Riot Games has altered VALORANT‘s Abyss map in a big way, and the news has the gaming community ablaze with speculation and discussion. The site for the spike plant on the B-site has been completely changed, and players are fighting for site execution, as well as getting crazy about the new placement of the spike. Not only is this a small change but also a very significant one as the attackers will have to rethink their strategies and the defenders will be getting new advantages.
So, what exactly are the changes that have been made? The plant site on B is now located at the back of the defenders’ side. The attackers could initially plant and fall back to the main or bridge for post-plant play. However, this is no longer the case. They will now have to take control of the site, or else they will be killed during the defuse while they are at a disadvantage in the post-plant position. The situation of planting and escaping is no more, and the reaction of the community has been… to say the least, mixed.
The speed at which the players are reacting is truly remarkable. Some are welcoming the change, like user naeem_1144 who tweeted “Offsite spamming is gone, great news,” referring to the fact that attackers would plant and then shoot through from secure spots. But others are, in fact, going mad. User Duskbloods83 condemned it as “so bad; it was already ct sided but this is wild,” while spichyit just succinctly said “Omg this is so bad💀”—the skull emoji, in this case, is quite descriptive.
What had I even been talking about? Ah yes, the strategic implications. The change in the plant location is a major factor in how teams will approach B-site. The attackers will first need to take a solid hold of the site before they can think about planting. Quick plants with immediate retreats could be a thing of the past. The defenders are now getting rewarded with easy victories. User LimitX44 said “Defenders will rejoice to retake … ” indicating that defenders now have better chances to get back the site when post-plant situations occur.
The community discussion is getting wilder as players are arguing about whether the map was already defender-biased or not. User Alectowrites responded to the critics with “Ah yes, abyss the famously ct sided map,” while godz144 disagreed and maintained that “abyss was the most T sided map in the pool.” Meanwhile, some players are just confused about which side to play, with YarisulF asking, “so are we supposed to play post plant from CT?” Honestly, that is a very good question.
One of the effects of this change is that it changed the playing style and the agent utility of the agents in use. Jett players who relied on dashing away post-plant probably will have to adjust their timings. The controller’s smoking off angles might have to change the place of their smokes. And sentinels holding sites? They might be dancing with joy right now. The change forces the attackers to literally take over the site instead of just executing hit-and-run tactics.
A few players are suggesting new plant spots, like alsoxowna who commented “Should have just made it the right side instead. The whole right side of that platform front and back of the box…” thus showing that the community is already engaging in brainstorming regarding the new strategies. Nevertheless, it does seem like a unified opinion that the change makes B-site significantly harder to attack, which ultimately results in teams rotating towards A-site more frequently.
This change that Riot made coincides with the professional scene that is still going, and it is indeed an interesting time. Teams who have adapted their B-site strategies on Abyss now need to start from scratch and re-learn the map. The coming tournaments will be chaotic as the pros try to find their way around the new meta. The same goes for the ranked players, who should get ready for crazy games until everyone is clear about the new planting spot.
The major factor that makes this change so vital is that it modifies the basic round flow of the game on Abyss. In the past, attackers could plant and then play from multiple off-site positions like bridge, main or even from across the gap. Now they are obliged to defend from on-site positions, which markedly raises their chances of being caught off guard by retakes and by utility usage. It is a classic case of the developers trying to adjust the attacker/defender conflict and the community response is a reflection of how delicate that balance is.
As players continue to test the new plant location in actual matches, new strategies will undoubtedly come up. Maybe teams will increasingly default to A-site. It is also possible there will be more aggressive pushes from defenders to totally cut off the plant attempts. On the contrary, maybe everyone will simply bypass Abyss in their map picks until they have figured out a way around it. In any case, this change has resulted in a significant shift in the VALORANT meta, and it will certainly not be a short process to finalize the new strategies and to get accustomed to this foundational change in B-site operations on one of the most unique maps in the game.
The gaming community is actively discussing these changes on platforms like PlayStation and Xbox.
