With the new Valorant patch, there has come a wave of buffs and nerfs to Controllers. Some of the most substantial nerfs were those to Astra. At the same time, both Omen and Brimstone have received massive buffs and are slowly making their way into the meta.
Valorant’s Patch 4.04 introduced a lot: agent balance changes, a Yoru rework, as well as a redesign for Icebox, the community’s “favourite” map. Many of the balance changes were for Controller agents. In a nutshell, Astra got a few nerfs whereas Brim and Omen have gotten huge buffs.
Astra has always been the default Controller agent both in pro play as well as in casual play. Her abilities allow for her to not only be a Controller with her smokes (Nebula), but also to serve as a pseudo-Sentinel as her Gravity Well and Nova Pulse can be used to stall enemies. What made these abilities so powerful was that they could be used multiple times with their short cooldowns. However, the new patch has both increased the cooldown for her abilities and taken away one of her Stars.
With all the changes to Astra, several agents are now slowly replacing her in the current meta. In terms of smokes, both Brimstone and Omen have received an increase in pick rates. With Brimstone, he had always had a low pick rate even before the release of Astra while Omen always had the higher pick rates in terms of smoke agents. But with the release of Astra, both Omen and Brimstone were pushed out of the meta. Now with her nerfs, here are a few reasons that Brimstone can be a better pick for your team.
First of all, the time it takes for Brim to deploy his smokes has been reduced. And now his buffed stim beacons grant both increased movement speed and fire rate, which makes him incredibly good for fast executes onto sites. His smokes are also a bit bigger, which makes them better for blocking line of sight in larger openings, such as Bind’s A Heaven and Split’s A Heaven. This makes Brimstone a great replacement for Astra as he fills in the smokes role and thrives on a well-coordinated team.
Omen on the other hand works much better for those players that enjoy solo queue. His whole kit has gotten a few changes overall. The new patch “improves the system used to place abilities at targeted ground locations,” meaning abilities, such as Omen’s Shrouded Step, will find it easier to find valid locations in “tight spaces.” An added bonus is also the time it takes Omen to teleport with Shrouded Step has been decreased from 1 second to 0.7 seconds. The Dark Cover projectile speed has also gotten a speed buff from 2800 to 6400 meaning the time it takes for his smoke to move has increased to a point that it’s faster than pre-nerfed Omen (5000 projectile speed). These buffs make playing Omen aggressively much easier, and you will for sure be seeing more Omen one-tricks in your matches.
Chamber, at the moment, is the best Sentinel agent in Valorant on defence. His abilities allow him to either rotate between sites easily or hold down multiple sightlines by himself. You can get so many different peeks and repositions when you utilise his Rendezvous and it's especially good if your enemies don’t know where you placed it, meaning you can peek them from unexpected angles.
Now in terms of stalling capability, similarly to Astra, he has an ability that can slow down his enemies - first from his Trademark and second from his ultimate Tour De Force. The latternot only slows enemies, it is also literally a better Operator that one-shots all enemies. On defence, he is the all-in-one agent since he can lock down any site. However, he is quite a bit weaker on attack, but this is not Chamber’s problem but a Sentinel problem in general.
Besides Chamber, KAY/O is also a suitable replacement for Astra in terms of stalling abilities. He has his Zero/Point or his “KAY/O Knife” that can be used both to stall and also gain info on where the enemy team is. Lots of site executions, especially when in a coordinated environment such as pro play, require the use of lots of abilities and with KAY/O being able to suppress them, it makes it a lot easier to cancel or delay site executions. His ultimate, the NULL/CMD, lasts for 15 seconds, so when used near the end of the round, it will force enemies to push without their smokes and abilities. This is especially impactful in pro play, as most teams play really slowly through defaults and tend to execute later into the round.
An alternative to Chamber and KAY/O could be Killjoy, who before the Viper-Astra meta had been a staple in most team compositions. With those two agents being heavily nerfed in the recent patch, Killjoy has also seen an increase in pick rates and may be able to make it back into the meta. There are situations where you could have a team with both Killjoy and Chamber. However, this team would be more Defender sided and would undoubtedly suffer on the attacker's side. While Chamber would flourish in a solo scenario, Killjoy would work better in a coordinated team and the value she can get from her Lockdown can at times determine the course of the round.
Given these points, we can conclude that in terms of smokes both Brim and Omen are now viable replacements to Astra due to her nerfs. For anchoring and stalling, Killjoy, KAY/O and Chamber can take over that spot. But the question is whether or not Astra will still be used in both casual play and professional settings. The answer to that is yes! She is still being used in pro play. However, her pick rate is no longer 100%, as she has been replaced by the likes of the previously mentioned agents such as Brimstone and Omen as well as Chamber, Killjoy and KAY/O.
