In VALORANT, players spawn with a pistol and a knife by default at the start of each round. The knife, like in most other competitive shooters, increases the movement speed of the players while wielding it and can also be used as a melee weapon on opponents in close-quarters combat. In VALORANT, one stab in the back with the knife is usually enough to finish a player off. However, Riot’s tactical shooter has been receiving numerous complaints that the knife wasn’t working as intended.
A VALORANT player has uploaded a clip of his gameplay on Twitter showcasing just how bugged the knife mechanics in VALORANT currently are. The video shows the player, who was playing Omen, trying to knife an enemy Sage who was just in front of him. Even after the Omen seemingly knifed the Sage multiple times from the back, yet she wouldn’t die. After the sage finally turned back and started shooting, the Omen had to take his pistol out to get the kill.
Riot appears to have taken note of the issue as a Riot dev replied to the post, acknowledging the problem with the current knife in VALORANT. Ryan “Morello” Scott – Character design lead for VALORANT – said, “Knife is basically really shitty right now.” He further stated that the VALORANT team is looking to fix the issue.
It’s important to notice that the damage output of the knife in VALORANT isn’t much different to other shooters like CSGO, for example. A stab in the front of an enemy does 50 damage with a left click and 75 with a right click in VALORANT. While a left click in the back does 100 damage and a right click does 150 damage, enough to kill an enemy with heavy armor and full HP.
Also, contrary to the beliefs of many, buying a knife skin doesn’t impact the damage output at all. Sure, you can buy a skin to change your small knife into a cool golden sword, but you’ll still deal the same amount of damage as the default one.
The damage output of the VALORANT knife may not be the problem here at all, and while it’s still blurry on what exactly will Riot do to fix the issues with the knife, it’s pretty apparent that a change to the knife will come soon.
