When Yoru made his VALORANT debut back in January 2021, many people were excited to experiment with his unique, decoy-based kit. But players quickly realized that he didn’t bring enough to the table, and now he’s become the least-played agent in the game’s roster, according to stats aggregate Valorbuff.
In response to his drastically dropped play rate, Riot is set to revamp a majority of his kit for launch during Episode Four Act Two.
First, Yoru’s Fakeout ability is being reworked and changed from mimicking footsteps to creating a full copy of Yoru that runs forward in a target direction. When this clone is damaged, it faces the direction of the person who fired the shot and flashes toward their position in a cone. If you’re on Yoru’s team, don’t worry—his allies can easily identify the real Yoru from the fake.
Gatecrash isn’t getting a big overhaul but will instead leave a “puddle” on the ground after a fake teleport. “While the goal of the fake teleport is to create confusion about Yoru’s location, you should be able to go to where the fake teleport occurred, and then understand whether the real Yoru is around, or was it a misdirection?” Riot said in a new blog post.
Finally, Yoru’s ultimate ability is getting a whole plethora of changes to “fix some of the unintended play patterns that have shown up in-game.” Here are all the new aspects headed to the reality-jumping duelist:
- Yoru is no longer revealed to enemies.
- Yoru is able to cast all utility while in Dimensional Drift.
- Enemies can hear Yoru’s footsteps.
- Nearsighted is removed.
- Unequip delay time is increased slightly.
- Cast delay added when casting Dimensional Drift, preventing the invulnerability frame on cast.
These changes are all meant to allow Yoru to cook up a play while looking at the entire battlefield in stealth, using his abilities to set up for a grand outplay alongside his allies. Many fans and Yoru mains will be curious to see if these changes can help push his play rate past the measly 6.4 percent he’s at right now.
