Riot Games released new patch notes for VALORANT yesterday. In addition to nerfs for Raze’s Blast Pack, the semi-automatic Guardian rifle received a few buffs.
The Guardian is regularly looked at as inferior to other semi-automatic rifles like the Phantom and Vandal, but even at a price point of a few hundred credits cheaper, the gun felt underwhelming.
Along with lowering the price of the gun, Riot has improved both its rate of fire and its weapon recovery.
- Price reduced to 2,400 from 2,500
- Rate of fire improved to 5.25 rounds per second, up from 4.75
- Weapon recovery improved to .2925 after three bullets, up from .35
In the developer notes for the change, Riot emphasized that this isn’t intended to make the Guardian usurp more expensive guns. Instead, the changes are supposed to make us feel a little bit less reluctant to buy in a round where we don’t have the credits for a Phantom or Vandal.
“We don’t think the Guardian can (or should) compete directly with the Phantom or Vandal,” the notes state. “But we’d like it to have a place where players can feel good opting into the gun at the new price, is a competitive purchase in certain economic circumstances or map scenarios, and isn’t as punishing when an enemy gets close!”
Along with changes to the Guardian in Patch 1.08, Riot nerfed Raze’s Blast Pack, changed the map rotation for the game, fixed a few bugs, and added some quality of life improvements to VALORANT.
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