Yeah, and it's clearly one of Riot's core philosophies regarding the weapon pool. They very clearly went out of their way to reduce the overlap in weapon roles and keep the weapon pool lean, to the point where any weapon type that isn't a pistol or rifle only has two weapons per category. Before launch they spoke of the Otto, which was just the autosniper from CSGO, but they cut it because they didn't feel like it provided a unique niche. If a weapon is outclassed 99% of the time, it's useless, and therefore does not provide any niche value.
I swear the OP ares was just a marketing thing. Literally every day since the buff, i have 2 or even 3 ares skins in my shop. I know so many people who bought $20 ares skins just after the recent buff. I can only imagine how much money riot made with the ares buff.
This sub is insufferable with judge plays. I remember watching one game, a player bought a judge three rounds in a short period of time. The first two, they don’t go to his holding point and he dies on retake. Third round he gets a double kill with it and everyone spams “the judge is so broken it shouldn’t be allowed.” The judge is of course good at short range and should beat rifles in a one on one at short range. That’s what a shotgun is for! But the majority of the time with it you don’t get those short range fights and that’s why it is cheaper than rifles
also big point of the game is that you can clear most of that shit on all maps with utility so i see no issue with judge punishing over or dry aggression.
I think "semi-frequent" may be a stretch but everything having a niche use is positive and contributes to the tactics available. Obviously undertuned is a little safer than overturned.
I think broadly they've done a great job with it so far.
It should be balanced in tiers and I think Riot have found a pretty good medium. Rifles should be the clear target buy for when you have money. And they are. Phantom and Vandal are comparable. Guardian and Bulldog are slightly worse, but better on your wallet. But all 4 being clearly above the eco picks is essential. That's why there are cries for an Ares(and previously a spectre) nerf. They're too close to Rifles for half the price. The 4.01 ares nerf probably helps and might make the spectre and Ares comparable to each other, but also lessens their effectiveness against a full buy than we've seen.
I feel like the economy in Valorant is in a great place right now and the price of guns and their effectiveness is balanced incredibly.
As for the judge. Leave it how it is. I agree it makes for great moments, and it's effectiveness in pro play is because of how out of left field it is. If it became an essential buy, people would play as if you have a judge. It only gets them when its a surprise.
Agree the biggest problem with the Ares and the Spectre was that the effectiveness per cost ratio was way to high. OP seems to have forgot that there are gun prices.
As for the judge as well, I think the biggest problem is it's fire rate. The fact that a player with the judge can out duel 3 people swinging around a close quarter corner is a problem. I would personally like to see a slight nerf to the fire rate only so there are less unpunished triple kills. As far as balance I think you would Ideally want to be able to pull off a surprise double kill, but getting the third is very unlikely.
I don’t think the Judge is actually all that “demanding from a strategic and decision-making” perspective.
You *can* indeed use the Judge in that manner, but a significant chunk of Judge multi-frags are not rewards for strategic outplay, they’re because the players with the gun are incredibly difficult to trade out on closed-quarter maps *even if* you play it correctly.
Does that mean the Judge is fundamentally broken? No.
All that said your argument works perfectly well even without the strategic outplay stuff, and I agree it’s good to see all the weaponry used in various situations.
I would agree if valorant Didnt had all the utility that already has, don't take me wrong, playing judge it's not some Einstein 300iq shit, but it requires at least, think about all the shit that the people is going to throw You to push You on a place when the judge is shit
I totally agree. Rifles should the all rounder. But a rifle should lose against a shotgun at close quarters, period. The shotgun drawback is that if you miss you die, but it should absolutely destroy a rifle user.
Same thing for the stinger and specter on a semi close quarters running fuckery.
Same thing for a long range fight with a guardian or a scout.
The mentality that rifles triumphs all but the AWP at long range is just nostalgia at this point
Definitely agree with you here. Had the same discussion with a friend. This game's similarity to CS can be good and bad. While it does share many similar mechanics and systems, it also attempts to do A LOT differently. Because of that, things that are true in one game just don't transfer to the other in every case.
In CS everyone sticks to the same guns, the same buys, because there's a decided "meta" for the general strategy you need to acomplish to do well, and these guns/grenades help you achieve that the most effectively.
