Riot Games Confirm Plans to Buff Viper in the Next Valorant Patch
Barely a week after the rollout of Valorant patch 1.03, Riot Games has already confirmed that they plan to buff Viper even more in the next patch. Viper received an array of buffs in patch 1.02, but these don’t seem to have shifted her performance as much as intended. Certainly, it hasn’t done much to convince players to play as her.
Riot’s Plans for Viper in the Next Valorant Patch
Valorant Patch 1.02, which launched around three weeks ago, was the last major balancing patch for the game’s agents. Viper received particular attention in that patch, adding a new fragile effect to her Snake Bite and allowing her Toxic Screen to burn through walls. According to Riot, the intention was to give Viper’s team an advantage when firing on pushing enemies. However, these changes haven’t done much to improve Viper’s overall performance.
Blitz.gg, which tracks Valorant stats, gives clear data on how little poorly Viper is performing. At almost every competitive rank from Gold 2 upward, Viper is currently the lowest-ranked agent in the game. (Prior to Gold 2, she generally ranks at second-worst ahead of Breach.) Her pick ratio is at just 1.8% on Gold 3, and it only gets worse as you get higher. Her pick ratio at Radiant rank is only 0.6%!
Evidently, Viper’s recent buffs haven’t done much to get players to actually use her. However, there is still hope for Viper. A Riot representative recently posted on Reddit in response to a post discussing Viper’s issues, stating that fans should; “stay tuned,” because; “If all goes as planned there’ll be more buffs for her next patch”. The post didn’t go into any details as to what these buffs might be, however. Indeed, the changes may not yet be set in stone. However, it sounds as though Riot is well aware that more work is needed to get Viper performing well in Valorant.