On Thursday, VALORANT developer Riot Games revealed several changes to duelist agent Yoru in an upcoming update that will rework the duelist.
The changes are aimed to improve Yoru’s quality of life, as he is seen as one of the weaker agents in VALORANT. His abilities are not as useful as other duelists, especially in professional VALORANT play. Riot Games game designers and character producers Ryan “Rycoux” Cousart and John Goscicki revealed the changes in the State of the Agents blog post.
Yoru rework targets three of his abilities
The tentative Yoru rework include a new Fakeout, which will replace the footsteps with a carbon copy of Yoru that runs forward and will wind up and explode, debuffing enemies, when shot at.
The Fakeout is not the only ability that Riot is set to change, however. Yoru’s signature ability, Gatecrash, will travel faster when used, and Yoru has the option to trigger a fake teleport that will play the same audio cue as if he were teleporting.
The Dimensional Drift ability, which is Yoru’s ultimate, may also be tweaked to help “Yoru break sites wide open,” according to the devs.
These changes are tentative, however, which means that they will likely be changed prior to release.
The Yoru changes will come into effect early next year, Cousart and Goscicki said.
“We’ll post probably just one more of these Yoru specials before his rework drops early next year,” they said. “In that article, expect to see art updates that go into supporting these changes.”
Regarding the reasoning for the changes, Cousart and Goscicki said that they want Yoru to become a deceptive agent that can also have a higher impact in terms of racking up kills.
“The aim is for Yoru to have better tools to trick opponents, a stronger baseline value across his kit and higher impact per round,” they said.
