Valorant nerfs the agent Raze in new update 1.08

Today, the new Patch 1.08 was released for Valorant, which was actually supposed to come 24 hours earlier. It includes minor changes and the promise that changes to the weapon Operator are planned.

What does the update include? With Patch 1.08, Riot Games made mainly 3 significant changes:

A nerf to Raze’s explosive pack, which is primarily meant to provide counterplay.
A buff to the Guardian weapon, which lowers the price and improves the fire rate.
Changes to map allocation to prevent you from playing the same map multiple times in a row.

In addition to these changes, general improvements have also been made when observing players during a flashbang or the performance of the minimap.

Overall, the update is small, as the developers themselves admit. According to Riot, this is because there were significant changes in the last patch and since then many positive developments have been observed. However, there was also a bug with the agent Omen due to Patch 1.07 that had to be locked.

Agents are getting closer together

What’s the situation with the agents in Valorant? According to Riot, Sage and Killjoy are not supposed to be played as often after the last changes as before. At the same time, Breach and Viper are becoming more and more in demand.

They saw a need for action regarding Raze.

What exactly is changing with Raze? With the new update, the explosive pack has been weakened, allowing for counterplay, for example by shooting at it:

The damage caused by the first explosion has been reduced to 15 with an inner radius of 0.2m. The minimum damage dealt is now 5.
Once the charge has landed, it becomes active after 0.5 seconds, increasing its maximum damage to 50.
If shot at, the explosive pack detonates and inflicts the current amount of damage.
The charge no longer inflicts damage to allies.

However, there were no further changes to agents. Which agents are currently the strongest can be found in our Tier List.

Guardian has been strengthened, Operator is to be revised

What changed with the weapons? With Patch 1.08, there was a buff for the Guardian, which is supposed to make it stronger. Nevertheless, the developers themselves say that the weapon still cannot compete with the Vandal or the Phantom. However, it should represent a more affordable alternative:

Price reduced: 2,500 to 2,400
Fire rate improved: 4.75 to 5.25 RPS (rounds per second)
The weapon recovery time is now 0.2925 after 3 bullets (previously 0.35 after 3 bullets).

What is happening with the Operator? The powerful Operator has dominated the meta gameplay of Valorant for a long time. The strong sniper rifle is essentially the AWP from Counter Strike. A powerful rifle that almost always kills with one shot, regardless of how well the opponent is armored.

The well-known Twitch streamer shroud called for a nerf of the weapon at the end of August, but Riot initially resisted. They said that without the weapon, there would be more ‘rushes’ and faster teams would simply win.

With the new patch notes, the developers announced that changes to the Operator are being tested. However, only internally for now:

As we wait to see how these significant changes to the agents continue to have an effect, we have turned our attention to a more urgent issue: the Operator. We understand that it can be very overwhelming to face this weapon in combat. Many players give up all hope when attacked with it. We also believe that the Operator may decide victory or defeat too strongly. Therefore, we are currently testing a series of changes that are intended to address this issue.
The Operator is an important part of the game and we want to ensure that we make the right decision. We will continue to test these changes internally for a bit longer to give them a final polish.
Riot Games in the patch notes