This isn’t even an op piece of util, they just keep lowering skill level. Most of the util they are nerfing wont matter unless ur good enough to actually abuse them, and if you are, ur opponents are usually good enough to deal with it as a point. I mean, just look at them adding agents like Tejo. Riot are tripping.
it's not so the casuals can beat the better players, they're not adding aspects of randomness to the game, riot is intentionally raising the skill floor, not lowering the skill ceiling
it's so the casuals have an easier time getting better, these small visual changes will never be the difference between a much better player winning or losing to a worse one, but they might be the difference between a player on worse graphics or with worse spatial awareness being able to do something they otherwise couldn't
your take makes no sense imo
They are lowering the skill ceiling tho. Raze satchels are still good for entering, but now you can’t quite pull off the same instant entries off barrier if you are really good on raze. Omen is still insane, but you can’t pull off the same one ways to hold certain angles. Skye dog still allows you to clear positions, but you can’t move it as well to avoid it getting shot. Cypher cam no longer rewards not instantly shooting the dart or learning a better cam spot.
your understanding of "skill floor" and "skill ceiling" is inherently flawed. you think that the skill of using the specific abilities on an agent is what defines the "skill floor" and the "skill ceiling". but you forget that this entire game is about the gunplay, not about the abilities. we aren't playing overwatch out here. having a raze just pumping you in the face with double satchel judge undermines the value of skilled gunplay since a worse player can just grind raze double satchel lineups and beat better players with a gun that requires less skill. omen one ways make it so that you can shoot an opponent before they have any chance to see you, which means people who are worse at using their gun can win against players who have better aim. this will always be a problem in a game like valorant, but the devs try to target the most blatant and unavoidable instances of this to make sure that players reap the rewards of working on all aspects of their game, including gamesense and aim/mechanics. so in a way, this is evening out the skill levels in ranks and raising the skill floor by decreasing reliance on abilities being able to win several rounds alone by giving a massively unfair advantage to you or your opponent.
You’re only looking at skill as mechanics though. My problem is that the nerfs don’t make the agent unable to do what it did before, but simply make mastering the agent less relevant. Putting more time into an agent is now less rewarding, which imo is an issue. You can still raze double satchel with a judge or omen one way, but now being better at either of those agents won’t allow you do it more or more scenarios.
my concern with this thinking, that i did not include initially in my comment (which i should have because i was thinking about this response too) is that not everyone will have the same abilities. to make another comparison, valorant is not cs where every player on either team has access to the same util, making it so that some agents, or all agents (which is what you are proposing) have abilities that are buffed which decreases the value of having a gun, something that every player on either team has access to as long as they have the money for it in game. being a one trick will be less valued with nerfing certain abilities, but is that a bad thing? also, no matter how much you buff an agent, there will always be a skill ceiling in terms of the ability usage. but this is where other aspects of your gameplay will link in with util usage. the power of an ability is not solely in its use, but also in the timing of usage, the placement, etc etc to maximise value from it. while theoretically you can master an agent's ability usage in terms of the tricks you can use the ability for, it would not matter if you become predictable or complacent just because you are able to exploit a certain trait of an ability. the skill ceiling of ability usage is not decreased when an ability is nerfed either, because by limitiing it's potential, using it at the right time in the right place becomes more impactful, thus raising the skill ceiling because you need to have a good understanding of the game to know timings and when to use util to get maximum benefit. there is a point where you can go too far in nerfing an agent though, when they fall severely far behind other agents with slightly similar but ultimately unique pieces of util, where there is no benefit to choosing one agent over another (examples: skye over something like kayo due to less util that skye has due to horrible nerfs). there is a very careful line that the devs have to balance on to ensure that one agent does not have extremely overpowered abilities at all levels of the game. in my opinion, every agent in the game needs to have some counterplay to their util because it's just not possible for every player in the lobby to have the same pieces of util in a match of valorant. and with more and more agents being added each year, making it so that the person who invests the most time to learn one specific agent gets such a large advantage over newer players who want to reach the top levels of the game is not a good idea at all. i hope I explained that correctly - everything I am saying makes much more sense in my head than typed out on screen.
Discord