Valorant patch notes – latest Valorant balance changes and updates

What are the latest Valorant patch notes? Valorant, Riot Games’ tactical shooter, requires you to stay on top of the ever-developing meta as you go toe to toe with your enemies in thrilling first-person combat. With frequent changes detailed by a list of ever-growing Valorant patch notes, players will find that they’ll need to constantly adapt in order to climb the ranks.

Riot Games usually pushes a handful of updates out during each of the competitive FPS game’s Acts, which all alter our Valorant tier list. The best Valorant agents one patch might be Jett and Viper – next, they might be Brimstone or Sage. Even in the updates that aren’t meta-changing, the latest Valorant patch notes often contain changes worth knowing as you grind away at the Valorant ranks.

So, if you’re looking to get up to speed with the latest alterations and balancing changes – or work out why your favourite agent is suddenly underperforming – here’s everything you need to know about the latest Valorant changes.

Valorant patch notes 6.10

Valorant patch 6.10 brings with it a new Spray Wheel, a rework to Collections, alongside the usual suite of quality of life tweaks and bug fixes.

General Updates

“We have been cooking up some new features to allow you greater flexibility when using and collecting Sprays, and we are happy to launch our first iteration of these improvements with this pass. Introducing the Spray Wheel!”

• Added an in-game Spray Wheel, which can be activated by holding your chosen Spray Keybind.
• Retained Quick Spray functionality by tapping your chosen Spray Keybind. This will use the Spray located at the top slot of your wheel.
• Added new equip flow for the Spray Wheel located in the Collections page.
• Replaced the Spray Carousel with a Grid that can be searched, filtered, and sorted by Favourites.
• Added an audio queue and visible timer to indicate cooldowns on the Spray Wheel.
• Added an “Empty Spray” to allow a user to empty their Wheel or keybind.
• Added a text and image to indicate pre- or post-round only sprays.
• Added settings to the Settings page under Controls -> Equipment to better customize your spraying experience
  • This includes a sensitivity slider, the ability to turn off the wheel entirely, and separate the keybinds.
• Removed the “wall” texture to display Sprays on the Spray Screen.

“We hope you’re as excited about this as we are! We acknowledge this is a large change and will take some getting used to. As such, we’ll be listening closely to user feedback as you get used to the new system and making improvements and adjustments in the future.”

Agent Updates

Brimstone

• Updated the size of Brimstone’s Sky Smoke (E) and Orbital Strike (X) targeting reticles so that they match their size before the update that shipped in patch 6.08.
• Removed the mouse cursor that was displayed on Brimstone’s Sky Smoke (E) and Orbital Strike (X), and Omen’s From the Shadows (X).

Misc.

• We’ve updated Fade’s in-game portrait for better gameplay readability and quality consistency.
• We’ve updated Harbor’s in-game portrait for better gameplay readability and quality consistency.
• We’ve updated some Agent portraits to be higher resolution.
• Improved the hitbox on KAY/O’s ZERO/Point (E) so shooting the handle of the knife destroys it.
• We regularly review Agent voiceovers to deepen, improve, and refresh their in-game dialogue. We’ve added new lines for Reyna to develop her relationships with new and existing Agents
  • Added new Reyna Voiceover Lines and interaction lines with Gekko, Chamber, and KAY/O.

Cosmetics Updates

“The RGX 11z Pro EP 4 Gun Buddy and Oni EP 6 Gun Buddy now have the variant shift feature on their corresponding older bundles. You can now put your RGX EP 4 Gun Buddy on your Vandal and it shifts its colour just like it does in the Phantom—no more mix and match!”

Gameplay Systems Updates

• We’ve updated our fonts to fix missing character glyphs that occur in some languages.

Bug Fixes

Agents

• Fixed an issue where Yoru’s Fakeout (C) would min flash you if you were outside of its conal range of effect.
• Fixed issue that was causing a slight delay between sources of concussion hitting you and the actual effects of the debuff being applied.
• Fixed a bug where Yoru’s Fakeout (C) echo would sometimes not have a weapon equipped.
• The weapon that Yoru’s Fakeout (C) echo equips should now use a more accurate weapons skin.
• Killjoy spent some time in the workshop hammering out bugs that were causing her Turret (E) to aim at the ground. (Fixed in Patch 6.09)

Gameplay Systems Updates

• Fixed a rare issue where you can see ghost enemies when they’ve entered line of sight.
• Fixed an issue where under certain conditions, you can continue to defuse the Spike out of line of sight.

Known Issues

Spray Wheel

• The Spray Wheel can be called in the Range, however, you can’t spray in the Range. We’ve never been able to spray in the Range, so this isn’t a change, but the wheel is sending mixed signals. We’ll fix this in a future patch.
• In Arabic, there’s a slight overlap between the Spray Title and “Pre/Post Round” Informational text on the Spray Screen.
• Zooming in on Sprays in the Collections tab puts the Spray over the Title text instead of behind it like it was in the previous Collections page.
• Spray Wheel instructional text in the Collections tab doesn’t indicate your current keybinds. We’ll fix this in a future iteration.

Valorant patch notes 6.08

Valorant patch 6.08 brings with it a nerf to Killjoy’s Nanoswarm, alongside numerous audiovisual improvements for certain agent abilities. Oh, and Bind’s back, baby.

Agent Updates

Gekko

• Wingman
  • Audio improvements to Wingman’s (Q) plant and defuse audio.
    The audio cues for Wingman’s spike and defuse sound were unclear during hectic combat situations. This should help make those audio cues standout.
• We’ve updated Gekko’s in-game portrait for better gameplay readability and quality consistency.

