Riot Games has just disclosed a colossal secret regarding Harbor, the water-manipulating character in VALORANT, who was almost forgotten by the majority! The tweet referred to ‘You witnessed the change of his artifact’ and then all at once, the comprehensive overhaul of the capability details came up. To say that the community’s reaction is mixed would be an understatement – or rather, it is entirely chaotic. There is, indeed, a plethora of opinions.
What is going to happen, then, exactly? Grok, in his reply, has crystalized it so well that you can’t miss it, Harbor is going to be reiterated with new character abilities and traits. The basic ability High Tide is going to be…eeh basic. The signature ability Cove experiences the most amazing transformation as it gets the shield activation feature. In summary, there is the new Storm Surge projectile with optimal disadvantage and slow effects coming along, and the ultimate goal of Reckoning is even a wave that makes the targets nearsighted and slow at the same time. They are basically giving this guy ALL the crowd control.
Players have already noticed the artifact’s transformation taking place in the game, which was quietly Riot’s way of hinting at the possible changes. Now we have the full picture. The rework will come with Patch 11.10 on November 11, 2025 (or November 12 depending on your time zone, starting from 6 AM PT for NA). People, mark this date on your calendar.
However, this is where the situation gets tricky. There is a very clear division of opinions among the fans. Some fans, like, are really excited – a user _partysouL said, ‘awesome changes, he looks great now and should definitely be utilized more in this meta, particularly on maps like abyss.’ And varteta_ also made this point, suggesting that the ‘Harbor and Omen double controller’ teams could become quite strong and powerful.
Meanwhile, the opposers are silent. Steviedee93 commented, ‘Good changes but he’ll still be a no-show because it requires another controller to pair with him. One cove and one wall (especially now that it’s only single use) make him unplayable.’ Yikes! and SlicVic_uwu was even more critical, saying, ‘Make another usable wall character ❌ Another useless omen clone ✅’ Oh my, that was a strong point!
The wall that slows down ALL players has caught special attention. _Dogefan_ questioned, ‘Not only did you make the wall “draw it yourself” uncompromisingly like Brim’s iPad which has been proposed innumerable times, it’s slowing down ALL players??’ I mean, that does really appear to be a peculiar decision. Why would you even consider slowing your own team? That does seem like a gameplay unwise choice.
Still, KimBeish was the one who was able to offer some useful input: ‘It is not to affect teammates. And Harbor should be able to deploy his wall from ANYWHERE, like in a brimstone map. Harbor’s problem is you can’t smoke for your teammates easily, you have to be at their location or very close to teleport the wall.’ This is actually the criticism that is going to support designers instead of just trivial complaints.
Then a doubt occurs whether the skills of this latter are nothing but recycled from other agents. TeferiDe straightforwardly asked, ‘So, is it correct to say that Harbor’s new ultimate is just like Omen’s Paranoia?’ and victormgoz even went further saying, ‘It’s an awful recycle of skills from other agents. Do you nerf initiators to give stuns to anybody?’ One cannot but agree with the recycling argument aspect when looking at it from this point of view.
However, what was I saying? Ah yes, the cove changes. depressedm0nkey raised a very pertinent query regarding the cove, asking if it would still remain active once it was broken; observed, ‘I swear it looks like there is a cut to when the enemy walks out of it. Looks like it cuts to the end of the duration. I pray this is how it works, it’d make the cove so much better.’ This would be a pretty big buff if it actually turned out to be the case.
Some of the replies are totally hilarious though. ChagxLuis made a comment in Portuguese which said ‘pqp o bixo ta violento kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk’ this translates to ‘damn the guy is violent lol’ – and this is actually a good description of the new combatant Harbor. BigBoiMoodyy, in contrast simply stated, ‘I LOVE Harbor SO MUCH’ with a heartfelt emoji. How sweet and thrilling a king of a fan we have here!
The question that is of utmost priority is whether this whole rework process will finally satisfy PlayStation and Xbox players alike.
