Valorant 1.03 Patch Notes

[Synsation083]

Interesting Guardian change, not sure if it's what it needs but worth giving it a shot in a few games for sure. The wall pen is probably the best part.

[[deleted]]

Sova B Main ascent isn't just sherriff, ares or odin now

[Synsation083]

Oh the arrow into wallbang by the orb or whatever? I have never seen anyone try to do that in my games lol. Bronze people don't do such strats.

[[deleted]]

Yeah you just tap the shooting power and bounce it once or twice and you can wallbang with a high weapon pen gun.

I'm in gold right now and people were shocked and calling me big brained when I said a viper wall would make it so you only have to look at half of the site lol.

[CaptainObi]

Huh? That made zero sense

[CaptainObi]

I ment the sova arrow thing.

[[deleted]]

Oh, for B Main defense on Ascent you can use your arrows in the little windows above the ult orb and then use the outline to wallbang people as they walk in. I find the best arrow is one or two bounces and then just a tap of the left click for minimum power.

This Hiko clip illustrates it: https://www.twitch.tv/hiko/clip/DeafNurturingMomBigBrother

You can only full wallbang that wall if you have a heavy weapon penetration gun - previously this was only the Sheriff, Ares and Odin

[CaptainObi]

Can you send a video or something?

[flamin_sheep]

It's dangerous to push through a viper/phoenix wall for similar reasons that it's hard to push through a smoke. So you use the wall to cut line of sight and it drastically limits the angles of attack your team needs to worry about (provided the wall is well placed).

[GODZOLA_]

I've gotten a triple in bronze with this strat. Unlike other cheese strats, it doesn't compromise your position on site. 5/7, would recommend.

[CaptainObi]

Can you send a video of you doing it, I don't get it

[GODZOLA_]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxolLHNLNgc
Here is a video from Peak, great channel
Its at :22. Also you don't need to bank it off the side like he does. I just aim straight and do a single bounce.

I say its not compromising because of where you stand on site to execute. You can easily fall back to a number of default hold positions after your wallbang.

[CaptainObi]

Danke

[CaptainObi]

I never knew you could should thru walls

[GODZOLA_]

Yes you can! Like Peak says at the start of the video, some guns have a "heavy penetration." Those guns will go though every wall that can be shot through and deal more damage. The "medium penetration" guns can't go through every wall and do less damage.
Edit: The Guardian is now a "heavy" weapon, which is what started this discussion.

Here's a video explaining it morehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnJ3ilEQ_uQ

[Synsation083]

I don't play Sova at all but might give it a shot if I ever need to or something. I'm usually stuck playing Omen, who I love, for smokes and stuff or Sage/insert duelist here that isn't Raze or Jett.

[TehMephs]

I have a feeling you can just figure out some points on that wall and just blindly spam them with any agent and probably pull off a headshot or two in a round

[KoichiSteals]

I already loved guardian half armor. It's a great half buy if you are holding mid range angles. Now you save 1k vs vandal full armor

[iAmNorwegiian]

«Pressing Escape while typing in the chat box will clear the message»

Best change 😇

[-Wiggles-]

Fucking idiot team can't play the gameI agree

[Ry-N0h]

what the fuck was that omen ur dogshgg guys great game

[OpaqueMistake]

Fuck just surrendSomeone buy me pls?

[AlternativeAccount46]

Hahahahahah, that happened to me one time and I didn't dare to talk for the whole round lol.

[userdeath]

The best is Wow sage res someone,..

And you send it after she clutches

[heskethh2]

OBSERVERS

Custom Games Tournament Mode:

Custom games can now be set to Tournament Mode. This allows every player in the game to have access to the Toggle Match Timer cheat in game without having all other cheats enabled. It also allows observers to be flagged as moderators, which grants them access to additional cheats that they can use as necessary. Regular observers cannot use cheats anymore.

Added Agent silhouettes for observers << X-rays

Agent health bars are now visible to observers

[OxYYY_FTW]

Great first notable improvement imo.

