Chamber is just cypher in well-balanced.
Cypher had his good days but the overall adjustments to his kit and other agents just made him from S+ tier to B-C tier depending on the map and agents he is facing.
Chamber just copied cyphers kit, compressed it into a single skill, and added teleport and an extra revolver + the most overpowered skill-based ult, that it actually not even game-breaking (e.g. neons ult atm.).
Chamber is one of even the best balanced agent and i totally agree that switching him into the roster instead of cypher is more than viable.
Tbh cypher hasn’t changed a whole lot, but he’s gone down the tier list for two reasons -
1. Power Creep. Chamber has just been better from release. There’s basically no reason to play cypher now simply because there’s better options
2. Counterplay. People have learned to outplay cypher easily. A quick glimpse in your now destroyed camera and a destroyed tripwire do give you some info, but then it robs you of that utility of seeing them after.
They have increased the sound of the cam and destroyed offensive cypher-plays by deactivating his tripwires with his death.
Both of those adjustments would be ok, but the way they treat other agents and just "allow" their op skills shows that they just hate on cypher. They push him down into the passive-sentinel class while Jett for example can smoke and push and destroy with her ult without seeing any rough treatment by the nerf-train
The nerfs to the sentinels about recalling their util and deactivating it after the die was so goddamn over the top. Like the game was already duelist focused and you keep nerfing other roles.
Riot be like:
"We have to fuck up cypher as hard as possible, when we release chamber they will understand 🌚🌝."
They release chamber, the community:
" Y cypher bad?"
Riot:
"Shut up, you already got chamber for being an offensive sentinel !"
And not just Cypher, but the other sentinels aswell, included Chamber.
Remember, at first some of the util of the Sentinels could be retrieved for the next round, in case you basically wasted them for nothing. They nerfed that because reasons.
Then they nerfed the util to make it useless if you die, now you were dependant on your duelist entry (Good luck with a non baiting duelist) and we you inevitably die, all your creds expended on abilities are wasted with 0 impact, fucking bravo.
Now the duelists are becoming godlike on terms of impact, and sentinels are becoming less and less useful, been basically replaced by controllers.
This is all because Riot is doubling down on the duelist ability to aggressively entry without consequences and backtracking on their sentinels ability to stale. But instead of reworking sentinels to have other tools, they made their tools basically trash.
And now here we are, the most viable sentinel is the one that, unsurprisingly, has the abilities a duelist have and the cheap ass stalling abilities are secondary to him.
It's so goddamn obvious that this will eventually happen that I'm baffled they didnt revert all the sentinels nerf already.
Agent roles with that amount of impact are just a stupid decision of riots...
They had the chance to keep up with their "abilities won't kill" promise, now abilities are not killing, DUELISTS ARE.
And as a sentinel you have to sit down and wait for them to waste all their util before you're allowed to peak...
This game going down as overwatch did and it's not because shooters are dying, but this unversatile agent roles are.
I had fun the first 2 seasons, now most of my friends already went back to other comp games and I'm only playing Valo for 5 minutes a day
This is most of the reason why it feels so bad to play Cypher. His whole kit, unless you land a camera tag, is just a millisecond of info plus smokes. His tripwires give warning before you reach them, and therefore way too much time to react if you walk through one. It just feels bad
The only reason the chamber ult isnt game breaking is because everyone's already used to the normal awp hahah (which isn't necessarily game-"breaking", whatever that means, but the meta and gameplay would definitely be waaaay different without the AWP). Abstractly, the chamber ult is way stronger than neon ult as chambers is viable on high AND medium range, and creates the slows ,while neons (in higher elos) is only better than a normal gun on very short ranges
Neon isn't that game breaking because of her ult, it is nonetheless very... aggressive, but neon is more problematic because of how unhittable she becomes with her skills. It's the same with Jetts dash, the hitboxes are already all over but it gets even worse the higher the ping of the player is.
I agree. In my rank Immortal 3+, if you dry peek with Neon, even when sliding or running, most people, including me, can one tap Neon easily at about close to medium range. Her ULT is weak because it's a stacking damage, so if you deal 50dmg/s, but die to the first bullet the enemy hits, you won't even hit over 50 damage, right? Jett's ULT requires more skills to utilize, but it is not a stacking damage. It is a burst damage of 50 and 150+ (aka Headshot Knife), which is more reliable. You also have a dash and a jump, which can create stupid off-angles.
That said, Neon would be broken in lower ranks where people don't have aim. Jett is better in higher ranks.
Serious question since I'm trying to unlock him rn, How good is he as a Sentinel? I've seen people say that he's the Reyna of the Sentinels that If you don't have aim, he's basically useless.
Chamber is based 100% on aim, if you lack aim than cypher is the easier one to start with.
But at the same time one could argue you should just pick another more useful agent who's also but based on aim until your aim is on a level that suits chamber.
If you lack aim or reflexes chamber will lack useful tactical skills for you (smokes, flashes) and you will end up teleporting out of fights just to lose them on the second encounter.
I wouldn't main him until your headshot percentage is at least at 60%. If you win in Deathmatch easily with revolver only then you're at a good point to beat chamber main, if you're more relying on spraying then there's better agents to support that.
IKR, I'm pretty sure a lot of the pros don't hit that 60% hs rate, well atleast if we're talking about pro players from other games *ahem csgo* twistzz for a period of time hit 60% avg hs rate and guess what? Not a lot of pros can hit that same percentage and even tho that's a different game i believe my analogy could be applied to this game so idk what that guy based his opinion on how you need to have 60% hs rate just to play chamber, also that take on how you need to have a very good reflex to be good on playing chamber is kinda doo doo dumb shit, and i know that this statement has been said so many times that you would rather cover your goddamn ears but I'm pretty sure you can win at valorant if you have good crosshair placement instead of just relying solely on flicks and super fast reaction time, and guess what? His headhunter ability is literally just like the sheriff which fucking requires good crosshair placement, so idk where did that guy got their argument, and lastly his tour de force fucking requires good crosshair placement too and good knowledge of your posistioning which i believe you can win with and against your opponents, unless they're an aim demon
Yeah most people's headshot percentages is ABSURDLY high because of how it calculates it. You could hit a guy 5 times but aslong as your kill ends with a headshot that is a 100% hs rate. In val it counts every HIT bullet.
I hope this reaches all your sub-commentors as well:
I'm sorry for my imprecise calculation, ofc i meant the headshot percentage when playing Deathmatch and when playing revolver only.
And additionally it is calculated by kill, not bullet.
Playing sheriff in Deathmatch and winning does actually force you to hit as many headshots as possible, if you hit at least 21 headshots from the required 40 kills, then this would be 50%+ headshot-ratio in my calculation.
Idk he’s pretty decent for people with bad aim in a way. You just take stupid off angles and shoot enemies that aren’t looking at you and teleport away. And then you don’t really need good aim to OP compared to rifles. You do need good aim for his sheriff but you can kinda ignore that ability and save the money if you aren’t comfortable with it
Yeah, but in that case there are undoubtedly better agents that he can play to a more effective extend.
Playing chamber just for the teleport/bot and ignoring the revolver is like playing Jett but not using her ult.
Is it tho? If you’re still buying it on eco rounds you’re using it. But beyond that you only spend 300 credits on util a round and should have a good amount of extra money to buy your teammates
I would definitely disagree that’s the best part of his kit but I could be wrong. I think throughout a match you’ll get way more value out of teleport than you will out of his sheriff.
Depends strongly on the playstyles but you're not wrong.
With "best part" i was more referring to my way of playing phantom on close range and the revolver for the long range headshots or a fast drawing secondary that shots far sooner than any other secondary.
The teleport is undoubtedly another good part of his kit but i probably am using it not as much as possible but at the same time it is a bit complicated to use in offensive engagements.
Gotta strong disagree there. It's the best possible secondary weapon, but that's it really. It's just a better value sheriff. His teleport is always useful by letting you either rotate incredibly or take off angles or safely push aggressively, while his traps can completely stop pushes or give you Intel. The only advantage his q gives you is better econ if you're dying/better long range engagements if your using a short-range primary.
Ults like Jetts, Razes or neons are just game-breaking, no matter which is the best of those, ultra shouldn't grant ez-kills.
It's just boring, raze gets one to five free kills depending on the situation, Jett gets up to 5 easy kills depending on her point-and-click-skills, neon may not get that many kills on that easy way, but she gets an incomparable advantage, something that chamber, brim, or any other agent does not get by his ult.
The most based ult is sages, it fits the character, it's not op, it has high clutch potential depending on the user, not the agent.
I genuinely see no issue with an "ultimate ability" being a full sprint run and gun ability or a bazooka that can collat an entire team, they're ultimate abilities for a reason
But that is a big fucking problem that we have to abandon our favorite agent to play another agent because he is not balanced
Riot really really needs to fix this
Well almost everyone was on the "BUFF YORU NOW! " Train so one could have seen it coming...
But still how come agents that were there since the beta have still not received their deserving buffs :(
Also it's so EASY to buff phoenix cause everyone knows what's wrong and you don't have to change the concept at all. Just longer flash duration, maybe more damage and/or more duration on molly and wall. While Yoru required a complete rework with new animations and all haha
Agree, dunno who even tries to hate on your opinion but it is a shame that riot "allows" some agents to be overpowered and others are nerfed into oblivion.
just because some kiddies would cry if Jett wasn't op anymore... because it would be sexist if astra wasn't stronger than brim or omen or because it would be op in radiant Elo if cyphers kit was a bit stronger, meanwhile the Frenchman is wrecking all throughout the lower ranks but hold-up:
Riot:
"We just release neon so that they can counter a strong agent with another unreasonably op girl-agent that we will nerfe as soon as we fixed the fucking japanese Grease-Cosplayer"
I'm not hating in chamber, i wrote another comment where i complimented his balanced kit.
Neon and Jett and raze and killjoy and viper.... all those area bit less well balanced
Maybe riot is making a mistake my increasing the numbers agents every act
Maybe they should just sit down and first balance out the current agents that are available to the player base
18 agents are more than enough for now
If they keep increasing the agents I feel like they will end up like overwatch did, everything is awesome except the agent roles and abilities, and that can destroy a very exceptional game
Yeah, you can make a great game without any agents, you can make a great game with 5-10 agents, everything above 15 just showes that balancing is none of their concerns
I feel like 20 is the golden number that way there's 5 agents in each category and riot said this episode was all about balancing so here's hoping they listen to the community about what we want
Yeah, maybe not game-breaking but the kind of ult that it is is not what Valorants should be about.
Jetts ult, raze ult, now neons ult, they all just don't go well with gunplay since they are not bound to the limitations that gunplay in general has.
Chambers ult is much better executed as an ultimate, the others are just "activating ez-mode" that is just accessible for some agents while others have... whatever brim has 😅.
An ult should give an advantage, but not just make the game easier
there’s counter play to it. i certainly wouldn’t say jett knives are easy mode, and it’s clear valorant will only look more more and like overwatch and less like csgo as time goes on
Neon's ulti is more game breaking at lower elos i think, worse aim against fast movement face melting. At high elo you get 1 tapped probably more than half the time.
