Riot Games’ tactical first-person shooter Valorant received an update not long ago. A lot of adjustments were made in Patch 5.12, allowing players to finally bid farewell to the Chamber meta.
For those who don’t know, Chamber is an agent in Valorant that was pretty much a staple in competitive play. In fact, he got a 66.86% pick rate at the Valorant Champions 2022 tournament earlier this year, which shows how much he is valued in almost every team composition.
Part of the reason why he’s so effective is because of his Rendezvous ability, where he sets up an anchor that he can teleport to at any given moment. The dev team has had enough of the current meta, so they shook things up with the game’s most recent update.
What Changed?
Let’s focus on the previously mentioned ability, Rendezvous. When used, Chamber now plants a single anchor that he can teleport to, so long as he’s within range. However, the biggest change here is that destroying this anchor now disables it for the rest of the round. Plus, the HP of the teleport anchor has been reduced from 80 to 50, letting the opposing team destroy this thing quickly.
Ok, maybe the nerf to Rendezvous isn’t so bad, right? Players could rely on his other abilities to compensate for the anchor tweaks. But here’s the big picture: the anchor is just one of many that got axed.
Chamber’s ultimate ability, Tour De Force, allows him to summon a very powerful custom sniper rifle that can eliminate targets with one shot to the upper body. That said, the fire rate of Tour De Force is down by 57.5%, making it difficult for Chamber to fire shots as quickly as he once could.
Riot Games didn’t hold any punches with Patch 5.12. Trademark also got a few adjustments. The trap is now range-restricted, meaning it gets disabled if he is not within range. Furthermore, the initial arm time is increased by a couple of seconds. While this may seem harmless, the extra two seconds needed to deploy this trap could spell doom for Chamber mains.
Now, if there’s any consolation, the trap now has increased health and can now be recalled mid-round without a line of sight.
So, how did the Valorant community react to these changes? According to a Redditor, the tweaks on Trademark and Rendezvous are pretty big, essentially making Chamber useless now. Another user added that the Trademark change is too much.
But what do you think? Do you agree that Chamber has been nerfed to the ground? Are the recent changes justified to make him more balanced?
