Valorant nerfs Brimstone in patch 4.05 to reduce Stim spam

Valorant’s update 4.05 patch notes — which rather jarringly open with the phrase “Brimmy with the stimmy” — are light on balance changes, but what’s there might have Brimstone mains upset. After recently buffing Brimstone, developer Riot is now hitting his Stim Beacon ability with a pretty hefty nerf that should bring him back in line with his pre-buff popularity and power.

According to the patch notes, Riot wants Stim Beacon to be an ability that Valorant players only use after careful deliberation, rather than just whenever they feel like it. In line with that philosophy, Stim Beacon now costs 200 to purchase (up from 100), and Brimstone can have a maximum of one Stim Beacon charge at a time (down from two.) Valorant is an esport first and a game (a distant) second, so this type of reductive balance is to be expected.

Besides the Brimstone nerf, update 4.05 delivers some minute quality-of-life changes to Valorant. There are new behaviors that players can assign to the equip-most-recent key, including the option to go straight to their primary weapon, or to skip their melee weapon entirely; this allows more control over those split-second swaps when players transition from an ability back to their firearm. The deterministic map selection system is now in play, ensuring that players rotate through all available maps more consistently. Finally, a number of pesky bugs have been fixed, and players can now export and import custom crosshairs via codes.