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Yup. Brimstone imo needs a buff. The pick rate is low and omen is just way better than brim.
Yup. Brimstone imo needs a buff. The pick rate is low and omen is just way better than brim.
We agree! We’ve got some Brim buffs that we’re testing internally, but don’t want to release them and shake things up too badly during First Strike. Controllers are definitely on our mind, though!
I can appreciate Riot trying to stabilize the game. I appreciate them dealing with the back issues that the game suffers from, and trying to optimize a little bit and nail down mechanical issues the game has.
That said... can we please just do something about my girl? I understand that balance changes, especially the sort of overhaul Viper needs, take time. I don’t hold it against Riot that they wanted to take it slow. I get it, I really do. But it’s been 6 months or more since the community found out how bad Viper is. 6 months since they knew she needed substancial buffs to be viable. Every other agent has had their time in the limelight. Every other agent has seen the upper ends of the meta. Breach has seen considerable buffs to make him strong, and even got buffed last patch too. Riot wasn’t afraid to make a statement with Breach and firmly plant him in the meta. They likewise took a firm stance on nerfs to Sage (which might have been a bit aggressive) and nerfs to Cypher and Killjoy.
Riot has been no stranger to making bold changes to the game in terms of agent buffs and nerfs, so why are we still tiptoeing around buffing Viper? Why not just give her a serious buff like allowing her to recall her E and Q from range, or making her Snakebite a quickfire ability like Jett’s smokes or Cypher’s cages? What’s the worst thing that can happen? She becomes meta for once in the 6 month lifespan of the game? They need to nerf her down a little bit? Surely that is not a high price to pay, since it would at LEAST give Omen some competition in the controller agent meta.
Again, I understand changes take time. I don’t even expect such sweeping changes to come for her in the next patch or anything, but I’d at least like some solid confirmation that I’ll be able to pick Viper some day without it feeling like I’m trolling my team. I’ve been playing Cypher for a few months since Viper wasn’t as viable, and most teams have an Omen anyway, but after these last round of nerfs, I honestly don’t know who to play besides Omen anymore.
I’d just like to see the light at the end of this tunnel I’m in, if that’s not too much to ask. I love the game, but it’s starting to feel like the agent I love playing the most is getting the old Yorick and Aatrox treatment, and I’m gonna be stuck waiting for god knows how long. I hope not, though. Anyway, rant over.
We haven’t forgotten about Viper, she’s just got a lot more moving parts to manage compared to other agents. Our focus right now is stability for First Strike, but we want to look at the Controller role afterwards and see what improvements we can make there.
I know Viper hasn’t been in the best spot, despite our efforts thus far. We do still want to continue to work on her, we just had some higher level issues we felt needed tackling first (like the Operator, and changes to make Sentinels more interactive and healthy). She’s definitely still on our mind as an opportunity to improve.
please buff sage
Sage is the #3 winrate agent on this patch and has been every patch since her nerf - what specifically do you feel needs to be buffed?
Edit: just double checked and she’s actually crested up to #2 on this last patch!
Who is #1 and 2?
Made a quick edit, Sage actually made it up to #2. Reyna was #1 this last patch, Killjoy and Sage are quite close but Sage beats KJ by a few fractions of a percent :)
Have you guys thought about having certain patches for tournaments be on their own servers? That way you could roll out these buffs for the community and it wouldn’t effect tournament play
Yup, we're building that functionality right now. That's definitely our intent long-term!
Can we have a list of all agents' winrates? If it isn't possible, that's all good too!
We're working on an insights blog post that'll give some insight into agent winrates (and specifically Sage) soon!
Thanks for the reply. I really appreciate you taking the time to respond.
I know my original comment was a bit of downer, so I do wanna say now that I did like quite a lot of the changes you guys made, specifically making Breach a solid Operator counter and the changes to the Op directly. They really did make a huge difference in game, and if getting flashed an extra time is the cost of not getting Op’d every single game without end, then that is a cost I am happy to pay. I won’t comment on the Sentinel changes, though, since I haven’t gotten as much of a chance to see how they shake out and what the outcome is.
I’m super glad to hear that you guys plan to take a look into the controllers in the relative near future. I’ll definitely keep an eye out for those changes, when they do make it to us.
You guys have done a really good job on this game so far, small issues notwithstanding, so keep up the good work, and thanks again for the reply.
Thank you, I appreciate it! And just to be super clear - it's totally fine to criticize us or express frustration, especially when you're doing it in a respectful way like you have. It's alright to enjoy the changes we've made and still be disappointed at the lack of Viper changes, and it's good for us to keep feedback like this in mind to make sure we don't get complacent and continue to be ambitious with the quality of patches we can ship here.
Thanks for being so open with us and sharing this, and please continue to do so!
Do you guys have any incoming Viper buffs?
Not for a bit, we're holding back on big changes during First Strike. We still think she needs a bit of help but it'll probably be a few patches before we get Viper anything substantial.
But thats for all ranks probably? What are the highest winrates for like diamond+?
Reyna's winrate inversely scales with MMR (more effective in low ranks than high ranks), whereas Sage's winrate scales with MMR. In diamond, immortal, and Radiant, Sage is actually the highest winrate agent by a decent margin.
In the lowest MMRs like Iron, she's still quite good though - she never goes below #3 in any bracket, and jumps past Reyna to the #1 spot in high MMRs. People just tend to think she's weak because of the nerfs, she was just even more powerful before.
The letter "E" is actually a "Period" on Dvorak keyboard layout.
This patch has made our letter "E" key (bound to "Period") no longer cast the ability properly.
I’ll pass this along, thanks for the heads up!