Despite once being the queen of utility, Valorant’s German genius, Killjoy, has taken a few nerfs since her release. Riot, however, have shut down complaints that the Sentinel is underpowered.
When Killjoy took her first steps onto Future Earth, players everywhere were obsessed with her neon aesthetic and bubbly personality, but hated her seemingly overpowered kit.
From here, the German Sentinel has taken quite a few nerfs to the knee, much to the disappointment of her loyal fans. Coming into Act 3, she was the only Agent not to receive Ability price changes, but both her turret and alarmbots had their cooldowns dramatically increased.
In the wake of mass outcry from Killjoy mains everywhere, Riot Games have addressed the issue head on via Reddit, shutting down claims that the adorable genius has been nerfed into the ground.
Riot confirm that Killjoy isn’t underpowered
In response to a Reddit thread asking players what they think of Valorant’s seventeenth Agent, KAY/O, one fan noted that “nerfing Killjoy and introducing KAY/O at the same time was a bad call.” This is prompted by the mechanical menace’s ability to disrupt setups using his ZERO/point suppression blade.
As the comment started to gain traction, Riot’s Insights and Product Strategist for Valorant, Coleman ‘Altombre‘ Palm jumped in to clear up the debate.
“Killjoy’s still looking really strong after this patch,” he writes, revealing that she firmly sits in the “top three winrate club! The cooldown nerfs hit her, but everyone else has to spend more money on utility than they used to, and she saw no eco changes. If anything, she’s gotten a bit stronger post-3.0.”
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As you can imagine, the response to his comments were pretty heated, prompting a second comment clarifying his statement.
“She’s strong in matchmaking. Strongest at low MMR, but she’s top three winrate across the spectrum. Experientially I understand the pain for sure, I play a lot of Killjoy. Just power-wise, she’s one of the best Agents in the game still.”
Whether or not this will help ease Killjoy players’ minds is yet to be seen, but clearly the Agent isn’t as underpowered as many believe her to be. Sitting in the top three, she’s likely beating out the game’s other Sentinels.
Does Killjoy need a buff in the future? Only time will tell, but for now Riot seem pretty happy with her place in the meta.