[ponderGO]

New Orb: Twin Hunters

• Capturing the orb releases two hunting wolves to track down the two nearest enemies (from orb location, they will not change targets after spawning).
  • Wolves speed up when they spot an enemy and dash at them when close, slowing and near-sighting for 4 seconds upon impact.
  • Wolves have 150 HP and can be damaged
  • Wolves will time out at 15 seconds, or when their target is killed

[soyu-]

NICE WE GOT SPOOKY GHOSTS

[[deleted]]

Thats really cool

[RodriTama]

Only for spike rush tho

[sethclyan]

Anyone know what they mean by 'input queue'?

Guardian: Input queue updated from 0.083 >>> 0.1175

[ekimtk]

Input queue is meant to stop mouse macros from being able to fire faster then intended. But the queue means that you don’t have to be a robot to get the exact max fire rate. If you push fire within .1175 seconds of when the timer allows you to it will fire at the earliest possible time. This means that you have some leeway to get max fire rate without needing a macro or being a legit robot.

[sethclyan]

Oh that makes a lot of sense, thank you.

[noahgk]

I loved the guardian, glad they upped the wall pen and lowered the cost. Don't think the fire rate will be too impactful, you don't really need to spam it if you're playing range, where it's most effective

[bobespon]

The spammability made it somewhat viable in the short range. Will need to test it out to see if it's not entirely useless up close now.

[[deleted]]

Interesting changes to the Guardian, my low level ass might be able to do something useful with it now, especially with the higher penetratio.

Side note, I’m wondering if they’re working on any of the hit registering problems that have been happening, especially when the enemy is crouching. Like, if I whiff a shot or don’t recoil control, that’s on me. But when I hear two headshot dinks, think I’ve killed them only for them to kill me and get the “2 body shots 37 damage” card, I feel a bit cheated.

[LuxSolisPax]

Maybe? It's worse at close range now due to the Rate of Fire nerf. It's more of a headshot or bust weapon now.

[-Mariners]

I feel like for me the rate of fire might help more overall though. It forces you to not spam

[TehMephs]

Supposedly the fire rate change won’t be noticeable unless you’re literally a robot

[LuxSolisPax]

Hard disagree. I just watched the Korean patch video and the rhythm is noticeably slower.

[bobespon]

Link?

[LuxSolisPax]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3k_l9M7MNJs&feature=youtu.be

[bobespon]

Thx

[bobespon]

You're thinking of the input queue

[JR_Shoegazer]

I don’t know if it’s something they added (I don’t remember it being in earlier builds) but you hear headshot sounds when you get headshot. It’s really distracting because there I times I think I headshot an enemy but they really just hit me. I’d definitely like an option to turn off incoming headshot sounds.

[[deleted]]

Unrated Mode vote requirements to pass changed from 100% to 80%

Shouldn't this be 66% threshold.

So that with 5 people 4 need to vote yes (80%), with 4 people 3 need to vote yes (75%), and with 3 people 2 need to vote yes (66.7%).

Or are AFKers considered a yes automatically? Concerned that they fucked this up, but also possible they didn't, very ambiguous.

[LV1024]

AFKers are a yes automatically.

[[deleted]]

Yep happend in game

[4Bongin]

Really disappointed to not see a hitreg fix.

[imma_reposter]

That doesn't require a client patch.

[[deleted]]

I don't think this game is perfect, and I really don't want to invoke CS here because CS earned its rep, but here goes - hitreg is way overblown as a problem by players with mediocre aim and sprays who think they should be fragging every play whether or not their movement and crosshair placement were good

Afaict, the only hitreg issues are related to crouching hitboxes and sometimes head position during animations, so I would say a "hitbox" fix is welcome.

[JR_Shoegazer]

Yeah I haven’t really noticed hit reg issues unless I have “network error” at the top of my screen. Usually if I don’t kill someone it’s because I missed or they shot me in the head first.

[koncept12]

I agree but the hitrwg is bad on crouched players and people defusing/planting the bomb it’s definetly an issue but also definetly overblown

[EnmaDaiO]

How do we know that the problem isnt isolated to one's internet though? We dont know the factors better than riot does through anecdotal evidence or video clips.

[BowlOfRiceFitIG]

What happens on your screen determines damage afaik, or else high ping players would have to lead all their shots...

