Riot planning changes to Astra's Astral Form as new Valorant agent needs a fix

With the Valorant 2.04 update now released, the 15th Agent called Astra has entered the game. Astra is, of course, part of the controllers class, with a mix of smoke and stun abilities that can be used to great effect. While using her Ultimate ability or while placing stars on the map, she also enters Astral Form. Developer Riot Games isn't happy about a certain aspect of Astra's Astral Form, and is already planning changes to the 15th Valorant Agent. 

Valorant Astra: Astral Form issues

In Astral Form, Astra gets an aerial view of the map and has the ability to fly to any location. However, she isn't supposed to see anything of value in this form.

Unfortunately, it appears Astra can, in Astral Form, see the status of the Spike in Valorant. Essentially, this means a player in Astra's Astral form can see if an opponent is fake defusing (Spike tap) or truly defusing the bomb, which can give their team a big advantage in competitive play.

AverageJonas - You can see fake defuses with AstraWatch AverageJonas's clip titled "You can see fake defuses with Astra"Twitch

Valorant's 15th Agent clearly needs some more work, and it is tough to argue Astral Form doesn't need a change.

Thankfully, developer Riot Games is already aware of the issue, and plans to make changes or fix this unintended usage of Astra's Astral Form.

Valorant developer "Altombre" responded to a thread on Reddit, noting Riot Games does not like this behaviour and are looking into options.

(Picture: Reddit)

Altombre explains: "Being able to see bomb defusal status in Astral Form? Yeah, we don't like this behaviour and are looking into options now.

"I'm not sure how easy/difficult changing this would be since I'm not an engineer, so I can't make promises on timelines, but we're not fans of this behaviour and are seeing what we can do."

• Read more: Valorant 2.04 patch notes: Astra, tactical VO, ranked changes, more

At the time of writing, there's no indication when Riot Games will fix this unintended issue with Astra's Astral Form. Until then, Valorant players should know their fake Spike taps could be checked if there's an Astra on the other team.