I can't use spectre. Haven't touched it since it was busted way back in Beta. Stinger is cheaper, more effective (imo), and just overall a great eco weapon if I'm not feeling the sheriff tap.
Iso shield is unbalanced game changer for everyone.
Riot nerfed raze and buffed iso because raze having the highest pick rate. But what they accomplished is just iso having insanely high pick rate.
*Heeey - there is always going to be some meta*
Raze satchel and nade was great, but it was still setchel and nade.
Iso now has free shield, vulnerability and another shield, vulnerability and another shield.
He can get headshoted but also can kill the enemy in 2 body hits.
Sending vulnerability to smoke and spraying is guaranteed free kill.
In Radiant Iso had 45% winrate last act. This act right now it's at 53%. 2nd highest. That means that after 1.5 months of 43% winrate average he climbed up to 53% in 1 week. He must be at at least 60% winrate in the last week.
The ult is literally the best ult in the game now. Starting a round 4v5 because your teammate had to face a shielded Iso is insane.
The ult can stay, the problem is the shield. Changing ult wont change anything and just fk up stuff down the line.
=> example: Chamber, his whole kit got f over and he still strong af all the way till they actually fix the tp and everything crumble. Its so bad that Riot have to bend over and add back stuff they removed from chamber which is rare cuz in a way they admitted that theyre wrong lol.
yh at worst the ult is a trade on attack if your teammates play it aggro enough, but the nerf coming through should really kill off his high pickrate and make his winrate rise with elo, because lower elo iso's arent gonna know when to activate the ability now, and its only 12 seconds.
You’re right, but I would also like to point out that Clove follows a similar principle with their util. My first round loadout for Clove on defense is Frenzy, Pick Me Up and Meddle. If the enemy decides to try and rush site I meddle and then spray and pray
> Riot nerfed raze and buffed iso because raze having the highest pick rate. But what they accomplished is just iso having insanely high pick rate.
What's Iso's VCT pick rate post-buff?
That is why I believe it's premature to claim his high pick rate is high. Data is very helpful to have.
But if there are pickrate stats for ranked post-buff, I'd be curious to see that too.
Ranked and competitive play are different convos to have imo. Reyna was most picked in ranked and not really picked in competitive. They still continued to tune Reyna so that she's more team based in ranked play, even though she got very little play in tournaments. Iso is going to be that guy as well, but if he's also highly picked in competitive (we'll have to see) then I think he's a bit overtuned.
Imo, you can't be a ranked demon agent and the best duelist in actual competition. At least Raze was the best duelist, but still wasn't always picked in ranked because of the skill required.
Well it’s been what, a week? And he already has the highest average damage delta per round of any agent. Him and neon will both shoot up the pick rate boards in the next week or two. They both are currently being held back by an almost 0% pick rate in previous weeks
I know and I’m providing that to you. In the week that neon and iso have been buffed they e started shooting up the pick rate leaderboard relative to where they were prior. And ISO has now, in that 1 week, become the agent with the highest damage delta per round.
Of course he's the highest damage delta per round the shield means even his lost fights will have dealt some chip damage.
That doesn't actually mean jack shit in regards to his winrate which is the stat that actually tells us something.
Currently in Immo+ on Haven (the only map vstats has real data on because it tracks full act so the other map's data is averaged with pre-patch data) Iso is the 7th highest WR (below Neon) and the 3rd highest PR effectively cleaving in half Jett's PR from other Jett map's available data and splitting it between them. Sounds like better variety instead of Jett always, not bad, especially since it's an OP and retake heavy map which both favour Iso.
Seems about expected and not particularly problematic, especially given his kit is pretty basic to use but takes some practice to counter, 51% WR is solid.
The reason his winrate is close to 50% is because hes on both teams in pretty much every game so ones gotta lose and ones gotta win. So his winrate is irrelevant hes in every game
Bumping the rank down to Dia+ to actually have enough data to look at individual comps places his comps about middle of the pack in winrate, though notably in fairly small sample sizes, and the duelist combinations seek fairly all over while a clear trend is present in controller, initiator and sentinel.
Edit: He seems to be strongest in Gold-Plat (THE ego ranks) but his winrates fall back to normal levels both below and above those ranks.
Vstats' Haven data seems to be the most accurate thing I can find since data is act wide, so Haven not being in the pool pre-patch means it's only post-buff data.
Basically he's cannibalised decent chunks of Reyna and Jett's pickrates (now 3rd most picked between Jett and Omen) has 51.38% WR which tracks for the easy-to-use but needs practice to play against nature of his shield. Given that Haven is also an OP and Retake heavy map, which both favor Iso, this seems strong (inarguably one of the top 5 agents on Haven now) but not problematic, especially since he's effectively getting the new agent treatment.
I think pick rate in Ranked should matter too. High ranks and pro play should get more of a focus in game balance, but you still have to take lower ranks into consideration. Even if Iso isn’t a must pick in pro play he can still be too strong in lower ranks. Just look at Reyna.
It's more like the majority of people aren't headlight enthusiasts and are therefore going to make fast, ignorant complaints about a headlight change before understanding how to counter the change.
"They made the headlights dimmer but I still want to drive just as fast as before! This change sucks!"
I don't give a singular fuck about VCT. Never watched a single game and never will. I play the game of valorant for enjoyment and seeing an iso with a shield run straight down main Everytime is aggravating. I don't even care if it's balanced or not, it's just not fun to play against which is why I don't like it. Has nothing to do with whether or not a select group of like 100 ppl pick it slightly more than other agents.