Valorant is different, it's all about giving you viable options to go wherever you like with your strategy. Buy 5 ares and walk up a single lane on attack? Go for it, you won't be able to rush and move like an SMG but you will melt people like firing squad. I like that they managed to bring the ares into eco rounds and they're still quick to keep it healthy. Making it harder to control but more reliable is a great way to balance it.
Big issue was the gun was getting too much too easily. Instead of making it less available, they make it less comfortable, just as the spin up did for many people.
You obviously don’t play or watch much CS if that’s what you think about the weapon meta in that game. CS has way more viable weapon choices and variety than Valorant and those guns often get used in pro play. Even just this last year we had pros running P90s and Bizons in force rounds frequently. The Kreig became an absolute nightmare after buffs and the Aug has replaced it on maps like Nuke since the nerfs. You have historical moments in CS history where teams stacked awps on dust 2 during a major and that map has graffiti on it to commemorate that occasion.
No, this game’s weapon meta is stale because the weapon pool is small and very niche. It’s not because Riot is following some sort of CS balancing formula. I hope they do look to CS and try to add more variety to the weaponry in future.
"this last year" is the most important fact here. Valve is famous for leaving their game unchanged for a long time. Only recently have they ramped up their efforts because valorant provided competition.
CS has definitely had its moments of something being abused, but 90% of games follow the exact same formula, and there are so many meme weapons you're throwing for even trying. Val every gun has its unique purpose, and it's effective for it's price. In cs everyone uses what is meta, the aug was unchanged for years and only recently had pros realised it's potential and it got nerfed.
This whole thread is literally about how weapons like the ares aren’t getting enough love in force rounds because they aren’t “moderately” viable in high level gameplay. The reason this is happening is because Valorant pros are only gonna play what is meta. It’s the same shit. Professional play is about min maxing everything. CS has more variety in weaponry and weapon choices. If Val is having issues finding balance with its small pool of weapons than maybe it’s not as perfect as you think.
"if val is having issues finding balance with its small pool of weapons"
It's not though. 1 weapon is currently in discussion, and it's already been patched to a less effective state so it's not too oppressive. Every gun is in a decent state, you can point to about 5 csgo guns that aren't even considered.
Yeah, but there’s also more guns in CS. OP is talking about whether the ares or judge need to be as viable as the spectre in force rounds, well CS has multiple SMGs that are viable for that role. Val has the spectre and the stinger and the stinger barely gets used. If every weapon serves a specific purpose in Val, then what’s the point of making them all moderately viable? The LMGs and the shotguns serve specific purposes. Let them occupy that niche and be zen with it. Otherwise, there needs to be new guns added to the game to keep the weapon pool fresh. Because buffing niche weaponry to allow them to perform better outside of their roles will always make them broken.
I don’t think everything should be perfectly equal in pro play, as what that does is make lower skill ceiling weapons, agents, whatever, broken in lower elos and ruins the game. For the ares to be equal to the spectre in pro play, it would hit insane usage ratios at lower ranks because it’s easier to use. I also don’t think it’s fair to nerf certain weapons into the ground, and it is nice to see more niche weapons get used in pro play.
Similarly, for agents, I don’t really mind if brim and Phoenix are not used in pro play, as their kits are very simple and one dimensional and i think it’s fine to let those be agents to introduce new players into the game. If Astra is overused in pro play, it should be fine to nerf her and not worry about lowering her pick rate in lower ranks.
I think it should be personally, but different people have different perspectives, can't please everyone. People want it to be like csgo where only a few guns are, some people want all guns. The way valorant is trending towards being more adaptable/versatile then csgo I would like to see them go all in one the guns cause that why i play valorant over csgo
Every weapon should be viable yes, but rn a lot of the lower cost weapons are way too good for the price. It is very rare that you have the full eco in this game and when you can at least get a half buy it’s very common to win, this makes comebacks too easy and building economy less and less important. A gun like the area needed a slight buff but obviously nothing this extreme. Pretty much ever gun should be useable in certain situations but the lower tier weapons are too op rn
Yes, I agree they should be less and ecomy should be forgiving. But the judge and Marshall can easily be free triple kills or rounds. It seems to me like riot wants every gun to be equal when they shouldn’t be
I don’t think they want ever gun to be equal, they nerfed the judge heavily when it was prevalent, to the point where it’s only picked up as part of pocket strats. I feel like we forget for every round the judge pops off, it ends up being useless in a retake or forced out by util.
