Brimstone May Have Gotten a “Hidden Nerf” to His Sky Smokes in Valorant Patch 2.02

Buffs and quality of life changes to his kit were not the only things that Brimstone received during Valorant patch 2.02.

There may have also been a small nerf to his Sky Smokes, which the Valorant devs failed to highlight.

However, it’s not exactly a nerf that Riot chose to exact on the Agent. It was more like removing a bug that has persisted in the game ever since its beta launch.

Intel acquiring abilities like Sova’s Recon Bolt and Raze’s Boom Bot would not track enemies if their vision was obstructed by smoke. Moreover, even if Sova’s Recon Bolt was inside the smoke where the enemy was, it would still not give away their location.

This was not something that Riot intended, and with patch 2.02, they removed it. Now, Raze’s bot and Sova’s bolt will track targets if it lands inside the smoke where the enemy is.

The patch notes stated:

“Fixed an issue where various abilities did not work inside Brimstone and Jett’s smoke, even when they were visible to their target.”

But a large portion of the Valorant community looks at it as a direct nerf to Brimstone’s Sky Smokes.

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Brimstone smoke bug removed in Valorant patch 2.02

Image via Hotspawn.com

In a recent Reddit post that talked about the new Brimstone changes, Valorant developer Coleman "Altombre" Palm opened up about the situation and told players in the comment threads that:

"These abilities don't completely negate the smoke; they just see the same way a player does inside the smoke (instead of the smoke completely blinding them). A sonar dart inside of a smoke will not reveal you if you are outside it, and vice versa, but if you are both inside of the smoke together, it can reveal you. We've been testing this change internally for a while, though, and it was very much an intentional change to ship."

What irked the Valorant community was the lack of transparency, which was there from Riot’s side in communicating the change to players.

To clear the air a bit, Altombre added:

“This and the flash VFX changes were in the bug fixes section this time around and could have probably used some more explanation around our philosophies behind them, similar to the ‘normal’ balance changes we shipped.”

With intel gaining abilities now being able to detect enemies if both of them are inside the smoke, the Valorant Agent meta might just see a significant shift. And, fans will be quite excited to see just how much this affects the ongoing Champions Tour.