Cover-Credits:
- Sage will receive a buff for her barrier ability in Valorant's next 1.13 patch.
- Developers recently changed how her walls work and she is currently unable to deploy walls before rounds start.
- The upcoming update will also make it harder for smurf accounts to reach low MMR and abuse matchmaking.
Sage is one of the most popular agents in the Valorant roster. She has a versatile kit that lets her heal the entire team and also prevents enemies from rushing down lanes. The best part about her kit is her ultimate, which allows her to resurrect a teammate. At launch, she was one of the most overpowered characters in the game. However, the agent has been nerfed heavily over the last few months. In her current state, Valorant players are not happy with her and have been asking for buffs.
How Are Valorant Devs Planning to Buff Sage?
Image by Riot Games
Earlier today, Riot Games confirmed that Sage is receiving a buff in the upcoming 1.13 update. In the current patch, she was able to set up her wall before rounds started and enabled Omen players to teleport to locations that should have been impossible to get to. A hotfix was deployed to fix the interaction which inadvertently nerfed her a little too much.
The upcoming update will retain the “nerf” that now prevents Sage from deploying her walls before rounds. However, the agent will now get a minor buff to her barrier. It is a minor buff, but it should make her a lot more viable. The buff will unfortunately not drop before the First Strike finals which are scheduled to begin tonight.
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What Else Is Coming to Patch 1.13?
Aside from the buff to Sage and some bugfixes, there will be a massive change in how smurfing works in the game. Currently, Valorant has a lot of smurfs who intentionally throw matches until they are eligible to play ranked and end up ruining the experience for other players. A Riot team member confirmed that a change to new accounts would be made in the upcoming update. Instead of the game requiring you to play 10 matches, you will now need to win 10 matches before you are eligible for ranked. While it will not completely solve the game’s smurfing problem, it is expected to alleviate it to some extent.
Players will have to try hard and win their matches which will prevent their MMR from dipping too low and abuse matchmaking systems present in the game.
Riot has been criticized for announcing and elaborating on the changes to combat the smurfing problem. With players knowing the changes to how the devs plan on cracking down on smurfs, they might start creating ranked-ready accounts before the patch drops.