Killjoy

“As Killjoy has taken on a more prominent place in the meta, we’ve noticed a couple of areas where we could improve the ways her abilities interact with other players/the environment.

We’ve done a pass on some of her audio cues to make them more distinct and make it clearer when her utility has been destroyed. In addition, we’ve increased the reveal radius on Nanoswarm (C) to better match its area of damage and make it more realistic for enemies that are moving methodically to track them down.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on this balance point moving forward. Finally, we’ve removed the yellow warning indicator that was added to Lockdown (X) last patch, as it was too noisy on screen for the full duration of her ultimate winding up.”

• Nanoswarm (C)
  • Nanoswarm reveal radius increased 350 >> 525
  • Nanoswarm audio has been updated.
    • Audio loop now also turns off when disabled as a result of Killjoy being killed or suppressed.
  • Improved feedback for the enemy when they destroy Nanoswarm.
  • Nanoswarm is now revealed when it is disabled.
• Other Abilities
  • Updated visuals for Killjoy’s ultimate Lockdown (X) being destroyed.
  • Removed the yellow warning UI Indicator for enemies Killjoy’s Lockdown (X).
  • Updated deactivate sounds for Killjoy’s Turret (E) and Alarmbot (Q) to make them more distinct.

Misc.

• Brimstone’s Sky Smoke (E), Orbital Strike (X), and Omen’s From the Shadows (X) ability have updated targeting visuals to help players with precision placement on the map.

Cosmetics Updates

Shorty

We have upgraded several Shorty models, including the default Shorty, to get them up to par visually with the rest of our weapons. These are just art updates—there will be no gameplay changes.

• Players who own any of the following will notice an updated Shorty:
  • Default Shorty
  • Wunderkind Shorty
  • Sidekick Shorty
  • Karabasan Shorty
  • Prism II Shorty
  • Doodle Buds Shorty

Map Updates

Map Rotations

The newly updated Bind rotates into Competitive and Unrated queues.
Icebox rotates out of Competitive and Unrated queues.

Bug Fixes

Gameplay Systems

• Fixed an issue where “Kick ally off” displays while defusing the Spike.
• Fixed a visual bug where the Spike progress bar for planting or defusing would speed up or reset while defusing.
• Fixed an issue where Yoru couldn’t drop his weapon while using Dimensional Drift (X).

Social

• (Fixed in Patch 6.07) Fixed a bug where the add/remove friend button wasn’t available when right clicking a party member who had “Hide my name outside my party” setting turned on.
• (Fixed in Patch 6.07) Fixed a bug where banned players would not get removed from your party.
• Fixed a bug where party invites that were no longer valid were sometimes still showing as active for players.
• Fixed a bug where Team and All chat logs would be wiped after a match. Thank you to our Redditors for alerting us to this one.
• Fixed a bug where punctuation marks were not correctly displayed when in-game language is Thai.

Known Issues

• We are aware of an issue modifying locale within the client. Locale updates will need to be performed through Riot Client (Riot Client settings).
• We’re aware of an issue where, in rare instances, audio cues are not playing for various sound effects. We are investigating at this time and will share as soon as we know more.

Valorant patch notes 6.06

Valorant patch 6.06 comes with various tweaks and bug fixes. Though it’s not a particularly interesting patch, at least you can now message cute emotes to your pals ^w^.

Agent Updates

Gekko

• Mosh Pit (C)
  • Mosh Pit’s damage to objects has been performing inconsistently with relative abilities such as KAY/O’s FRAG/ment (C) and Breach’s Aftershock (C).
  • Damage to objects has reduced 2.5x >>> 1x
• Wingman (Q)
  • Wingman will now always die if he is last alive.

Map Updates

Lotus

• Updated the destruction VFX for the destructible door located between A Link to A Main in order to make it easier to see through as it falls away.

Gameplay Systems Updates

• Added the ability to hide Agent outlines and fresnel (the color outline on Agents)
  • Go to Settings >> General >> Under “Other”, there is an option to toggle “Hide Outlines and Fresnel”.

Bug Fixes

Agents

• Wingman can no longer concuss intangible players.

Social

• Fixed a bug preventing you from sending a whisper starting with a Circumflex Accent ^. You can now whisper cute emoticon faces to each other using ^w^.
• Fixed a bug causing ping icons to be displayed even when someone was muted. Muting someone will now properly suppress ping icons.
• Fixed a bug where the voice chat UI was obscured when your Agent was blinded. You can now see, even when your Agent can’t.
• Fixed a bug where the join party button would still be active even though the party invite was no longer valid.
• Fixed a bug where when searching your friends list, the number of people a friend is in a party with would not display correctly.
• Fixed a bug where scrolling the social panel would sometimes scroll other UI elements like the Agent carousel.
• Fixed a bug where the friends list was obscured when auto-reject friend requests was enabled.

Valorant patch notes 6.05

Valorant patch 6.05 notes bring a host of tweaks and bug fixes to Gekko.