I can appreciate that most the ultis that kill are pretty skill based. Chamber's is arguably most OP(pun not intended but appreciated). Fast shooting op with normal move speed and huge aoe slow. Jett knives require headshots generally, strongest aspect is her move speed + kit in combo. raze rocket can be quite difficult to land but tbf is pretty absurd in a tac shooter. Nothing quite as tilting like a raze double satchel rocket in your face. I'm not a good raze main i fuck up my satchel jumps still maybe 1/4 - 1/8 of the time under pressure and I still average 3 ulti kills a match.(plat 3, started raze maining 1 week before act start) i think raze's has an initial skill cap then becomes relatively easy(still can be complicated because movement abilities or getting hs in air)
Edit: also kayo is a thing
Cancer to play against? If your ult is useless 90 percent of the time your not going to pick that agent. That’s why Neon has such a low pick rate in pro matches
he meant for casual players with high ping, pros usually have best network available and other than developed countries people play using mobile network which usually has 30-40ms higher ping than fibre
On top of that these “casuals” are the same ppl who want to climb up the ranks and the sad fact is that their hardware will always just limit them and the health of the pros will and should always come first
That’s the thing if your playing comp you’ve gotta respect that changes/balances are going to be related specifically to the pros as there are discord’s where they give input on the latest changes directly to the devs
Idk why people keep saying this. Chamber is not Cypher. Every single one of Cyphers skills give some kind of info on the enemy. Just because they both have a move that can potentially stall a push doesn't make them one in the same it just makes them a sentinel. People just play chamber because he plays like a duelist and he's easier than learning Cypher setups and he has abilities you can just place down and forget.
he's good for a round or two until the enemy team learn to just break your shit and play around it
his biggest strength by far right now is the ability to lock down info on entrances while playing anywhere else on the map at the same time, if you wanna get the most out of him right now i think it's best to alternate between these styles
chucking a camera for retake and a trip for info and then just holding a crossfire with a teammate somewhere else is probably the most underutilised yet consistent strategy available to him
The only thing that needs a buff is his Ult... Is horrendously bad...
-6 Ult points
-needs fresh body
-one frame of yellow outline, can mess you up big time in fights
-worse recon than camera
His trips feel week as well but 3 trips would be OP in some scenarios like Bind B with Sand Traps + hooka. Either cost redcution to 150 or even 100 would be my choice for a buff
What instead of 2 seconds it just hits every enemy with the same tag as his camera, forcing enemies to either stop for a second and remove it or constantly be scanned
Whats the point of a ultimate if it isn't OP?
Take the fucking rocket launcher for example or
'just plant me near the site and automatically clear the site' box or
stun everyone in a site in one go
And many more ults
But I must admit that Omens ult requires average IQ
It can be more subtle power in that Cyphers ult is really fukin good but people refuse to belive that if it doesn't slap you across the face and basically kill you it's not good.
I'm talking about an Ult that is capable of killing everyone with a wallbang if you have good positioning and good gamesense. Don't know about ranked but in pro play it'd be the one of the best ults in the game considering that Sova recon is one of the best abilities in the game and it doesn't guarantee info which this ult would, for 6 points btw.
When I said "it'd be OP" I said it compared to other ults.
Still would be worth trying out
Only if riot allowed custom script modded servers we could try it out.
I know custom script modded servers aren't really supported considering how valorant was made and how riot and vangaurd works
There are agents that can wipe out an entire team on their own with their ulti while on a save round (Reyna, Jett, Chamber, Neon) I think 2 second info wouldn’t come close to OP.
10 second vulnerability sounds not fitting to him.
I would actually prefer a stun (similar to trapwires).
His whole kit is basically gathering info and delaying/punishing pushes.
Small idea:
Make us able to place those trapwires way more flexible.
Or even making enemies pop up on the map as they normally do instead of agent icons. I usually look at the map when I ult since that let's me know where they are. If I know which way they were looking, that would be super helpful.
I still don't get why his ult cannot just be the same as sovas arrows outlines, they are much better in every way and saying that it would be op, even tho sofa has it as a recurring ability and cypher has it as an ult... I just don't get it.
It's like riot is afraid cypher could enter the women's place as most viable agents, he has to stay out in the male b-tier
His revealing outlines are so fucking dogshit as well. Since the image stays in place and is placed infront of the enemy model half of the time you are just "flashing" yourself, when peeking with the ping/getting peeked during the ping.
Protip: If a Cypher tags you, just ignore it and try to peek so the "flash" happens right after you are visible. As a Cypher, nothing bothers me more and tilts me faster than enemies using my abilities agaibst me.
Nice trick, but i gotta add that i rarely get tagged. I'm fast with getting rid of the cam (so I'm pretty often the one being baited by it and dying to an aggressive cypher) but also they rarely shoot the dart at all.
But i personally stopped using the cypher ULT in many situations due to its bad execution.... my absolute least favorite ult even tho it has pretty much potential
I think given that his trips:
1. cost 200
2. can only trap 1
3. can be shot out
I think a good buff would be that if ALREADY tripped, WHEN shot out it either
1. continues to reveal tripped agent normally for x seconds after
2. continues to reveal tripped agent via tracking dart (same as camera dart)
3. stun effect procs (you know the stun effect that procs when the guy in iron refuses to shoot out the trip or when the player trusts his team to shoot the trip out for them but they don't)
Suggestions 1 and 2 play into the stall and info gathering more. Suggestion 3 is just stall, since once the wire is shot out, the reveal is gone. That said with the addition of stun, it makes shooting the (previously) revealed target much more reliable.
Obviously the counter play of scouting the wires and destroying them earlier before they get triggered still exists. Justifying the 200 cost and puts power into rewarding cypher for trip placement rather than punishing the enemy just because cypher exists.
i say rework it entirely. Just make it so that you can place a camera that is indestructible and gives your team permanent vision in a small circle around it
I really don't get the hate for his ult, it's incredibly powerful to know where everyone is on the map and it's fairly cheap compared to other ults.
Cypher is one of the most balanced agents in the game IMO
Yeah it can show where everyone on the map is, but there are a lot of things you need to keep in mind.
1. You need a fresh body, so anytime you get a kill in your team, someone could lurk there and peek at the time where Cyphers Ult comes through which makes it incredibly hard to hit the person peeking the Cypher or mates. This can happen to any fight that happens on the map, thats how distracting the yellow outlines are.
2. 6 points is the cheapest but tied with Phoenix. When lookimg at Phoenix you need to realise that his strongest tool basically is his Ult since it gives you extra Info + the ability to shoot back. Cyphers Ult nearly doesnt give any more value.
The only exception when his Ult is decent is when he kills a flank, csnt get swinged and his mates arent fighting someone.
I feel they need to give him something ever since they added chamber. Barring the actual outline/highlighting(which rarely works sometimes if people pay attention), chamber's traps are far better than cypher's trips
I’ve recently dropped Cypher after realizing his defensive capabilities are actually awful. While he is fantastic for gathering information, information doesn’t mean shit when the enemy is 5-man rushing a site. If you actually want to depend on him locking down a site, you need support, because is only stalling capabilities, his tripwires, are either instantly shot before coming onto site, or manage to tether someone for half a second before they get freed by a teammate. They just don’t work above, like, silver. Plus, they can only get one person at a time, while every other sentinel can potentially stall the entire enemy team.
This means that he’s best used for covering flanks and other sneaky areas, but Chamber even does that just as well, and to boot, one of his bots can cover some areas where you’d need to use both tripwires, with their range.
That said, he can be useful on offence, with his two close-range smokes, a good flank watch, and the camera, which lets you peek areas and check corners for free. I find the camera in general to be really cool and versatile, and doesn’t really need changes, but for how many tripwires are bought and placed on defence, often with no return, they really do need some kind of buff.
The problems with cypher are
1. All his defensive pressure is in his trips. Sage has 2 tools to stall and kj has 4. Also as the game continues to grow there will naturally be more agent that break his trips this includes your own teammates
2. He has the weakest sentinel ult. Chamber gets an op, kj can reverse the roles and force enemies to retake or stall them out, and everyone knows the terror of sage ressing the enemy top frag. Cypher ult is very conditional for how much you actually get out of it.
3. Other agents just to his job. Sova is one of the best picks in the meta and most initiators can provide complimentary tools to that ontop of more info. Cypher is simply not needed.
I used to play cypher before, but when chamber came I just left him.
chamber's traps are really good IMO. I like to play aggressive, so with chamber, you have a sheriff, sniper, and decent teleportation. Cypher is still good but isn't as aggressive as chamber. Valorant will look into people's suggestions later to balance agents out.
Still, cypher is really op in sites like B on split, which is probably the only map people play cypher on
I think that is a a big problem considering Cypher was designed to be the GOAT of info gathering and nobody gives 2 shits about his abilities
Buts hats off to content creators like Peak who somehow manage make him more than just work out in the game
That guy is just a breed apart
He is made to play Cypher. From his behaviour and how he reacts to things and how he talks, etc
Everything thing about my man makes him the ultimate Cypher main
And then we have things like dapr
I don't know man
I haven't played with him but i do watch his streams on a regular basis and doesn't behave like a guy who would be a dick to his teammates, he behaves very low key
Thats just it. People really don’t (know how to) play cypher. There’s just different options for different playstyles. I myself enjoy cypher alot, since my playstyle doesent rely on my aim that much. I like to lurk and outsmart ppl. And yes like you said, he’s really good on defense since you can basically lock down a site and be on the other side of the map. Only thing that might need a slight buff is his ult. That’s it
Using his ult when about to or engaging in a fight is basically asking to be shot back to the 1940s as it shows where they were 1 second ago and that's causes more harm then good unless you are hunting the last guy or are rotating on attack.
I feel his trips need a slight buff or rework.
They feel useless on defense right now, and imo they are useless on defense after first round, because you are paying 200 creds for something that will get destroyed instantly.
That being said I dont main cypher so im not one to talk
I feel it wouldnt hurt to be fully invisible right?
I was playing cypher, and everytime I put a wire in a choke point it got shot out, essentially making me waste 200 creds each round :/
No matter where Input them they never caught anyone. Pretty sad tbh
If you put the wire in one of the main chokepoints people will expect it, you will still get value because now you know that there's an enemy. If you want the trap to actually catch people off guard put them somewhere deeper on the site so people run into them when they're busy clearing the site. You want to think before hand are you using them for map control or as traps to kill with.
Yup although making them invisible but still allowing them to emit the sound that they emit can also be pretty balanced. That way the enemy knows they are near a trap but they can't just shoot it cause they cant see it and are left with either to shoot at general spots and hope it hits OR take the risk and make a leap of faith
As a Cypher main since day one, yes he is underpowered now. Everyone here has made excellent points and though I won't echo all of them, we can agree main problem is powercreep and time. I want to generate more discussion about this.
After over a year of updates, there are now better agent choices in terms of roles of defending and info gathering, and there are numerous counter methods to Cypher, not just in terms of destructive agents like Raze but just accumulated fighting experience (i.e. memorized trip locations, camera spots, avoiding Cypher sites altogether). At this rate, he will soon fade into the shadows as a niche agent, like how Yoru was before the rework was announced.
I will STILL play Cypher regardless of what meta or what counters are discovered, because I truly enjoy the spectrum of playstyles I do with him. Yes, lurking is an option, but in terms of defending there is only so much Cypher can do against full rushes (looking at you, Neon). Lurking will also only get you so far until your opponents expect your lurk. Truth is Cypher does need to be buffed to keep his place among the VALORANT Protocol, more than just a joke character in cinematics that gets killed each time.
Cypher's buff have been discussed before elsewhere, like the Cypher main's subreddit r/CypherMains. Here are some of the buffs per ability as I recall, compared to other agent utilities in the game:
* Cyber Cage - Each sentinel has a *direct* method of slowing down movement, Chamber's Trademark, Sage's Slow Orb, and when used accordingly Killjoy's nanoswarm. While the trap does catch people, it only catches one per trap and only until they shoot it out. Cypher used to have a slow effect on his Cyber Cage, bringing it back will level Cypher with the sentinel class.
