Yoru rework in Valorant: All updates coming to the Duelist

It has been almost a year since Valorant's Japanese Radiant agent, Yoru, came out, and the response that the duelist has received has been lukewarm at best. The common consensus of the Valorant community has been that the duelist is more passive than the other duelists and his abilities are not on par with the roster.

"If I kill all the enemies myself, I apologize. I have trouble sharing."

With arrogant voice lines like this, the expectations surrounding lurker duelist Yoru were at an all-time high last year when he came out. But that soon fizzled out as players found the agent to work only in certain conditions, and that too, within a properly coordinated team.

It seems that the developers at Valorant have finally taken note of the disappointment and suggestions found in the Valorant subreddit and have taken the necessary steps to rejuvenate the agent come next year.

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Tweaks and tunings to Yoru's kit coming to Valorant early next year

In a blog post on Valorant, the developers have shared the thought process behind the changes they are looking to bring to Yoru's abilities. These changes are not yet set in stone and may be subjected to further modifications.

John Goscicki, character producer, states in the post:

"It’s fair to say that when Yoru launched there was a TON of excitement around this boyo, but as y’all experimented with him, many of you hit the conclusion that his outputs were not on par with the rest of the roster. We took the time to really look at what Yoru should be offering, and give him more/different tools to bring to life an effective version of the fantasy y’all have latched onto."

Ryan Cousart, the game/character designer, showed in the developer post, a number of tweaks and changes that they are bringing to the agent in a bid to bring him back to relevance.

He mentions that the main complaint from Valorant players was the fact that Yoru's relevance and "dream plays" materialized when enemies are conditioned in much later rounds.

Their goal with the changes is:

"In short, the aim is for Yoru to have better tools to trick opponents, a stronger baseline value across his kit, and higher impact per round."

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Fakeout

This ability lets the players use a decoy footstep that is supposed to deceive enemies. To further "Yoru's mind games," the developers are replacing the footsteps with a visual carbon copy of Yoru. This mirage will run forward and upon being shot will wind up and explode, ending up debuffing the enemies.

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Gatecrash

The range for hearing and seeing the tether on the map while it travels for enemies has been lowered. The movement speed of the tether is also being increased by 20%.

On top of this, Yoru players can trigger a fake teleport from a distance, which will play the same audio and visuals as if Yoru was teleporting. These tunings make Gatecrash an interesting ability to fiddle around with.

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These are the two major changes confirmed in the developer blog post. They have also teased the possibility that Yoru's ultimate, Dimensional Drift, might be tweaked a bit to "help Yoru break sites wide open."

The long-awaited changes are sure to delight a number of Yoru players who have long been clamoring for these buffs. General discussion threads have often included posts about how to better the agent or sadness over what the agent could have been. With this announcement, Valorant players may finally get to see the full potential of Yoru.