Agent Updates

Gekko

• Wingman’s (Q) Plant and Defuse targeting has been improved in order to target higher locations.
• Audio Improvements
  • Added audio variations for Mosh Pit’s (C) explosions
  • Audio improvements for Dizzy’s (E) plasma blasts, which will help you easily identify if it’s flying towards you or towards an ally while in the air
• VFX Improvements
  • Added VFX to when Gekko is reclaiming an orb, as well as when the globule reclaim is complete
  • Improved visuals for enemy creature globules
  • Improved performance in Agent Select

Performance Updates

• Added “CPU Wait GPU Time” metric to performance settings in order to help players track when their machines are Render Thread bound

Bugs

Agent

• Gekko
  • Fixed a bug where Wingman wasn’t taking melee damage
  • Fixed a bug where ally Gekko orbs were showing up as white outside of custom Replication.
  • Fixed multiple animation issues across all abilities.
  • Fixed UI on Gekko’s ultimate staying on screen if the round ended while you’re possessing Thrash.
  • Fixed a bug where Wingman wasn’t able to defuse the Spike after using Swap Team command in a Custom game.
  • Fixed a bug where Wingman Spike plant casting allowed him to run too far of a distance if cast in midair.
  • Fixed a bug where damage from Mosh Pit was avoidable while crouch jumping in the pit.
  • Fixed bug where Wingman’s torso wouldn’t trigger Cypher’s Trapwire (C).
  • Fixed a bug where the wrong animation played while casting Wingman.
  • Fixed a bug where Gekko wasn’t able to plant in Spike Rush if Wingman was stopped from planting.
  • Fixed display name of “Mosh Pit” showing up as “Mosh’s Pit”.

Gameplay Systems

• Fixed a crosshair issue where the Import button is grayed out if the you have 10 or more saved crosshair profiles
  • The maximum number of profiles is still 15.
• Fixed a bug with damage-over-time area abilities where players could crouch jump to avoid damage.

Performance

• Used Memory performance metric now updates when Total Memory performance metric is disabled.

Social

• Fixed a bug where in cases of bad platform disconnection, players would appear more than once in the friends list.
• Fixed a bug where voice tooltips were sometimes incorrectly rendered when turning Party/Team voice chat on and off.
• Fixed a bug where the invite menu would sometimes flicker.
• Fixed a bug where unfriending an online player wouldn’t update the count of online friends.
• Fixed a bug where when a player enables Auto-Reject friend requests, any pending friend requests would still appear. Pending friend requests will now be auto-rejected when this setting is enabled.
• Fixed a bug where the system notification confirming a sent friend request would sometimes show whitespace.
• Fixed a bug to add a message notifying players that they will also be banned from playing competitive queue if they currently have a comms ban.

Valorant patch notes 6.03

Valorant patch 6.03 notes bring nerfs to Killjoy and Raze, alongside bug fixes.

Agent Updates

Killjoy

With Chamber’s recent balance and the increased reliability of Killjoy’s Lockdown ult, she has recently sprung up as the premier Sentinel Agent in the game. When we took on systemic damage and health interactions in Patch 5.12, we decided not to reduce Killjoy’s Turret health given her place in the ecosystem at the time. Given her place today, we are making the changes below.

• Turret (E) health decreased 125 >>> 100
  • Reducing the total health of the Turret will allow for opponents to have an easier time destroying it, particularly with weaker weapons.
• Lockdown (X) point cost increased 7 >>> 8
  • We’re happy with Killjoy’s Ult being powerful when opponents don’t have a plan to push or contest it, but feel the frequency is too high for the reliability it now offers.

Raze

We feel the duration of Boom Bot has led to a larger recon footprint than we felt was healthy, in regards to the ability’s secondary output. We are decreasing the amount of space the ability can cover in order to sharpen Boom Bot as a tool Raze and her team can use to follow up around angles.

• Boom Bot (C) duration decreased 10s >>> 5s

Modes Updates

Swiftplay

Remember when we told you the Swiftplay Beta would end in January. We sorta lied. Everyone decided to just keep it on. Please keep sending us your feedback, though!

Social Updates

• Added Real Time Text Evaluation (NA only to start) to the Agent Select screen.

Bug Fixes

• Adjusted Sage, Neon, Jett, and Yoru’s hair heights to fit within our standardized vertical range
• AI (such as Skye’s Seekers [X]) will now travel through the crouch-only connection on Pearl near the Defender’s spawn area
• Fixed a bug where KAY/O would sometimes be able to move after being downed during NULL/cmd (X)

Valorant patch notes 6.02

Valorant patch 6.02 notes bring the Riot Voice Evaluation beta to NA, tweaks to server rewind limit for high ping players, and more.

Weapon Updates

Stinger

As per Valorant on Twitter: “After a few weeks of tracking, were upping the cost of the Stinger and adjusting the damage fall-off in time for Patch 6.02.

We feel the Stinger is over-performing at its price point, especially in the early rounds, and lacks the right economic trade-offs.”

• Cost increased 950 >>> 1100
• Damage Fall-off Change:
  • 27 damage per bullet (0 – 15m)
  • 23 damage per bullet (15m+)
• Previously:
  • 27 damage per bullet (0 – 20m)
  • 25 damage per bullet (20m+)

Gameplay Systems Updates 

“When a player fires a shot, it takes time for the input to reach the server. To prevent you from needing to lead your shots, VALORANT implements server rewinding. When the server determines the outcome of a shot, it rewinds character positions around the bullet to match their locations at the time when the shot was initially fired. Finding the right limit for a max rewind amount is important for reducing cases of anyone feeling like they need to lead shots, or that they can still be shot after safely repositioning themselves.

When we launched the game, the max rewind value was set to 200 ms based on what we deemed as acceptable networking conditions (factoring in some amount of additional input/processing latency) to play VALORANT. Based on player data since launch, we’ve determined that this value is too high for the networking conditions experienced by most of you. —Kevin Lee, Software Engineer”

• Adjusted max server rewind limit down to 140 ms from 200 ms.
  • If you only play in games where everyone’s ping is low, you shouldn’t even notice this change. In other cases, the impact from this change will be subtle, and most of you won’t notice the difference. That being said, we expect to see the following changes in gameplay patterns:
    • Playing against players with high ping should feel less like you’re getting shot after moving behind cover by a bullet fired earlier
    • Players playing with high ping may start to experience hit registration inaccuracy.
  • These behaviors already exist in VALORANT, but we are shifting the needle for what we consider “high ping” to be less generous. We hope that this change reduces the frustration players feel when playing against high ping players and continues to minimize the impact of networking conditions on gameplay.
  • If you want to dive deeper into hit registration in VALORANT, check out our previous piece from 2020.
  • For some more about one of the reasons that motivated this update, read our first Gameplay Consistency Update, and then our most recent update from last year.

