The upcoming patch has some great changes and some really awful ones. I've played Valorant almost since Beta and this is probably the biggest update ever.

In my opinion, the worst changes by far are the nerfs to Sage. I don't know about in other ranks but in Ascendant she is barely picked. She can already be so boring to play but the one thing that made her somewhat enjoyable was being able to choose to heal herself. All of her other abilities are pretty selfless ones - the res for teammates, the wall for planting/defence and the slows for stalling/defence. Sages are also usually expected to carry and plant bomb. Taking away the viability of healing herself is honestly just kinda cruel.

The Sage nerfs are in-line with the recent nerfs to Kayo and Skye's flashes. The flashes were changed so that they’re a lot more effective when used to set up teammates, and pretty bad when used for themselves.

Riot keeps nerfing more agents into pretty much only being able to support and set up teammates rather than being able to also use their utility for themselves, which personally I really don’t like.

Sometimes you’ll play an initiator or Sage and have bad teammates that only play for themselves so you have to try and carry. These changes make this kind of situation gg, and will lead to more instalock duelists because people are fed up of not being able to have any solo impact on other agents.

What are your thoughts?

Edit: I see some people saying that they're making these changes to encourage people to play more as a team and play the designated roles. I understand this, but even if all players on a team had amazing teamwork with coordinated flashes and heals, it's not always possible. If Sage is last alive or her teammates are full HP, the heal would be useless. Same with Kayo and Skye, if they are last alive or not with teammates, pop flashing for themselves is kinda bad. Having utility to take fights yourself doesn't make you a battle-sage or aggro-initiator, it just means you don't have to pocket your team every single round. In my opinion, these kinds of changes just make the game a hell of a lot more one-dimensional and boring. I honestly think that buffing ally heal and flashing for teammates would be enough to encourage teamplay, and that self-heal and pop-flashing for yourself could just be left as is rather than made to be unviable.