Often claimed as the number one reason for Brimstone’s rock bottom pick rates, the stim beacon, much like Yoru’s decoys, is always a target for rework and buff ideas. However, is its bad reputation justified?
One of the many ways you can start an analysis about Valorant’s agents is through their pick rates. And while it can be quite deceptive if you trust it blindly, it does a good job in giving you an idea of what is being played and what isn’t in a said spectrum of the player base.
If you take your time to look at these statistics, you’ll see that Brimstone’s pick rate isn’t in a good spot.
Because of this situation, discussions about what should be done to make the old war veteran’s numbers go up always appear in the community; some say it’s his lack of rechargeable smokes that tone the numbers down, others that he needs more range to deploy his smokes, but what appears to be the consensus for the bigger part of the community is that Brimstone’s problem lies in one of his basic skills: the Stim Beacon. But, is the Stim Beacon the problem behind his lackluster pick rate as the majority of the player base says? Is the Stim, just like Yoru’s decoy, really a dead skill?
Before we start the discussion about why Brimstone’s problem isn’t his Stim Beacon, it’s necessary to clarify the effects of Brim’s Stim. If you take the time to read the skill description, you’ll notice that it only says one thing: the player receives the Rapid Fire buff. But what exactly does this mean?
If we take only what is confirmed by the Dev Team as its effects, the buff provided by it is a 15% increase in your weapon’s fire rate. While using it in-game, however, it does give the sensation that more buffs such as reload speed and aim recovery are part of the buff it provides. Because of this lack of information provided by the Devs, the numbers and descriptions of the skill will differentiate between different sources of information, such as the Valorant wiki and the Mobalitics’ site, since most of the values are estimated by the community. Knowing this, for the sake of the analysis and debate, I’ll only rely on the increased rate of fire provided by it while defending its potential.
It’s interesting, nonetheless, to keep in mind how much stronger the skill is in the case that other buffs such as the Equip Speed and Aim Recovery really are stacked over the rate of fire (ROF) buff.
Now, what does an increased ROF represent? Basically, when you think of a bigger fire rate you are looking at a bigger potential damage output, which can be translated as a lower time needed to get a kill or destroy an object, like Sage’s wall and Killjoy’s turret. Thus, an increase in the ROF can be read as a decrease in the time needed to kill something. In the table chart below, you can see the effects of a 15% increase in ROF, the same buff provided by the Stim Beacon, in three of the most used weapons in the game (namely the Vandal, Phantom, and Specter) while considering only body shots and no misses in a full health target:
The math is made by taking each gun’s rds/sec (rounds per second) in both scenarios and multiplying it with the damage caused in each bullet for said distances while considering that 1 kill = 150 damage.
If you carry over these numbers to the game, you’ll see that the added time can even get you a full second difference in cases with and without the buff if you consider the time saved in more than one kill, especially in cases where the damage per bullet is lower. Applying it to the Tactical FPS genre, where every second counts, it’s possible that the time saved by the buff can save your round. Now, these calculations only consider one weapon; imagine a scenario with five whole weapons loaded with this buff and imagine the difference in time that it can cause. This is the impact that the Stim Beacon can cause in the game.
It’s possible, however, to say that all of this is balderdash, and even more in higher ranks where players have better aim, because in most cases a headshot will turn this advantage to zero; turning Brim’s Stim into a dead skill. While this is certainly possible, so are other cases where utility is used without any impact. Said situations don’t make other utility trash, just underused. Making a parallel with another OG Valorant Agent, at the early stages of the game many people thought that Jett’s dash was a terrible skill with little possibilities, making it a target to buff/rework discussions, just like the Stim Beacon. Returning to the numbers, for 250 credits, or 300 credits for its maximum capacity, you have an area buff skill that gives you, at least (if we only count the ROF buff), one-third of the same advantages that only two other agents in the game, and only while using their ults nonetheless, have: Reyna and Kay/O. At the end of the day, Stim Beacon isn’t Brimstone’s problem, it is just an underused skill that people aren’t used to, and not only holds a lot of potential but fits the Agent’s thematic wonderfully.
Doing justice to our old dog, let's go a little back in time: before Patch 0.50 got uploaded into the game, more specifically between March and April of 2020. At that time, people were still learning the game, and the most common practice, even in the early tournaments organized during this Beta period (many counting with some of the names that later became famous and are still competing today as participants), was playing in a pug way.