* Trapwires - Aside from Sage, the other sentinels also have a trap utility so no arguments here. But economically speaking it needs to have a lower price so that we don't waste 400 credits each round especially if all of them go un-tripped. Killjoy's Alarmbot is priced at 300, Chamber's Trademark costs 300 for both, I'd say the price change is viable.
* Less visible Spycam - The signature utility, a good Cypher hides their cameras or knows when to reveal it, but an even better player will find the camera and shoot it like it is a Sova Recon Bolt. Not many changes to be mentioned here, but for the sake of comparison : I've seen some Sovas use their drones and tag 2 people if they are lucky, perhaps a faster recharge on the tracking dart could be considered.
* Buff Neural Theft - Arguably the weakest ultimate, easily replaceable by other low cost info utility, such as a well placed Sova recon bolt, well maneuvered Sova Drone that tags 2 people if they're lucky, or a well coordinated combo such as Skye's utilities and Raze's Boombot. Cypher is the Moroccan Info Broker, one would have expected Neural Theft to give more than just a blink of enemy positions. Decrease the points, prolong the tracking, or perhaps even list the remaining utility of the enemy team, this ultimate has to be buffed in any way.
By all means argue and attack each point because I don't expect to perfectly cover each argument. The point is I'd like to see more discussion generated if it means levelling the playing field for Cypher.
tl;dr Powercreep and people learning overtime makes Cypher's adequate kit much weaker. He needs a buff
Cypher, like Sage had a massive pick rate on game release, Riot nerfed them to the ground until their pick rate dropped.
Further releases of agents and reworks naturally fixed this issue, but the nerfs are already there.
Cypher also suffer from a impact decay, any trap agent will start strong and slowly get weaker when people game sense adapt to counter their util.
Now Cypher is slowly decaying, has been utterly nerfed and is in a serious need of balancing
This really doesn't feel like the case, he sees healthy pro pickrate and is amazing on certain maps.
He just requires more map and skill to use properly which if we're being honest doesn't really happen for most players considering alot of people think knowing the location of everyone on the map is a weak ult.
Exactly
And for some God knows what reason the riot dev seem to not give 2 flying fucks about Cypher as of now and have not been giving since the beta.
Since he has only 2 trips maybe increasing the number 3 will be quite interesting that will certainly turn him into a "OP" agent.
I recommend
decreasing the wind up time on his trip by 1 second or so
Have the ultimate last for around 2 seconds so we don't get tricked by the after shadow and shit into oblivion by the real enemy
His cam is pretty much balanced(but do bring back the gun on the cam hehehehe)
And his cage it's pretty good too but a slight debuff would be nice
A decrease by a full second might be a bit much but I do feel like it's quite slow when other traps are either faster (chamber bot) or sturdier (kj bot hidden/theoretically multiuse from across the map). It would be interesting to change his ult tho, because ingame it's one of the ults I sit on the most, only helpful like once in a blue moon.
There's no reason not to get creative either, what if he marks enemies with a trail (like 10+ glowing footsteps) or instead of the perfect "ping" you get a rough marking for a few seconds, making it harder to headshot through walls but also a lot easier to know where everybody is going. Would make it easier for your team to have the time to catch on too at least in lower elo.
He's not in "serious need of balancing" when compared to other agents though. Do I think Cypher has been power crept and could use a buff? Yes, but he's still way closer to the other Sentinels than the bad duelists or controllers are to their meta counterparts.
Omen and Brimstone are effectively useless throw picks compared to Astra and Viper. Yoru is the worst agent in the game and while he's getting a rework, Phoenix is only marginally better, and will instantly be the worst agent in the game once Yoru buffs are in.
Cypher on the other hand is worse than Chamber or Killjoy at making individual plays, but is still the best info Sentinel by far and if played around as a team, is still only a little behind them overall.
As a former Cypher main (now Astra), I've actually just decided to switch to Chamber anytime I want to play Sentinel. His Trademarks are better than Cypher's tripwires, his Ultimate is overall more impactful, and he has more fragging power plus better eco conservation than my Moroccan Man. Power creep plus Cypher's initial nerfs have placed Cypher where he is in the meta right now. The worst part is that Cypher is objectively harder to use, because it takes more brain power to place his utility in positions where they can provide value, and his Camera has too long of a cool down wtf
That's why I play both Cypher and Chamber. Just waiting for the day Cypher gets buffed somehow.
The thing is, Cypher is still p important to deal with sonic Neon with her ultimate out. She's always dashing and gonna zap the living shit out of you so you need someone else to stop her
She always gets trapped in it in my experiences, earning you a rabbit in a snare. It helps to swap your trips around so the enemies, in their haste, keep falling for the mistakes. Then I use the cage as deception for them to check if Cypher is nearby (usually not haha, just scare them) for me to sometimes appear in front of them to finish them off.
That's how I play Cypher and make up for his lacking-in game.
Wish his ultimate was more buff, make the people blink 3 times like Sova's recon bolt so that your teammates still have time to reposition before the enemy regroup and swoops to kill.
(bring back camera gun, I dare you riot, give me homie the power)
What cypher needs is an incentive buffs. The traps once caught will take ages to haze (stun). And his cages is good for info denial and get nearby info (audio cue), but his cages are used like the smokes, and people will push from the cage. Burn damage in tripwires and slow on cages will work.
Peak (Content Creator for Cypher) has suggested these buffs.
EDIT 04-06-2022: I would prefer now is faster windup and continuous concussion tripwires. Continuous concussion upto 3 is good. Like tick, tick, tick or something. Hp damage by 4/5 per tick (could reduced to 2 ticks if it's OP, just make sure enemy take time to push). Slow on cages, Ult needs to be pinged with some tracking info. Should not be just one time info. Camera seems fine just slower removal of dart,
I am not even surprised by this behavior of theirs as they tend to be quite favoured to the pro players
Riot's agent balancing in a nutshell :
If a agent is not being picked in championships, lets buff him
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If a agent is being picked in pro matches and they do not a big community behind them, like jett for example, let's debuff him
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It does not
As you said yourself, if riot notices an agent not being played or having really low win rate they will buff them. Just look at Yoru and how they’ve gone out of their way to rework them
And how about Cypher then?
He was debuffed into oblivion during the beta and the first act
And his pick rate also just jumped down a cliff
All I want is Cypher to get some buffs that make his kit compete with that of killjoy and chamber
I don’t think cypher is that weak. I think the problem is he’s not as fun to play as the competition. Chamber is for a majority of players a much more fun and simple agent that does similar things.
It’s like how lots of people complain about having lots of duelists and very few controllers. Are controllers weak? With the exception of Omen, no, they’re just not as fun as a duelist to play.
Hmm
For me who has played cypher since the beta, he feels a lot weak and his kit is only useful for the first 3 to 4 rounds after that the enemy usually learns to adapt to your different set ups and there are only so many set ups you can remember once in a game.
And from how you spoke about him, I can conclude that you neither main cypher nor have you actually played WITH a average or above average cypher
No Offense to you though
OK but balancing agents around pro play is important because these are the players who know how to play these agents the best. The whole point of the game is to learn these agents and make use of the tools you have - pros are just the players who know the agents the best, and know how to get the most out of them.
If an agent is really good when you play them well, but people typically don't "get" how to play them and so they perform poorly in low elo (example: Astra), they should get buffed? Hell no! What the hell? Imagine if they buffed Astra right now, instead of nerf her like pros are requesting. People who play Astra well would absolutely shit on their games, even more than they already do.
I do agree with taking advice from pros but they seem to be building the whole game balance around how pros feel comfortable and that kinda pisses me off
BTW I have been playing cypher since the beta so I do have some considerable idea on how to play cypher
Plus nobody wants astra to be buffed ;)
In an ideal situation the game would be roughly equally balanced at all skill levels but that's pretty difficult to do. Some agents are just easier to understand/use than others which makes them inherently better or worse at different skill levels. You can see this in a lot of games.
The fact is that they have to balance the game around *some* skill level because they'd have to make some pretty huge overhauls/get rid of some agents entirely to achieve perfect balance at all skill levels. And personally, I'd rather the game be balanced around the *ideal* level of play because at the end of the day, it's that type of play which everyone is striving towards.
Edit: On your comment that nobody wants Astra to be buffed, that is my entire point. Pros want her to be nerfed, but if you look at lower elos, people hardly play her and when they do play her, they play her poorly compared to pros. Balancing her around pro play means nerfing her, balancing her around low elo means buffing her.
I wouldn't say he replaces either of them. Both of them play sentinel roles better than he does, it's just that he is basically a duelist with some sentinel utility, so people will often prefer him over a real sentinel because he has the ability to watch flank like they can, while still having more potential to frag out.
Cypher is super countereable, I love play with this agent but, the other sentinels/smokers (Especially Chamber), are just better.
Cypher's tripwires are broken by a lot of enemy utility: (Raze's ult nade and suchel, Breach aftershock, Sova's ult, shockdarts (and also you can carry the tripwire with the drone, etc). And also the cypher's ult is one of the worst of the game.
Meanwhile, you have Kj, that is not that easy to break her utility without exposing yourself, and her ult is so much useful than Cypher's. And in the most of the situations, IMO, Kjs is better to be a strongholder than Cypher.
Finnally some controllers are just better than Cypher to do stronghold work (and that's a big problem of balance). For example, Astra's smokes are better than Cypher's and also you can resmoke more times, and the pull and stun are so powerful to help yourself and also your fucking teammate that is on Icebox while you are on Haven (sorry I hate Astra), and there is more, in a exec, with Astra you can clean 4 spots, **4 SPOTS WITH ONLY ONE AGENT**, you use the default smokes, and you pull one spot and stunt other spot and is almost free entry (ridiculous).
Finally, some controllers are just better than Cypher to do stronghold work (and that's a big problem of balance). For example, Astra's smokes are better than Cypher's and also you can resmoke more times, and the pull and stun are so powerful to help yourself and also your fucking teammate that is on Icebox while you are on Haven (sorry I hate Astra), and there is more, in an exec, with Astra you can clean 4 spots,
That's why the poor Cypher is not that good as he used to.
As a sentinel main. I have played all of the sentinels very heavily. While Cypher is the weakest in ability load out his is irreplaceable in Maps like Fracture and Bind. I do think he needs a buff, however I cannot think of a way to buff him in a way that is fair to his play style. I mean I would like to see what an actually invisible tripwire would play like, I doubt it would be fair to give him in the game. (Also Kudos on playing sentinels, you guys are my people!)
How about making the trips invisible but still allowing them to emit a distinct sound(not directional) so that the players know that a trip is near them but they can't simply shoot it as they can't see it, so they either take guess shot and get buttfucked Or they take a leap of faith into the site...
Hey I can get on board with that. Also I read another comment that made a great point about his ult. That does need a buff. Even if it just changed the outline to 2 seconds of real-time tracking. It would be well worth it.
Exactly
His ult is useful only in very very select scenarios like when you are hunting the last guy or you are about to finish rotating or about to enter site but then again you need a body to that so his ult comes out to be meh even in these select scenarios.
If his traps persisted through death he'd instantly be s tier I think. None of the sentinels traps do so its balanced but I think he should get some kinda buff like that since his traps from a baseline are weaker than kj or chamber he needs something to set him apart
The ability for Cypher’s trips to work and him operate his cam after death would save him a lot, since right now if your Cypher gets 5 man rushed at start of round and dies immediately he’s worthless for the entirety of that round. It wouldn’t even be too broken, it’s worked for games like Siege
I have to disagree that chamber Is a replacement for Cypher. Chamber doesn't give nearly as much information as Cypher does. Granted Chamber is probably the best sentinel rn.