Social Updates 

• Voice Evaluation Beta (North America/English-only)
  • Last year we began a background launch of the Riot Voice Evaluation (RVE) in North America. RVE will now move into a limited beta phase that will enhance our behavioral reports data collection capabilities and improve the impact of our comms related behavioral interventions.

Bugs

Agents

• Potentially fixed bug with KAY/O’s Zero/point (E) not showing the correct enemies that it has suppressed (please let us know if you see further issues here)
• Pathfinding has been improved on Raze’s Boom Bot (C) when chasing an enemy. It can now more consistently jump up small heights and will do so with smoother movement
• Fixed a bug with Boom Bot (C) getting stuck in a wall and rapidly shaking while making a loud noise. It will now bounce off the wall per usual
• Fixed a bug where Yoru’s Fakeout (C) could get stuck in mid-air in various locations
• Fixed bug where Cypher’s Neural Theft (X) would only reveal one time if he had been killed or the round had changed during a previous cast
• Fixed a bug where Cypher’s Neural Theft (X) reveals would be interrupted when he was killed after it had been deployed

Maps

• Players will no longer make footstep audio when dropping from Lotus B site platform to the fountain
• Lotus door volume has been lowered further (we lowered in 6.01 as well) during the rotation phase
• On Lotus, players next to each other while rotating door…rotates should feel smoother
• On Lotus, fixed an issue where players were spawning on the wrong side of barrier near C site if standing on rotating door at round end
• On Fracture, fixed a bug where the “Paul Delmann” badge could be stuck on the screen after Buy Phase ends

Weapons

• Fixed an issue where Frenzy and Bulldog reload audio is quieter than other weapons in third person

Social

• Fixed a bug that caused voice chat to no longer function when disconnected from the internet for less than 60 seconds
  • If the internet is disconnected for 60 seconds or less, you will be able to reconnect to voice chat without having to relaunch the game.

Valorant patch notes 6.01

Valorant patch 6.01 notes bring bug fixes, as well as a tweak to Lotus’ rotating doors volume.

Map Updates 

Lotus:

• The volume for the rotating doors has been reduced while rotating. Please let us know what you think.
• The Lotus-only queue has been removed.
• Lotus will now be included in the map rotation for Unrated and Competitive.

Modes Updates 

Replication:

• Replication has been removed from Modes queue.
  • Although we are shelving Replication temporarily, it is still available via the custom game option.
    

Bug Fixes 

Gameplay Systems:

• Fixed a bug where occasionally the third-person flashed visual indicator on an Agent’s head wasn’t in sync with the actual flash duration. (i.e. Omen’s Paranoia [Q], Phoenix’s Curveball [Q]).
• Fixed a bug where the Spike would be invisible and attempting to equip the Spike would fail after changing from Defender to Attacker in a Custom Game and picking up the Spike.
• Fixed a bug where you were unable to plant the Spike after reconnecting to a match where they died while disconnected.
• Fixed a bug that, while using the Marshall, prevented full reloading between shots if auto-scoping is enabled. Thanks for all the reports on this!

Maps:

• Lotus
  • There are several bug fixes for Lotus. Thanks to everyone who reported issues! Here are a few highlights:
    • Boost exploit in the back of B Site has been removed.
    • You can no longer get yourself stuck in the rotating doors (we’re
      pretty sure anyway, let us know if you find a way—also, you’re all
      very creative!)
    • Breach can now use abilities on both rotating doors.
    • The destructible door located at A Link now has working vision cones.
    • The Spike can no longer get lost in the back of A Site.
    • Fixed a broken Spike plant spot on A Site.

Valorant patch notes 6.0

Valorant patch 6.0 notes introduce new map Lotus, reintroduce a revamped Split, and do away with Omen’s one-ways.

Map Updates 

[New Map] Lotus:

• Lotus is a new 3-site map that offers a variety of rotation options. Unlock the secrets behind the doors of these ancient ruins.
• Please note that the Lotus only queue will only be playable in Swiftplay mode for one week and then goes into the competitive and Unrated map rotation in Patch 6.1.

Here’s the official map trailer:

Split:

“Split is returning with a few tweaks to make attacking a little easier.”

Be sure to check out this visual rundown of the changes from ‘Thinking Man’s Valorant’:

• A main
  • First engagement area for Attackers has been widened and a small ledge added for mixups.
  • Boost box next to the orb has been reduced to give Attackers a new position looking into A site.
• A Rafters:
  • The under-over area has been removed, making this much easier to deal with as an Attacker.
• A Tower:
  • The back section of the Tower has been flattened to make the fight to Ramps easier for both teams
• Mid:
  • Players can now silently drop down Mid platform.
  • The trick-jump up onto Mid box has also been removed for simplicity.
• B Tower:
  • Defender side jump up box has been removed to simplify the space.
• B Rope Pocket:
  • The hard corner here has been smoothed out to make clearing the spot easier.

Map Rotation

• Please note that Breeze and Bind have now been removed from competitive and Unrated map rotation, but are still playable in all other modes.

Omen’s Dark Cover (E)

• Dark Cover placed inside walls will now fall to the height of nearby ground.
  • One-way smokes are a part of VALORANT, but they are dif icult to play against and we want to keep them limited to intentional and understandable areas. We’ll be keeping a close eye on how this impacts Omen’s power levels.