According to data from [tracker.gg](http://tracker.gg), Iso pickrate since buff went from 1.1% to 9%. Reyna dropped but is still at 10% and the most picked duelist. Jett and raze both dropped. He also has the highest damage per round.
- Reyna 10.5 from 12.8%
- Iso 9 from 1.1%
- Jett 7.5 from 10.6%
- Raze 3.9 from 6.6%
- Phoenix 2.5 from 3%
- Yoru 1.1 from 1.5%
Neon went up to 4.5 after the patch but is dropping back to 3.2, before she had an 1.9% pickrate.
I mean like, its still one of the biggest hero shooters. And everyone in everyone's community still complain about everything. Just like Valorant, Apex Legends. Everyone complains about everything. Overwatch ain't that different from a playerbase perspective. But Overwatch bans generally don't work, because the entire kit is their guns included and nothing else can replace the hero's kit. So a ban there wouldn't really work that well. Valorant on the other hand, instead of their entire kit being unique, its just abilities. Alot of abilities can be interchanged by at least 1 other character. So Valo bans would work for some of the really hated agents, aka Iso here
OW had a ban system but it was implemented in the most obtuse way as the devs picked who got banned and you had zero input. So say someone like roadhog was problem the current patch and the devs banned, orisa, sombra, and ana, that week well your just shit out of luck then.
Iso had forced me to play spray much more. Im forcing with stingers much more than any other gun now. Im even dropping thr vandal at times so I can get a cheep hit in with the phantom to increase my odds when I swing and aim properly.
I honestly hate it. Less about precision gun play woth twitch reactions and more of blind wall taps, run and gun, hide n seek bullshi.
If I want to play shotgun against Iso I jiggle and use classic right click to remove his shield, giving him no info on what gun I have, then I pull out the bucky and blast him when he comes round the corner. Still tough but it works sometimes.
The biggest thing that fucked me was the eco rounds, or even the second round when you win.
On an eco if you're buying a sheriff, chances are you aren't killing any semi-decent iso with how long it takes between shots especially to re-aim at the head, and by that time you've been sprayed down or traded headshots.
On the second round if you win pistol, buying an outlaw is almost always awesome cuz you aren't buying full armor after losing pistol unless ur forcing right? Yeah, Iso literally just tanks that first shot so you pray that you land the second fast enough before he one deags you
I'm glad he's getting nerfed, he's terrorizing high elo where gunfights last 1-2 shots sometimes, he just solos. He takes the skill out of the game and honestly his whole agent idea doesn't fit in the tactical shooter genre that Val and CSGO are in.
Imo I think they should make the first shield have a short timer, like Jett's dash. Forcing him to play aggressively and giving opponents the option of playing against it like it's phoenix ult where you wait out the timer then take a 50/50 instead of an almost guaranteed loss. Then if he gets a kill and shoots the orb, he gets a normal timed shield back. That should be more balanced than what it is now.
My friend started playing iso in comp he’s good but his so much more consistent with iso and gets more kills cause of the shield even if he misses he still has a chance to kill.
i will die on the “iso isn’t op” hill. you can hear him activate his shield from across the map, start spamming smoke, throw a molly, any kind of damage and it’s gone. when that shield is gone it’s a totally different player. they always get nervous and lose their first encounter. i have an insane winrate against iso ult from jiggle prefiring before barriers drop, every time i break the shield and they start crouch spraying, makes for an easy target. he punishes 1v1s but is easier to trade than a reyna. you can shoot his orbs if you can’t immediately swing with a teammate to deny the shield. i truly believe this is just a massive learning curve people aren’t understanding and i truly hope riot doesn’t cave and nerf him.
the only nerf i could understand is to only allow him to shoot 2 orbs a round, much like how reyna only gets 2 orb uses.
edit: i almost just want to say skill issue. the only times i’ve died to iso is when i took a bad fight. otherwise im on defenses holding an off angle getting my 2 bullets in before he can get 1. or im on attack insta trading my teammate. note i do not play duelists often so i am not taking the first fight against iso.
Iso is noticeably overtuned, and he will never be balanced. He has the exact same problem as Blackbeard in Siege, where his shield is either completely useless because he gets shredded right through it, or wildly overpowered because he eats a headshot and kills you for free, invalidating your better mechanical skill. This character was always textbook terrible game design, but people are just now realizing it because Riot had to go and make the shield free every single round.
"Just shoot the orb bro" isn't happening in 90/100 cases because it spawns almost right next to his crosshair, not yours.
>note i do not play duelists often so i am not taking the first fight against iso.
"see I never die to iso bc I just watch someone else do it instead" is the most hilarious cope I've heard on this subject lmfao
to respond to the quote at the end, how is me trading my teammate and or swinging with my teammate to kill an iso cope? everyone is saying he is op because he is non stop snow balling kills. if he’s only good for 1 kill that isn’t op.
I feel like a lot of players struggling against Iso are doing so because they're playing against him the same way they always do, when in reality you have to adapt. It's like learning how to play anti-flash against a phoenix, or playing off site when you see he has ult, but Iso is arguably even more telegraphed due to his shield noise. Some people also adapt in a way that hurts their confidence, which isn't good either. But there's definitely a sweet spot which negates most of Iso's power if you play accordingly.