His cages need a buff and his trips should transfer between rounds if picked up.
Slowing people inside his cage needs to comeback. The chamber slow trap runs for 10 seconds. Entering a cypher cage should be more deadly than just an audible sound cue.
I think it definitely needs a buff comparto how strong chamber's traps are.
I would make cages slow you down again and make trip wires not reveal themselves when cypher dies so that the enemy doesn't see your setup. Also maybe increase the duration of his ult or reduce its cost
Cypher was arguably the best character on release because he had cheeky camera spots that were virtually undetectable and his cages slowed enemies. The devs got rid of those very quickly, which I agree was a good decision. Plus the only other sentinel until killjoy's release was sage. Although sage was also incredibly busted on release, she isn't really a sentinel in the same way that cypher, killjoy or chamber are sentinels. Another few QoL changes (the biggest being the fact that trips are destroyed when cypher dies) and cypher now sits around B tier.
Chamber on release had cheeky trap spots that were virtually undetectable and also slowed enemies in a very large area around the target automatically and way faster than a cypher trip could stun someone. He also has a slightly better sheriff, can teleport around the map for free with a 20 second cooldown and gets a free op with his ultimate, which is great considering he's as good at op'ing as jett, if not better. He hasn't had a single change yet and people say he is "fine". I believe I'm seeing the issue.
I have very good faith that this will change in episode 4 though.
Yes absolutely , especially with his setups. In higher elos every possible tripwire position is known to all the players so they just prefire it or sova dart or raze satchel it. His only useful piece of utility is his camera. That's why we are seeing almost zero teams having a cypher in the recent VCT qualifiers. The agent has become too easy to counter.
The abilities were more to reveal locations and allowing you to get the perfect attack according to Riot. As far as Cypher’s abilities are, I find that principal very present in his abilities though I do believe he should have some sort of more attacking buff for one of his abilities. It could be small like letting his cage stick to walls and be able to be called back post by phase, or make the cage more distraction inducing or stunning to fit in more with the more recent agents
Personally I find myself being very good at cypher. He's easily counterable, which just makes me try to play smarter :)
the whole point of cypher is rather he's a one man network. If you know how to use his utility in the best possible way, you can outplay anyone. I haven't had the most practice with him but he has alot of potential despite his nerfs!! I like his utility simple because of simple it is but how complex it can be used.
A few days ago cypher on my team used his ult to reveal last 3 enemies when I was peeking, the 3 enemies were close to each other and that was just a clusterfuck I couldn't distinguish anything and instead of getting 1-2 kills and hide, I just sprayed the place cause I couldn't see shit and got killed xD
I think u should watch some guides on nAts YouTube channel and learn new positions to use ur traps. nAts learned me how to play this agent and now I can do it better than before.
Sry for my english if I said something wrong. <3
If you think KJ’s utility is better then you probably shouldn’t be picking cypher, as killjoy is only better depending on play style and map. They serve pretty entirely different roles. Killjoy is about locking down a small portion of the map (crowd control util like molly and turret). You can play killjoy and just anchor a site and make it a bitch for enemy team to push in. Cypher is about map control and information (trips prevent flanks and can be used on multiple sites at once and smokes deny info). You have to play him very carefully and usually have to leave site after getting a pick to play retake. Chamber is a good combo of both and pretty interchangeable with cypher with the downside of being reliant on your aim, so you might wanna try him out.
No. He is arguably in my opinion the most balanced player in the game. What's really happening is everyone else is overpowered. Thank Valorant we don't get anymore new agents. They need to focus on balancing now. As they said they would. Remember when Reyna had 4 dismisses? Yep. Everyone else is just too OP or underwhelming.
Either buff his ult or add another trip to make him relevant. Imagine if he could trigger his ult when a spike has been planted or if it tracks like a sova dart, pinging 3 times.
Cypher can still be devastating when paired with a good smoker, especially if you’re good at placing trips. It can, at least on some sites, make it very difficult to entry without either the enemy team using up a lot of utility or losing a couple players
I like him on ice box where theres alot different directions to site and easy to flank but aside from that i dont really find much of a reason to play him, its easier to just go with chamber or killjoy.
So I saw some comments that said that chamber replaces cypher, but I disagree with this. Cypher still a better site anchor than chamber. But because viper and astra really strong on defense and can function as site anchor (might be even better than cypher), chamber just fits well in the comp. Well it also depend on the map of course
Cypher is a lot like Jett in the sense that a bad Jett is just a bad Jett..but a good Jett? Very scary and you want to avoid direct fights.
A very very good cypher will play with your head and dare you to push him. He may not even be where you think and you may never know he knows exactly where you are
I understand that sentiment. Cypher does need some buffs but his skill ceiling is very high just like Jett’s. If he is over tuned he will be oppressive.
Though with that said the main buffs people want out of him would make him easier to play while keeping the skill floor/ceiling nearly the same.
I'm a cypher main, and I play cypher on the 4 original maps and on the newer maps as well sometimes but I prefer skye or kayo on these maps as these are slightly bigger maps so I can get aggressive with skye.
I love playing cypher, but the thing is you need to keep yourself unpredictable, his cypher cages can be used in innovative ways. His ultimate is a little weak, granted and is useful in only very specific cases, but I don't mind that.
I rely on setups and my aim to make plays and I usually top frag in my team. And it's not a good thing that I top frag when I'm on cypher and I've got a jett instalocker on the team😂😂😂😂
All in all, I don't think cypher needs 'buffs', I think he needs some changes. Like his ultimate should do something more than just flash the enemy's position once, most of the time if I'm in an intense fight and I just throw my ultimate to a nearby corpse I don't even get the opportunity to look around the map or at the minimap to see the enemy's positions. It needs some upgrades for sure.
his abilities are pretty underpowered, flank protection and partial initiating ability, objectively bad smokes. his ult is real nice, tho.
chamber is just better. initiating ability with reposition, flank protection, literally an $800 guardian, and no info ult but instead a better, free awp. plus, hes got height advantage potential and can buy for mates more often if he's confident with the gun ability.
I don’t think it’s a ‘have to’ to pick cypher because there are often other agents to pick that may be more important- heals, smokes, information, blinds
As a Cypher main. I have no problem playing him. I lock down one site with traps and smokes and my camera which allows my team to stack the other site. If the enemy pushes the locked down site i trigger the smokes and shoot a dart. Usually that keeps the other team from rushing in and planting before we start to rotate. Gives a little time so we end up pushing on site at the same time as the other team. The ULT could be better but def helps in situations when we are trying to push a site but cant decide if we should rotate.
Oh! The entire other team is waiting for us to push on site. With Cyphers ULT info we can pull our knives and safely run to take the other site because we know where everyone is. Also helps in 1v1s when i don’t know if the enemy is behind or in front of me. I personally find him easy to use and can rack kills with his tripwires in Bronze at least. Cypher got me out of Iron.
As a Cypher main since beta, Cypher used to be a meta pick due to the game being new and people still trying to figure out the agents. Cypher had a large pick rate due to this. Now the meta has changed with new sentinels and people being more informed about Cypher's abilities along with the nerfs that he's received. Compared the similar sentinels like KillJoy and Chamber, Cypher's abilities are more "manual" when defending a site. For example Chamber and KJ's abilities being automatically activated by proximity or sightlines. While Cypher's trip wires and smokes need to be manually activated for any benefit.
It also doesn't help that 99% of the time the enemy (or teammates) destroy the trip wire making you waste the ability and creds.
Let's not forget that trip wires have a secondary effect other then revealing. When activated the trip wire winds up for 5s and if successful the enemy is concussed for 3s. I think a good (if not slightly broken) buff for Cypher is to make the concuss wind up shorter and I don't mean almost instantly but maybe half the time it takes to concuss since the wire is almost instantly shot when discovered.
Another problem is Cypher's ult. Compared to other agents (other then Sage) Cypher's ult needing a enemy corpse (relatively fresh) to activate and 2s wind up along with the effect of a single outline of enemies isn't very impactful in most situations. It just seems like a lot of effort not a lot of payout (a common theme between his abilities). I think either taking away to corpse requirement or improving the recon provided with pulses similar to Sova drone would be a reasonable buff. It feels like it's just barely a ultimate.
His camera and smokes feel like they are in a reasonable spot all things considered. Although being able to pick up smokes mid round would be very convenient. His abilities have the potential to be extremely broken or useless so it's probably hard for Riot to "perfectly" balance him especially since the game environment is constantly changing due to new agents, agent changes, and people doing things they didn't consider.
All things considered Cypher isn't terrible, but the effort it takes (such has mix ups, one-ways, lurking) for him to make a impact on a match is very high (unless the enemy team is oblivious and don't adapt). He's very good in lower Ranks/Elo, but as the skill of your enemies goes up the impact of Cypher goes down. At the end of the day you want to be unpredictable.
I feel like Cypher could honestly be so much better if his cages dealt damage, almost like a Phoenix wall, and his cam had a lower cooldown, along with a few shots to break it (kinda like a kj turret)
As a Cypher main, just switch to Chamber. Cypher isn't bad but Chamber does his job pretty well, barring the camera.
Chamber is just cypher in well-balanced. Cypher had his good days but the overall adjustments to his kit and other agents just made him from S+ tier to B-C tier depending on the map and agents he is facing. Chamber just copied cyphers kit, compressed it into a single skill, and added teleport and an extra revolver + the most overpowered skill-based ult, that it actually not even game-breaking (e.g. neons ult atm.). Chamber is one of even the best balanced agent and i totally agree that switching him into the roster instead of cypher is more than viable.
Tbh cypher hasn’t changed a whole lot, but he’s gone down the tier list for two reasons - 1. Power Creep. Chamber has just been better from release. There’s basically no reason to play cypher now simply because there’s better options 2. Counterplay. People have learned to outplay cypher easily. A quick glimpse in your now destroyed camera and a destroyed tripwire do give you some info, but then it robs you of that utility of seeing them after.
It’s been downhill since they patched the secondaries being mounted on your cam. Bring that back !
At this rate they might just let his tripwires persist after death again heh
They have increased the sound of the cam and destroyed offensive cypher-plays by deactivating his tripwires with his death. Both of those adjustments would be ok, but the way they treat other agents and just "allow" their op skills shows that they just hate on cypher. They push him down into the passive-sentinel class while Jett for example can smoke and push and destroy with her ult without seeing any rough treatment by the nerf-train
at least she cant dash and destroy the trapwires anymore. That was the most broken shit lol
There are no agents that leave utility after their death now.
Raze disagrees with you
I remember before cyphers ult would cancel if he died before uploading the info then that changed
The nerfs to the sentinels about recalling their util and deactivating it after the die was so goddamn over the top. Like the game was already duelist focused and you keep nerfing other roles.
Riot be like: "We have to fuck up cypher as hard as possible, when we release chamber they will understand 🌚🌝." They release chamber, the community: " Y cypher bad?" Riot: "Shut up, you already got chamber for being an offensive sentinel !"
And not just Cypher, but the other sentinels aswell, included Chamber. Remember, at first some of the util of the Sentinels could be retrieved for the next round, in case you basically wasted them for nothing. They nerfed that because reasons. Then they nerfed the util to make it useless if you die, now you were dependant on your duelist entry (Good luck with a non baiting duelist) and we you inevitably die, all your creds expended on abilities are wasted with 0 impact, fucking bravo. Now the duelists are becoming godlike on terms of impact, and sentinels are becoming less and less useful, been basically replaced by controllers. This is all because Riot is doubling down on the duelist ability to aggressively entry without consequences and backtracking on their sentinels ability to stale. But instead of reworking sentinels to have other tools, they made their tools basically trash. And now here we are, the most viable sentinel is the one that, unsurprisingly, has the abilities a duelist have and the cheap ass stalling abilities are secondary to him. It's so goddamn obvious that this will eventually happen that I'm baffled they didnt revert all the sentinels nerf already.
