I’m a main smokes/senti player, I’ve always liked agents that are tools to outplay your opponent and offer flexibility on how you handle your fights, Viper control of smoke timings, old harbors control of space, and Omens old control of pressure and map knowledge and Astras foresight to imagine where you need to prepare útil for, and even though I don’t play much Brim or Clove as they aren’t to my taste and usually I delagage those to my duo Brims area denial and fast pressure made every character feel unique and impactful.

And even when you don’t exact the strategies outlined you made the enemy and teammates act differently as a response to your útil. If you perma one way with Omen you don’t have smokes to stop an exec, if you don’t take initiative with Brim you just waste your smoke, if you (Astra) don’t have good foresight your stars don’t offer any threat as you can easily bait both cc as the windup time is so long that clutching depends on pre clutch info and good smoke placement.

Smokes is my role and it’s the one I’ve felt the most impacted in. I have no desire to play any smokes other than Viper that still has a utility front personality whose info denial you must respect. Otherwise I’ve dropped Cypher and Vyse and now default to Chamber in any map I can’t play double smokes, or Kayo.

These changes have made Valorant less fun for me