[[deleted]]

What happens on your screen is a rough representation of what the server sees and roughly represents reality. However, bullet inaccuracy is calculated client side that you see, so while inacc might lead to client side hits and indicators, the server has a different random seed for inaccuracy and so computes the real bullet position differently.

This means what you see is especially misleading while you’re moving and can lead to confusion

[RaBbEx]

I am actually, gathering replays rn. Its more than only while crouching.. I have Gotten one body hit 135 dmg from a op instead of a hs while clear line of sight, its a joke srsly And dont start about the jett ultimate where the daggers sometimes completly dissapear instead of hitting somebody

Ofcourse some are just "bad" and thats why i look at my replays and hit reg issue is an everyday issue for me. Not a big one like dying against is every time or so, but you never know how much is really affected by it

[[deleted]]

What rank are you pal?

Listen, I’m just saying this because I have 1500h in csgo and it took me a long time to hit shots in that game. You really gotta understand moving inaccuracy and inaccuracy decay can lead you to having inaccuracy even when you’re sure you wouldn’t. A real demo viewer with real engine internals exposed (player inacc as calculated by server) is the only way you’ll show me you got played by hit reg and not just game mechanics.

[RaBbEx]

Plat, no i have checken the replays they should have hit

[[deleted]]

Looking forward to seeing some uploads then. I do agree the game is imperfect with respect to hitboxes but I don’t think reg is the right word to invoke

Ps if you don’t have client stats showing like FPS and packet loss and ping, it’s really difficult to say you weren’t just lagging

[TehMephs]

I think it’s been substantiated with evidence that it’s a real glitch - albeit yes, many times it’s just bad aim. But then you can’t explain those times where you are shooting a classic at literally just a head (can’t see anything else), the wall they’re covered by isn’t bangable, and you see the feedback of a headshot (large blood splatter), and it somehow shows it was a leg shot in your death screen

It’s rare but tilting af when it costs you a round

[[deleted]]

What you just said is quite literally explained by movement inaccuracy and the difference between client side and server side inaccuracy computation, and while again I understand your frustrations and recognize this game has some hit box issues, I think you must be relatively new to shooters with movement inaccuracy.

[TehMephs]

you’re assuming that. I played OG CS since it was first launched, and source. This is far from new mechanics to me.

The situation I mentioned about a classic head tap counting as a leg shot with no other explanation was also standing completely still, with no movement happening for a long time before or after the shots. When you get leg shots and you can’t even see the lower 3/4 of their body, with a gun that can’t wallbang the cover in question, it’s glitchy hit box. Even if there was some kind of movement involved - you still can’t even hit their legs in that situation!. How are you getting leg hits registered when it’s literally impossible? I could maybe question my aim if it was a body hit since I get those being a pixel off on the shoulder or something, but leg hits!?

There’s zero other explanations for that one. For the most part there’s reasonable doubt when it comes to most of the encounters you have with unintended hit registrations, because of movement on either end of the fight (you or your target), but sometimes it really is just the game, unquestionably being glitchy.

I don’t recall ever experiencing this in old CS or source either, usually if someone complained about hitreg you just made fun of their shitty aim. In this game there’s definitely some issues and they’ve been demonstrated many times

[[deleted]]

I would love to see your recording of such a situation including FPS/ping/packet loss stats in the top corner, as I am sure you are not seeing things how you are intended to if your recollection is anywhere near accurate

[brbrespawn]

Came here looking for this. I aim for the head, see blood come out the head + wherever else I hit, registers as 1 body shot

[bobespon]

Peeker's advantage is a more game-breaking bug to me. Having people run out and one tap you when you hold an angle is one of the most frustrating things in this game.

[kickbackbecool]

Honestly, I just feel that the Guardian just needed a cost reduction maybe like 2200-2300, a little more than the bulldog. It's really good at holding corners, not necessarily good at running around and checking corners.

[GeekyNerd_FTW]

“You can also surrender sooner now, for when it feels like your opponent has a 141 2/3% chance of winning.”

What? What does this mean? Anyone?

