Has The New Update Killed The Chamber Meta in Valorant?

Since the launch of Chamber in Valorant, the character has been a focal point of multiple conversations. Due to being the new sentinel in town, many players wanted to test the character in various situations. While initially having two alarm bots in his kit helped him cover vital points of entry to a size.

Due to this, he had already replaced Cypher as well as killed joy on certain maps. But the other tools in his kit are what lead to the start of the chaos. While being a sentinel he had one of the most duelist-centric kits in the game. After testing him as a pseudo-Duelist in certain team compositions, we were witnessing the shift in the meta. This led most professional players to request him to be nerfed. With the update, the 5.03 chamber was finally nerfed but did it affect the Chamber Meta in Valorant?

Image Credits | Riot Games

While being a sentinel is all about making sure to stop the entry to the site you are situated in. As such the first nerf that hit chamber confused most because it removed the defensive side of his kit. Valorant decided to reduce the number of alarm bots to 1 and reduced the cool-down time of his teleport. But this didn’t stop most players from playing him instead of the fan-fav Jett. Jett until then had become the go-to pick duelist in the game.

But the second nerf that was patched in this month changed the usage of the chamber by a lot. From being the character, which could be played on any map to being the one who wasn’t looked at in some. To understand how much the character has been nerfed, I decided to play the character for the last 2 weeks.

WHAT ARE THE MAJOR CHANGES CHAMBER HAS RECEIVED IN THE VALORANT PATCH 5.03?

While testing the character the first thing that changed in the manner of how I had to play was the economy. Each of the headhunter bullets was now priced at 150 points, previously being 100. As such buying all 8 bullets would now cost me 400 more coins each round. Due to this players need to choose the weapon that they use each round. Another aspect which helped the economy was how fast one could achieve the Chamber ULT to save money. But with the patch now it would take an extra ult orb for players to get the sniper ult which made the character the beast he is. Due to this, one aspect I had to majorly learn was the need of balancing my economy each round.

While this would be one aspect that got affected, the other was his ability as a sentinel. The trademark slow duration was reduced from 9.5 to 6 seconds. As such another aspect of his kit got massively weakened. This led to the Chamber needing to give the role of being the best character to cover a site. It used to be tough to enter a site which the Chamber was guarding. But the major difference I could feel while playing him was his Rendezvous to be effective in certain cases.

Due to the change in the radius of the size of each anchor, the teleports felt much slower. As such there were moments where while playing chamber I was killed while mid teleportation animation. It was a major change which I could notice as it had become a common occurrence on each map. Playing Chamber felt like the shell of the beast he was previously.

HAS THE NERFED OFFICIALLY ENDED THE CHAMBER META?

Well being honest one can say that the meta is slowly starting to drift away from Chamber following the patch. It hasn’t made chamber become a character who won’t be picked anymore. But more like one who is more balanced than before. As such players will now need to learn how to mend their playing style concerning the changes. One cannot be as aggressive as they were for a major part of this year. While his pick rate has already seen a drop on certain maps by most teams in the game. One will need to play a more passive style to be able to make the most of the character’s kit.

We could soon see players going back on Jett to be the main operator on the team. As such while the meta has been recently shifting to a no-duelist set-up, we could see the revival of a duel controller set up by teams. While the dual initiator set-up has been used widely by most teams in the world. If there is one change I would bring back to Chamber, it would be defensive. That being the addition of another trademark back in his kit. Due to this, there will be a shift to a more passive/ Sentinel playstyle for the character like chamber. Only time will tell if we get to see another form of buff to Chamber in Valorant.