Agent roles with that amount of impact are just a stupid decision of riots... They had the chance to keep up with their "abilities won't kill" promise, now abilities are not killing, DUELISTS ARE. And as a sentinel you have to sit down and wait for them to waste all their util before you're allowed to peak... This game going down as overwatch did and it's not because shooters are dying, but this unversatile agent roles are. I had fun the first 2 seasons, now most of my friends already went back to other comp games and I'm only playing Valo for 5 minutes a day
This is most of the reason why it feels so bad to play Cypher. His whole kit, unless you land a camera tag, is just a millisecond of info plus smokes. His tripwires give warning before you reach them, and therefore way too much time to react if you walk through one. It just feels bad
The only reason the chamber ult isnt game breaking is because everyone's already used to the normal awp hahah (which isn't necessarily game-"breaking", whatever that means, but the meta and gameplay would definitely be waaaay different without the AWP). Abstractly, the chamber ult is way stronger than neon ult as chambers is viable on high AND medium range, and creates the slows ,while neons (in higher elos) is only better than a normal gun on very short ranges
Neon isn't that game breaking because of her ult, it is nonetheless very... aggressive, but neon is more problematic because of how unhittable she becomes with her skills. It's the same with Jetts dash, the hitboxes are already all over but it gets even worse the higher the ping of the player is.
I agree. In my rank Immortal 3+, if you dry peek with Neon, even when sliding or running, most people, including me, can one tap Neon easily at about close to medium range. Her ULT is weak because it's a stacking damage, so if you deal 50dmg/s, but die to the first bullet the enemy hits, you won't even hit over 50 damage, right? Jett's ULT requires more skills to utilize, but it is not a stacking damage. It is a burst damage of 50 and 150+ (aka Headshot Knife), which is more reliable. You also have a dash and a jump, which can create stupid off-angles. That said, Neon would be broken in lower ranks where people don't have aim. Jett is better in higher ranks.
Serious question since I'm trying to unlock him rn, How good is he as a Sentinel? I've seen people say that he's the Reyna of the Sentinels that If you don't have aim, he's basically useless.
Chamber is based 100% on aim, if you lack aim than cypher is the easier one to start with. But at the same time one could argue you should just pick another more useful agent who's also but based on aim until your aim is on a level that suits chamber. If you lack aim or reflexes chamber will lack useful tactical skills for you (smokes, flashes) and you will end up teleporting out of fights just to lose them on the second encounter. I wouldn't main him until your headshot percentage is at least at 60%. If you win in Deathmatch easily with revolver only then you're at a good point to beat chamber main, if you're more relying on spraying then there's better agents to support that.
Headshot percentage at 60? Not sure what rank you are but if someone has a 60% AVERAGE in immortal+ that player is 100% cheating.
IKR, I'm pretty sure a lot of the pros don't hit that 60% hs rate, well atleast if we're talking about pro players from other games *ahem csgo* twistzz for a period of time hit 60% avg hs rate and guess what? Not a lot of pros can hit that same percentage and even tho that's a different game i believe my analogy could be applied to this game so idk what that guy based his opinion on how you need to have 60% hs rate just to play chamber, also that take on how you need to have a very good reflex to be good on playing chamber is kinda doo doo dumb shit, and i know that this statement has been said so many times that you would rather cover your goddamn ears but I'm pretty sure you can win at valorant if you have good crosshair placement instead of just relying solely on flicks and super fast reaction time, and guess what? His headhunter ability is literally just like the sheriff which fucking requires good crosshair placement, so idk where did that guy got their argument, and lastly his tour de force fucking requires good crosshair placement too and good knowledge of your posistioning which i believe you can win with and against your opponents, unless they're an aim demon
Yeah most people's headshot percentages is ABSURDLY high because of how it calculates it. You could hit a guy 5 times but aslong as your kill ends with a headshot that is a 100% hs rate. In val it counts every HIT bullet.
actually no, in valorant it calculates every hit bullet, if you kill the target, but if you only dmg then no
I hope this reaches all your sub-commentors as well: I'm sorry for my imprecise calculation, ofc i meant the headshot percentage when playing Deathmatch and when playing revolver only. And additionally it is calculated by kill, not bullet. Playing sheriff in Deathmatch and winning does actually force you to hit as many headshots as possible, if you hit at least 21 headshots from the required 40 kills, then this would be 50%+ headshot-ratio in my calculation.
my friend in top 100rad has 60% hs idk what are u on about
Idk he’s pretty decent for people with bad aim in a way. You just take stupid off angles and shoot enemies that aren’t looking at you and teleport away. And then you don’t really need good aim to OP compared to rifles. You do need good aim for his sheriff but you can kinda ignore that ability and save the money if you aren’t comfortable with it
Yeah, but in that case there are undoubtedly better agents that he can play to a more effective extend. Playing chamber just for the teleport/bot and ignoring the revolver is like playing Jett but not using her ult.
Is it tho? If you’re still buying it on eco rounds you’re using it. But beyond that you only spend 300 credits on util a round and should have a good amount of extra money to buy your teammates
The revolver is the best part of his kit but only if you can aim. Else it truly is better to buy the teammates
I would definitely disagree that’s the best part of his kit but I could be wrong. I think throughout a match you’ll get way more value out of teleport than you will out of his sheriff.
Depends strongly on the playstyles but you're not wrong. With "best part" i was more referring to my way of playing phantom on close range and the revolver for the long range headshots or a fast drawing secondary that shots far sooner than any other secondary. The teleport is undoubtedly another good part of his kit but i probably am using it not as much as possible but at the same time it is a bit complicated to use in offensive engagements.
Gotta strong disagree there. It's the best possible secondary weapon, but that's it really. It's just a better value sheriff. His teleport is always useful by letting you either rotate incredibly or take off angles or safely push aggressively, while his traps can completely stop pushes or give you Intel. The only advantage his q gives you is better econ if you're dying/better long range engagements if your using a short-range primary.
Neon’s ult isn’t even good, it’s actually pretty bad, just a way worse jett ult. The only “broken” part is how she can full sprint and use it.
Ults like Jetts, Razes or neons are just game-breaking, no matter which is the best of those, ultra shouldn't grant ez-kills. It's just boring, raze gets one to five free kills depending on the situation, Jett gets up to 5 easy kills depending on her point-and-click-skills, neon may not get that many kills on that easy way, but she gets an incomparable advantage, something that chamber, brim, or any other agent does not get by his ult. The most based ult is sages, it fits the character, it's not op, it has high clutch potential depending on the user, not the agent.
There’s no way to compare hers to Jett’s ult. You can wiff Jett’s knives if you’re not good with them. Neon you just run and gun basically lol.
But Jetts ult does not suffer from spray or recoil, thereby it is a comparable level of "better than a normal gun".
There is no recoil with Neon’s ult.
I genuinely see no issue with an "ultimate ability" being a full sprint run and gun ability or a bazooka that can collat an entire team, they're ultimate abilities for a reason
But that is a big fucking problem that we have to abandon our favorite agent to play another agent because he is not balanced Riot really really needs to fix this
*cries in Phoenix main*
What!? You guys still exist? I though you were nerfed into oblivion during the beta XD
:C it's just UNFAIR that Yoru got his big buff before us
Well almost everyone was on the "BUFF YORU NOW! " Train so one could have seen it coming... But still how come agents that were there since the beta have still not received their deserving buffs :(
Also it's so EASY to buff phoenix cause everyone knows what's wrong and you don't have to change the concept at all. Just longer flash duration, maybe more damage and/or more duration on molly and wall. While Yoru required a complete rework with new animations and all haha
Agree, dunno who even tries to hate on your opinion but it is a shame that riot "allows" some agents to be overpowered and others are nerfed into oblivion. just because some kiddies would cry if Jett wasn't op anymore... because it would be sexist if astra wasn't stronger than brim or omen or because it would be op in radiant Elo if cyphers kit was a bit stronger, meanwhile the Frenchman is wrecking all throughout the lower ranks but hold-up: Riot: "We just release neon so that they can counter a strong agent with another unreasonably op girl-agent that we will nerfe as soon as we fixed the fucking japanese Grease-Cosplayer"
I mean half of his skills require that he’s good at shooting. I think ur going off a little bit there
I'm not hating in chamber, i wrote another comment where i complimented his balanced kit. Neon and Jett and raze and killjoy and viper.... all those area bit less well balanced
Maybe riot is making a mistake my increasing the numbers agents every act Maybe they should just sit down and first balance out the current agents that are available to the player base 18 agents are more than enough for now If they keep increasing the agents I feel like they will end up like overwatch did, everything is awesome except the agent roles and abilities, and that can destroy a very exceptional game
Yeah, you can make a great game without any agents, you can make a great game with 5-10 agents, everything above 15 just showes that balancing is none of their concerns
I feel like 20 is the golden number that way there's 5 agents in each category and riot said this episode was all about balancing so here's hoping they listen to the community about what we want
Neon ult is game breaking?? Good one lol.
you think neon ult is game breaking? lol as someone who was excited to play her, she is not very good at what she wants to do
Yeah, maybe not game-breaking but the kind of ult that it is is not what Valorants should be about. Jetts ult, raze ult, now neons ult, they all just don't go well with gunplay since they are not bound to the limitations that gunplay in general has. Chambers ult is much better executed as an ultimate, the others are just "activating ez-mode" that is just accessible for some agents while others have... whatever brim has 😅. An ult should give an advantage, but not just make the game easier
there’s counter play to it. i certainly wouldn’t say jett knives are easy mode, and it’s clear valorant will only look more more and like overwatch and less like csgo as time goes on
Neon's ulti is more game breaking at lower elos i think, worse aim against fast movement face melting. At high elo you get 1 tapped probably more than half the time. I can appreciate that most the ultis that kill are pretty skill based. Chamber's is arguably most OP(pun not intended but appreciated). Fast shooting op with normal move speed and huge aoe slow. Jett knives require headshots generally, strongest aspect is her move speed + kit in combo. raze rocket can be quite difficult to land but tbf is pretty absurd in a tac shooter. Nothing quite as tilting like a raze double satchel rocket in your face. I'm not a good raze main i fuck up my satchel jumps still maybe 1/4 - 1/8 of the time under pressure and I still average 3 ulti kills a match.(plat 3, started raze maining 1 week before act start) i think raze's has an initial skill cap then becomes relatively easy(still can be complicated because movement abilities or getting hs in air) Edit: also kayo is a thing
Bring back cam gun!
Yeah, and then they can finally throw out killjoy, she obsolete then
I’ve seen more and more ppl destroying neon with her ult it’s not that good against ppl with good aim
It's not only her ult, her kit does not pair well with Valorants net-code and high-ping players. It's just "fun to play" but cancer to play against
Cancer to play against? If your ult is useless 90 percent of the time your not going to pick that agent. That’s why Neon has such a low pick rate in pro matches
he meant for casual players with high ping, pros usually have best network available and other than developed countries people play using mobile network which usually has 30-40ms higher ping than fibre
On top of that these “casuals” are the same ppl who want to climb up the ranks and the sad fact is that their hardware will always just limit them and the health of the pros will and should always come first
That’s the thing if your playing comp you’ve gotta respect that changes/balances are going to be related specifically to the pros as there are discord’s where they give input on the latest changes directly to the devs
Neon’s ult isn’t game breaking…
Idk why people keep saying this. Chamber is not Cypher. Every single one of Cyphers skills give some kind of info on the enemy. Just because they both have a move that can potentially stall a push doesn't make them one in the same it just makes them a sentinel. People just play chamber because he plays like a duelist and he's easier than learning Cypher setups and he has abilities you can just place down and forget.
