The changes to duelists coming in VALORANT Patch 8.11 have been revealed, and these adjustments could drastically alter how often certain agents are used and how effective they can be.
Iso and Neon are certainly winners in this patch, while Raze is definitely losing, though Reyna‘s changes can be interpreted as either positive or negative depending on the kind of VALORANT player you are. Let’s dive into how these changes will affect the duelist meta.
How does VALORANT Patch 8.11 change the duelist meta?
Iso is the essential “swing player” agent
Iso’s Double Tap shield will now be granted immediately upon activation, rather than requiring a kill or assist to spawn an orb. Getting a kill or assist and then shooting an orb still refreshes the buff, and getting two kills in a round will grant an additional charge that can be recast to completely refresh the shield buff. Iso can only hold one charge of Double Tap instead of two, but that one is now much more valuable.
This change makes Iso the perfect agent for players to swing around corners with as they start with the shield equipped, removing the situations where Iso activates his window but loses his duel before even getting the shield. Iso is also slowed less when his shield breaks, letting him get a wider angle on an opponent while absorbing one instance of damage. Iso can also snowball more effectively as getting two kills lets him put a recast of Double Tap in his back pocket.
Neon enters the elite tier of space-creating duelists
Neon is now the perfect agent for creating space with a fast and relentless style of play. Her Fast Lane wall slowly dissipates rather than drops, she has increased strafe speed and fuel regen for Sprint, and two Slide charges with instant weapon equips and no weapon movement error.
With these changes, Neon is now much harder to hit and she’s effectively even more accurate while sliding, significantly making her a more viable entry agent. While she doesn’t have the same aerial ability to create space that Jett or Raze has, her increased accuracy makes her arguably more lethal if she can reach her opponents.
Reyna gets buffed into a more useful team agent
Outside of the halving of healing received from Devour, all of the Reyna changes are buffs. The overheal effect of Devour on armor now lasts for the whole round, she can cover more distance with Dismiss, and her Empress ultimate is now permanent.
These changes do reduce her effectiveness as a one-agent army, though, as she can’t win a fight and get reduced down to less than 50 points of health only to cast Devour to get back up to max. But the overheal and Empress lasting for an entire round means she’s more effective when she regroups with her team and leads the attack in.
Raze takes a step back
Raze’s horizontal velocity when satcheling has been reduced and the satchel explosion audio has been updated to be heard from further away.
It’s unclear how drastic this nerf will be until we see what the new satchel boost looks like, but it definitely takes away how viable this is. The audio changes certainly make the satchel boost less unpredictable from an enemy’s standpoint.