Competitive Updates

Overall, the changes below should make Ranked Rating gains and losses feel more consistent, and reduce the effect stomps have on your RR. We’ll keep a close eye on the data to make additional adjustments as necessary.

• Episode reset reminder: A new Episode means a ranked reset! Expect your placement rank to be lower than at the end of Episode 5, and good luck on your climb!
  • Context: Remember we reset each episode to kick of the start of a new ranked ladder. This is a chance for players to show of their skill in the new season, as well as reset players in the ladder who may no longer be active.
• For all players: Ranked Rating gains/losses will depend slightly more on Win/Loss, and slightly less on the exact round differential of the match.
  • Context: Players experience too wide of RR gains/losses from match to match based on the round dif erential (one win could give 12RR, and the next win could give 20RR). We’re making this change to reduce that swing of RR in gains and losses.
  • Winning is still the most important way to climb!
• For players whose ranks are far away from their MMR: RR gains will depend more on individual performance, instead of round differential. You should also see your rank and MMR converge faster.
  • Context: We received feedback that players felt like they would not be rewarded for a good game, or punished too harshly for a bad game during their ranked climb.
  • If a player’s rank is below their actual MMR, they will be rewarded more for a good game. If a player’s rank is above their MMR, they will not be harshly penalized if they lose, but perform well in that match.

Progression Updates

• Variant Favorites are here!
  • We’ve heard your feedback and added the ability to favorite specific Variants of your gun skins (along with some UX/UI changes to better support that). Now, when you favorite a specific Variant, only your favorited Variants will enter the potential pool of weapons you can take into game if you’ve equipped the Random Favourite for that weapon type.
  • On release, your existing favorite weapon skins will now have all unlocked Variants favorited to maintain consistency with current behavior.

Bug Fixes

Cosmetics

• Odin’s ammo belt will no longer visually pop into a vertical position when swapping gun
  buddies in the Model Viewer.

Maps

• Ascent
  • Fixed a bug when breaking the door at Market by using an ability on the wall to the side of it.

Agents

• Fixed a bug where Cypher’s Trapwire (C) could be placed through Sage’s Barrier Orb (C).
• Fixed objects like traps that were not being damaged if they are placed in molotov
  patches that are already active.
• Fixed bug where you could see Skye’s Seekers (X) on the minimap while they were still
  invisible if you had line of sight to their hidden location.
• Fixed a bug where suppression would not properly interrupt Fade’s Prowler (C) control.
• Fixed a bug where Viper was able to deactivate her ultimate, Viper’s Pit (X), while
  suppressed.
• Various gameplay damage interactions fixed:
  • Killjoy’s Lockdown (X) now properly takes damage from all abilities.
  • Fixed Skye’s Trailblazer (Q) dealing damage to enemy Skye’s Trailblazer (Q) and Sova’s Owl Drone (C).
  • Fixed Sova’s Hunter’s Fury (X) and Breach’s Aftershock (C) not damaging Raze’s Blast Pack (Q).
  • Fixed Phoenix’s Blaze (C) not dealing damage to Harbor’s Cove (Q), Raze’s Blast Pack (Q), Reyna’s Leer (C), Sova’s Recon Bolt (E), and KAY/O’s ZERO/POINT (E).
  • Fixed Brimstone’s Orbital Strike (X) not dealing damage to Harbor’s Cove (Q).
  • Fixed Breach’s Aftershock (C), Raze’s Showstopper (X) and Paint Shells (E), damaging allied Killjoy’s Nanoswarm (C).
  • Fixed Sova Hunter’s Fury (X) damaging allied Fade’s Haunt (E).
  • Fixed Killjoy’s Nanoswarm (C), Phoenix’s Hot Hands (E) and Blaze (C) not dealing damage to Chamber’s Rendezvous (E) and Trademark (C).

Valorant patch notes 5.12

Valorant patch 5.12 notes include some big meta-shifting changes in preparation for Episode 6, such as tweaks to agent ability damage. Here are the full notes:

Agent Updates

With pro play heading into the offseason after the completion of an amazing Game Changers Championship, we’re taking the opportunity to hit some broad updates we’ve been looking to make along with individual Agent changes.  

We’ve increased the point costs of the Agent Ultimates that have large, site-wide footprints. These changes should reduce their overall frequency and increase counterplay against them at the strategic level.

In addition to the Ult adjustments, we’ve also made a tuning pass on Agent ability economy. The areas targeted in this pass include: Total loadout cost outliers (for their respective role), Agents with lack of pistol round buy options, and unintended power relative to the cost of the ability.

To wrap up the broad updates, we’ve taken a pass at the HP of destructible objects in the game.  Damage-over-time area abilities (like Brimstone’s Incindiary and Viper’s Snakebite) now damage enemy utility (read more in the Gameplay Systems Updates), so we’ve increased the health of 1hp destructibles so that they aren’t instantly vaporized—but can still be destroyed by one-shot in most situations. Also, Killjoy’s Lockdown gets a bigger health bump to reduce the number of abilities that can destroy it solo.  Boombot and Prowlers on the other hand have felt like they require unloading too many bullets given their other strengths, so the health of those abilities have been reduced.

Breach

        ◦ Ultimate Points increased 7 >>> 8

Chamber

Cypher

Fade

Harbor

We’re back again with small Harbor buffs. It is hard to learn a new Controller smoke style and we hope these changes make it easier for Harbor’s vision block to last long enough to finish executing with their team, while also providing wall smoke duration that’s on par with Viper. We’ll continue to monitor Harbor’s strength and see if we need to make any more waves. Chalo!