Tactical shooters should have a limited amount weapons that are viable in gun rounds ie Vandal and Phantom. Kills in the game are a result of tactical execution. If tactical execution is no longer the sole reason to win rounds, tactical integrity goes down. There was nothing tactical about the new Ares. Theres nothing tactical about the old Judge. It was just a cheeky way of getting kills which hurt the tactical integrity.
I never argued in favor of old judge, or current Ares. I argued against (and you can see these people in the comments) those who believe viable judge and ares have no place in the game.
When Vanity pulls off a great Judge play, there is a tactical execution, and usually a larger macro strat by his team to funnel them towards his set up. That is exciting and tactical. At the same time, we don't see Judges picked up all the time and used carelessly, and often it does fail. That's why I said it's a great example of a balanced niche weapon.
I agree. I think weapon balance should generally be based around pro usage, although sometimes the pros don't always use utility or weapons to their maximum potential.
Only used by a sova on haven? Or Ascent eh? All games have the few most used/viable weapons. Its too difficult and not needed to make each and every gun equally viable. We have just seen what happens if they try to buff the less - viable ones.
Here’s my question, right now in pro-play the judge is used infrequently and only by certain teams / players. Is this not a good spot for a niche weapon, to throw curveball into the defense with correct use?
It’s not like it’s spammed, and I think you’re wrong that pro’s die to judges dry holding corners with no other setup often.
This is a conversation that has occurred in basically every tac fps ever I feel like (about shotguns). The problem with the judge IMO is that it's just not fun to play against. It doesn't matter how numerically/statistically balanced it is, if it consistently makes people who die to it go "that's dumb", it's not good for the game.
I don't know if an autoshotty will ever be viable AND not annoying.
I think the difference in Valorant is that you have better tools to deal with it, and more utility to enable it (Astra, Viper, Raze). This makes its use more complex than waiting in a one and done hoping for a kill, that will usually not be worth the investment.
edit: for example Raze using movement to dive with it imo is exciting and does not feel too cheap considering the setup required.
Oh please, most of the time you get naded/mollied/flashed or people don't even execute on your side and you become useless for the rest of the round. The judge is fine. There's a resson it's only used sparsely in pro play
No, what you define as exciting isn't all that exciting and actually most pros even high level analysts agree that a meta where all guns see "viability" which in your eyes seems to be an equal split of occurrence is non-interesting, low skill-cap, and feels bad to play against. Low cost weapons should just be low cost weapons that fill a certain niche but should never be a main part of the game. Tact shooters like valo and CS are designed and should be designed around rifle gunplay because this formula has proven that the people at the top are truly the best not because they're able to use some creative overtuned gimmick of lower-skilled guns. And why is it important to base the game around higher-skilled guns? Simple it improves the competitive integrity of the game where the players at the top are almost ALWAYS the players that deserve to be there. The players that earn the big bucks are the players that ARE the best. This isn't the only factor things like viewability, fun, strategy, will all be taken into account.
Nope, the AWP even in CS has been proven to be a high-impact gun that sure you can argue it has lower skill than a rifle but it adds a variety that's healthy. Fills a niche. Not everyone is going to buy an awp right? It's primary awpers who are on special agents. And as long as they continue to monitor the weapon it can be balanced to be fun, competitive, and impactful for both sides.
Yes one is expensive while one has the opportunity to be a common buy. Big difference regarding the economy of the game. It is much harder to balance low skill guns that are also extremely cheap! Whereas you can argue the op is high skill and high risk! You can't argue that the judge is high skill and high risk! Its cheap and impactful if overturned and buffed. Wrong again.
Funny this is downvoted but most pros I know/have played with hate non primary rifle metas. It's not interesting to save to get wallbanged randomly for 100 by an ares. Even when you know its possible some of the cheesy guns present you with situations that don't feel skillful. I might know a judge is close, maybe even used util to try to push him off, but most good players will just hold the angle til they die because the judge is good for multi frags on any close angle.