I think the problem is iso fundamentally breaks aspects of the game that make it a tac shooter. Yes, you can hear him pop shield from very far away but spamming util is not a guaranteed shield break. At best case scenario you break his free shield for util but there’s a catch if he gets a kill while his ability is still active he’ll get another shield. This makes trading him insanely hard, Reyna will deny a trade but only iso is actually favored to win a trade. I don’t think it’s plausible to hit the orb before iso unless you were preaiming at your teammate.
Not to mention he can bank shield if he gets 2 kills giving him crazy snowball potential. Just lost shield? No problem just hit e again haha
if you break the shield with util, and he gets a kill, he has to shoot an orb, in that time a teammate can trade him. if you cannot trade your teammate you can shoot the orb instead. either way he’s shieldless. if he gets *another* kill, yes he can reactivate his shield, i feel he’s earned it after getting 2 kills and not getting traded.
damn bro responded in 5 seconds lmao.
In high asc atm, no one ever shoots iso orbs except him, shooting thru smoke is kinda pointless when he activates shield right before entry and follows his wall. The jiggle in ult is a valid strat, imma use that
slow day at work lol,
yeah i’ve learned more recently talking to teammates a lot of people don’t know you can shoot the enemy iso orb. it throws the iso off a ton when you do and is super helpful. most of my enemy iso’s activate their shield a good 2-3 seconds before they pop giving time for some kind of spray/util. i mainly play brim/gekko so i’ve always got a molly to work with.
tldr: break the shield without committing and you usually win the mental fight, leading to winning the gun fight.
I kinda disagree bc as you say u have to really util dump before you can even consider taking a fight imo Sean says it quite well
https://youtu.be/y7lqHTSes6U?si=Rqebz4biw2adfFP9
You can hear it yes, but you can't always do anything about it. Most util is dodge-able (if you have damaging util in the first place) and if you're in a position to shoot him he's usually in a position to shoot you. I won't speak to whether its truly OP or not in the grand scheme of things, but it is unarguably ***way*** too strong in the 1v1 situation and while that may be balanced around being useless against multiple people its still swings way too much to be healthy game design (which is to say a healthy ability shouldn't be 100% win rate 1v1 0% win rate 2v1 for example)
Shield duration prob needs to go down as well as not having the refresh orbs.
Make him timing his shield correctly to have an advantage take some foresight and Util breaking it's kinda silly that he can pop it and clear an entire site and even if you break the shield the 50/50 for him is incredibly rewarding still.
the refresh orbs are fine, super easy to counter. i don’t personally play iso a ton so idk exactly how far he can get but if he isn’t taking any damage and can clear the entire site, that’s the defender’s skill issue.
he is op, for ranked. same problem as reyna where his util is pretty shit except for 1 part of his kit which happens to be great for ranked even if you're shit at aiming, its a free kill every round
i think he's ok in coordinated play but you're rarely getting teammates that actually wanna work with you in ranked games so he just sucks to deal with in ranked because he's a 1v1 agent
Idk in immo here and I don’t have an issue with the isos. Most people in this elo know you 3 burst kill him. So instead of tap firing you burst 1 shot breaks shield one of the next 2 shots headshots and it’s an instant kill. Even when I lock iso most people know to do that so it instant drops me instead of just going for the shield pop. It changes how gun fights are taken. But honestly not that broken. On tier list in every single rank below immo iso has a less than 50% win rate. Or if you can’t spray headshot you can body burst to aim punch him. Shield will still give minor aim punch on body shot.
Edit: TLDR I will also die on the iso isn’t OP hill
Edit: also skill dif. you can shoot his orb to deny him shield. Imagine if you could break reynas and deny her a dismiss or heal. Every day I hear at least AT LEAST 2 people tell me that’s the first they are hearing that they can break his orb.
IMO iso is op because most players in low to medium-high rank play for kills and go for greedy 1v1. Iso can punish that. And tbh as a duellant agent you should have good entry or good 1v1 tools. But when people start playing together and play more with brain like Double peak or hold Crossfire or flash/stun for a Mate he is more vulnerable then a reyna that can just dismis everything.
I can still understand people crying because that's what people used to do instead of adapting to the changes...
You can reply your hate right here :)
Statistically Iso performs best in the highest rank in the game, not the shit-tier casual ranks. Blaming the bad players when Iso beats good players more often than bad ones doesn't make any sense.
[Source for reference:](https://tracker.gg/valorant/insights/agents?division=radiant)
Haha, right now I always say; " THEYRE A, ILL LET ISO IN GOOD LUCK" and make sure to avoid Iso like how i would avoid other recon abilities and go back in my smoke to kill his other teammates (you can see a shielded Iso first 99% of the time before he sees you).
Sometimes i make a double smoke to create a pocket where abilities wont see me. Actually, right now i do this a lot after thinking about it.
It's not guaranteed though (same as before, just adapted) because sometimes you'd get caught or one time, i let Iso in Ascent A then I one way smoked A main then pushed out with a judge.
I killed 4 because they were unaware and then held the Ascent A entrance in case Iso went back to help his team. Unfortunately he didnt, went on to kill all my teammates in site then peaked me with a shield. I died cause although i hit him with a shotgun first, he was shielded so i died before the second shot went out.
Very different agent that requires a different play style. Same with how you play against double recon comps (skye and sova, extremely common in ranked). You almost never do the shorty smoke or only do it once due to the drones and dogs. Don't even get me started with Fade, those cats smell Brim's juicy ass a mile away. Wingboy too, he can see the whole smoke and stun you even before coming inside of it so ascendant+ Gekko mains would also stop that strat.
