VALORANT‘s most explosive agent ain’t going to be as destructive going forward with Riot Games introducing new nerfs in Patch 7.09 targeting the explosion radius and damage of Raze’s Paint Shell grenades.
The nerfs were included in the early patch notes listed in a thread on the VALORANT PBE (Public Beta Environment) subreddit. The radius and minimum damage for both the primary and secondary explosions of Paint Shells have been reduced, and the damage multiplier to enemy utility like Killjoy turrets or Cypher’s wires has been reduced from 250 percent to 100 percent.
Additionally, the Blast Pack no longer deals damage unless it is fully armed (green light on the satchel), and that time to arm has been increased from a half second to 1.5 seconds. It appears though that the changes will not affect Raze player’s ability to Blast Pack boost themselves.
In the notes, the developers noted they wanted to make Raze feel more precise with her Paint Shells in order to deal damage to enemies and enemy traps. This fits in with the theme of the agent balancing in this patch, with Riot wanting to make Sentinel trap setups, namely the ones for Cypher, more powerful to balance with other agents.
Cypher’s Trapwire gets a buff in this patch in both the time it takes to concuss and the fact it now is not instantly destroyed when it concusses someone and will re-arm in half a second.
Raze has consistently been one of the top damage dealers across ranked VALORANT for some time now, and on the pro level is easily considered one of the most prolific duelist agents alongside Jett, even with a less-than-consistent ultimate ability.
The VALORANT Patch 7.09 is now live on the PBE until Oct. 30, after which Riot will adjust and prepare to ship the update to the live game.