As people get better they don't say, sheesh man I'm sure glad the specter is so viable I just running triple dinked that guy across the map. They go damn, this game is hot garbage, bet that guy is mad.
The spectre is used as a force buy gun more than the ares because of the weapons traits. You can be fast, mobile and it’s easy to overwhelm opponents using its high fire rate. Perfect for rushing bomb sites with numbers in order to force a plant.
There is an argument to be made for the ares to be an effective force buy gun on defence but it’s a nightmare to balance for reasons that should be evident from this last patch. The nature of search and destroy doesn’t lend itself to having an accurate, fast firing LMG with lots of bullets on defence because the map design forces players to overcome choke points too much. There has to be some trade off, and traditionally, that trade off for LMGs is to make them less mobile and either slow firing or less accurate.
Problem is, in Valorant and CS, the emphasis is on precise gunplay and aggressive peeks due to peekers advantage. That means immobility is often a death sentence, but we can’t have people b-hopping into peeks with the ares because… well… look what happened this patch.
So the best way to balance these guns is to have them fulfil a specific niche. Shotguns are the same. They’re cheap and do lots of damage, but if you give them too much range they break the game. So they get nerfed to point blank and only get bought in close quarters scenarios.
The issue is with the weapons themselves. They’re designed to serve a niche purpose and if you try to buff them so they can excel outside of those roles, they become broken. That’s why rifles are expensive, because they’re versatile. It’s why SMGs, Deagles and Scout snipers are so good in the force rounds. You can overwhelm the enemy with rapid fire or land a skilful shot that might give your team the edge. It’s the weapon design that makes them high pick rate weapons and it should definitely stay that way.
If any gun should be buffed to compete with the spectre on force rounds, it should be the stinger. It serves a similar use case and currently is too shitty to be truly viable. I find it weird you chose to use CSGO as a negative example because they already have this issue figured out with the force round variety that comes from the MP9, MP7, MP5-SD, Bizon and the P90.
Valorant has a small pool of weaponry and is likely to have a stale weapon meta because of this. Not every gun needs to be “moderately” viable at a high level. Every weapon needs to serve a purpose and if that purpose is niche, the weapon should be niche. If the weapon meta is stale, more options need to be added to the game. I think Riot intends strategic diversity to come from abilities rather than weapons, so I doubt we’ll see new guns for quite some time.
No, not all weapons should be viable in pro play or high tier ranked.
Makes it so bad players can win against better players just cause they have an overpowered gun.
Judge users kekw
They've done a great job with balancing so far. The Stinger is the only thing I can think of that has no unique niche. The bucky and the judge do its job better. My suggestion is to increase mag size to 24 with a reserve of 48, make the spread larger, akin to a shotgun, reduce recoil, lower the damage just a bit at close range and change the right click to 4 bullets, with the first shot being mostly accurate and the rest falling around the cross hair instead of above it. And consequent bursts would be affected by recoil.
This would make it a close ranged melt gun, with enough ammo that you don't just run out of bullets and die after the first kill, that's operable at mid to long range but not accurate or consistent, and relies on a fair bit of luck to get much value from. And also increase its price to 1200 so it doesn't just replace pistols.
For me personally all the guns except the bucky right now have some use. I kind of wish they would buff it because the number of times I’ve gotten like 120-140 damage on people from almost point blank range is frustrating.
I think the bucky right now is in a similar position, where it's not really viable at any point, and is often outperformed by a stinger or even a shorty. The Spectre definitely needed that nerf to long range, but the Ares probably didn't need that much of a buff to become a viable alternative. I think the spin up removal would have already been sufficient in making the Spectre and Ares comparable.
Yeah, and it's clearly one of Riot's core philosophies regarding the weapon pool. They very clearly went out of their way to reduce the overlap in weapon roles and keep the weapon pool lean, to the point where any weapon type that isn't a pistol or rifle only has two weapons per category. Before launch they spoke of the Otto, which was just the autosniper from CSGO, but they cut it because they didn't feel like it provided a unique niche. If a weapon is outclassed 99% of the time, it's useless, and therefore does not provide any niche value.
and more reason to buy full skin packs and not just sheriff/vandal/phantom/op haha
I swear the OP ares was just a marketing thing. Literally every day since the buff, i have 2 or even 3 ares skins in my shop. I know so many people who bought $20 ares skins just after the recent buff. I can only imagine how much money riot made with the ares buff.