We need to adapt my fellow Brim Buddy especially when all the new agents just keep power creeping our no regen limited smoke semi-useless stim very situational molly and godlike ult that was nerfed big butted agent.
Guess what? They are nerfing him but not nerfing neon. They are gonna remove the ability to recharge your double tap if you get 2 kills, so if you lose it, you lose it for the entire round, and its duration will be reduced from 20s->12s
since i main bucky(with all agents i use)
What I do is I first peek at the iso with the pistol and prefire, when i destroyed his shield I'll repeek if he's near.
right, you should be changing your playstyle according to the enemy comp..
you wont see me sitting in a smoke on chokepoint when they have a fade for example, that's how the game is meant to be played, you adapt
Playing iso gave me insane confidence, like delusional confidence, I swing everything and have been going positive every single time I select iso, the instant shield is way to good, makes me think I’m a way better player than I am, they need to take away the instant shield for sure
One undebatable thing that needs to be nerfed about this shield is that it tanks all bullets it receives at the same time, it should be only one bullet.
There's no need to debate :
In a game a fundamental is to NOT BREAK a core principle otherwise you break the game
Tac fps core principle: first head win
Idk how dumb are the riot game designer but they made a massive mistake, this character will never be good whatever state he's in he'll always be frustrating
Shotguns invalidate running in one at a time with no utility. That's one braindead strat total.
Iso invalidates your ability to aim for the head, regardless of gun, and completely destroys both shotguns and snipers entirely.
They are not the same.
The judge can shoot multiple times with smokes it's very easy to miss someone in a Brim smoke and lose 2-3 members.
Idk why people act like shotguns are weak and only beat noobs when it literally works in Immo-Radiant level play that someone playing a corner with a judge or Bucky just can't be pushed off it without blowing a ton of Util that you might not have with you and this is after they have been nerfed multiple times for being too oppressive at this.
When it comes to Iso shield again the judge allows more ability to still take him out but yeah welcome to not playing cheesy one and done shotgun angles and having to respect Util.
Idk why spending Util to clear out a shotgun is such a skill check that if you don't do you're a noob but respecting Iso shield is apparently just stupid and shouldn't have to be done.
Idk in immo here and I don’t have an issue with the isos. Most people in this elo know you 3 burst kill him. So instead of tap firing you burst 1 shot breaks shield one of the next 2 shots headshots and it’s an instant kill. Even when I lock iso most people know to do that so it instant drops me instead of just going for the shield pop. It changes how gun fights are taken. But honestly not that broken. On tier list in every single rank below immo iso has a less than 50% win rate. Or if you can’t spray headshot you can body burst to aim punch him. Shield will still give minor aim punch on body shot.
Idk where your stats are from but immo+ Iso has an 51.2% winrate on tracker.gg in immo and 52.7% in Radiant. Also this post was about playing shotguns, which cannot spray. He wanted to know how to keep the inside smoke + shotgun play up.
Imagine if cs 2 was good. They called valorant a cs killer but cs kills it self. Valorant will kill it self by bringing more agents in the game. When will it stop? How can you balance such a large agent pool? Everybody’s style changes with huge sentinal buffs now with iso buff and go on.
Rat smoke with a frenzy/stingers are almost equally as good and effective even against Iso
True, but both of those are pricier than the shorty/bucky respectively, and only achieve ‘almost as good’.
Tf are you on about Stinger is ridiculously goated
Not since the nerfs
Aim head. Pull down. Ez kill.
Specter does the same job but better tho
I can't use spectre. Haven't touched it since it was busted way back in Beta. Stinger is cheaper, more effective (imo), and just overall a great eco weapon if I'm not feeling the sheriff tap.
It used to be ridiculously broken but it's still an incredible eco buy if you halfway know what you're doing
They're not quite as good in a smoke but they make up for that by being more flexible than a shotgun
Yes, I used to feel bad about spamming Odin, but I don't feel bad anymore.
Odin is the move against ISO for sure
I cannot use that gun. Like I suck ass with it.
But first/eco round? Or even bonus
If you're not buying Odin on the first round, then you belong in iron.
I used chamber ult just to bait iso into swinging into my Odin, it was cathartic
Odin is the new OP vs Iso lol, you can always be sure that they're first in line and ahead of their team by a lot
Iso shield is unbalanced game changer for everyone. Riot nerfed raze and buffed iso because raze having the highest pick rate. But what they accomplished is just iso having insanely high pick rate. *Heeey - there is always going to be some meta* Raze satchel and nade was great, but it was still setchel and nade. Iso now has free shield, vulnerability and another shield, vulnerability and another shield. He can get headshoted but also can kill the enemy in 2 body hits. Sending vulnerability to smoke and spraying is guaranteed free kill.
In Radiant Iso had 45% winrate last act. This act right now it's at 53%. 2nd highest. That means that after 1.5 months of 43% winrate average he climbed up to 53% in 1 week. He must be at at least 60% winrate in the last week. The ult is literally the best ult in the game now. Starting a round 4v5 because your teammate had to face a shielded Iso is insane.
So funny how it went from the worst ult in the game to the best lol.
I think the ult makes sense but not as a 7 point ult. 10 points would geniunely make sense.
The ult can stay, the problem is the shield. Changing ult wont change anything and just fk up stuff down the line. => example: Chamber, his whole kit got f over and he still strong af all the way till they actually fix the tp and everything crumble. Its so bad that Riot have to bend over and add back stuff they removed from chamber which is rare cuz in a way they admitted that theyre wrong lol.