• High Tide (E)

• Cascade (C)

KAY/O

• ZERO/POINT (E)

• NULL/cmd (C)

Killjoy

• Lockdown (X)

• Nanoswarm (C)

Omen

Phoenix

Raze

• Boom Bot (C)

• Blast Pack (Q)

Sage

We’re looking to slightly refine Sage’s strengths to be more about fortifying areas she controls and helping allies, rather than offense-focused with her utility. We’re hoping the heal update will push her power and satisfaction when fully healing others while creating tradeoffs for playing Sage overly aggressive and relying on self-healing.

• Barrier Orb (C)

• Healing Orb (E)

Sova

Skye

• Trailblazer (Q)

• Regrowth (C)

Viper

We’re reeling in Viper’s ability to play outside of her ultimate’s smoke area. These changes will anchor Viper more to her ultimate and allow coordinated retakes against Viper’s Pit to be more successful.

• Viper’s Pit (X)

  • Smoke integrity regen time 5.0 >>> 25.0

  • Max time out of smoke decreased 15.0 >>> 8.0

  • Ultimate points required 7 >>> 8

Yoru

Gameplay Systems

Assist Tail Tuning

Assist tails are the “grace period” duration after a debuff has expired where a player will still be awarded an assist for debuffing the killed target.

Damage Interaction Updates

Brimstone

Phoenix

• Hothands bow damages:

  • Cypher Trapwire

  • Killjoy Nanoswarm

  • Killjoy Alarmbot

  • Killjoy Lockdown

  • Raze Blast Pack

  • Reyna Leer

  • Sage Barrier Orb

  • Sova Recon Bolt

  • Fade Prowler

  • KAY/O Knife

  • Chamber Trademark

  • Chamber Rendezvous

• Blaze now damages:

  • Cypher Trapwire

  • Killjoy Nanoswarm

  • Killjoy Alarmbot

  • Killjoy Lockdown

  • Raze Blast Pack

  • Reyna Leer

  • Sage Barrier Orb

  • Sova Recon Bolt

  • Fade Prowler

  • KAY/O Knife

  • Yoru Fakeout

  • Chamber Trademark

  • Chamber Rendezvouszero

KAY/O

Killjoy

• Nanoswarm now damages:

  • • Cypher Trapwire

    • Killjoy Nanoswarm

    • Killjoy Alarmbot

    • Killjoy lockdown

    • Raze Blast Pack

    • Reyna Leer

    • Sage Barrier Orb

    • Sova Recon Bolt

    • Chamber Trademark

    • Chamber Rendezvous

    • Fade Prowler

    • KAY/O Knife

Raze

Sova

• Shock Bolt

• Hunters Fury

  • Now damages:

    • Raze Satchel

    • Reyna Leer

    • Fade Prowler

    • Chamber Rendezvous

Viper

• Snakebite

  • Now damages:

    • Cypher Trapwire

    • Killjoy Nanoswarm

    • Killjoy Alarmbot

    • Killjoy lockdown

    • Raze Blast Pack

    • Reyna Leer

    • Sage Barrier Orb

    • Skye Seekers

    • Sova Recon Bolt

    • Chamber Trademark

    • Chamber Rendezvous

    • Fade Prowler

    • KAY/O Knife

Damage Multiplier Updates

With damage-over-time area abilities now universally damaging utility, we took a pass on damage multipliers. These area damage abilities cover a wide space and deal large amounts of damage over their duration. We’ve reduced their non-player output to 50% of base damage to prevent instant destruction of enemy utility and to ensure abilities with higher health, such as Sage Barrier Orb, retain their relevant impact.

Breach

Brimstone

KAY/O

Killjoy

Phoenix

Raze

• Blast Pack now deals 1200% >>> 250% damage to non-players

• Paint Shells now deals 100% >>> 250% damage to non-players

• Boom Bot now deals 100% >>> 250% damage to non-players

Viper

Allied Ability Damage Immunity

The following abilities are now immune to allied damage.

Chamber

Cypher

Fade

KAY/O

Killjoy

Raze

Skye

Sova

Yoru

Weapons 

Spectre

We felt the Spectre was overperforming at mid to long ranges and, as a result, was crowding out other options on partial buys.

• Added a third damage range to the Spectre and updated distances. New distances and body shot damage are:

  • 0-15m, 26 damage.

  • 15m-30m, 22 damage.

  • 30m+, 20 damage.

• For reference, the old ranges and damages were:

  • 0-20m, 26 damage.

  • 20m+, 22 damage.

New Swiftplay beta

Swiftplay Beta is playable Dec. 6 through Jan. 10, 2023. Please jump in, help us test this new game mode, and give us your feedback!

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where Phoenix would not be decayed by Viper for a short period after dying during Run It Back while decayed. (Thanks for the report Iyerfire)

• Fixed an issue where Cypher wasn’t able to place Trapwires on the glass panels by the yellow crate on Icebox.

• Fixed a bug where enemy Spycams or Turrets could trigger Cypher’s Trapwires.

• Fixed a bug where enemy knives could not damage Chamber’s Rendezvous teleport anchor.

• Fixed a bug where Boombot would explode on contact with Yoru’s Gatecrash beacons.

Valorant patch notes 5.10

Valorant patch 5.10 notes bring buffs to Cypher and Harbor, and nerfs to Fade. Riot has also begun to roll out its Real-Time Disruptive Text Detection system in NA.

Agents

Cypher

“As the game has evolved, we’ve seen Cypher’s presence and relative impact on the roster fall off. While we attribute part of this to Chamber coming to dominate the Sentinel slot more than we think is healthy, we also have found that overtime Cypher’s Trapwire setups have become too predictable and easy to counter and that his Ultimate has felt lacking both in restrictions required to pull it off and the reward for doing so.