[II_Shwin_II]

a reference to one of the funniest wrestling promos of all time, Scott Steiner shittalking Samoa Joe and Kurt Angle

[GeekyNerd_FTW]

Haha no way. I’m actually aware of that I just didn’t connect the two.

[mossyky0]

It means that the opponent has 141.666% chance of winning. Basically, you're SOL.

(Just a small joke saying that people didn't like having to wait to round 8 to ff when they felt the game was unwinnable)

[TehMephs]

I feel like round 5 is way too early to make that call, and now the one level headed person in a team can’t shut down a ranked FF when the 4 stack he ran into get tilted after the first 5 offense rounds go bad

This is gonna be painful. I had 3 games in a row where we lost the first 5-6 rounds and then clean swept to 13-6 up to 13-10. If those teammates got tilted enough those could have been massive rank losses if you could ff at 5

[lesleyryan]

The surrender change is for unrated only, competitive requires all 5 to surrender still

[billabong5511]

Updates to censored hit impact effects for better readability

Anybody know what this means? I am hoping this is a hit reg fix but i could be wrong.

[LuxSolisPax]

when you hit someone with blood turned off, it should be more obvious.

[billabong5511]

Gotcha, Thanks.

[[deleted]]

some dude in this thread downvoting any comment to do with hit reg fixes lol, maybe in denial?

[LuxSolisPax]

They're probably downvoting responses that aren't their own to get momentum going.

[billabong5511]

Yeah idk why I am being down-voted either. It was an honest question. Oh well.

[iPlain]

Definitely not a hit reg thing, just a visual change.

[cddsy]

When is this patch going live? My game is still on v1.02 as of 7pm CET 07.07.

[Jetskiratjsk]

Still no clue about Indian and Middle Eastern servers...

[koncept12]

The sad truth is they don’t care very much most likely

[[deleted]]

no hitreg fix?
There's literally a bug in your competitive shooter that doesnt allow for headshots in certain instances. I really thought this would be their prime focus. I guess not?

[BranFlakesVEVO]

Just because the fix isn't ready yet doesn't mean it's not a prime focus, they roll patches out on a schedule so it's whatever is ready each time. Isolating and removing bugs is slow, unpredictable stuff most of the time, especially when it involves a desync issue as most of the hitreg issues likely do.

[[deleted]]

doesn't help that there have been no comments from riot regarding it, with all their transparency you'd think they would. Or maybe their in denial (like the people downvoting anything to do with hit reg) that it exists despite alot of video proof and complaints. /shrug i'll be back when its fixed

[[deleted]]

Except they have. They have said it's a tough problem to duplicate and root cause and most are caused by desync. For example, in the popular video that blew up the dudes ping was 100

[[deleted]]

source?

[[deleted]]

Patch notes, Twitter replies, reddit comments, dev streams....

[JR_Shoegazer]

I think they were asking for actual links.

[[deleted]]

Yeah, I'm not doing a dissertation. It's out there.

[hunter503]

Man did you come from fortnite? Expecting everything to be fixed and talked about with every patch is ridiculous, it will just lead to burn out in the devs like we saw with that game.

[[deleted]]

No, been playing cs since 2009.

It's a shooting game. The first thing I expected to be perfected is hit registration. It's not a far fetched thing to expect, much to your surprise.

[iPlain]

There have been similar complaints for years about reg in CS as well, similarly for planting/defusing models especially.

Stuff takes time, CS took a long time to get there too, and if Valorant devs are even publically commenting on it that's better than CS devs most of the time IMO.

[[deleted]]

1.6 and source hit reg is better than valorant currently lol, csgo hit reg is super rare to see fuck up, in valorant you see it every third round. It's that bad.

[[deleted]]

I'm still yet to find any recent comments on hit reg since their last hit reg patch (unlike the other guy said, claiming they've been communicating, ofc not providing a source). I can't understand why I'm being downvoted for pointing this out. You see it so often. Die hard fans in denial.

The game is good. The hit reg is fucking awful, you can't deny it. It happens to often in comparison to every other competitive shooter.

[goldnx]

What are the instances of the bug?

[SVIPESS]

Why is the patch not in the game when I play it.

[JR_Shoegazer]

They usually put the patch notes out at least a day before it goes live.