Yes! And then 3v5 because iso has the shield again and one more vulnerability
yh at worst the ult is a trade on attack if your teammates play it aggro enough, but the nerf coming through should really kill off his high pickrate and make his winrate rise with elo, because lower elo iso's arent gonna know when to activate the ability now, and its only 12 seconds.
You’re right, but I would also like to point out that Clove follows a similar principle with their util. My first round loadout for Clove on defense is Frenzy, Pick Me Up and Meddle. If the enemy decides to try and rush site I meddle and then spray and pray
Yeah, but iso is in this scenario still more powerful. Shield and two vulnerability utils...
> Riot nerfed raze and buffed iso because raze having the highest pick rate. But what they accomplished is just iso having insanely high pick rate. What's Iso's VCT pick rate post-buff?
I could be wrong but they aren’t playing on the iso buff patch, no?
That is why I believe it's premature to claim his high pick rate is high. Data is very helpful to have. But if there are pickrate stats for ranked post-buff, I'd be curious to see that too.
Ranked and competitive play are different convos to have imo. Reyna was most picked in ranked and not really picked in competitive. They still continued to tune Reyna so that she's more team based in ranked play, even though she got very little play in tournaments. Iso is going to be that guy as well, but if he's also highly picked in competitive (we'll have to see) then I think he's a bit overtuned. Imo, you can't be a ranked demon agent and the best duelist in actual competition. At least Raze was the best duelist, but still wasn't always picked in ranked because of the skill required.
Well it’s been what, a week? And he already has the highest average damage delta per round of any agent. Him and neon will both shoot up the pick rate boards in the next week or two. They both are currently being held back by an almost 0% pick rate in previous weeks
And 1 week is almost nothing in terms of metas settling.
> Well it’s been what, a week? That doesn't stop people from making snap judgments. I'm just asking for the data behind the claims.
I know and I’m providing that to you. In the week that neon and iso have been buffed they e started shooting up the pick rate leaderboard relative to where they were prior. And ISO has now, in that 1 week, become the agent with the highest damage delta per round.
Of course he's the highest damage delta per round the shield means even his lost fights will have dealt some chip damage. That doesn't actually mean jack shit in regards to his winrate which is the stat that actually tells us something. Currently in Immo+ on Haven (the only map vstats has real data on because it tracks full act so the other map's data is averaged with pre-patch data) Iso is the 7th highest WR (below Neon) and the 3rd highest PR effectively cleaving in half Jett's PR from other Jett map's available data and splitting it between them. Sounds like better variety instead of Jett always, not bad, especially since it's an OP and retake heavy map which both favour Iso. Seems about expected and not particularly problematic, especially given his kit is pretty basic to use but takes some practice to counter, 51% WR is solid.
The reason his winrate is close to 50% is because hes on both teams in pretty much every game so ones gotta lose and ones gotta win. So his winrate is irrelevant hes in every game
Bumping the rank down to Dia+ to actually have enough data to look at individual comps places his comps about middle of the pack in winrate, though notably in fairly small sample sizes, and the duelist combinations seek fairly all over while a clear trend is present in controller, initiator and sentinel. Edit: He seems to be strongest in Gold-Plat (THE ego ranks) but his winrates fall back to normal levels both below and above those ranks.
Vstats' Haven data seems to be the most accurate thing I can find since data is act wide, so Haven not being in the pool pre-patch means it's only post-buff data. Basically he's cannibalised decent chunks of Reyna and Jett's pickrates (now 3rd most picked between Jett and Omen) has 51.38% WR which tracks for the easy-to-use but needs practice to play against nature of his shield. Given that Haven is also an OP and Retake heavy map, which both favor Iso, this seems strong (inarguably one of the top 5 agents on Haven now) but not problematic, especially since he's effectively getting the new agent treatment.
I think pick rate in Ranked should matter too. High ranks and pro play should get more of a focus in game balance, but you still have to take lower ranks into consideration. Even if Iso isn’t a must pick in pro play he can still be too strong in lower ranks. Just look at Reyna.
How many of us are playing in VCT?
Good point. VCT doesn't matter. Disregard please.
This but unironically. It's like removing headlights from production cars to match the cars in NASCAR
It's more like the majority of people aren't headlight enthusiasts and are therefore going to make fast, ignorant complaints about a headlight change before understanding how to counter the change. "They made the headlights dimmer but I still want to drive just as fast as before! This change sucks!"
I don't give a singular fuck about VCT. Never watched a single game and never will. I play the game of valorant for enjoyment and seeing an iso with a shield run straight down main Everytime is aggravating. I don't even care if it's balanced or not, it's just not fun to play against which is why I don't like it. Has nothing to do with whether or not a select group of like 100 ppl pick it slightly more than other agents.
Cool.
Not everything is about vct
Okay. We can ignore VCT. Please provide pickrate stats for ranked post-buff.
According to data from [tracker.gg](http://tracker.gg), Iso pickrate since buff went from 1.1% to 9%. Reyna dropped but is still at 10% and the most picked duelist. Jett and raze both dropped. He also has the highest damage per round. - Reyna 10.5 from 12.8% - Iso 9 from 1.1% - Jett 7.5 from 10.6% - Raze 3.9 from 6.6% - Phoenix 2.5 from 3% - Yoru 1.1 from 1.5% Neon went up to 4.5 after the patch but is dropping back to 3.2, before she had an 1.9% pickrate.
