Valorant pro TenZ reveals perfect nerf to make Operator less powerful

Professional Valorant player for Cloud9 Tyson ‘TenZ’ Ngo has explained why the Operator sniper needs a nerf in the game.

As with snipers in most FPS’ the Operator is one of the most popular weapons in the game. People love to hit shots with it, and they’re especially ideal for tactical games such as Valorant that require well-held angles and intel on enemy movement.

TenZ, though, thinks the Operator needs nerfing, calling the gun “extremely hard to deal with.”

In a tweet posted on August 13, TenZ mentioned that he thinks adding a scope sound to the Operator and Marshal snipers would help balance them, allowing enemies to better use their utility to counter it.

A little while later, he posted another tweet about the situation, clarifying his stance on the Operator. “I don’t think the OP is overpowered,” he said. “I just think it’s extremely hard to deal with the OP on characters that can escape unpunished [such as] Jett/Reyna.”

He also added that with the utility presented in the game currently, one Operator is hard to deal with but that “two is a nightmare.”

TenZ’s comments garnered some responses from various other players, too. Team Liquid’s Mendo compared the issue to Overwatch’s Brigitte, saying it’s “way too easy to use for the impact it has in the round.”

G2 Esports’ Mixwell, though, actually disagreed with TenZ. He said that it’s “harder to use aggressively than CSGO” and that a sound scope would be a “yikes.”

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He also said that it doesn’t necessarily seem like an Operator problem that some Agents can escape, but it’s “just how the game works.”

Needless to say, there’s a fair bit of division between top players over the status of the Operator, and there doesn’t seem to be any immediate plans for changes to be made to the weapon — but the devs will no doubt be looking at all options and assessing weapon tuning constantly.