Immediately after the release of 8.05, players claimed that Riot Games had weakened Viper smokes without informing them in the patch notes. According to their information, now the duration of Poison Cloud has been reduced from 15 to 13 seconds, which many players talked about on Reddit and X platforms.
During the latest balance check, it was discovered that the duration of Viper smoke had been reduced. This change accidentally made its way into the 7.09 update, resulting in a reduction in smoke duration and recharge time after deactivation.
The company stated that initially they did not plan to implement these changes without prior notification to the players. However, this became part of trial changes that will be fully implemented in the 8.08 patch.
During our most recent balance pass, we discovered that Viper’s smoke uptime is shortened in-game. This is due to an update that had unintentionally shipped in 7.09 resulting in reduced smoke duration and cooldown after deactivating Viper’s smoke.
— VALORANT (@VALORANT) April 2, 2024
While we hadn’t meant for these…
Developers emphasized that they always inform players about balance changes. Despite the reduction in smoke duration, Viper remains an influential agent in the game's meta, so the change will not be reversed until the next update is released.
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