How did you get to the tracker page that shows stats just from the last patch date? All I can find is stats for the last two weeks
Oh my bad I just compared the last two days to the last 2 pre changes
It might be because I'm on mobile, but I'm being directed to the main page.
Just hope at some point it'll be like LoL and have enough agents where all game modes will have the option to ban agents from the match.
when there's enough agent's there will be 2+ iso equivalents running around.
How many agents do you think there have to be before that point is reached? 40?
I really couldn't say with confidence, but around 50 is my guess. Idk how the bans would effect valorant compared to league.
I don't think that's gonna happen, OW has 40 heroes and they don't have ban system
Yeah but tbf its ow what were you expecting?
I mean like, its still one of the biggest hero shooters. And everyone in everyone's community still complain about everything. Just like Valorant, Apex Legends. Everyone complains about everything. Overwatch ain't that different from a playerbase perspective. But Overwatch bans generally don't work, because the entire kit is their guns included and nothing else can replace the hero's kit. So a ban there wouldn't really work that well. Valorant on the other hand, instead of their entire kit being unique, its just abilities. Alot of abilities can be interchanged by at least 1 other character. So Valo bans would work for some of the really hated agents, aka Iso here
OW had a ban system but it was implemented in the most obtuse way as the devs picked who got banned and you had zero input. So say someone like roadhog was problem the current patch and the devs banned, orisa, sombra, and ana, that week well your just shit out of luck then.
Iso had forced me to play spray much more. Im forcing with stingers much more than any other gun now. Im even dropping thr vandal at times so I can get a cheep hit in with the phantom to increase my odds when I swing and aim properly. I honestly hate it. Less about precision gun play woth twitch reactions and more of blind wall taps, run and gun, hide n seek bullshi.
If I want to play shotgun against Iso I jiggle and use classic right click to remove his shield, giving him no info on what gun I have, then I pull out the bucky and blast him when he comes round the corner. Still tough but it works sometimes.
Nerf inc
The biggest thing that fucked me was the eco rounds, or even the second round when you win. On an eco if you're buying a sheriff, chances are you aren't killing any semi-decent iso with how long it takes between shots especially to re-aim at the head, and by that time you've been sprayed down or traded headshots. On the second round if you win pistol, buying an outlaw is almost always awesome cuz you aren't buying full armor after losing pistol unless ur forcing right? Yeah, Iso literally just tanks that first shot so you pray that you land the second fast enough before he one deags you I'm glad he's getting nerfed, he's terrorizing high elo where gunfights last 1-2 shots sometimes, he just solos. He takes the skill out of the game and honestly his whole agent idea doesn't fit in the tactical shooter genre that Val and CSGO are in.
Imo I think they should make the first shield have a short timer, like Jett's dash. Forcing him to play aggressively and giving opponents the option of playing against it like it's phoenix ult where you wait out the timer then take a 50/50 instead of an almost guaranteed loss. Then if he gets a kill and shoots the orb, he gets a normal timed shield back. That should be more balanced than what it is now.
My friend started playing iso in comp he’s good but his so much more consistent with iso and gets more kills cause of the shield even if he misses he still has a chance to kill.
The iso shield straight counters a handful of guns from a pretty diverse set, it’s such an awful change
I started to play with ares on defence after pistom win and sometimes buy odin. These work well on defend
I'm confused how is iso's shield different than how it used to be? It always ate 1 shot right?
You had to activate ability then get a kill to spawn the orb and shoot it to get a shield and now he gets the shield instantly for the first one
i will die on the “iso isn’t op” hill. you can hear him activate his shield from across the map, start spamming smoke, throw a molly, any kind of damage and it’s gone. when that shield is gone it’s a totally different player. they always get nervous and lose their first encounter. i have an insane winrate against iso ult from jiggle prefiring before barriers drop, every time i break the shield and they start crouch spraying, makes for an easy target. he punishes 1v1s but is easier to trade than a reyna. you can shoot his orbs if you can’t immediately swing with a teammate to deny the shield. i truly believe this is just a massive learning curve people aren’t understanding and i truly hope riot doesn’t cave and nerf him. the only nerf i could understand is to only allow him to shoot 2 orbs a round, much like how reyna only gets 2 orb uses. edit: i almost just want to say skill issue. the only times i’ve died to iso is when i took a bad fight. otherwise im on defenses holding an off angle getting my 2 bullets in before he can get 1. or im on attack insta trading my teammate. note i do not play duelists often so i am not taking the first fight against iso.
Iso is noticeably overtuned, and he will never be balanced. He has the exact same problem as Blackbeard in Siege, where his shield is either completely useless because he gets shredded right through it, or wildly overpowered because he eats a headshot and kills you for free, invalidating your better mechanical skill. This character was always textbook terrible game design, but people are just now realizing it because Riot had to go and make the shield free every single round. "Just shoot the orb bro" isn't happening in 90/100 cases because it spawns almost right next to his crosshair, not yours. >note i do not play duelists often so i am not taking the first fight against iso. "see I never die to iso bc I just watch someone else do it instead" is the most hilarious cope I've heard on this subject lmfao
to respond to the quote at the end, how is me trading my teammate and or swinging with my teammate to kill an iso cope? everyone is saying he is op because he is non stop snow balling kills. if he’s only good for 1 kill that isn’t op.