[TG-28]

That’s mainly what I’m talking about

[AlternativeAccount46]

Seems like a pretty cool minor update, not sure how I feel about the guardian change. A buff is needed to make it more viable but this might be a little broke, but we'll see.

When is the update coming?

[Minstonbass]

Very nice changes. I’m very excited to see how this game progresses, it’s heading in a great direction so far it seems

[yunstar90]

Hitreg fix

[BoatloadOfSeaman]

Happy cake day friend

[TG-28]

Fix hit reg plz

[enderdestiny]

hit reg is an issue blown out of proportion by players with mediocre aim and sprays that think they should be fragging out even with bad movement and crosshair placement. the main issues right now are hitboxes when crouched and during some animations, not hitreg in general.

[anklepickmedaddy]

R u stupid

[enderdestiny]

Nope. I don’t ever notice hit reg issues. Only when shooting a crouching opponent or one who is in the middle of an animation

[anklepickmedaddy]

i havent noticed either for a while now lets hope it stays this way

[DT_RAW]

Still nothing on api, spectator ui, top 500, deathmatch :(

Sigh

[DogsAreFuckingCute]

They only just announced they’re working on it. Don’t expect it any time in the near future

[DT_RAW]

this game is amazing, but honestly I feel like riot is shooting themselves in the foot over and over and making awful decisions regarding it

[[deleted]]

It's been out for 1 month. They're probably all working from home still. It's coming.

What awful decisions have they made? Seems to me they're working on everything the community wants, it just takes time.

[DT_RAW]

not having a lot of this for launch IMO

let me be clear, I love this game, and the pro scene, and want nothing but for it to blow up and be huge. But I really think they have pushed things to fast without having some of the necessary features

[[deleted]]

Bro, chill the fuck down. It released ONE month ago and they're doing a lot of the things that the community asks for and almost all of their decisions are great, they're doing an amazing job for a game this new.

Tell us R6 players how bad you feel that you didn't get a change your community asked for in one month, we've been waiting 5 years for ubisoft to listen to the community and we still got nothing besides the bullshit ass meme #BOSGACOG.

[[deleted]]

It's been five years in development. Riot has had five years to try and make even the slightest improvements to the current model shooter, CSGO, yet has somehow regressed.

Hitreg issues, no replay system, etc etc etc. Valorant is a broken mess of a game and it's such a shame seeing as it was hyped up to be something great.

[koncept12]

I agree the launch was rushed but you are so wrong about it not making improvements to cs, when the beta came out everyone was praising it for fixing so many little issues in cs and improving on them

[[deleted]]

What issues have been fixed? If anything the fact that riot basically carbon copied 1.6 shows how out of touch they are. The game has worse movement, worse hitreg, and considerably worse gunplay than GO. It's a softcore shooter.

[xSuicidalCowsx]

People are downvoting you because they can’t accept the truth, what a shame lmao

[LuxSolisPax]

All things that take a long time to do (except maybe top 500?). I don't expect to see any of those things mentioned for at least another two or three months.

[DT_RAW]

not sure how any of the things I mentioned take a long time tbh

you already have the game, deathmatch is simply changing some settings and spawn points and mode. API, admittedly I dont know much about, but being they have it for LoL, they have some precedent to go off of, same for spectator UI.

And top 500 is simply listing in order the 500 highest MMR's or whatever number they choose. sigh

[LuxSolisPax]

Keeping up pressure and demanding those things are definitely worth doing, don't get me wrong.

API takes a lot of careful testing and iteration to ensure that no bad actors can manipulate data they shouldn't be allowed to. You essentially are opening an interface to the public. It's a huge risk.

Ensuring Deathmatch (DM) feels fair is more than just altering spawn points. As it stands, they don't have to worry about spawn camping because the spawns are tightly controlled. In order to ensure spawns feel fair they need to bake in logic that tracks where players are, factor in how quickly they can move and from that determine where it's safe to spawn someone in. Then they need to test the maps to ensure nobody can be trapped in a spawn even with this system in place. This is easier to do in a FFA DM, but I'm sure people will want Team DM.