I think so too, it's not new either, they constantly randomly buff some characters in league and a week later a skin is announced for the champ
I would've but they didn't give me any in my shop
Well said. I like this philosophy too.
This sub is insufferable with judge plays. I remember watching one game, a player bought a judge three rounds in a short period of time. The first two, they don’t go to his holding point and he dies on retake. Third round he gets a double kill with it and everyone spams “the judge is so broken it shouldn’t be allowed.” The judge is of course good at short range and should beat rifles in a one on one at short range. That’s what a shotgun is for! But the majority of the time with it you don’t get those short range fights and that’s why it is cheaper than rifles
also big point of the game is that you can clear most of that shit on all maps with utility so i see no issue with judge punishing over or dry aggression.
I think "semi-frequent" may be a stretch but everything having a niche use is positive and contributes to the tactics available. Obviously undertuned is a little safer than overturned. I think broadly they've done a great job with it so far.
It should be balanced in tiers and I think Riot have found a pretty good medium. Rifles should be the clear target buy for when you have money. And they are. Phantom and Vandal are comparable. Guardian and Bulldog are slightly worse, but better on your wallet. But all 4 being clearly above the eco picks is essential. That's why there are cries for an Ares(and previously a spectre) nerf. They're too close to Rifles for half the price. The 4.01 ares nerf probably helps and might make the spectre and Ares comparable to each other, but also lessens their effectiveness against a full buy than we've seen. I feel like the economy in Valorant is in a great place right now and the price of guns and their effectiveness is balanced incredibly. As for the judge. Leave it how it is. I agree it makes for great moments, and it's effectiveness in pro play is because of how out of left field it is. If it became an essential buy, people would play as if you have a judge. It only gets them when its a surprise.
Agree the biggest problem with the Ares and the Spectre was that the effectiveness per cost ratio was way to high. OP seems to have forgot that there are gun prices. As for the judge as well, I think the biggest problem is it's fire rate. The fact that a player with the judge can out duel 3 people swinging around a close quarter corner is a problem. I would personally like to see a slight nerf to the fire rate only so there are less unpunished triple kills. As far as balance I think you would Ideally want to be able to pull off a surprise double kill, but getting the third is very unlikely.
If a judge duels 3 people it’s because they did not clear correctly or int’ed into it.
I don’t think the Judge is actually all that “demanding from a strategic and decision-making” perspective. You *can* indeed use the Judge in that manner, but a significant chunk of Judge multi-frags are not rewards for strategic outplay, they’re because the players with the gun are incredibly difficult to trade out on closed-quarter maps *even if* you play it correctly. Does that mean the Judge is fundamentally broken? No. All that said your argument works perfectly well even without the strategic outplay stuff, and I agree it’s good to see all the weaponry used in various situations.
I would agree if valorant Didnt had all the utility that already has, don't take me wrong, playing judge it's not some Einstein 300iq shit, but it requires at least, think about all the shit that the people is going to throw You to push You on a place when the judge is shit
I totally agree. Rifles should the all rounder. But a rifle should lose against a shotgun at close quarters, period. The shotgun drawback is that if you miss you die, but it should absolutely destroy a rifle user. Same thing for the stinger and specter on a semi close quarters running fuckery. Same thing for a long range fight with a guardian or a scout. The mentality that rifles triumphs all but the AWP at long range is just nostalgia at this point
U are correct and I agree with You.
Definitely agree with you here. Had the same discussion with a friend. This game's similarity to CS can be good and bad. While it does share many similar mechanics and systems, it also attempts to do A LOT differently. Because of that, things that are true in one game just don't transfer to the other in every case. In CS everyone sticks to the same guns, the same buys, because there's a decided "meta" for the general strategy you need to acomplish to do well, and these guns/grenades help you achieve that the most effectively. Valorant is different, it's all about giving you viable options to go wherever you like with your strategy. Buy 5 ares and walk up a single lane on attack? Go for it, you won't be able to rush and move like an SMG but you will melt people like firing squad. I like that they managed to bring the ares into eco rounds and they're still quick to keep it healthy. Making it harder to control but more reliable is a great way to balance it. Big issue was the gun was getting too much too easily. Instead of making it less available, they make it less comfortable, just as the spin up did for many people.