I feel like a lot of players struggling against Iso are doing so because they're playing against him the same way they always do, when in reality you have to adapt. It's like learning how to play anti-flash against a phoenix, or playing off site when you see he has ult, but Iso is arguably even more telegraphed due to his shield noise. Some people also adapt in a way that hurts their confidence, which isn't good either. But there's definitely a sweet spot which negates most of Iso's power if you play accordingly.
I think the problem is iso fundamentally breaks aspects of the game that make it a tac shooter. Yes, you can hear him pop shield from very far away but spamming util is not a guaranteed shield break. At best case scenario you break his free shield for util but there’s a catch if he gets a kill while his ability is still active he’ll get another shield. This makes trading him insanely hard, Reyna will deny a trade but only iso is actually favored to win a trade. I don’t think it’s plausible to hit the orb before iso unless you were preaiming at your teammate. Not to mention he can bank shield if he gets 2 kills giving him crazy snowball potential. Just lost shield? No problem just hit e again haha
if you break the shield with util, and he gets a kill, he has to shoot an orb, in that time a teammate can trade him. if you cannot trade your teammate you can shoot the orb instead. either way he’s shieldless. if he gets *another* kill, yes he can reactivate his shield, i feel he’s earned it after getting 2 kills and not getting traded.
out of curiosity what rank are you?
immortal 1
damn bro responded in 5 seconds lmao. In high asc atm, no one ever shoots iso orbs except him, shooting thru smoke is kinda pointless when he activates shield right before entry and follows his wall. The jiggle in ult is a valid strat, imma use that
slow day at work lol, yeah i’ve learned more recently talking to teammates a lot of people don’t know you can shoot the enemy iso orb. it throws the iso off a ton when you do and is super helpful. most of my enemy iso’s activate their shield a good 2-3 seconds before they pop giving time for some kind of spray/util. i mainly play brim/gekko so i’ve always got a molly to work with. tldr: break the shield without committing and you usually win the mental fight, leading to winning the gun fight.
>slow day at work lol also it's lunch time lol. at least for where im at.
I kinda disagree bc as you say u have to really util dump before you can even consider taking a fight imo Sean says it quite well https://youtu.be/y7lqHTSes6U?si=Rqebz4biw2adfFP9
i wouldn’t say util dump, just 1 molly / turret / dart is needed. not all of it
You can hear it yes, but you can't always do anything about it. Most util is dodge-able (if you have damaging util in the first place) and if you're in a position to shoot him he's usually in a position to shoot you. I won't speak to whether its truly OP or not in the grand scheme of things, but it is unarguably ***way*** too strong in the 1v1 situation and while that may be balanced around being useless against multiple people its still swings way too much to be healthy game design (which is to say a healthy ability shouldn't be 100% win rate 1v1 0% win rate 2v1 for example)
Shield duration prob needs to go down as well as not having the refresh orbs. Make him timing his shield correctly to have an advantage take some foresight and Util breaking it's kinda silly that he can pop it and clear an entire site and even if you break the shield the 50/50 for him is incredibly rewarding still.
the refresh orbs are fine, super easy to counter. i don’t personally play iso a ton so idk exactly how far he can get but if he isn’t taking any damage and can clear the entire site, that’s the defender’s skill issue.
nah, refresh orbs + his shield coming back after 2 kills anyway gotta go, its 1 or the other, having both is just too much
he is op, for ranked. same problem as reyna where his util is pretty shit except for 1 part of his kit which happens to be great for ranked even if you're shit at aiming, its a free kill every round i think he's ok in coordinated play but you're rarely getting teammates that actually wanna work with you in ranked games so he just sucks to deal with in ranked because he's a 1v1 agent
Idk in immo here and I don’t have an issue with the isos. Most people in this elo know you 3 burst kill him. So instead of tap firing you burst 1 shot breaks shield one of the next 2 shots headshots and it’s an instant kill. Even when I lock iso most people know to do that so it instant drops me instead of just going for the shield pop. It changes how gun fights are taken. But honestly not that broken. On tier list in every single rank below immo iso has a less than 50% win rate. Or if you can’t spray headshot you can body burst to aim punch him. Shield will still give minor aim punch on body shot. Edit: TLDR I will also die on the iso isn’t OP hill Edit: also skill dif. you can shoot his orb to deny him shield. Imagine if you could break reynas and deny her a dismiss or heal. Every day I hear at least AT LEAST 2 people tell me that’s the first they are hearing that they can break his orb.
IMO iso is op because most players in low to medium-high rank play for kills and go for greedy 1v1. Iso can punish that. And tbh as a duellant agent you should have good entry or good 1v1 tools. But when people start playing together and play more with brain like Double peak or hold Crossfire or flash/stun for a Mate he is more vulnerable then a reyna that can just dismis everything. I can still understand people crying because that's what people used to do instead of adapting to the changes... You can reply your hate right here :)
Statistically Iso performs best in the highest rank in the game, not the shit-tier casual ranks. Blaming the bad players when Iso beats good players more often than bad ones doesn't make any sense. [Source for reference:](https://tracker.gg/valorant/insights/agents?division=radiant)
You got a point there!
