Riot Games changes to VALORANT’s Harbor have the community in deep discussions again, and this time players are split into two opposing groups if the changes have helped the water-controlling agent or not. The update has been live for a number of weeks, completely remodeling Harbor’s kit by taking away his Cascade ability, giving him a new water grenade, and a major alteration to his ultimate.
What were exactly the changes that got emitted with Harbor? To mention just one, the signature Cascade wall of the agent, which many players considered to be the most character-defining ability, has been removed completely and replaced with the new water grenade that acts somewhat like a flash but with reduced effects. In addition to that, his ultimate has also been totally transformed; he was first a tsunami that could sweep away even the most hidden enemies where the detection would still work and the area would be denied access and now he is just a one-dimensional wave pushing people back. The cove ability has had some upgrades as the shields have been added, but in contrast to this community is really NOT happy over the cascade lost.
Responses from the community have been so varied that it seems almost as if they are different majors. There are players who have drawn a parallel between the rework and a complete nerf. A player by the name Mitrex even suggested ‘Cascade should have been kept. Take away the cove and put back the cascade.’ They have a valid argument: Numerous comments mentioned that Cascade was the most extraordinary ability of Harbor and that with the removal of it, his identity was lost.
The High Tide wall brings up the issue of teammate-slowing. I mean, why does it still slow teammates in 2025? One player called Nickl expressed it in this manner: ‘No smoke does not debuff allies with his smokes so why should he?’It’s actually a very reasonable argument. Having to slow down just because of your own team’s abilities is definitely not a pleasurable experience, especially if you are trying to execute onto a site or making a quick rotation.
The water grenade getting rid of Cascade is not receiving any positive feedback in the comments; on the contrary, it is already getting completely roasted. One player Babusseus has even gone to the extent of calling it ‘absolute trash’ giving the weak debuff, long equip times, and odd bounces owing to the trajectory as the reasons for his revulsion. Kuchderi even admitted that he ‘felt crippled’ with the new ability and further went on to label Harbor as being ‘water omen’ who possesses no distinct playstyle.
But still, it might not be bad news all the way through, as there are some players who actually like the changes? Junji commented that Harbor is ‘more fun and easier to play as a solo controller’ now which is surprising because one of the major issues of Harbor was always that he could not rival with other agents such as Omen or Brimstone when it came to being a solo controller. BrostyLS also remarked that the rework is giving ‘the smoke role more aggressive capabilities’ which might lead to the birth of new playstyles for using controller agents.
The ultimate change is without a doubt the most talked-about part. WezPMA expressed that the new ult is not as good as the old one and went on to say that ‘they simplified harbor’s identity when he was good just no one played him because of a steep skill curve.’ And NotThatGuy523 also had a pretty strong view about it, saying: ‘Ult is so dogshit man. It’s so boring and useless compared to the old one. The old one was so unique, so good at controlling space… It made SOUND queues to tell where people were, forced them to move or peak.’
There is this common notion expressed in the comments that people really should not have been using or even considering buy Harbor character because he was really good but had a steep skill ceiling. BlakeJohn12204 went as far as to say that ‘people who complain about agents like Astra, Viper, Harbour, just suck. The reason they don’t like the agents is because they require skill.’ Ouch, but maybe … maybe not? As a matter of fact, the pro players were actually using Harbor in some situations before the rework, so the character wasn’t totally useless.
The suggestions from the players on how to balance the agents are extremely varied. There are those who want the slow durations on his abilities to be increased, others who want additional charges for his Storm surge or cove, and some who want the old cascade and ultimate back entirely. The overwhelming opinion however seems to be that although the rework tried to make Harbor easier to access it must have actually made him less viable in competition.
The most striking thing about all this is how the current situation with the rework exemplifies Riot’s ongoing dilemma of trying to balance amongst the agents those who are unique but difficult. Harbor was never a