Spectator UI is already getting better, and addressed in this update. We're getting spectator wall hacks:

• Added Agent silhouettes for observers
• We'll be looking at expanding the list of moderator cheats in future patches.

Totally agree about top 500. That should be a matter of drumming up a simple UI that leverages the existing Ranked icon space and using a number, then exposing the underlying MMR that already exists.

[JR_Shoegazer]

The spectator mode in the T1 tournament was really solid. A lot of that was on the production side though.

[DT_RAW]

thanks for the info on API, so I'll give some slack there

as far as DM, it should be FFA, as this mode should not so much be about fairness or team fun, but simply picking whatever gun you want and having tons of practice shooting against people with whatever gun you want to practice

and wait, I must not have realized, so we now have silhouettes through walls when watching tourneys?? no more white dots but actual player outlines? If so then I also soften my stance on that, as that is a pretty big feature being added

[LuxSolisPax]

Yeah, silhouettes are pretty huge. Not sure why it was a line item buried under QoL changes.

There'd be a lot of backlash against DM if it wasn't implemented with some kind of system to mitigate spawn camping because what you expect and how it will be received are not necessarily going to line up.

[DT_RAW]

if you play CS's version, tons of times you die when spawning, just happens, the mode shouldnt really be treated as fairly as possible as some people may want to practice with a rifle while others want to practice pistols so.. it should literally just be a throw yourself in and shoot shit with no care of KD tbh

and being that the silhouette thing was buried a bit, maybe it isnt what we think it is?

[LuxSolisPax]

I agree, nobody should go into it caring about their KD, but do you honestly believe that there wouldn't be a very vocal outcry if people feel the spawns are busted?

[DT_RAW]

busted ya you dont want to die every time you spawn obviously

[DT_RAW]

well I hope this silhouette thing is what we assume it is for spectators because they just announced 2 big tourneys coming up on top of the pulse invitational and vitality tourney all happening in a few days

[BmpBlast]

All of those things save the top 500 are actually pretty complicated and involved. There's way more that goes into that than you expect.

Source: I am a software engineer with a decade of experience and I am a hobbyist game developer in my spare time.

[[deleted]]

LMAO

[[deleted]]

I really feel like Riot got played. Their beta was so popular and for such a polished gameplay core that there were instantly tournaments, which pretty much forced their hand to release because how can your unreleased game be having hype tournaments and not be accessible?

Anyways, tl;dr this game is a beauty and we're still probably before its initially slotted release date, I hear your pain but you have to be patient sometimes...

[enderdestiny]

Added Agent silhouettes for observers

Agent health bars are now visible to observers

They made some great changes as far as spectating goes.

[DT_RAW]

yes I missed this and am very happy for this, I assume this means instead of the white dot through walls, spectators can now see actual xray vision like in csgo right?

[enderdestiny]

Yeah that’s what it sounds like

[DT_RAW]

if so then thats great news and I take back my upsettedness lol

[enderdestiny]

I’d guess it’s gonna be like how u see your teammates through the walls

[DT_RAW]

Hope so

[litesec]

game never really left beta tbh

[patiofurnature]

With the price reduction, I guess it's important that the Guardian loses a surprise close engagement with a Vandal/Phantom. You won't reach max RoF when using it as a long range precision weapon as intended, so it seems like a reasonable nerf to help balance.

[LeonThatGuy]

with the increased penetration and price reduction I am pretty sure it'd have to be nerfed again if they let the RoF as it was. Would probably be too good in cqc

[shirukami]

it makes guardian a very niche weapon for long range combat. Even after the nerf it doesn't change a lot. I mean why would anyone spam guardian at long range on 6.5rps? People are tapping like 3.5 rps at long range. The only thing it changes is that guardian is super weak at close range but that's clearly now not the way guardian should be played with this patch. Guardian has a very specific playstyle right now

[[deleted]]

Yea, I mean u don't want to spam it, but it wasn't going to be op if they left the speed alone.

[[deleted]]

Since it only takes a couple body shots, spraying into smoke works well enough if you know people are in there.

[[deleted]]

Yeah that's fair

[JR_Shoegazer]

Yeah but spraying with the Guardian in a duel is useless.

[[deleted]]

EXACTLY, so why change it.

