Viper’s entire kit took a huge hit in the latest VALORANT patch 8.08 in late April, and now players are asking Riot Games to make one more change to help the toxic agent bounce back.
Nearly every ability in Viper’s kit suffered a nerf outside of her ultimate in VALORANT’s Patch 8.08, to the point where players were mourning the agent’s status in the meta. One of the biggest changes is that Viper can no longer pick up her Poison Cloud orb during the round. Previously, she could pick up and reposition her orb later in the round, but now she can only move it around during the buy round. This gives her less flexibility and cover to work with, especially since her Toxic Screen wall cannot be moved either.
VALORANT players suggested one necessary change they’d like to see added to Viper in a May 4 post on the game’s subreddit, pointing out how Viper can preview the exact orb placement in custom games with cheats on. They’d love for Riot to implement this as a real feature for her Poison Cloud orb, with many players agreeing this would be a fair quality-of-life change without boosting her in the pro scene, since pros should already have tons of Viper lineups up their sleeves.
Currently, there is no room for error when placing the Viper orb; while other controllers can preview where their smokes will go before committing to them, Viper must throw her orb without any preview and rely on lineups a lot of the time. Unfortunately, the orb can take a weird hop and land in an unintended spot or for you to miss your lineup. These incidents were much more forgiving when Viper could move her orb mid-round instead of being forced to play with bad smoke the whole round.
I know I would definitely approve of this small but helpful change as someone who often fills smokes. I’ve never been the biggest fan of playing Viper, and the latest nerfs make me dread playing her even more, so I’d be grateful for anything that makes the agent more enjoyable. For now, I’m using the nerfs as an excuse to lock in any other controller, even if there’s no perfect substitute for her kit.
Everyone’s picking Clove as their controller nowadays anyway, so it’ll be interesting to see how all the other controller usage rates shift in the coming weeks in response to Viper’s nerfs.
