Valorant secretly nerfed Viper and players are only just noticing

Riot Games accidentally nerfed Viper in Valorant patch 7.09 and players are only just now discovering it.

Players noticed a small Viper nerf following a small unannounced update on March 28. Riot Games has responded to the surprise changes, revealing that while players noticed the change after the small update, the nerf has actually been in the game since late 2023.

The first and most notable change that came to Viper is the duration of which her smoke stays up. Previously the smoke had a 15-second duration but has now been brought down to just 13.

Shortly after the discovery, players found that Viper’s wall had also been affected similarly. Now both of Viper’s signature abilities have been brought down in terms of duration.

“That’s a big deal, I don’t know why they would silent nerf it,” one player said following the discovery.

While many noted that the sudden changes were “odd,” players were largely unphased by the update, which comes after the addition of the newest Controller Clove.

“12-13 seconds is still an eternity. It still allows time for your team to rotate/allow for you to reposition on the site being pushed. It isn’t that big of a deal in my opinion,” explained one person.

Riot has responded to players asking for an explanation, saying that these were changes set to come in patch 8.08 and that they will stay in the game.

“During our most recent balance pass, we discovered that Viper’s smoke uptime is shortened in-game. This is due to an update that had unintentionally shipped in 7.09 resulting in reduced smoke duration and cooldown after deactivating Viper’s smoke. While we hadn’t meant for these to go out, they are a rough preview of some upcoming updates we now have set for Patch 8.08,” Riot said.

The Valorant developer also said that it would never “intentionally make balance changes” without telling the community in the first place.