Character Design Lead for VALORANT Defends Raze against Heavy Public Criticism
Cover And Thumbnail Image Courtesy: VALORANT
- Latest VALORANT character Raze faces heavy criticism from the community for her high damage skillset.
- VALORANT's character design lead RiotMorello defends Raze against the public backlash.
- States that both Raze and her high damage skillset are and will continue to be a part of VALORANT.
The latest VALORANT character Raze has been criticized for possessing multiple high damage abilities which according to a majority of the community is taking the game in the wrong direction, due to its stark contrast against the perfect mix of both utility and damage based abilities that other characters currently have.
Multiple prominent esport personalities like Michael “Shroud” Grzesiek, Jaryd “summit1g” Lazar, Erik "fl0m" Flom, and many others have also voiced their opinion on the same matter. With widespread discussions on the matter taking place within the community, VALORANT took due notice of the situation as RiotMorello - Character Design Lead for VALORANT while defending Raze, explained what they feel about the character via a comment on a Reddit post.
Talking about Raze the developer explained that the character is a ‘Duelist’ due to which “Her abilities all do very high damage in a small-to-moderate area,” while also revealing that she was one of the first agents alongside Sage to have been designed for the game.
Following this, he stated that their goal for the hero was to use her in such a way so as to flush players out of certain areas and gun them down in the process.
“As the skill curve goes up, people shoot Gary more, they dodge clusters most of the time, and rush her when she throws a close-range satchel pack with her weapon down - and the real impact becomes space control.”
About the high damage skillset, the developer said that it was meant to threaten players rather than killing them. Explaining that the skills should be used “before or after engagements to control space,” and not as a substitute for guns during a fight.
But towards the end, he did acknowledge that certain abilities of the character needed to be tweaked, like her signature ability 'Paint Shells' and her ultimate 'Showstopper'. Ending his take on the matter by making it crystal clear that both Raze and her high damaging skills are and will continue to be a part of VALORANT.
With this, VALORANT has publicly presented their point of view over Raze, making it clear that her skill set would not be undergoing any changes, though various aspects of the character will certainly be nerfed. It will be interesting to see how the community reacts to the character once it has been tweaked. Do you think she will be a popular pick going forward?