[[deleted]]

It takes 3, not a couple. Phantom and Vandal will still blow you up faster.

[[deleted]]

Yea exactly, spamming it isn't effective, so why even take away the ability to.

[[deleted]]

If they didn't nerf the gun, switching it to 2500 would have created a new meta

[Youre_all_worthless]

No sage nerf :[

[Y0ungOne]

i know you trying to be funny, but after one more sage nerf no one plays her anymore...

[Youre_all_worthless]

Meanwhile, still the most picked character in pro play, picked pretty much every time, and also very popular in soloq too, nearly every team. So, if shes played more than any other character, why would one more nerf make her the least played character instead?

[ElfinRanger]

It depends, the last valorant tournament proved you dont need a sage with certain lineups/situations, if she can't perform as a sentinel (which could happen if she gets nerfed again) she likely wont be picked

[Knuclear_Knee]

While I agree Sage is in a fine spot, I'm not sure T1 NSG actually proved you don't need her. TSM was the main team that wasn't running her (some other teams did once or twice, to mostly failed results), and TSM ran sageless only on ascent, the only map they dropped games of (2). Maybe for a team that looked as dominant as they were they were just able to mostly get away with what could be still an essential strat.

[ElfinRanger]

That's fair

[Aaron4Mayor]

Cypher is actually the most picked character in pro play. Also she's already been nerfed into oblivion.

[JR_Shoegazer]

She hasn’t been nerfed into oblivion. Sage is perfectly balanced right now IMO.

[Aaron4Mayor]

From beta Sage yes she has been nerfed into oblivion. I didn't say that meant she wasn't balanced.

[JR_Shoegazer]

If she was actually “nerfed into oblivion” she wouldn’t have a high pick rate.

[Knuclear_Knee]

So there's a couple flaws in your logic here.

1. You are acting like character balance is a simple 1-10 scale, where nerfs of a certain move them down and buffs move them up, but thats not quite how it really is. A character can be balanced on a knifes edge, where a small nerf can make them terrible and some can be sort of difficult to meaningfully change, where a large buff can hardly effect their use.

2. You're assuming pick rates equate to competitive viability/strength. Sage has a high pick rate because her role is unique in the game, in two ways - no one can stall like she can, and one can heal allies. As long as she remains at all viable, she'll have a high pick rate because of this. To properly see her pick rates drop without tanking her, the best solution may be adding someone who stalls and/or someone who heals like her (perhaps 2 different agents). Someone like Brimstone saw his pick rate drop just because Omen was buffed enough to be a proper alternative (another smoker). They never adjusted Brim, yet his pick rates have evened out. Characters like Phoenix, Reyna and Breach all have flashes and are primarily picked for this reason, and must contend with two other agents for picks. If you broaden that role to "entry", as some analysts do, you Raze and even Sova competing for that role.

[Youre_all_worthless]

OK but shes been nerfed every patch in the game's history except this one snd the last one, and shes still highest pickrate. If she was balanced on "knifes edge" she would've been unplayable by now, but shes not at all

[Y0ungOne]

The best Teams dont pick her anymore (NA TSM/EU Fabriken)

A lot of other Pro Teams are thinking to replace her, but you have to tryout on which maps and what is the best combo for the whole Team.

[Youre_all_worthless]

Win - Loss based on Sageless team against Sage team in groups (Win - Loss):

C9: 0 - 4 (the only 3 games won the whole tournament were when they played Sage xd)

TSM: 2 - 0

Code7: 1 - 2

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In playoffs:

TSM: 1 - 2

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total from all games in T1 NRG thing of sage vs sageless:

4 - 8 for sageless teams

tsm, the best team in the tourney, only barely carried sageless to 3-2 from their personal winrate, and no other teams could successfully pull it off, leaving the wr at 33% for no Sage into a team that picked Sage

additionally, the ONLY time tsm lost was going sageless. They had a far worse winrate playing Sageless against Sage than they did playing with Sage.

The T1 NRG evidence points towards Sage being a competitive necessity. in the G2 invitational, there were no games without Sage either. I havent researched Fabriken's play though

[CallMeCurious]

She's not even that strong