The latest early access footage from some pros leaks, show that Sova won't be spared from the next balancing patch, and he will get a handful of nerfs.
Sova has been the go-to Initiator for most teams, and kept a solid and very high pick rate amongst the competitive scene. Still, Riot had never buffed or nerfed him from the addition to the game up until now. He was one of the two starting initiators together with Breach, and even thought over the time two more were added, like KAY/0 and Skye, Sova kept being the team and player-favourite for the most games. The reasoning of the nerfs are pretty clear, high win rate/pick rate and a very long period of no balancing touches, decided that after Jet it was Sova's turn to get a taste of the nerf hammer.
you can nerf sova, but you can't nerf talent pic.twitter.com/r3km5QkWDH
— ethos (@ethoz) April 25, 2022
Sova Nerfs
- Shock Dart
The Max Damage on shock dart is lowered from 90 to 75, meaning that you can no longer kill people from 150 to 0 with two Shock Darts, and else the target is Low HP, or the enemy agent is in the centre of the explosion you no longer get a kill. This is a pretty sad moment for all the double Shock Dart enjoyers.
- Owl Drone
The drone marked target will only be tagged 2 times instead of 3 like before, and the drone duration will be 2 seconds shorter, from 10 to 8. They did fix the drone controls, but it doesn't compensate significantly compared to the nerfs. Initially it was announced that there was going to be a change to the bow equipping animation, but hours later the Valorant team changed their mind. The change was basically that once Sova equips his bow, his left hand would cover the left side of the HUD, making people unable to use that side as a reference or helping tool.
THANK YOU https://t.co/WSsr2nyfFA
— AverageJonas (@Average_Jonas) April 25, 2022
This will surely make Sova mains sad, as he will no longer be the most popular Initiatior in Town. With the addition of Fade, the Turkish born Initiator, we might get a solid replacement in his role, as she kind of looks like a Skye-Sova hybrid. But we won't know until we see how the first week goes, and what the results will be.