A Killjoy backlash: Are abilities overpowering gunplay in Valorant?

Riot Games has finally announced the official release of the 12th Valorant Agent, in the coming Act.

Killjoy, who is also known as the 'the Genius of Germany' is finally going to arrive in the Valorant live servers in August, as soon as Act 2 take off. She comes with a kit that is very tech-heavy, and some might even go as far as to say that her abilities are a cross between Cypher and Raze.

Killjoy will be a tech Agent, and not a Radianite filled supernatural entity like Reyna or Phoenix. She will be coming with an Alarm Bot and a Nanoswarm gadget for zone control, along with a Turret, that will help get a line of crossfire.

The Valorant community is entirely split in their approval and disapproval of the new Agent.

Image Credits: Riot Games

While many feel her to be a balanced addition to the roster, others are of the notion that like Brigitte in Overwatch, she will be the death of the game.

The Valorant Community backlash

Many Valorant fans are not happy with the in-game damage abilities. They already hold Raze and her kit in shallow light, and the reveal of Killjoy's kit seems to be the tipping point where some of them finally came out and said, "Riot is making a big mistake".

During the release of the Valorant's Closed Beta, Riot had promised the fan base that the first-person, tactical shooter would ultimately have gunplay as the most favoured core mechanic. Some fans believe that with the latest Killjoy reveal, Riot is not keeping to that promise.

Screengrab from Twitter

Abilities overpowering gunplay is a valid concern for fans who want to invest a considerable amount of time in the game, and want it to have a thriving eSports scene.

Screengrab from Twitter

The 100Thieves Valorant star, Hiko, has also released a video where he talks about Killjoy and how she can potentially ruin the game.

Having turrets in a low TTK first-person shooter can turn out to be a huge problem that can, in the long run, ruin the competitive integrity of the game.

The other side of the story

Like those who're criticizing the release of the new Agent, there are also many who feel that she can indeed be a great addition to the Valorant roster.

Valorant's chief of character design, Ryan 'Morello' Scott took to Twitter to address some of the queries that fans have raised about Killjoy.

Abilities doing damage are about generating threat or pressure - killing is what happens when you can't (getting checkmated by overwhelming odds) or won't (fail to make the right decision) deal with the ability. Other case, we use these to create angle or area control https://t.co/ww4PFVaivA

— Morello (@RiotMorello) July 29, 2020

He says that, "Abilities doing damage are about generating threat or pressure - killing is what happens when you can't (getting checkmated by overwhelming odds) or won't (fail to make the right decision) deal with the ability. Other case, we use these to create angle or area control."

He also posted a follow-up response to the tweet with a comment about Raze, stating that "Raze Grenade makes you move from an area into bad positions. Boom Bot has a lot of choices (shoot/hide/run/hold). Since these moves can *often lead to unfavourable fights that lead to death* damage must be the punishment, or you don't need to respect its footprint."

Screengrab from Twitter

Some fans have also noticed the fact that in the ability videos, Killjoy's turrets are not doing a whole lot of damage. The turret has a pretty long wind-up time and just does a burst of 24 damage, which is quite manageable.

The turret does make her a whole lot harder to deal with, and the amount of crossfire potential that she can generate will be huge to stop fast enemy pushes.

However, it will be quite unfair on our part to judge the Valorant Agent before her official release. We will be having a more informed analysis of her abilities and gameplay once she hits the live servers on the 4th of August.