Riot Games is working on a fairly significant Yoru overhaul for a future Valorant update, though this rework has now been delayed, with no clear release window in mind.
Ever since Yoru joined Valorant’s Agent lineup, Riot has been consistently buffing the stealth-based Duelist. Yet despite multiple rounds of minor tweaks over the past seven months, a more considerable rework is on the way.
Providing an update in the 3.03 patch notes, it was confirmed this rework is now “delayed indefinitely.”
While details remain scarce as to why this rework is on hold, along with how the underperforming character may look moving forward, a Valorant developer has provided some new insight on work being done behind the scenes.
Rather than rushing out fairly hefty change, Coleman ‘Altombre’ Palm explained on Reddit not only how Yoru is changing, but why Riot is taking its time.
“3.0 was a pretty significant patch,” Palm said. In order to give Valorant “some time to breathe” with those changes, the devs “didn’t want to kneejerk” with more tweaks while the community was adapting to the June update.
Moreover, the devs are fairly “confident” with the state of balance in Valorant today, compared to how things were throughout the first year on the market. “There are still opportunities for sure, but nothing super serious that needs fast, aggressive changes,” he added, “outside of Yoru.”
When it comes to Yoru’s rework, Palm remained tight-lipped on what abilities may be on the chopping block. The upcoming changes are more than just the typical “numbers tweaks” though, he did confirm.
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“Whenever something needs art resources, we have to coordinate with other disciplines. Also, Yoru is a bit more complex than our other agents. So that’s a component of it as well, but we’ve iterated for a while at this point.
“I wouldn’t say it’s a total overhaul. But art/visual assets in our game are very important to get right because of how much they can impede gameplay.”
Based on these comments, it’s fair to expect some considerable changes in contrast to the usual buffs and nerfs. With the art team getting involved, this implied Yoru’s kit may be changing with all new visuals required.
“We don’t often have balance changes that require this sort of support,” he added.
At the end of the day, “Yoru will still be Yoru” after these changes are deployed. So we can expect a similar gameplay style to remain intact following the rework.
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As for when we might see Yoru climbing the Duelist rankings, that remains a mystery. It could still be weeks before we see these changes.
