[2021] No Viper/Yoru changes until 2.06-.09

It may not seem like it, but we really want to ship these changes as soon as possible too. We just only have so many sets of hands and a lot to juggle - there are more changes we'd like to make than we can realistically ship, so we've gotta prioritize for the sake of balance.

Assuming Astra lands in a reasonably balanced spot, Yoru & Viper will be getting priority for changes. I know it's disappointing for y'all to keep seeing this delayed - it's disappointing for us too. Rest assured that we will get these out as soon as we can once the dust has settled a bit.

If anyone has any questions, happy to answer what I can in here.

I think Astra and Viper are pretty different, although I can understand some of the comparisons. In general, we like that Viper has persistent, high footprint, higher commitment, threatening smoke - all of those aspects are pretty unique to her and we’d like to maintain what we can there. Viper commits to her smoke placement more than other controllers, but is able to smoke much larger areas for more of a round as a result, and her smokes are more threatening to push through or play around. We’re experimenting leaning into some of these aspects to see if we can get her into a better spot for solo queue without homogenizing her or detracting from her identity.

Astra has global presence and some defensive value, similar to Viper, but she has much less smoke coverage and uptime (only 2 smokes max out at once, which are tiny domes). She’s more about being flexible and adaptable across the map and challenging the user to optimize her utility in any given round, with some of her drawbacks being her large telegraphs and struggle with using utility in combat situations without planning it out ahead of time.

I wish I could go into specifics, but I don't want to make promises that end up being untrue. Yoru's always walking a tightrope - finding the right balance between Yoru's ability to infiltrate behind enemy lines and giving heads-up enemies enough information for him to play around him is tough. Right now, his tuning is probably too fair, so we're trying to find ways to empower Yoru to infiltrate and outplay enemies without making it feel like the game state just falls apart any time Yoru is in a game.

I know that's pretty vague, but I can't go into anything more specific unfortunately since it's still a bit out