Interview: A Chat With Valorant's Max Grossman On Killjoy, And Riot's Design Philosophy For New Agents

Aphelios' character design and weaponry makes him a prime candidate for an Ultimate Skin , and he did an insane amount of damage when he was first released. He was so strong that he was capable of shredding tower health and nearly one-shotting enemy champi


** TheGamer: ** The German efficiency tinge to Killjoy's toolkit and how well her personality and proficiency as an engineer reflects brilliantly in gameplay. When you were designing her, was there skeleton that had a particular utility, and Killjoy's character came later, or was it vice ve


** Max Grossman: ** After they go live, it's always tough. We have a bunch of internal data on how Agents perform and can look at the numbers and use that as our most important balancing act. If a character is winning 57% of their matches (none of the Agents are winning that much; this is just a hypothetical) — that's probably something we should address, whether or not the community is aware of that problem. Then there's the flipside: players think something is overpowered, but we have hard data that shows it's not. Regardless of how we get that information, we can identify those problems as things that need addressing, and the solutions can look very differ


Squishy mages cowered whenever they saw an enemy Kassadin in Mid Lane because he is an anti-mage assassin with burst power, absurd mobility, and a magic shield. Prior to the Season 11 changes, Kassadin's core item was Rod of Ages, but Riot removed it and has now left him in a bad s


With the recent release of patch 10.25 of League of Legends , many players are testing the changes during the pre-season to find out what the next meta builds are for their favorite champions. A handful of items saw buffs and nerfs this patch, some of which keenly affected the playstyle of many League of Legends player's favorite mid lane champion, Ahri. While she may not be the easiest champion to play, she is one of the most


Thunderclap : This is an active and passive spell. When used as a passive, Malphite gains armor. When activated, this spell creates a sonic boom that causes normal attacks to create shockwaves in front of


For the time being Mundo is a very easy champion that even beginners can use without too much difficulty, but he has been completely neutered as a tank. It is true that Sunfire Aegis pairs well with Mundo, but it doesn't offer him much health, so if he jungles, he will have very low health compared to other champi


Trinity Force has always been a good item on AD champions, and it made ADCs like Corki quite viable in Mid Lane. Now that Trinity Force has been changed, Corki no longer has an item that gives him a significant power boost in the early stages of the g


Ahri's Q is her best tool during team fights. Orb of Deception can pierce through multiple enemies (and minions) in a single ability cast. This allows her to deal massive damage to enemies clumped together during the fights. Initiate for the team with Charm, then follow it up with Fox-Fire to close the gap. This combo will let the team single out an important target before the fighting has even be


When his E is combined with his ultimate or W (which slows), he can unload massive damage, and it deals even more damage if he has Luden's Tempest. This Mythic allows Viktor to deal 10% extra AP damage against his target and 3 other nearby enemies, but it also grants each of his items 5% magic penetration, which allows him to melt ta


While Ahri's Q has a relatively low cooldown, its mana cost is rather high. Do not be tempted to spam the ability too frequently in the early game. Use it at its maximum range to ensure that it hits the enemy on the way in and on the way out. Her Q should be the first ability to max out, because of its huge increase in damage. Fox-Fire should be the second in most games. This is due to its reliable damage output and low cooldown. However, Ahri is a relatively squishy champion, so be careful when using it in close com


** Max Grossman: ** Mostly, our skin has gotten thicker. That would be my biggest takeaway. Like with Killjoy's turret, there was a lot of skepticism online, and internally that's something that you see and go, "oh god, are we doing the right thing?" For arcane Deaths me, it helped build some of that armor and confidence that we weren't ruining the game, which feels good. Chances are if the community is skeptical about an Agent, we are too while designing them. While making a turret character for Valorant, we thought, "well, can we? Can it be good?" A turret that sits there and kills people betrays the promise of our game. So when we see a bunch of people online that feel that same way, I empathize. However, once someone gives a new Agent a spin, I always hope they realize how much work we put in before releasing anything in Valor


Nexus has no inhibitor or turrets around it.

While the turrets on the outskirts remain in place for each of the three lanes, that is the last line of defense before getting to the Nexus . The Nexus itself does have a small targeted attack, but there no longer needs to be a concerted effort to take down any inhibitor or turrets after breaking through a l