The recent Valorant 8.11 update introduced some serious buffs to Iso, Valorant’s newest Duelist Agent. The buffs centered around Iso’s signature ability ‘Double Tap’, making it substantially stronger. As a result, Iso‘s overall pick rate and win rate have surged dramatically, and the Agent is finding himself in the competitive meta across all ranks of the game’s competitive spectrum.
Only a week after the Iso buffs hit the live servers, Valorant devs are already looking to curb the Agent’s dominance in pubs. As per a recent X (formerly Twitter) thread from a Valorant Game Designer, Iso is about to be hit with some heavy nerfs in the upcoming Episode 9 update.
According to the post by the Riot dev, here are the changes that are planned for Valorant’s 9.0 update:
- Removing the two-kill reset on his Double Tap (E).
- Reducing the duration of his Double Tap from 20s > 12s.
The dev said in a statement, “Removing the reset gives Iso just one activation, and reducing the duration should create a clearer window for opponents to deny him fights.”
When asked whether these changes will be hitting the console version of the title on the same date, the dev responded, “Unfortunately due to some of the processes around console being new Iso nerfs + Neon’s slide equip bugfix (a console-specific problem) will go out in 9.01.”
Needless to say, these are some significant nerfs that will undoubtedly have an impact on the Agent’s win rates. However, whether these changes are enough to make him less viable in the competitive scene of the game still remains to be seen.