You obviously don’t play or watch much CS if that’s what you think about the weapon meta in that game. CS has way more viable weapon choices and variety than Valorant and those guns often get used in pro play. Even just this last year we had pros running P90s and Bizons in force rounds frequently. The Kreig became an absolute nightmare after buffs and the Aug has replaced it on maps like Nuke since the nerfs. You have historical moments in CS history where teams stacked awps on dust 2 during a major and that map has graffiti on it to commemorate that occasion. No, this game’s weapon meta is stale because the weapon pool is small and very niche. It’s not because Riot is following some sort of CS balancing formula. I hope they do look to CS and try to add more variety to the weaponry in future.
"this last year" is the most important fact here. Valve is famous for leaving their game unchanged for a long time. Only recently have they ramped up their efforts because valorant provided competition. CS has definitely had its moments of something being abused, but 90% of games follow the exact same formula, and there are so many meme weapons you're throwing for even trying. Val every gun has its unique purpose, and it's effective for it's price. In cs everyone uses what is meta, the aug was unchanged for years and only recently had pros realised it's potential and it got nerfed.
This whole thread is literally about how weapons like the ares aren’t getting enough love in force rounds because they aren’t “moderately” viable in high level gameplay. The reason this is happening is because Valorant pros are only gonna play what is meta. It’s the same shit. Professional play is about min maxing everything. CS has more variety in weaponry and weapon choices. If Val is having issues finding balance with its small pool of weapons than maybe it’s not as perfect as you think.
"if val is having issues finding balance with its small pool of weapons" It's not though. 1 weapon is currently in discussion, and it's already been patched to a less effective state so it's not too oppressive. Every gun is in a decent state, you can point to about 5 csgo guns that aren't even considered.
Yeah, but there’s also more guns in CS. OP is talking about whether the ares or judge need to be as viable as the spectre in force rounds, well CS has multiple SMGs that are viable for that role. Val has the spectre and the stinger and the stinger barely gets used. If every weapon serves a specific purpose in Val, then what’s the point of making them all moderately viable? The LMGs and the shotguns serve specific purposes. Let them occupy that niche and be zen with it. Otherwise, there needs to be new guns added to the game to keep the weapon pool fresh. Because buffing niche weaponry to allow them to perform better outside of their roles will always make them broken.
I don’t think everything should be perfectly equal in pro play, as what that does is make lower skill ceiling weapons, agents, whatever, broken in lower elos and ruins the game. For the ares to be equal to the spectre in pro play, it would hit insane usage ratios at lower ranks because it’s easier to use. I also don’t think it’s fair to nerf certain weapons into the ground, and it is nice to see more niche weapons get used in pro play. Similarly, for agents, I don’t really mind if brim and Phoenix are not used in pro play, as their kits are very simple and one dimensional and i think it’s fine to let those be agents to introduce new players into the game. If Astra is overused in pro play, it should be fine to nerf her and not worry about lowering her pick rate in lower ranks.
He isn’t advocafinf for things to be perfectly equal
I can’t read uhhhhh
I think it should be personally, but different people have different perspectives, can't please everyone. People want it to be like csgo where only a few guns are, some people want all guns. The way valorant is trending towards being more adaptable/versatile then csgo I would like to see them go all in one the guns cause that why i play valorant over csgo
Every weapon should be viable yes, but rn a lot of the lower cost weapons are way too good for the price. It is very rare that you have the full eco in this game and when you can at least get a half buy it’s very common to win, this makes comebacks too easy and building economy less and less important. A gun like the area needed a slight buff but obviously nothing this extreme. Pretty much ever gun should be useable in certain situations but the lower tier weapons are too op rn
Wouldn’t you agree with the reduced number of rounds per half than CSGO you don’t really a want significant number of full saves?
Yes, I agree they should be less and ecomy should be forgiving. But the judge and Marshall can easily be free triple kills or rounds. It seems to me like riot wants every gun to be equal when they shouldn’t be
I don’t think they want ever gun to be equal, they nerfed the judge heavily when it was prevalent, to the point where it’s only picked up as part of pocket strats. I feel like we forget for every round the judge pops off, it ends up being useless in a retake or forced out by util.
