Going into the Viper’s Pit is about to become a lot more dangerous.
Riot gave the poison-wielding agent extensive buffs in today’s VALORANT Patch 1.04 notes, improving nearly every aspect of her kit. But the update wasn’t too friendly to Raze and Brimstone, dishing out a minor nerf to their ultimates.
The maximum amount of time Viper can stay outside of her ultimate before it collapses was increased from five seconds to a whopping 12. And enemies inside of the Viper Pit have their mini-map obscured and don’t provide any mini-map detection to teammates. The red glow that Viper sees when enemies walk into her trap is also being brightened.
“The ability to move outside the ult smoke more freely should provide some new and interesting mind games for Viper to play—and hopefully puts the strategic pressure back on the enemy,” Riot said.
The enemy decay when walking into Viper’s poison has also been increased from 10 to 15. And when exiting the agent’s poison smoke, the decay sustains for 2.5 seconds before fading. The agent will also be able to activate Poison Cloud and Toxic Screen simultaneously with fuel cost only depleting as if one ability is active.
Viper will now be even more oppressive when defending a site, while giving her the added tools to attack a site with superior vision.
And the VALORANT devs felt Raze’s ultimate (“one of the most impactful in the game”) was being used too often. So her Showstopper’s cost is going from six to seven. Brimstone is getting a similar nerf, having his Orbital Strike cost increased to seven as well. But his Stim Beacon will no longer buff enemies or show its effect radius to the opposing team.
This patch also gave Cypher a quality of life buff, allowing players to pick up his cages during the buy phase.
