VALORANT Patch 6.03 nerfs Killjoy, Raze
Riot Games has released VALORANT Patch 6.03, the latest update for Episode 6 Act I, bringing the long-awaited balancing for Killjoy and Raze.
With Chamber being nerfed, other Sentinel agents, such as Killjoy and Cypher, have regained popularity in the game. Additionally, Duelists like Raze, Jett and Reyna have become more popular and are now considered reliable choices in all divisions.
In addition to the balancing, the update brought several bug fixes that improved the overall quality of play.
Killjoy, Raze nerfs details
In the previous updates, Killjoy’s Nanoswarm and ultimate ability, Lockdown, received health increases. However, these changes appeared to have a negative impact on competitive matches, and Riot has announced that it must reverse them.
In Patch 6.03, the developers confirmed that they had decreased Killjoy’s Turret (E) health from 125 to 100. They believe that if the Turret’s total health is lowered, it will be easier for opponents to destroy, mainly when they use weapons with less power.
Riot also said it had increased Killjoy’s Lockdown (X) point from 7 to 8. Riot said it is pleased with Killjoy’s ultimate when opponents do not plan to push or contest it but that “the frequency is too high for its current reliability.”
Players will have to make plays for orbs more frequently to compensate for the nerf to Killjoy’s ultimate ability, which may require them to play a whole extra round.
Raze is also getting a slight nerf in Patch 6.03. The duration of her ability to send the tiny robot Boom Bot into a room and blow up enemies around corners has been decreased from 10s to 5s.
In the last patch, Raze’s Boom Bot’s active time was reduced from ten seconds to five seconds, making her less effective at chasing down opponents during long recon missions. According to the developers, the duration of Boom Bot had resulted in “a larger recon footprint” than they thought was healthy.
In competitive play, Raze has only been picked 30 percent of the time over the past patch, and even then, usually only on maps where the current most-picked Duelist from South Korea, Jett, is not picked.
Fnatic head coach Jacob “mini” Harris said on Twitter that it would be a positive change if players started to play Raze as much as she deserved.
Other updates
Riot has been hard at work ironing out bugs in preparation for the March launch of the VCT International Leagues. In the previous Patch 6.02 update, there was the addition of a server rewind modification and the much-anticipated Stinger update.
In Patch 6.03, Riot confirmed that it had added the Real-Time Text Evaluation system to the Agent Select screen for the North American region. It also adjusted Sage, Neon, Jett and Yoru’s hair heights to fit within Riot’s standardized vertical range.
This function will immediately silence the players from typing anything disruptive while playing, allowing players to feel more at ease sending and receiving text messages with their VALORANT teammates, knowing they are less likely to receive unkind responses.
The Swiftplay Beta was initially scheduled to end in January, but the company ultimately decided to keep it running, and now a fully functional part of VALORANT.
It also said that AI (like Skye’s Seekers [X]) will now use the crouch-only connection on Pearl near where Defenders spawn. In addition to that, Riot fixed a bug that had allowed KAY/O to keep moving after being brought down during NULL/cmd (X).