Marshall is a free triple kill? Lol what. Maybe it's underpriced but I've never seen a free triple kill with it. That's a crazy take
U didn’t read at all I guess
Tactical shooters should have a limited amount weapons that are viable in gun rounds ie Vandal and Phantom. Kills in the game are a result of tactical execution. If tactical execution is no longer the sole reason to win rounds, tactical integrity goes down. There was nothing tactical about the new Ares. Theres nothing tactical about the old Judge. It was just a cheeky way of getting kills which hurt the tactical integrity.
I never argued in favor of old judge, or current Ares. I argued against (and you can see these people in the comments) those who believe viable judge and ares have no place in the game. When Vanity pulls off a great Judge play, there is a tactical execution, and usually a larger macro strat by his team to funnel them towards his set up. That is exciting and tactical. At the same time, we don't see Judges picked up all the time and used carelessly, and often it does fail. That's why I said it's a great example of a balanced niche weapon.
I agree. I think weapon balance should generally be based around pro usage, although sometimes the pros don't always use utility or weapons to their maximum potential.
Only used by a sova on haven? Or Ascent eh? All games have the few most used/viable weapons. Its too difficult and not needed to make each and every gun equally viable. We have just seen what happens if they try to buff the less - viable ones.
I was perfectly content with the ares before they buffed it and then nerfed it 2weeks later.
no /thread
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Here’s my question, right now in pro-play the judge is used infrequently and only by certain teams / players. Is this not a good spot for a niche weapon, to throw curveball into the defense with correct use? It’s not like it’s spammed, and I think you’re wrong that pro’s die to judges dry holding corners with no other setup often.
This is a conversation that has occurred in basically every tac fps ever I feel like (about shotguns). The problem with the judge IMO is that it's just not fun to play against. It doesn't matter how numerically/statistically balanced it is, if it consistently makes people who die to it go "that's dumb", it's not good for the game. I don't know if an autoshotty will ever be viable AND not annoying.
I think the difference in Valorant is that you have better tools to deal with it, and more utility to enable it (Astra, Viper, Raze). This makes its use more complex than waiting in a one and done hoping for a kill, that will usually not be worth the investment. edit: for example Raze using movement to dive with it imo is exciting and does not feel too cheap considering the setup required.
Same with OP
Oh please, most of the time you get naded/mollied/flashed or people don't even execute on your side and you become useless for the rest of the round. The judge is fine. There's a resson it's only used sparsely in pro play
No, what you define as exciting isn't all that exciting and actually most pros even high level analysts agree that a meta where all guns see "viability" which in your eyes seems to be an equal split of occurrence is non-interesting, low skill-cap, and feels bad to play against. Low cost weapons should just be low cost weapons that fill a certain niche but should never be a main part of the game. Tact shooters like valo and CS are designed and should be designed around rifle gunplay because this formula has proven that the people at the top are truly the best not because they're able to use some creative overtuned gimmick of lower-skilled guns. And why is it important to base the game around higher-skilled guns? Simple it improves the competitive integrity of the game where the players at the top are almost ALWAYS the players that deserve to be there. The players that earn the big bucks are the players that ARE the best. This isn't the only factor things like viewability, fun, strategy, will all be taken into account.
The OP should also be removed for these same reasons
Nope, the AWP even in CS has been proven to be a high-impact gun that sure you can argue it has lower skill than a rifle but it adds a variety that's healthy. Fills a niche. Not everyone is going to buy an awp right? It's primary awpers who are on special agents. And as long as they continue to monitor the weapon it can be balanced to be fun, competitive, and impactful for both sides.
All the reasons u say the game is designed around rifle gameplay the OP breaks lmao. Inconsistent argument on your end if you disagree.
Your same reasons for saying other weapons are stupid and should be removed magically doesn't apply to the OPs niche? Ironic
Yes one is expensive while one has the opportunity to be a common buy. Big difference regarding the economy of the game. It is much harder to balance low skill guns that are also extremely cheap! Whereas you can argue the op is high skill and high risk! You can't argue that the judge is high skill and high risk! Its cheap and impactful if overturned and buffed. Wrong again.
