Riot testing Chamber nerfs in Valorant as Sentinel overperforms in Episode 4

Chamber has been dominating Valorant in Episode 4. The Sentinel Agent provides an abundance of information on top of his fragging prowess and defensive utility, and that’s exactly what Riot is targeting with test nerfs ahead of patch 4.09.

While all eyes might be on Fade since her release in Episode 4 Act 3, the Valorant developers are honing in on Chamber for a bit of rebalancing following his dominance in recent patches.

Chamber has been a popular pick in both professional and casual play. At VCT Masters Reykjavik, he had a 44% pick rate ⁠— the fourth highest in the tournament behind Jett (65%), Sova (49%), and Viper (46%).

Chamber has also had a 44.6% pick rate in ranked Valorant across the last 30 days, which is up there with duelist picks like Jett and Raze.

This high presence has drawn the attention of Riot, and the developers are testing some experimental changes ahead of Valorant patch 4.09 to tone back his power.

“Right now, 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,” developer ‘Synchroze22’ said on Reddit.

To fix this, Chamber will be losing one of his Trademark traps, only given access to one each round instead of two. They’ll also cost 50 Creds more, now priced at 200.

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This should decrease “his level of global flank protection” and make him a bit worse at gathering information across the map, especially on the attacker side.

“This should mean 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.”

The changes aren’t guaranteed to make it into Valorant patch 4.09 ⁠— which is due to go live in mid-May ⁠— but Riot will be listening to community feedback while the Chamber nerf is in testing.