The increase in Trapwire distance should open up a lot of new potential setups for Cypher and allow him to mix up his play patterns in a way that forces his enemies to slow down and move carefully through the map if they want to spot them without being caught.

Removing the time restriction on enemy corpses should make his Ultimate more accessible than it has been in the past and allow for Cypher to feel more agency when he initiates Neural Theft, while adding a second ping should create a clearer period of time where Cypher is pulling the strings, taking in the information on the enemies initial location and setting up strategic moves based on the pressure of the second.

We hope that these updates get Cypher mains out there coming up with new setups for their information webs and that, when paired with upcoming updates to Chamber, help him reclaim a compelling spot amongst his peers.”

• Trapwire
  • Maximum Trapwire length increased 1000 >>> 1500.
• Neural Theft
  • Now reveals enemies two times. There is a four second delay between the reveals.
  • Time restriction to cast on enemy corpses has been removed.
  • Maximum cast distance increased 1200 >>> 1800.
• Quality of Life
  • Updated the yellow silhouette used for Cypher’s reveal on Spycam and Neural Theft.
  • Yellow silhouette now disappears if the revealed enemy becomes visible to you to help reduce confusion of seeing two representations of the enemy in different places.
  • Yellow silhouette now starts dimmer and fades faster to make it more distinguishable from an actual enemy.
  • Cypher’s placed utility is no longer destroyed by allies’ AOE damage.

Fade

“Fade’s Prowlers have been a versatile and difficult-to-play-against ability that we’re looking to sharpen with these changes. The duration changes encourage Fade to be more deliberate in the areas that she chooses to sweep, while the other tweaks to the ability are meant to help enemies on the counterplay side of things.

The Nightfall cost is increasing in price, as we’ve found the baseline value of the Ultimate to be on the higher end compared to other Ultimates in the game.”

• Prowlers
  • Duration reduced from 3 >>> 2.5 seconds. (Time the prowler is alive without a trail).
  • Delay on bite after reaching target increased .4 >>> .6 seconds.
  • Hitbox improvements.
  • Nearsight duration on hit reduced 3.5 >>> 2.75 seconds.
  • Prowlers now fizzle out and no longer debuff instead of debuffing its target if they teleported away before it finished its animation.
• Nightfall

Harbor

“Harbor abilities all make a healthy round impact, but we saw some players new to Harbor not using their abilities enough and feeling too constrained. We hope these changes make it easier for players to hit the ground running with Harbor and for skilled Harbor players to achieve more flexibility when controlling the map.”

• Cascade
  • Number of purchasable charges 1 >>> 2

Gameplay Systems

Real Time Text Evaluation (NA only to start)

• In addition to our existing interventions, we are launching a new feature to begin muting players in chat who send disruptive text messages in game. Interventions for disruptive text will now be applied sooner rather than later as we continue updating our systems to evaluate more types of text communication.
• These improvements will be added to North America first and expanded to more regions in the near future.
  • With the implementation of more immediate text evaluation, we hope to detect and reduce disruptive situations while players are still in game and help you feel safer to engage in VALORANT.

Social

• Fixed an issue that caused the “Auto-Reject Friend Requests: On” notification to be misaligned in the Social Panel for some languages.

Bugs

Astra

• Fixed a bug where Astra could cast a fake Nebula right at the start of a round before her Star charged up.

Chamber

• Fixed a bug where Chamber would fail to equip a gun at the start of a new round.

Harbor

• Fixed Harbor’s Cascade being visible on Minimap for enemies with vision of it.
• Fixed a bug where Harbor’s Cascade would sometimes spawn under the map.
• Fixed a bug where Harbor’s Cascade targeter on the minimap would shorten when aiming up or down even though the Cascade would travel the same distance.
• Fixed a bug where Harbor’s Cascade targeter on the minimap was slightly shorter than the actual distance it would travel.

Neon

• Fixed a bug where Neon’s Slide could be used to boost upwards in specific map locations.

Valorant patch notes 5.09

Bugs

Agents

• Fixed a bug where Harbor’s Cascade would sometimes disappear when looking away from it (hotfixed during 5.08 patch cycle).
• Fixed a bug where walking through Harbor’s Cove barrier was not blinding players at the intended distance (hotfixed during 5.08 patch cycle).
• Fixed a bug where Harbor’s High Tide would have large gaps when cast in specific map locations.
• Fixed a bug where Harbor’s Reckoning’s geysers would not spawn on the area where the player was standing.
• Throughout this year, we’ve been periodically making improvements to Skye’s Seekers so that they more reliably and efficiently reach their target.
  • Small changes were made to how Skye’s Seekers navigate around obstacles after they’ve visually acquired their target.
  • If the target is intangible when the Seekers reach them, it will not debuff them. This includes Reyna while she is Dismissed and Yoru in Dimensional Drift.
• Fixed an issue where Yoru would still enter his stealth and intangible state if he was detained while casting Dimensional Drift. The detain now properly interrupts the cast.
• Fixed an issue where Fade could activate her Haunt and Seize projectiles to make them drop while she was Suppressed.
• Fixed an issue where Reyna would auto-heal after a kill while in Empress even though she was Suppressed.
• Fixed an issue where Sage could instantly break her Barrier by walling self into a corner.

Valorant Patch notes 5.08

Agents

Harbor goes live for Episode 5 Act 3

Bugs

Agents

• Fixed an issue where friendly versions of area-damage abilities could overwrite enemy versions of those abilities to deal less damage

• Fixed a bug where Viper’s Toxic Screen could have small gaps around ground level in specific map locations

Gameplay Systems

• Fixed various minimap bugs

• Ally position indicators would persist on the edge of minimap even after ally came back into view

• In some cases, KAY/O’s Suppression Blade position indicator could appear twice on the minimap

• Opening the larger map (defaulted to Caps Lock and ‘M’) during round transition could cause spawn barriers to appear as a single pixel

• “Recently Seen Enemy” icon indicators could sometimes update their position without the enemy being visible

Maps

Valorant patch notes 5.07

Valorant patch 5.07 brings with it a massive overhaul of Fracture, a number of changes to agent flashes, and some new Collection changes that will help players keep track of their cosmetics.