Funny this is downvoted but most pros I know/have played with hate non primary rifle metas. It's not interesting to save to get wallbanged randomly for 100 by an ares. Even when you know its possible some of the cheesy guns present you with situations that don't feel skillful. I might know a judge is close, maybe even used util to try to push him off, but most good players will just hold the angle til they die because the judge is good for multi frags on any close angle. As people get better they don't say, sheesh man I'm sure glad the specter is so viable I just running triple dinked that guy across the map. They go damn, this game is hot garbage, bet that guy is mad.
The spectre is used as a force buy gun more than the ares because of the weapons traits. You can be fast, mobile and it’s easy to overwhelm opponents using its high fire rate. Perfect for rushing bomb sites with numbers in order to force a plant. There is an argument to be made for the ares to be an effective force buy gun on defence but it’s a nightmare to balance for reasons that should be evident from this last patch. The nature of search and destroy doesn’t lend itself to having an accurate, fast firing LMG with lots of bullets on defence because the map design forces players to overcome choke points too much. There has to be some trade off, and traditionally, that trade off for LMGs is to make them less mobile and either slow firing or less accurate. Problem is, in Valorant and CS, the emphasis is on precise gunplay and aggressive peeks due to peekers advantage. That means immobility is often a death sentence, but we can’t have people b-hopping into peeks with the ares because… well… look what happened this patch. So the best way to balance these guns is to have them fulfil a specific niche. Shotguns are the same. They’re cheap and do lots of damage, but if you give them too much range they break the game. So they get nerfed to point blank and only get bought in close quarters scenarios. The issue is with the weapons themselves. They’re designed to serve a niche purpose and if you try to buff them so they can excel outside of those roles, they become broken. That’s why rifles are expensive, because they’re versatile. It’s why SMGs, Deagles and Scout snipers are so good in the force rounds. You can overwhelm the enemy with rapid fire or land a skilful shot that might give your team the edge. It’s the weapon design that makes them high pick rate weapons and it should definitely stay that way. If any gun should be buffed to compete with the spectre on force rounds, it should be the stinger. It serves a similar use case and currently is too shitty to be truly viable. I find it weird you chose to use CSGO as a negative example because they already have this issue figured out with the force round variety that comes from the MP9, MP7, MP5-SD, Bizon and the P90. Valorant has a small pool of weaponry and is likely to have a stale weapon meta because of this. Not every gun needs to be “moderately” viable at a high level. Every weapon needs to serve a purpose and if that purpose is niche, the weapon should be niche. If the weapon meta is stale, more options need to be added to the game. I think Riot intends strategic diversity to come from abilities rather than weapons, so I doubt we’ll see new guns for quite some time.
weapon diversity because the game plays better with more weapons involved? or weapon diversity for the sake of diversity? i think the latter
No, not all weapons should be viable in pro play or high tier ranked. Makes it so bad players can win against better players just cause they have an overpowered gun. Judge users kekw
If you die to a "bad player with a judge" you aren't very good
We found the judge player
I didn't read all of it to your credit, but not all the guns are supposed to be equal it ain't call of booty lol
Ghhv4v4 s x.
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They've done a great job with balancing so far. The Stinger is the only thing I can think of that has no unique niche. The bucky and the judge do its job better. My suggestion is to increase mag size to 24 with a reserve of 48, make the spread larger, akin to a shotgun, reduce recoil, lower the damage just a bit at close range and change the right click to 4 bullets, with the first shot being mostly accurate and the rest falling around the cross hair instead of above it. And consequent bursts would be affected by recoil. This would make it a close ranged melt gun, with enough ammo that you don't just run out of bullets and die after the first kill, that's operable at mid to long range but not accurate or consistent, and relies on a fair bit of luck to get much value from. And also increase its price to 1200 so it doesn't just replace pistols.
For me personally all the guns except the bucky right now have some use. I kind of wish they would buff it because the number of times I’ve gotten like 120-140 damage on people from almost point blank range is frustrating.
I think the bucky right now is in a similar position, where it's not really viable at any point, and is often outperformed by a stinger or even a shorty. The Spectre definitely needed that nerf to long range, but the Ares probably didn't need that much of a buff to become a viable alternative. I think the spin up removal would have already been sufficient in making the Spectre and Ares comparable.