him being op because other players make mistakes just doesn’t make sense for me personally but i agree he’s easier to trade than a reyna
I pick iso I have a lot of fun, no complaints from me
good
Haha, right now I always say; " THEYRE A, ILL LET ISO IN GOOD LUCK" and make sure to avoid Iso like how i would avoid other recon abilities and go back in my smoke to kill his other teammates (you can see a shielded Iso first 99% of the time before he sees you). Sometimes i make a double smoke to create a pocket where abilities wont see me. Actually, right now i do this a lot after thinking about it. It's not guaranteed though (same as before, just adapted) because sometimes you'd get caught or one time, i let Iso in Ascent A then I one way smoked A main then pushed out with a judge. I killed 4 because they were unaware and then held the Ascent A entrance in case Iso went back to help his team. Unfortunately he didnt, went on to kill all my teammates in site then peaked me with a shield. I died cause although i hit him with a shotgun first, he was shielded so i died before the second shot went out. Very different agent that requires a different play style. Same with how you play against double recon comps (skye and sova, extremely common in ranked). You almost never do the shorty smoke or only do it once due to the drones and dogs. Don't even get me started with Fade, those cats smell Brim's juicy ass a mile away. Wingboy too, he can see the whole smoke and stun you even before coming inside of it so ascendant+ Gekko mains would also stop that strat. We need to adapt my fellow Brim Buddy especially when all the new agents just keep power creeping our no regen limited smoke semi-useless stim very situational molly and godlike ult that was nerfed big butted agent.
i used to play bucky and ghost. when i see iso i just dont. hate how restrictive he makes defence.
Bruh he's getting nerfed in next ep lol
Guess what? They are nerfing him but not nerfing neon. They are gonna remove the ability to recharge your double tap if you get 2 kills, so if you lose it, you lose it for the entire round, and its duration will be reduced from 20s->12s
They gonna nerf him
As a neon main who loves running a bucky/shorty 90% of the rounds, I feel you
I don’t understand you really, you can hear his shield or just run away like from a clove ult.
since i main bucky(with all agents i use) What I do is I first peek at the iso with the pistol and prefire, when i destroyed his shield I'll repeek if he's near.
right, you should be changing your playstyle according to the enemy comp.. you wont see me sitting in a smoke on chokepoint when they have a fade for example, that's how the game is meant to be played, you adapt
You could shorty into bucky depending on Bucky pull out speed or shorty into stinger
Iso needed this buff so people actually play him, he was the worse agent in the game
Playing iso gave me insane confidence, like delusional confidence, I swing everything and have been going positive every single time I select iso, the instant shield is way to good, makes me think I’m a way better player than I am, they need to take away the instant shield for sure
One undebatable thing that needs to be nerfed about this shield is that it tanks all bullets it receives at the same time, it should be only one bullet.
Had exactly the same feeling this morning playing Clove. Which reminds me, no more double satchel + bucky with Raze when facing an Iso
Reyna is my fav agent , good for getting out of fights when u need it , heals too . Can blind . She’s a 3-1 deal
He’s getting nerfed again so I wouldn’t worry about it
Changed my play style too. I switched from Astra to Iso.
There's no need to debate : In a game a fundamental is to NOT BREAK a core principle otherwise you break the game Tac fps core principle: first head win Idk how dumb are the riot game designer but they made a massive mistake, this character will never be good whatever state he's in he'll always be frustrating
He’s getting nerfed isn’t he ?
Your playstyle makes everyone else have to change their playstyle and uncomfortable around every corner or smoke why shouldn't Iso.
Shotguns invalidate running in one at a time with no utility. That's one braindead strat total. Iso invalidates your ability to aim for the head, regardless of gun, and completely destroys both shotguns and snipers entirely. They are not the same.
The judge can shoot multiple times with smokes it's very easy to miss someone in a Brim smoke and lose 2-3 members. Idk why people act like shotguns are weak and only beat noobs when it literally works in Immo-Radiant level play that someone playing a corner with a judge or Bucky just can't be pushed off it without blowing a ton of Util that you might not have with you and this is after they have been nerfed multiple times for being too oppressive at this. When it comes to Iso shield again the judge allows more ability to still take him out but yeah welcome to not playing cheesy one and done shotgun angles and having to respect Util. Idk why spending Util to clear out a shotgun is such a skill check that if you don't do you're a noob but respecting Iso shield is apparently just stupid and shouldn't have to be done.
Idk in immo here and I don’t have an issue with the isos. Most people in this elo know you 3 burst kill him. So instead of tap firing you burst 1 shot breaks shield one of the next 2 shots headshots and it’s an instant kill. Even when I lock iso most people know to do that so it instant drops me instead of just going for the shield pop. It changes how gun fights are taken. But honestly not that broken. On tier list in every single rank below immo iso has a less than 50% win rate. Or if you can’t spray headshot you can body burst to aim punch him. Shield will still give minor aim punch on body shot.
Idk where your stats are from but immo+ Iso has an 51.2% winrate on tracker.gg in immo and 52.7% in Radiant. Also this post was about playing shotguns, which cannot spray. He wanted to know how to keep the inside smoke + shotgun play up.
Imagine if cs 2 was good. They called valorant a cs killer but cs kills it self. Valorant will kill it self by bringing more agents in the game. When will it stop? How can you balance such a large agent pool? Everybody’s style changes with huge sentinal buffs now with iso buff and go on.
cs killed itself by having no effective anticheat lol. saying "game development will ruin a game" is fking wild.
because its a tactical shooter, you strategize around the enemy team's agents
It is blind pick?
you can still strategize around it? think about their weaknesses
I play chamber
Which increases the value of buying smgs/odin/ares significantly.
Yeah, playing "normally" aka playing this game as if it is COD.