Riot’s recent post provides clarity into the rework of VALORANT’s least picked agent. Are these changes enough to bring this disfavored duelist into the spotlight? Or is this simply a fakeout, destined to gatecrash and drift away? Here is a breakdown of the changes and how Yoru can create a niche for the duelist role.
Since his release at the start of Episode 2, Yoru has been widely regarded as an agent unable to fit in the meta for both casual and professional play. His primary issue lies in the fact that other duelists are simply too useful to be replaced by an agent with such little utility to be a round-winning asset. With a role meant to take space and bust onto sites, Yoru lacks what Raze’s Blast Pack or Jett’s Tailwind can provide in the entry department and is short in the x-factor that a well-playing Reyna or Jett can offer in taking control of the game.
However, there may be hope over the horizon for the duelist from the Land of the Rising Sun. Aiming for an Episode 4 Act II release, Riot Games is finally updating the abandoned assassin with the hope that he can fill the niche of misdirection. “Yoru becomes a master of deception through an increased output of disinformation from round to round,” wrote Ryan ‘Rycoux’ Cousart, VALORANT character designer, in the State of the Agents - Yoru post. In case you missed it, here is a quick rundown of Yoru’s comprehensive rework:
Yoru can now send one identical copy of himself straight forward which, when damaged, faces the direction of the shooter and flashes forward in a cone. This decoy will be visually differentiable to allies but identical to enemies.
The range at which enemies can see and hear Yoru’s tether while it travels has been decreased, and its travel speed has been increased by 20%. Alongside that, Yoru can now activate the tether from a distance to trigger a fake teleport, potentially misleading opponents as the audio and visual post-teleport puddle remain the same.
Yoru can now use all of his utility while in Dimensional Drift, allowing him to make plays like invisibly flashing for your team while behind enemy lines. On top of this, his nearsightedness in ult form is removed, enabling him to completely see his surroundings and remain unrevealed to enemies throughout the form’s duration. To balance these buffs, the duration of Dimensional Drift has been shortened, Yoru’s footsteps are now audible, and a delay in both his equip and unequip times have been increased.
While these changes sound promising, are they enough to shake up the meta and permit Yoru to occasionally take his place in the agent lineup? Possibly, on certain maps. Yoru sees pick rates of 7.6% and 7.3% on Breeze and Bind respectively. Although these rates are still incredibly low compared to other agents’, these are Yoru’s highest — and these maps have his best utilization — according to Valorbuff as of Patch 4.0. His higher pick rate on Breeze could be attributed to the large travel distance and the desire to utilize Gatecrash in quickly rotating between sites. For Bind, combining the map’s two portals with Yoru’s own teleport could raise the potential for mind games against the enemy team.
These announced buffs to the Japanese assassin can augment his existing plays on Breeze and Bind, and perhaps even allow him to successfully drift in the far and open paths of Haven.
Yoru’s new Fakeout could work best on Bind’s plethora of deep corners — hopefully catching a timid corner-camper or an Operator user holding a chokepoint off guard. With the lack of a mid on this map, rotations must be decisive — quick teleports or the illusion of one can most certainly be exploited.
Haven is another map that can harness Yoru’s potential. With three sites and an especially long rotation between A and C, Gatecrash rotates or Dimensional Drift info plays can turn the tide of a game. The Champions Tour Stage 2: EMEA Challengers Playoffs back in April 2021 featured Guild’s draken showcasing Yoru’s potential for mayhem:
The pre-planned strategy that Guild implemented here illustrates the set plays a well-coordinated team can make with Yoru’s ult. With the new update, he can not only recreate similar tactics to draken’s, but initiate a site execution with a full field of vision and the ability to throw flashes all while being untouchable. He will also still be able to evade Killjoy’s lockdown while in Dimensional Drift!
With draken’s clip in the wild, one might wonder why there have not been more Yoru highlights in the months following his play. Yoru’s struggle in the past has been justifying replacing another agent who can either create space as a duelist or collect information as an initiator. With this in mind, Episode 4 Act II and Yoru’s newly revamped kit can hypothetically do both. Imagine entering a site with unlimited vision — while in Dimensional Drift, revealing all enemy positions — and throwing Blindsides for your team to enter as a pseudo-initiator. Alternatively, you could entry frag the old-fashioned way, like draken in another one of his highlights:
In State of the Agents - Yoru Part 2, Rycoux echoed a similar sentiment: “when looking at updating Yoru’s ultimate, we wanted to fix some of the unintended play patterns that have shown up in-game, and instead give Yoru the tools to gain ground on enemies using stealth and initiate the rest of his team to follow.”
To keep the enemy on their toes, Yoru extends his versatility via his ability to act as a lurking duelist on attackers’ side — sneaking and applying pressure opposite of where your team is to find an opening or Gatecrash out if in danger. As an added bonus, Yoru’s Fakeout will continue to trigger defenders’ traps such as Killjoy’s Turret, Cypher’s Trapwires, and even Raze’s Boom Bot.
Despite the stealthy assassin’s hopeful future, there are still a multitude of issues left to be addressed. Most notably, Yoru’s unchanged Blindside drags his viability down with its short duration and long wind-up time. A potential fix to this could be to increase the duration of the Blindside flashbang to be more in line with the other flashbangs. Alternatively, a right-click release of Blindside that triggers the flash after first contact with a surface could potentially add variety to Yoru’s executes (with a delay before the flash triggers for balancing purposes).
The announced increase in unequip time from exiting Dimensional Drift is also a disadvantageous detriment to this duelist. If Yoru is truly meant to enter a site while ulting, taking longer to pull out his gun would likely obstruct his potential for entry plays. As noted in the State of the Agents post, this was changed to “hinder the combo of blasting Shorty right after switching to visible.” While such a combination had been over-abused, the solution seems to be hurting Yoru more than intended — though it may be too early to tell.
At the end of the day, VALORANT has a constantly changing meta with an abundance of characters and combinations. While the existing Yoru may not be viable, any buffs to him or nerfs to competing agents can spur an uptick in his instalocks in the potential future. It remains to be seen if his incoming changes will spur such an uptick.
In professional play, it is not unreasonable to assume that Yoru will be tested in scrims as soon as his update releases. If things are looking even remotely positive, surprise Yoru picks with new and improved draken-like plays are certainly in the cards.
