VALORANT Patch 5.12 is one of the most impactful patches to date, with 14 different agents receiving balance changes to their abilities, ranging from price changes to significant reworks. Surely the most anticipated and sweeping changes will be to Chamber, who’s set to receive a complete overhaul to his Rendezvous teleport, drastic changes to his Trademark utililty, and nerfs to both Headhunter and his Tour de Force ultimate.
Keeping the game of VALORANT balanced is an important long-term goal for the team at Riot, and for too long, Chamber has been overpowered and relied upon too heavily. But how bad has it really been?
How popular is Chamber in VALORANT?
Whether it’s in the lowest or highest levels of ranked or at the highest tier of professional play, Chamber’s presence has been overwhelming throughout all of 2022.
He has a global pick rate of 11.6 percent, second only to Reyna at 12 percent, over the past two weeks, according to the VALORANT page of Tracker.gg. Based on these numbers, Chamber also has the second-highest global K/D ratio of any agent at 1.09, also just behind Reyna who has a 1.14. Additional insights from Blitz.gg show that higher ranks like Radiant, immortal, and Ascendant actually use Chamber more than Reyna.
Despite Reyna holding a slight advantage in overall global pick rates, when we start looking at agent comps picked by pro players, it’s not even close. At the first international event of the VALORANT Champions Tour 2022 circuit, Masters Reykjavik, Chamber was only the fourth most picked agent at 49 percent, according to VLR.gg. But he dominated the rest of the year: Chamber was the most picked agent at Masters Copenhagen with a 77 percent pick rate and first at Champions 2022 with a 69 percent pick rate.
Coincidentally, Reyna was picked less than five total times across all three international VCT events.
How powerful is Chamber in VALORANT?
There’s a reason Chamber is so commonly picked across every conceivable level of VALORANT: He’s just that valuable.
Looking at the same detailed stats from Blitz.gg, they show that he’s consistently a top performer across all ranks, typically ranking in at least the top echelon of agents when it comes to average combat score (ACS) and first bloods per round. His ability to take aggressive angles and teleport away after opening kills is valuable at essentially every level.
At the professional level, the results are very clear. Across the same previously mentioned international VCT events, the top performers in virtually all major stat categories (ACS, K/D, first bloods, damage per round) were primarily Chamber players such as yay, Derke, Cryocells, Sayf, Laz, and others.
The changes to Chamber in Patch 5.12 are certainly significant and could impact his production, but don’t expect his usage to crater too much.
