Chamber, one of the most dominant agents in VALORANT, is about to get hit with a series of nerfs. In Patch 5.12, the developers want to find a balance between keeping Chamber’s “identity” and maintaining VALORANT’s “health.”
He was released in November 2021 and was one of the agents who defined the VALORANT meta in 2022. Riot Games nerfed Chamber in early August after pro players mastered the French agent’s kit, but those nerfs weren’t enough to balance Chamber, who has been oppressive to other agents.
“The team discussed and tested a number of ways to balance Chamber,” VALORANT’s agent designer Kevin Meier said in a blog post today. “The more we iterated the more it was apparent that his current mechanics were shaping play space in an unhealthy way, infringing on other agent identities, and breaking VALORANT’s core tactical cycle.”
Related: All Chamber updates: History of changes made to Chamber in VALORANT
The new nerfs aim to sharpen Chamber’s identity as a “precision-focused” sentinel while significantly reducing his influence by adding more counterplay for opponents, according to Meier.
All of Chamber’s abilities have been reworked, including his ultimate Tour de Force. These changes are not permanent and Riot will keep a close eye on Chamber while players adjust to these coming updates. The developers are willing to implement additional balance changes if they feel they’re required.
VALORANT Patch 5.12 is expected to hit the live servers later this month. A release date, however, has yet to be confirmed for the changes.
All Chamber nerfs coming to VALORANT in Patch 5.12
Headhunter (Q)
- Updated Stability Curve
- Spread increased after second bullet when spamming. This is explicitly meant to reduce low-precision body-shot spam as an effective combat measure.
Rendezvous (E)
- Chamber now places a single anchor that can be teleported to while inside its range.
- Radius increased from 15 meters to 26 meters.
- Removed teleport activation height restriction.
- You can teleport to the Anchor while on different verticality so long as you are within its radius.
- Increased weapon equip time after teleporting from 0.4 seconds to 0.7 seconds.
- Headhunter is unaffected by this change.
- Destroying Rendezvous teleport anchor now disables it for the remainder of the round, instead of being placed on a cooldown.
- Chamber no longer incurs an additional cooldown when recalling his Anchor after teleporting.
Trademark (C)
- The trap is now range restricted
- Trademark will disable when Chamber moves out of range, and reactivate once he is inside.
- Can now be recalled mid-round
- Does not require line of sight.
- 30 seconds cooldown on recall.
- Destruction remains permanent.
- Initial Arm Time increased from two seconds to four seconds.
- Health Increased from one to 20.
Tour De Force (X)
- Fire rate decreased by 57.5 percent.
Slow
- This applies to both Trademark and Tour De Force
- Reduced from 50 percent to 40 percent.
- Reduced duration from six seconds to four seconds.
- Reduced size by 30 percent.