Valorant Patch Notes 4.09: Chamber Nerfed, Party Lead Transfer Feature Added

Valorant Patch 4.09 went live Tuesday morning as Riot Games officially delivered the Chamber nerfs they had been testing out in recent weeks.

In addition to the spicy Chamber nerfs, Riot also introduced a new Party Lead Transfer feature and a handful of small tweaks and bug fixes. Here's a breakdown of the 4.09 patch notes for Valorant Episode 4 Act 3.

Valorant Episode 4 Act 3 4.09 Patch Notes Detailed

Here are the official changes Riot has now made to the Sentinel Agent, Chamber:

Chamber

• Trademark: Cost increased from 150 to 200 / Charges reduced from 2 to 1 / Audio range increased

"Right now," Riot's patch notes statement reads, "Chamber's Trademark outperforms other Sentinel tools in both reliability and power, which feels inappropriate given the amount of defensive combat tools Chamber has spread across the rest of his kit. We believe Chamber's identity is defined by his unique weapons and defensive combat mobility, so we are decreasing his level of global flank protection/information and increasing counterplay on a single premium trap. This means Chamber will have to make a choice based on if he wants to play selfishly around his Trademark, or place it to help his teammates instead."

This is a bit of a buzzkill for one of, if not the strongest Agent in the game at the moment, but his pick rate will likely be just fine moving forward as pointed out on Twitter by NRG Ethan.

Where some in the community's issue with the nerfs lie, however, is that Chamber is perhaps getting downgraded in the wrong departments.

"Trademark, the easiest sentinel utility to break needed a nerf," OpTic Chet Tweeted Tuesday afternoon.

There is a real case to be made that Sentinel Agents should be buffed soon, as lobbied for by OpTic yay on Twitter weeks ago.

In the patch notes, Riot Games lead agent designer Jay Watford and game designer Dan Hardison also addressed the state of Sentinel Agents in the current meta and provided some more context as to why they decided to dial Chamber's kit down a bit.

"When we think about the Sentinel role," Watford and Hardison wrote, "we think about its overall ability to keep map control and defend space. We believe that Sentinels and Sentinel players should have many options and methods to control and defend, whether it’s through the use of Sage’s reactive slow abilities, Cypher’s flank-watching gadgets, or defensively-oriented combat and guns like Chamber. Like all our Agents, it’s important to carve out sharp strengths and weaknesses for Chamber in the roster. If you take him for his weapon arsenal and disengage, you should feel as if you're giving up a strength — like traps or stall — that his peers excel at."

Watford and Hardison also added that the dev team will be keeping an eye on Chamber, and won't hesitate to make adjustments if they see him "suffer disproportionately on defense relative to attack."

Here are the rest of the patch notes Riot included in its May 10 Valorant update:

Agent Updates

Fade

• Nightfall: You should now see a decreased amount of flickering textures on diagonal walls when casting Fade’s ultimate. Also added VFX for additional clarity and visual impact.
• Seize: VFX change to the orb for a more dynamic presentation in 1p and Agent select.

Competitive Updates

• Party Lead Transfer: You can now change the lead of your party. Current party leader can right-click the player name they want to transfer the responsibility to and choose "Make Leader" in the drop-down menu.
• A number of small tweaks and updates were made to the UI.

Esports Features

• Added Observer ability to toggle Scoreboard on/off.

Bugs

Agents

• Fixed a bug where Jett’s Tailwind would sometimes fail to cast when used immediately after curving a Cloudburst smoke.
• Fixed a bug where Jett’s ultimate indicator would sometimes stay active after firing all kunai.

Gameplay Systems

• Fixed an issue where an unintended "use" input could happen after abilities such as Skye’s Trailblazer or Sova’s Owl Drone is activated while using the "use" key.