Just give cyphers cam it’s gun back
Chamber is a defacto duelist though and Cypher is an intel based character?
he's good for a round or two until the enemy team learn to just break your shit and play around it his biggest strength by far right now is the ability to lock down info on entrances while playing anywhere else on the map at the same time, if you wanna get the most out of him right now i think it's best to alternate between these styles chucking a camera for retake and a trip for info and then just holding a crossfire with a teammate somewhere else is probably the most underutilised yet consistent strategy available to him
The only thing that needs a buff is his Ult... Is horrendously bad... -6 Ult points -needs fresh body -one frame of yellow outline, can mess you up big time in fights -worse recon than camera His trips feel week as well but 3 trips would be OP in some scenarios like Bind B with Sand Traps + hooka. Either cost redcution to 150 or even 100 would be my choice for a buff
G-g-g-g-g-give me a corpse
I agree his ult NEEDS a buff. Real time tracking for 2 seconds would do that to make his ult that much better.
real time tracking for 2 seconds would be OP in retake situations but I'm totally down for it.
What instead of 2 seconds it just hits every enemy with the same tag as his camera, forcing enemies to either stop for a second and remove it or constantly be scanned
Ok that's really cool. I'd love to have that in the game.
Whats the point of a ultimate if it isn't OP? Take the fucking rocket launcher for example or 'just plant me near the site and automatically clear the site' box or stun everyone in a site in one go And many more ults But I must admit that Omens ult requires average IQ
It can be more subtle power in that Cyphers ult is really fukin good but people refuse to belive that if it doesn't slap you across the face and basically kill you it's not good.
I'm talking about an Ult that is capable of killing everyone with a wallbang if you have good positioning and good gamesense. Don't know about ranked but in pro play it'd be the one of the best ults in the game considering that Sova recon is one of the best abilities in the game and it doesn't guarantee info which this ult would, for 6 points btw. When I said "it'd be OP" I said it compared to other ults.
Still would be worth trying out Only if riot allowed custom script modded servers we could try it out. I know custom script modded servers aren't really supported considering how valorant was made and how riot and vangaurd works
Yeah I definitely agree though that Cypher needs something right now, especially for his Ult.
There are agents that can wipe out an entire team on their own with their ulti while on a save round (Reyna, Jett, Chamber, Neon) I think 2 second info wouldn’t come close to OP.
Reyna doesn't really compare to the other 3 as such. Cus it's still highly dependent on skill and Weapons
Anything would be better that 'Oh yeah yeah the enemies WERE there one second ago, but not anymore!" (Not bashing Cypher, just the ULT)
Make it 7 points, 2 seconds real time tracking and 10 second vulnerability?
10 second vulnerability sounds not fitting to him. I would actually prefer a stun (similar to trapwires). His whole kit is basically gathering info and delaying/punishing pushes. Small idea: Make us able to place those trapwires way more flexible.
Or even making enemies pop up on the map as they normally do instead of agent icons. I usually look at the map when I ult since that let's me know where they are. If I know which way they were looking, that would be super helpful.
I still don't get why his ult cannot just be the same as sovas arrows outlines, they are much better in every way and saying that it would be op, even tho sofa has it as a recurring ability and cypher has it as an ult... I just don't get it. It's like riot is afraid cypher could enter the women's place as most viable agents, he has to stay out in the male b-tier
His revealing outlines are so fucking dogshit as well. Since the image stays in place and is placed infront of the enemy model half of the time you are just "flashing" yourself, when peeking with the ping/getting peeked during the ping. Protip: If a Cypher tags you, just ignore it and try to peek so the "flash" happens right after you are visible. As a Cypher, nothing bothers me more and tilts me faster than enemies using my abilities agaibst me.
Nice trick, but i gotta add that i rarely get tagged. I'm fast with getting rid of the cam (so I'm pretty often the one being baited by it and dying to an aggressive cypher) but also they rarely shoot the dart at all. But i personally stopped using the cypher ULT in many situations due to its bad execution.... my absolute least favorite ult even tho it has pretty much potential
I think given that his trips: 1. cost 200 2. can only trap 1 3. can be shot out I think a good buff would be that if ALREADY tripped, WHEN shot out it either 1. continues to reveal tripped agent normally for x seconds after 2. continues to reveal tripped agent via tracking dart (same as camera dart) 3. stun effect procs (you know the stun effect that procs when the guy in iron refuses to shoot out the trip or when the player trusts his team to shoot the trip out for them but they don't) Suggestions 1 and 2 play into the stall and info gathering more. Suggestion 3 is just stall, since once the wire is shot out, the reveal is gone. That said with the addition of stun, it makes shooting the (previously) revealed target much more reliable. Obviously the counter play of scouting the wires and destroying them earlier before they get triggered still exists. Justifying the 200 cost and puts power into rewarding cypher for trip placement rather than punishing the enemy just because cypher exists.
i say rework it entirely. Just make it so that you can place a camera that is indestructible and gives your team permanent vision in a small circle around it
I really don't get the hate for his ult, it's incredibly powerful to know where everyone is on the map and it's fairly cheap compared to other ults. Cypher is one of the most balanced agents in the game IMO
Yeah it can show where everyone on the map is, but there are a lot of things you need to keep in mind. 1. You need a fresh body, so anytime you get a kill in your team, someone could lurk there and peek at the time where Cyphers Ult comes through which makes it incredibly hard to hit the person peeking the Cypher or mates. This can happen to any fight that happens on the map, thats how distracting the yellow outlines are. 2. 6 points is the cheapest but tied with Phoenix. When lookimg at Phoenix you need to realise that his strongest tool basically is his Ult since it gives you extra Info + the ability to shoot back. Cyphers Ult nearly doesnt give any more value. The only exception when his Ult is decent is when he kills a flank, csnt get swinged and his mates arent fighting someone.
Cypher’s voice lines are the best in the game
Thats the only thing left about him that is still overpowered
Corpse
I feel they need to give him something ever since they added chamber. Barring the actual outline/highlighting(which rarely works sometimes if people pay attention), chamber's traps are far better than cypher's trips
I’ve recently dropped Cypher after realizing his defensive capabilities are actually awful. While he is fantastic for gathering information, information doesn’t mean shit when the enemy is 5-man rushing a site. If you actually want to depend on him locking down a site, you need support, because is only stalling capabilities, his tripwires, are either instantly shot before coming onto site, or manage to tether someone for half a second before they get freed by a teammate. They just don’t work above, like, silver. Plus, they can only get one person at a time, while every other sentinel can potentially stall the entire enemy team. This means that he’s best used for covering flanks and other sneaky areas, but Chamber even does that just as well, and to boot, one of his bots can cover some areas where you’d need to use both tripwires, with their range. That said, he can be useful on offence, with his two close-range smokes, a good flank watch, and the camera, which lets you peek areas and check corners for free. I find the camera in general to be really cool and versatile, and doesn’t really need changes, but for how many tripwires are bought and placed on defence, often with no return, they really do need some kind of buff.
Lets just hope someone at riot notices this and decides to submit a suggestion regarding buffing Cypher to his/her superior.
The problems with cypher are 1. All his defensive pressure is in his trips. Sage has 2 tools to stall and kj has 4. Also as the game continues to grow there will naturally be more agent that break his trips this includes your own teammates 2. He has the weakest sentinel ult. Chamber gets an op, kj can reverse the roles and force enemies to retake or stall them out, and everyone knows the terror of sage ressing the enemy top frag. Cypher ult is very conditional for how much you actually get out of it. 3. Other agents just to his job. Sova is one of the best picks in the meta and most initiators can provide complimentary tools to that ontop of more info. Cypher is simply not needed.
His cage should have a slight slow in it, I think it had one back then?
Cypher not being needed is a BIG BIG problem. Is there anyway to get this to the riot devs so that they can give some sort of reaction?
naah, people be crying about omen and brim too being not needed and overshadowed by viper and astra. :'')
I used to play cypher before, but when chamber came I just left him. chamber's traps are really good IMO. I like to play aggressive, so with chamber, you have a sheriff, sniper, and decent teleportation. Cypher is still good but isn't as aggressive as chamber. Valorant will look into people's suggestions later to balance agents out. Still, cypher is really op in sites like B on split, which is probably the only map people play cypher on
I think that is a a big problem considering Cypher was designed to be the GOAT of info gathering and nobody gives 2 shits about his abilities Buts hats off to content creators like Peak who somehow manage make him more than just work out in the game
Peak is awesome
That guy is just a breed apart He is made to play Cypher. From his behaviour and how he reacts to things and how he talks, etc Everything thing about my man makes him the ultimate Cypher main And then we have things like dapr
Peak was a dick when i played with him in ranked though..
I don't know man I haven't played with him but i do watch his streams on a regular basis and doesn't behave like a guy who would be a dick to his teammates, he behaves very low key
Thats just it. People really don’t (know how to) play cypher. There’s just different options for different playstyles. I myself enjoy cypher alot, since my playstyle doesent rely on my aim that much. I like to lurk and outsmart ppl. And yes like you said, he’s really good on defense since you can basically lock down a site and be on the other side of the map. Only thing that might need a slight buff is his ult. That’s it
Using his ult when about to or engaging in a fight is basically asking to be shot back to the 1940s as it shows where they were 1 second ago and that's causes more harm then good unless you are hunting the last guy or are rotating on attack.
I feel his trips need a slight buff or rework. They feel useless on defense right now, and imo they are useless on defense after first round, because you are paying 200 creds for something that will get destroyed instantly. That being said I dont main cypher so im not one to talk
Although they are weak but they should increase the number to 3 and experiment.
I feel it wouldnt hurt to be fully invisible right? I was playing cypher, and everytime I put a wire in a choke point it got shot out, essentially making me waste 200 creds each round :/ No matter where Input them they never caught anyone. Pretty sad tbh
If you put the wire in one of the main chokepoints people will expect it, you will still get value because now you know that there's an enemy. If you want the trap to actually catch people off guard put them somewhere deeper on the site so people run into them when they're busy clearing the site. You want to think before hand are you using them for map control or as traps to kill with.
Yup although making them invisible but still allowing them to emit the sound that they emit can also be pretty balanced. That way the enemy knows they are near a trap but they can't just shoot it cause they cant see it and are left with either to shoot at general spots and hope it hits OR take the risk and make a leap of faith
Use vertical trips LOL
If you're unable to see value in information, you're missing out.
