Chamber is one of the most prolific and highly discussed agents VALORANT has ever had. The agent doesn’t play like the other defensive-minded sentinels such as Killjoy or Sage. He’s the optimal choice for entry players with incredible mechanical prowess, more suited for someone who plays Jett than traditional sentinels.
He’s certainly the most popular agent at every level of VALORANT. Across the game as a whole, he has the second-highest overall pick rate and K/D ratio behind only Reyna, according to the VALORANT page on Tracker. But while Reyna’s pick rate falls off at the professional level, Chamber is quite the opposite. He was the most picked agent at Champions 2022 with a 67 percent pick rate, according to VLR.gg, far ahead of any other agent.
Coming toward the end of 2022, many have been expecting Chamber nerfs to come sooner than later to restore some balance to the agent pool, and Riot pulled the trigger with a Dec. 1 announcement detailing more nerfs to his entire ability kit. But these certainly won’t be the first changes aimed at Chamber with hopes of reducing how much he’s relied upon in competitive VALORANT.
Let’s take a look at the chronological history of all the balance changes made to Chamber since he was released and why those changes were made.
May 2022: Trademark reduced to one charge, made louder and more expensive (Patch 4.09)
The first serious Chamber nerf was aimed squarely at his Trademark ability, which is a basic intel trip mine that detonates when an enemy enters its radius, alerting the Chamber of the enemy’s location, and slowing the enemy down.
The nerf in Patch 4.09 kept the core of the ability the same but reduced it from two charges to only one, while also increasing the cost from 150 to 200 credits and increasing its audio range. The goal of these changes was to decrease the “global flank protection and information” Chamber provided since Trademark had proved to be more reliable and powerful than other sentinel tools.
August 2022: Chamber receives nerfs to all of his abilities (Patch 5.03)
Chamber received nerfs to his entire ability kit in this patch. For his Rendezvous teleports, the cooldown was increased and the teleport radius around each anchor was decreased, meaning he had to be closer to his anchor to use it. Both Trademark and Tour De Force’s slow duration was decreased, and Tour De Force’s ultimate cost was increased. Finally, the cost of each bullet of Headhunter was increased.
The Rendezvous teleport radius was decreased to reduce his aggressiveness and force him to “exert more effort” to reach certain off-angles, while the cooldown increases encouraged more counterplay. The cost changes to Headhunter and Tour De Force were made to reduce his impact during save rounds and force buys.
December 2022: More nerfs that could change Chamber’s entire playstyle (Patch 5.12)
The long-awaited year-end nerfs to Chamber were unveiled early in the morning of Dec. 1. Chamber will now place a single Rendezvous anchor that he teleports to, his Slow effects are reduced, Tour De Force’s fire rate has been drastically decreased, spamming Headhunter bullets will be more inaccurate, and Trademark is now range restricted. Additionally, the Rendezvous anchor can’t be used again in a round if it’s destroyed.
The changes to Rendezvous have drastically reduced the distance Chamber can teleport to and from, making it easier for opponents to chase and punish him. Players who spot Trademark will know that Chamber is close by, but on the flip side, Trademark can now be recalled and redeployed after a 30-second cooldown.
Outside of Trademark’s recall ability, the only benefit Chamber gained in these changes is the removed teleport activation height restriction, meaning he can get up on boxes and hold angles from different heights while still being able to teleport away.