If you go see some of the data from these early tournaments, you’ll notice that the most played controller wasn’t Viper or Omen (the only two other controllers available at the time), but Brimstone. Back in the day, Brimstone not only had the best smokes in the game but also was the most versatile controller agent with his fast deploying smokes that worked well with the execution-heavy and PUG dominant play style.
Take these characteristics of playstyle and add the map pool present in that time, with the only maps available being Bind, Split (in its pre-rework face, with a lot narrower chokepoints), and Haven (all maps somewhat cramped and narrow; and some of the maps that we still see Brimstone being played in some occasions during Competitive Valorant) and you should understand why he was so dominant.
Patch 0.50, however, started to change this scenario. With a huge buff, Omen’s slow and short-lived smokes (it only had a 12 seconds duration in comparison to Brimstone’s 14.25 seconds) became faster in its deploy time and competitive with Brim’s when talking about duration, now that it stayed up for 15 seconds. Coupled with his bigger range, Omen became a more versatile controller agent than Brimstone; we saw the meta slowly changing. With another viable controller, we finally saw each agent forming its characteristic playstyles, one more execution-heavy, playing together with the team as the real combat smoker, and another one more deceptive, sometimes seen slithering and lurking around the map while the team hit the site.
It was only after Patch 1.04, however, that Brimstone’s doom truly began. In this patch, not only were huge buffs implemented to the then marginalized controller Viper but a significant nerf also hit our war veteran: an increased cost in his ultimate from 6 ult orbs to 7. It’s interesting to notice that together with this nerf in his ultimate Brim also received a buff to his Stim Beacon, no longer buffing enemies and showing his location with its effect radius being displayed. This buff, however, couldn't even out the nerf to his ultimate, and we finally started to see Brimstone’s retirement after the meta started to shift towards Omen’s flexibility that allowed more possibilities in play style.
Fasting forward to recent times, we saw that even with some buffs to his kit during Patches 1.09 and 2.0, the presence of a stronger, and almost oppressive, Viper and the release of the new unbelievable strong controller Astra killed the possibility of a Brimstone resurgence, even after some nerfs to these two controllers in the upcoming patches. Now, what does this situation tell us about Brim’s situation? Is his kit the problem? I don’t think so.
If we analyze each of Brimstone’s skills while thinking only in its numbers and in a standalone way, we’ll see that not only he possesses the best smoke in the game, but also the second, if not best, molly in the game; followed by a strong support skill in his beacon. There are no problems with his skills, and if we honestly think about it, his kit is quite the strong one even if straightforward. So, where lies his problems, why is he not picked even with such a dominant set of skills?
I believe that his problems come from his lack of versatility when compared with the other controllers (with some remarks when thinking about Viper) and his lack of compatibility with some of the newer maps. Take Astra as an example: with a strong presence through the whole map, be it big or small, and a plurality of possibilities in executes, her versatility is so high that only two maps aren’t heavily dominated by her (the two maps where Viper excel due to her wall). Being as high as it is, Astra’s adaptability tends to overshadow other controllers, the only exception being Viper since she tends to work outside of Astra’s influence: in the borderline between a controller and a sentinel. On the other hand, while looking into Brimstone we can still find his strong executes but little to no versatileness in playstyle; because of how his smokes work, even if he owns the best smokes in the game, his weak map presence makes picking him almost impossible. In maps where this deficiency isn’t an issue, like Bind and Fracture, however, you’ll see Brimstone reappearing as an interesting prospect.
Acend vs Gambit - VALORANT Champions: Berlin - Finals - Twitch
Giving my two cents into this never-ending discussion of what should be done in order to make Brimstone appear more during competitive gameplay again; I believe that two changes could be implemented in his skillset, both in his signature ability. First, the volume of the sound emitted by his pad while opening his satellite’s interface should be tone down, giving Brimstone more possibilities in his positioning while smoking. Next, to provide him with some flexibility and make him more versatile without getting out of his combat smoker theme, let his smokes recharge with kills/kill participations, similar to how Duelists recharge their signature abilities. This addition would open a whole lot of new possibilities during your time with playing him, while still being faithful to his “together with the team” identity.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, it’s true that Brimstone’s pick rate isn’t substantial and he may require some buffs if Riot wants to make him compete again for the throne of the best controller. However, his problem doesn’t lie in the Stim Beacon as portrayed by many. Not only is this basic skill a great fit for his design as a whole, but it could also pack a decent punch if only people learned how to play with it.
