Riot’s CEO “abilities don’t kill” Valorant Comment Didn’t Age Well

Riot’s CEO “abilities don’t kill” Valorant comment did not age well, and Riot owns up to it.

Riot Games CEO Nicolo, explained that abilities “don’t kill” in the announcement phase of Valorant. This was a huge lie, and Riot knows this. Here is the original tweet from Nicolo:

You’ll need all your creativity and style to win: can’t count on cheats or internet lag to help you. We sent the team on a war against peeker’s advantage and aimbots.

— nicolo (@niiicolo) October 16, 2019

So, about two months after the release of Valorant, players got to experience Raze. The players who main the Agent will cry out, “She’s balanced,” but that’s far from the truth. She has a grenade that splits into four other grenades, a bot that explodes for 100 (chip damage), two satchel charges that deal at least 70 damage each, and an ultimate ability that has a ridiculous blast radius + 125 chip damage.

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I’m not too fond of the Agent because all she has to do is bounce a grenade off a wall into my angle. Raze isn’t the only one with killing abilities; she is just the main issue. Phoenix has two burn abilities (which do little damage), Jett pulls out five knives for her ultimate, Sova has a shock dart and an ultimate ability that can go through walls, and the list goes on with damaging/killing abilities.

“That Was Our Mistake”

Riot Games did a Valorant Q&A recently, and they answered the question on their CEO’s comment. “I heard someone at Riot once say that “abilities don’t kill” in VALORANT, but… there are clearly ones that do, like Raze. Are you breaking your promise?”. To that, Riot gave a detailed and accurate response:

This statement isn’t completely accurate—especially in a game that already had Raze and Killjoy’s gameplay locked in before our announcement… Anyway, that was our mistake—a big part of that mistake was in missing the nuance (specifically that tactical fundamentals—not just “abilities don’t kill”—are a key component).

At least they admitted that because most companies would just blame their community and go on about their days. I still would like to point out to those who think Raze is balanced to this lovely video right here:

"You don’t kill with abilities." – Riot CEO 2019 from VALORANT

In their defense, if you aren’t silver or below, you can ignore those abilities quite easily. Although, her ultimate does have a ridiculous range, even if you tried to run from it. With Valorant’s recent Agent addition “Killjoy”, the attention has been split between Raze and the new Agent.

Currently, players are complaining about Killjoy’s Nano Swarm. Honestly, you can easily counter it by using your eyes. I KNOW IT’S CRAZY but hear me out. If you just use your eyes to look for a noticeable red orb sitting on the floor, easy defuse. The Nano Swarm is in the Spike? Shoot the spike, that simple. Raze is still 10x more annoying than Killjoy will ever be, and it will remain that way until they nerf her.