Valorant players are confused on how Reyna became more “team oriented” due to the tweaks in her kit in the 8.11 update.
Valorant is a 5v5 first-person shooter (FPS) developed and published by Riot Games. Players are always on the lookout for new changes and additions to the game, whether it’s new agents and maps, gun and melee skins, or other changes.
Reyna, one of the most popular agents used in ranked, received nerfs from Valorant’s Patch 8.11, along with other duelists. According to Valorant, “the goal of the changes is to reduce the level of dominance she can achieve in Ranked, especially at low and mid ranks when outperforming her enemies, while pushing some of her value in coordinated settings.”
In the update, her healing from Devour (Q) is reduced from 100 to 50, full heal time reduced from 3 to 2 seconds, and her overheal won’t decay after a timer. The developers believed that these changes would reduce her ability to snowball rounds.
Her Dismiss (E) was also affected, which could be seen as both nerf and buff. She has faster movement speed, increased from 9.1 meters/second to 12 meters/second. However, this would have a shorter duration from 2 to 1.5 seconds.
Lastly, her ultimate Empress (X) would be permanent in the round it is used until she is killed or when the round ends. This would decrease the bloodthirst that Reyna users have when activating their ultimate, and allows them to adjust to their teammates’ pacing.
There were X users who questioned how these changes makes Reyna more of a team player. One stated, “How does this make her more of a team player this just makes her more useless.” In response, another player explained that the permanent ultimate and no decay on overheal allows for more teamplay rather than solo pushing.
However, there were players who expected more buffs on Reyna’s Leer (C) instead of the changes that will be implemented for her. She could have benefited more from a stronger blind to support entry duelists like Jett or Raze.
Valorant developers will continuously monitor Reyna’s performance after the 8.11 update across different skill levels and settings of play. This means that there may be more tweaks to her kit depending on how well this works out in a team setting.