all the above changes, Riot also mentioned that they had completed the upgrade to Unreal Engine 4.26 for Valorant and that's what PBE 5.03 is running on.