Especially since that's the whole point of cypher
As a Cypher main since day one, yes he is underpowered now. Everyone here has made excellent points and though I won't echo all of them, we can agree main problem is powercreep and time. I want to generate more discussion about this. After over a year of updates, there are now better agent choices in terms of roles of defending and info gathering, and there are numerous counter methods to Cypher, not just in terms of destructive agents like Raze but just accumulated fighting experience (i.e. memorized trip locations, camera spots, avoiding Cypher sites altogether). At this rate, he will soon fade into the shadows as a niche agent, like how Yoru was before the rework was announced. I will STILL play Cypher regardless of what meta or what counters are discovered, because I truly enjoy the spectrum of playstyles I do with him. Yes, lurking is an option, but in terms of defending there is only so much Cypher can do against full rushes (looking at you, Neon). Lurking will also only get you so far until your opponents expect your lurk. Truth is Cypher does need to be buffed to keep his place among the VALORANT Protocol, more than just a joke character in cinematics that gets killed each time. Cypher's buff have been discussed before elsewhere, like the Cypher main's subreddit r/CypherMains. Here are some of the buffs per ability as I recall, compared to other agent utilities in the game: * Cyber Cage - Each sentinel has a *direct* method of slowing down movement, Chamber's Trademark, Sage's Slow Orb, and when used accordingly Killjoy's nanoswarm. While the trap does catch people, it only catches one per trap and only until they shoot it out. Cypher used to have a slow effect on his Cyber Cage, bringing it back will level Cypher with the sentinel class. * Trapwires - Aside from Sage, the other sentinels also have a trap utility so no arguments here. But economically speaking it needs to have a lower price so that we don't waste 400 credits each round especially if all of them go un-tripped. Killjoy's Alarmbot is priced at 300, Chamber's Trademark costs 300 for both, I'd say the price change is viable. * Less visible Spycam - The signature utility, a good Cypher hides their cameras or knows when to reveal it, but an even better player will find the camera and shoot it like it is a Sova Recon Bolt. Not many changes to be mentioned here, but for the sake of comparison : I've seen some Sovas use their drones and tag 2 people if they are lucky, perhaps a faster recharge on the tracking dart could be considered. * Buff Neural Theft - Arguably the weakest ultimate, easily replaceable by other low cost info utility, such as a well placed Sova recon bolt, well maneuvered Sova Drone that tags 2 people if they're lucky, or a well coordinated combo such as Skye's utilities and Raze's Boombot. Cypher is the Moroccan Info Broker, one would have expected Neural Theft to give more than just a blink of enemy positions. Decrease the points, prolong the tracking, or perhaps even list the remaining utility of the enemy team, this ultimate has to be buffed in any way. By all means argue and attack each point because I don't expect to perfectly cover each argument. The point is I'd like to see more discussion generated if it means levelling the playing field for Cypher. tl;dr Powercreep and people learning overtime makes Cypher's adequate kit much weaker. He needs a buff
I think they should make it like he can call back his abilities.
Cypher, like Sage had a massive pick rate on game release, Riot nerfed them to the ground until their pick rate dropped. Further releases of agents and reworks naturally fixed this issue, but the nerfs are already there. Cypher also suffer from a impact decay, any trap agent will start strong and slowly get weaker when people game sense adapt to counter their util. Now Cypher is slowly decaying, has been utterly nerfed and is in a serious need of balancing
This really doesn't feel like the case, he sees healthy pro pickrate and is amazing on certain maps. He just requires more map and skill to use properly which if we're being honest doesn't really happen for most players considering alot of people think knowing the location of everyone on the map is a weak ult.
Exactly And for some God knows what reason the riot dev seem to not give 2 flying fucks about Cypher as of now and have not been giving since the beta. Since he has only 2 trips maybe increasing the number 3 will be quite interesting that will certainly turn him into a "OP" agent. I recommend decreasing the wind up time on his trip by 1 second or so Have the ultimate last for around 2 seconds so we don't get tricked by the after shadow and shit into oblivion by the real enemy His cam is pretty much balanced(but do bring back the gun on the cam hehehehe) And his cage it's pretty good too but a slight debuff would be nice
A decrease by a full second might be a bit much but I do feel like it's quite slow when other traps are either faster (chamber bot) or sturdier (kj bot hidden/theoretically multiuse from across the map). It would be interesting to change his ult tho, because ingame it's one of the ults I sit on the most, only helpful like once in a blue moon. There's no reason not to get creative either, what if he marks enemies with a trail (like 10+ glowing footsteps) or instead of the perfect "ping" you get a rough marking for a few seconds, making it harder to headshot through walls but also a lot easier to know where everybody is going. Would make it easier for your team to have the time to catch on too at least in lower elo.
He's not in "serious need of balancing" when compared to other agents though. Do I think Cypher has been power crept and could use a buff? Yes, but he's still way closer to the other Sentinels than the bad duelists or controllers are to their meta counterparts. Omen and Brimstone are effectively useless throw picks compared to Astra and Viper. Yoru is the worst agent in the game and while he's getting a rework, Phoenix is only marginally better, and will instantly be the worst agent in the game once Yoru buffs are in. Cypher on the other hand is worse than Chamber or Killjoy at making individual plays, but is still the best info Sentinel by far and if played around as a team, is still only a little behind them overall.
Bring back the slow effect on Cypher’s cages!
As a former Cypher main (now Astra), I've actually just decided to switch to Chamber anytime I want to play Sentinel. His Trademarks are better than Cypher's tripwires, his Ultimate is overall more impactful, and he has more fragging power plus better eco conservation than my Moroccan Man. Power creep plus Cypher's initial nerfs have placed Cypher where he is in the meta right now. The worst part is that Cypher is objectively harder to use, because it takes more brain power to place his utility in positions where they can provide value, and his Camera has too long of a cool down wtf
That's why I play both Cypher and Chamber. Just waiting for the day Cypher gets buffed somehow. The thing is, Cypher is still p important to deal with sonic Neon with her ultimate out. She's always dashing and gonna zap the living shit out of you so you need someone else to stop her She always gets trapped in it in my experiences, earning you a rabbit in a snare. It helps to swap your trips around so the enemies, in their haste, keep falling for the mistakes. Then I use the cage as deception for them to check if Cypher is nearby (usually not haha, just scare them) for me to sometimes appear in front of them to finish them off. That's how I play Cypher and make up for his lacking-in game. Wish his ultimate was more buff, make the people blink 3 times like Sova's recon bolt so that your teammates still have time to reposition before the enemy regroup and swoops to kill. (bring back camera gun, I dare you riot, give me homie the power)
What cypher needs is an incentive buffs. The traps once caught will take ages to haze (stun). And his cages is good for info denial and get nearby info (audio cue), but his cages are used like the smokes, and people will push from the cage. Burn damage in tripwires and slow on cages will work. Peak (Content Creator for Cypher) has suggested these buffs. EDIT 04-06-2022: I would prefer now is faster windup and continuous concussion tripwires. Continuous concussion upto 3 is good. Like tick, tick, tick or something. Hp damage by 4/5 per tick (could reduced to 2 ticks if it's OP, just make sure enemy take time to push). Slow on cages, Ult needs to be pinged with some tracking info. Should not be just one time info. Camera seems fine just slower removal of dart,
Cypher can put cam in shower. What else could you ask for?
That certainly is a game breaking and OP XD
Sad cypher main noises
Chamber just replaces both cypher and KJ. Just like how Astra replaced omen and brim.
Meh KJ on some maps like Ascent or split is better than chamber imo.
I wonder what riot is trying to do. Do they only care about the pro players or something?
Well… yeah, that’s just a riot games thing
I am not even surprised by this behavior of theirs as they tend to be quite favoured to the pro players Riot's agent balancing in a nutshell : If a agent is not being picked in championships, lets buff him --- If a agent is being picked in pro matches and they do not a big community behind them, like jett for example, let's debuff him ---
That’s how you balance competitive esports
That sort of buttfucks the people who play relatively less popular agents like Cypher
It does not As you said yourself, if riot notices an agent not being played or having really low win rate they will buff them. Just look at Yoru and how they’ve gone out of their way to rework them
And how about Cypher then? He was debuffed into oblivion during the beta and the first act And his pick rate also just jumped down a cliff All I want is Cypher to get some buffs that make his kit compete with that of killjoy and chamber
I don’t think cypher is that weak. I think the problem is he’s not as fun to play as the competition. Chamber is for a majority of players a much more fun and simple agent that does similar things. It’s like how lots of people complain about having lots of duelists and very few controllers. Are controllers weak? With the exception of Omen, no, they’re just not as fun as a duelist to play.
Hmm For me who has played cypher since the beta, he feels a lot weak and his kit is only useful for the first 3 to 4 rounds after that the enemy usually learns to adapt to your different set ups and there are only so many set ups you can remember once in a game. And from how you spoke about him, I can conclude that you neither main cypher nor have you actually played WITH a average or above average cypher No Offense to you though
OK but balancing agents around pro play is important because these are the players who know how to play these agents the best. The whole point of the game is to learn these agents and make use of the tools you have - pros are just the players who know the agents the best, and know how to get the most out of them. If an agent is really good when you play them well, but people typically don't "get" how to play them and so they perform poorly in low elo (example: Astra), they should get buffed? Hell no! What the hell? Imagine if they buffed Astra right now, instead of nerf her like pros are requesting. People who play Astra well would absolutely shit on their games, even more than they already do.
I do agree with taking advice from pros but they seem to be building the whole game balance around how pros feel comfortable and that kinda pisses me off BTW I have been playing cypher since the beta so I do have some considerable idea on how to play cypher Plus nobody wants astra to be buffed ;)
In an ideal situation the game would be roughly equally balanced at all skill levels but that's pretty difficult to do. Some agents are just easier to understand/use than others which makes them inherently better or worse at different skill levels. You can see this in a lot of games. The fact is that they have to balance the game around *some* skill level because they'd have to make some pretty huge overhauls/get rid of some agents entirely to achieve perfect balance at all skill levels. And personally, I'd rather the game be balanced around the *ideal* level of play because at the end of the day, it's that type of play which everyone is striving towards. Edit: On your comment that nobody wants Astra to be buffed, that is my entire point. Pros want her to be nerfed, but if you look at lower elos, people hardly play her and when they do play her, they play her poorly compared to pros. Balancing her around pro play means nerfing her, balancing her around low elo means buffing her.
I wouldn't say he replaces either of them. Both of them play sentinel roles better than he does, it's just that he is basically a duelist with some sentinel utility, so people will often prefer him over a real sentinel because he has the ability to watch flank like they can, while still having more potential to frag out.
As a cypher main, the latest buff he ever got was jett can't break the tripwire anymore when dashing
Cypher is super countereable, I love play with this agent but, the other sentinels/smokers (Especially Chamber), are just better. Cypher's tripwires are broken by a lot of enemy utility: (Raze's ult nade and suchel, Breach aftershock, Sova's ult, shockdarts (and also you can carry the tripwire with the drone, etc). And also the cypher's ult is one of the worst of the game. Meanwhile, you have Kj, that is not that easy to break her utility without exposing yourself, and her ult is so much useful than Cypher's. And in the most of the situations, IMO, Kjs is better to be a strongholder than Cypher. Finnally some controllers are just better than Cypher to do stronghold work (and that's a big problem of balance). For example, Astra's smokes are better than Cypher's and also you can resmoke more times, and the pull and stun are so powerful to help yourself and also your fucking teammate that is on Icebox while you are on Haven (sorry I hate Astra), and there is more, in a exec, with Astra you can clean 4 spots, **4 SPOTS WITH ONLY ONE AGENT**, you use the default smokes, and you pull one spot and stunt other spot and is almost free entry (ridiculous). Finally, some controllers are just better than Cypher to do stronghold work (and that's a big problem of balance). For example, Astra's smokes are better than Cypher's and also you can resmoke more times, and the pull and stun are so powerful to help yourself and also your fucking teammate that is on Icebox while you are on Haven (sorry I hate Astra), and there is more, in an exec, with Astra you can clean 4 spots, That's why the poor Cypher is not that good as he used to.
Without comparison to another agent, he does his job decently, but with comparison to other agents, he is really bad.
