Agent designers, Kevin Meier and Jay Watford, discuss each change to Chamber and exactly why they’ve made them via a press release. “We know you have been asking for Chamber updates after seeing him dominate your ranked games, pro play, and maybe even your nightmares.” The pair continue, “We want to strike the appropriate balance between preserving his character identity and maintaining Valorant’s game health.” Chamber has been a top pick since his release as a Sentinel agent with great offensive capabilities, meaning Chamber players can easily hold their own ground and dominate a round, or an entire match. While discussing and testing ways in which the team could change Chamber, they found that, “his current mechanics were shaping play space in an unhealthy way, infringing on other agent identities, and breaking Valorant’s core tactical style.” That said, Patch 5.12, which debuts on Tuesday (November 6), will see Chamber’s identity sharpened, while also “reducing his sphere of influence and introducing more counterplay for opponents.” Without further ado, here’s what’s going to be different with your beloved Sentinel carry in just a few days time:
Headhunter (Q)
Stability Curve has been updated, meaning the spread is increased after the second bullet when spamming the ability. This, as a result, reduces low-precision body-shot spam.
Rendezvous (E)
Chamber can now only place a single anchor, but the radius is increased from 15m to 26m. Teleport activation height restriction has been removed, which means you can teleport to the anchor on a different verticality as long as it is within the 26m range. After teleporting, weapon equip time is increased from 0.4s to 0.7s, excluding the Headhunter ability. If the Rendezvous anchor is destroyed, it is then disabled for the remainder of the round, instead of being on cooldown. Chamber has no additional cooldown when recalling the anchor after teleporting.
Trademark (C)
Chamber’s trap is now range restricted, so it’ll disable when Chamber is out of range, and reactivate when he is within range. The trap can now also be recalled mid-round, and does not require line of sight to do so. There’s a 30s cooldown after recalling the trap. Initial arm time has been increased form 2s to 4s, with health increased from 1 to 20.
Tour De Force (X)
The fire rate of Chamber’s ultimate is now decreased by 57.5%.
Slow
Chamber’s slowing ability applies to his Trademark trap ability, and his ultimate, Tour De Force.
The slow has been reduced from 50% to 40%, with the duration reduced from 6s to 4s. The size of the slow has also been reduced by 30%.
At first glance, this seems like a pretty hefty nerf for Chamber, and one that’s going to leave a lot of Chamber mains less than impressed. However, there is reasoning behind these changes. The goals with this update are to “strike an appreciable balance between his first angle power and counterplay avenues,” while also, driving “more deliberate thought into setup.” So, Chamber is arguably still a powerful agent, but those playing him are going to have to think more carefully about their strategy. Ultimately, he still remains a very strong agent at long-range, but things are going to become much more difficult and risky at shorter-range. That said, the team over at Valorant has said that, “we’re always ready to adjust.” How do you think these changes will affect competitive play? Might we finally see less players picking Chamber? I’m not so sure, but I’m happy that Viper remains untouched, at least. For more on Valorant, check out whether Secretlabs latest Valorant-themed chair helped me with my posture, and how Valorant may very well appear on consoles soon.