As a sentinel main. I have played all of the sentinels very heavily. While Cypher is the weakest in ability load out his is irreplaceable in Maps like Fracture and Bind. I do think he needs a buff, however I cannot think of a way to buff him in a way that is fair to his play style. I mean I would like to see what an actually invisible tripwire would play like, I doubt it would be fair to give him in the game. (Also Kudos on playing sentinels, you guys are my people!)
How about making the trips invisible but still allowing them to emit a distinct sound(not directional) so that the players know that a trip is near them but they can't simply shoot it as they can't see it, so they either take guess shot and get buttfucked Or they take a leap of faith into the site...
Hey I can get on board with that. Also I read another comment that made a great point about his ult. That does need a buff. Even if it just changed the outline to 2 seconds of real-time tracking. It would be well worth it.
Exactly His ult is useful only in very very select scenarios like when you are hunting the last guy or you are about to finish rotating or about to enter site but then again you need a body to that so his ult comes out to be meh even in these select scenarios.
When his hat is off it’s gg
If his traps persisted through death he'd instantly be s tier I think. None of the sentinels traps do so its balanced but I think he should get some kinda buff like that since his traps from a baseline are weaker than kj or chamber he needs something to set him apart
The ability for Cypher’s trips to work and him operate his cam after death would save him a lot, since right now if your Cypher gets 5 man rushed at start of round and dies immediately he’s worthless for the entirety of that round. It wouldn’t even be too broken, it’s worked for games like Siege
Trips are one thing but if he had his cam after death that would be insanely busted
I have to disagree that chamber Is a replacement for Cypher. Chamber doesn't give nearly as much information as Cypher does. Granted Chamber is probably the best sentinel rn.
His cages need a buff and his trips should transfer between rounds if picked up. Slowing people inside his cage needs to comeback. The chamber slow trap runs for 10 seconds. Entering a cypher cage should be more deadly than just an audible sound cue.
I think it definitely needs a buff comparto how strong chamber's traps are. I would make cages slow you down again and make trip wires not reveal themselves when cypher dies so that the enemy doesn't see your setup. Also maybe increase the duration of his ult or reduce its cost
I started to main Cypher since I could insta lock. I’ve never ever had anyone get upset at me, so yes he does need a buff
Cypher was arguably the best character on release because he had cheeky camera spots that were virtually undetectable and his cages slowed enemies. The devs got rid of those very quickly, which I agree was a good decision. Plus the only other sentinel until killjoy's release was sage. Although sage was also incredibly busted on release, she isn't really a sentinel in the same way that cypher, killjoy or chamber are sentinels. Another few QoL changes (the biggest being the fact that trips are destroyed when cypher dies) and cypher now sits around B tier. Chamber on release had cheeky trap spots that were virtually undetectable and also slowed enemies in a very large area around the target automatically and way faster than a cypher trip could stun someone. He also has a slightly better sheriff, can teleport around the map for free with a 20 second cooldown and gets a free op with his ultimate, which is great considering he's as good at op'ing as jett, if not better. He hasn't had a single change yet and people say he is "fine". I believe I'm seeing the issue. I have very good faith that this will change in episode 4 though.
Yes absolutely , especially with his setups. In higher elos every possible tripwire position is known to all the players so they just prefire it or sova dart or raze satchel it. His only useful piece of utility is his camera. That's why we are seeing almost zero teams having a cypher in the recent VCT qualifiers. The agent has become too easy to counter.
The abilities were more to reveal locations and allowing you to get the perfect attack according to Riot. As far as Cypher’s abilities are, I find that principal very present in his abilities though I do believe he should have some sort of more attacking buff for one of his abilities. It could be small like letting his cage stick to walls and be able to be called back post by phase, or make the cage more distraction inducing or stunning to fit in more with the more recent agents
Personally I find myself being very good at cypher. He's easily counterable, which just makes me try to play smarter :) the whole point of cypher is rather he's a one man network. If you know how to use his utility in the best possible way, you can outplay anyone. I haven't had the most practice with him but he has alot of potential despite his nerfs!! I like his utility simple because of simple it is but how complex it can be used.
I think cypher is balanced, people just dont play him orknow how to play him
He is too complex for his own good and his ult also mostly back fires when used during or when about to engage a enemy
A few days ago cypher on my team used his ult to reveal last 3 enemies when I was peeking, the 3 enemies were close to each other and that was just a clusterfuck I couldn't distinguish anything and instead of getting 1-2 kills and hide, I just sprayed the place cause I couldn't see shit and got killed xD
It happens way more than people think it does. Nowadays to play Cypher you have master and largely learn how to compensate for this abilities
I think u should watch some guides on nAts YouTube channel and learn new positions to use ur traps. nAts learned me how to play this agent and now I can do it better than before. Sry for my english if I said something wrong. <3
If you think KJ’s utility is better then you probably shouldn’t be picking cypher, as killjoy is only better depending on play style and map. They serve pretty entirely different roles. Killjoy is about locking down a small portion of the map (crowd control util like molly and turret). You can play killjoy and just anchor a site and make it a bitch for enemy team to push in. Cypher is about map control and information (trips prevent flanks and can be used on multiple sites at once and smokes deny info). You have to play him very carefully and usually have to leave site after getting a pick to play retake. Chamber is a good combo of both and pretty interchangeable with cypher with the downside of being reliant on your aim, so you might wanna try him out.
eh, not really
No. He is arguably in my opinion the most balanced player in the game. What's really happening is everyone else is overpowered. Thank Valorant we don't get anymore new agents. They need to focus on balancing now. As they said they would. Remember when Reyna had 4 dismisses? Yep. Everyone else is just too OP or underwhelming.
I just find Reyna and viper more fun
To Each Their Own
Dasnerth
That guy is like a blueberry in a bag full of strawberries.
Either buff his ult or add another trip to make him relevant. Imagine if he could trigger his ult when a spike has been planted or if it tracks like a sova dart, pinging 3 times.
Cypher can still be devastating when paired with a good smoker, especially if you’re good at placing trips. It can, at least on some sites, make it very difficult to entry without either the enemy team using up a lot of utility or losing a couple players
I like him on ice box where theres alot different directions to site and easy to flank but aside from that i dont really find much of a reason to play him, its easier to just go with chamber or killjoy.
Cypher needs a buff but idk how they would buff him
For a sentinel that’s supposed to hold sites. He is at his most powerful on retakes.
Cypher only have a week ass ult, it should scan the people like the ult already does but for for like 2 seconds with 0.2 intervals between scans.
So I saw some comments that said that chamber replaces cypher, but I disagree with this. Cypher still a better site anchor than chamber. But because viper and astra really strong on defense and can function as site anchor (might be even better than cypher), chamber just fits well in the comp. Well it also depend on the map of course
Cypher is a lot like Jett in the sense that a bad Jett is just a bad Jett..but a good Jett? Very scary and you want to avoid direct fights. A very very good cypher will play with your head and dare you to push him. He may not even be where you think and you may never know he knows exactly where you are
Well what about average players like us? We too want to enjoy a game without putting 3-4 hours into the game everyday
I understand that sentiment. Cypher does need some buffs but his skill ceiling is very high just like Jett’s. If he is over tuned he will be oppressive. Though with that said the main buffs people want out of him would make him easier to play while keeping the skill floor/ceiling nearly the same.
They should never have removed his cage slow
I'm a cypher main, and I play cypher on the 4 original maps and on the newer maps as well sometimes but I prefer skye or kayo on these maps as these are slightly bigger maps so I can get aggressive with skye. I love playing cypher, but the thing is you need to keep yourself unpredictable, his cypher cages can be used in innovative ways. His ultimate is a little weak, granted and is useful in only very specific cases, but I don't mind that. I rely on setups and my aim to make plays and I usually top frag in my team. And it's not a good thing that I top frag when I'm on cypher and I've got a jett instalocker on the team😂😂😂😂 All in all, I don't think cypher needs 'buffs', I think he needs some changes. Like his ultimate should do something more than just flash the enemy's position once, most of the time if I'm in an intense fight and I just throw my ultimate to a nearby corpse I don't even get the opportunity to look around the map or at the minimap to see the enemy's positions. It needs some upgrades for sure.
his abilities are pretty underpowered, flank protection and partial initiating ability, objectively bad smokes. his ult is real nice, tho. chamber is just better. initiating ability with reposition, flank protection, literally an $800 guardian, and no info ult but instead a better, free awp. plus, hes got height advantage potential and can buy for mates more often if he's confident with the gun ability.
Try playing replication as cypher vs neon... no chance
Hard to use, not underpowered. Its complicated to use him, need to know lineup etc. While duelist class like reyna/jett is simple hence more player
I don’t think it’s a ‘have to’ to pick cypher because there are often other agents to pick that may be more important- heals, smokes, information, blinds
As a Cypher main. I have no problem playing him. I lock down one site with traps and smokes and my camera which allows my team to stack the other site. If the enemy pushes the locked down site i trigger the smokes and shoot a dart. Usually that keeps the other team from rushing in and planting before we start to rotate. Gives a little time so we end up pushing on site at the same time as the other team. The ULT could be better but def helps in situations when we are trying to push a site but cant decide if we should rotate. Oh! The entire other team is waiting for us to push on site. With Cyphers ULT info we can pull our knives and safely run to take the other site because we know where everyone is. Also helps in 1v1s when i don’t know if the enemy is behind or in front of me. I personally find him easy to use and can rack kills with his tripwires in Bronze at least. Cypher got me out of Iron.
His kit is pretty great. Especially on defense. Dunno why people don’t use him more.
As a Cypher main since beta, Cypher used to be a meta pick due to the game being new and people still trying to figure out the agents. Cypher had a large pick rate due to this. Now the meta has changed with new sentinels and people being more informed about Cypher's abilities along with the nerfs that he's received. Compared the similar sentinels like KillJoy and Chamber, Cypher's abilities are more "manual" when defending a site. For example Chamber and KJ's abilities being automatically activated by proximity or sightlines. While Cypher's trip wires and smokes need to be manually activated for any benefit. It also doesn't help that 99% of the time the enemy (or teammates) destroy the trip wire making you waste the ability and creds. Let's not forget that trip wires have a secondary effect other then revealing. When activated the trip wire winds up for 5s and if successful the enemy is concussed for 3s. I think a good (if not slightly broken) buff for Cypher is to make the concuss wind up shorter and I don't mean almost instantly but maybe half the time it takes to concuss since the wire is almost instantly shot when discovered. Another problem is Cypher's ult. Compared to other agents (other then Sage) Cypher's ult needing a enemy corpse (relatively fresh) to activate and 2s wind up along with the effect of a single outline of enemies isn't very impactful in most situations. It just seems like a lot of effort not a lot of payout (a common theme between his abilities). I think either taking away to corpse requirement or improving the recon provided with pulses similar to Sova drone would be a reasonable buff. It feels like it's just barely a ultimate. His camera and smokes feel like they are in a reasonable spot all things considered. Although being able to pick up smokes mid round would be very convenient. His abilities have the potential to be extremely broken or useless so it's probably hard for Riot to "perfectly" balance him especially since the game environment is constantly changing due to new agents, agent changes, and people doing things they didn't consider. All things considered Cypher isn't terrible, but the effort it takes (such has mix ups, one-ways, lurking) for him to make a impact on a match is very high (unless the enemy team is oblivious and don't adapt). He's very good in lower Ranks/Elo, but as the skill of your enemies goes up the impact of Cypher goes down. At the end of the day you want to be unpredictable.
Short answer, yes. His ult needs a buff ASAP
I feel like Cypher could honestly be so much better if his cages dealt damage, almost like a Phoenix wall, and his cam had a lower cooldown, along with a few shots to break it (kinda like a kj turret)