Agent updates

“The VALORANT Character Design team is constantly discussing the state of the Agent meta, and wanted to make some changes to sharpen some of our Agents and role definitions. We’re in a more stable state since Champions, and Game Changers teams will have decent time to acclimate before the Game Changers World Championships takes place.

When it comes to Duelists with a flash ability, many of them have been outclassed by some of our Initiators when it comes to generating kills for themselves off their flashes. Skye and KAY/O are often better at taking aggressive 1v1s than Agents that we expect to be able to thrive in those scenarios like Yoru, Phoenix, or Reyna.

These changes are intended to increase the total teamplay output of Skye and KAY/O when they coordinate plays with their teammates, and decrease some of their efficacy when played alone. We also hope to increase the reward for putting more time into mastering their flash abilities. We believe that Initiators should still be able to make solo plays, but they should ideally be weaker than their Duelist counterparts in these scenarios.” – Dan ‘penguin’ Hardison, Designer.

Skye

“Guiding Light’s destructibility didn’t feel like meaningful counterplay, instead overtly punishing when Skye tried to throw them at a longer range. By increasing the top-end output and rewarding Skye for bending her birds into the right spots, we intend to foster more teamwork and differentiate her Guiding Light from other flashes in the game—especially when compared to Duelists.”

• (E) Guiding Light flashbang scaling paradigm changed
  • The max flash duration of Skye’s Guiding Light now scales from 1s to 2.25s over a .75s charge up after being cast
  • Guiding Light can no longer be shot and destroyed
  • New VFX, UI, and sounds added to communicate new gameplay intent
  • Unequip Delay out of Guiding Light increased .75s >>> .85s

KAY/O

“KAY/O’s underhanded FLASH/DRIVE (right-click) has been overperforming relative to other ‘pop’ flashes (example, Phoenix’s flash or Yoru’s flash). And we feel as though labbed out left-click overhand throws aren’t generating a powerful enough reward for the mastery required to get them to pop in the right place. This tuning weakens the right-click when compared to pop flashes from Duelists, with the belief that KAY/O should pay a cost for his versatility.”

• (Q) FLASH/DRIVE
  • Underhand (right-click) flashbang max duration decreased 2s>>>1.25s
  • Overhand (left-click) flashbang max duration increased 2s>>>2.25s
  • Unequip Delay out of both flashes increased .6s >>> .85s

Reyna

“Reyna’s flash underperforms as a selfish entry-tool, especially at higher skill levels. This set of changes is intended to give Reyna more agency around how she decides to peek after casting Leer. Also, it should sharpen Leer as a powerful angle-breaking tool against Operators on maps with longer sightlines. We’ve also felt like individual casts of the eye remain in the world for too long when the eye isn’t destroyed. If Reyna is now able to make more selfish plays off her Leer, we then wanted to reduce some of the value it has when thrown for teammates.”

• (C) Leer
  • Wind-up of nearsight effect decreased .6s >>> .4s
  • Range Restriction on Leer removed
  • Nearsight unequip delay decreased: .7 >>> .5
  • Duration decreased 2.6s >>> 2.0s

Yoru

“Yoru is a tricky agent, as we need to balance him around his capability to throw flashes during his ultimate. We opted to go with a simple duration increase for Blindside as we feel maintaining the turning counterplay around his flash and clone is important to avoid excessively frustrating situations.”

• (Q) Blindside duration increased 1.5s >>> 1.75s
• Flash Visual Updates
  • 3P visuals for flashed enemies and allies now render behind the player’s head the moment that the flash starts to fade. This should give a clearer indication if players are full flashed or if the flash has started to fade.
  • 1P visuals when fully flashed now shrink overtime to give a better indication of when the full flash will end and the flash fading out will begin.
  • Increased the window for awarding assists on flashes, nearsights and concusses from 1 >>> 3 seconds after the debuff starts to fade.
  • We felt the assist window on these debuffs didn’t reflect their actual duration of impact, and want to make sure the supportive players are more often recognized and rewarded for setting up situations their teammates capitalize on.

Map updates

Fracture

“Fracture is receiving quite a few quality of life changes alongside some larger updates to Dish/A Drop and A Ropes. Going to go in the order of minor to major changes.”

• Arcade – Opened a cubby here to make it easier for Attacking side to hold against Defender aggression from both directions.
• B Site – ‘Jump’ up has been changed to a ramp directly onto the site platform, which should make moving around that space more straightforward.
• B Generator – Space here tightened slightly to make smoking this spot easier. A small corner has also been removed to simplify attempts to re-clear the site.
• Defender Spawn – Removed a small cubby to slightly simplify those retakes.
• A Halls – Improved movement and simplified the space in A Halls by removing a corner.
• A Site – A minor simplification of the space as part of the overall changes to the surrounding areas.
• A Dish – The dish is intact but removed the far path to make moving through this space more direct for both sides. We found trying to watch/control these spaces simultaneously was unnecessarily difficult for all. The team hopes the changes here and on A Drop will encourage everyone to use this route more often.
• A Drop – The drop down is no longer a 50/50 check when entering, which should make it a little more appealing as a way for Attackers to squeeze A site from two sides.
• A Rope – This path has been a little too easy for Attackers to control with a single smoke. The adjustments should give Defenders more options for both the initial hold and retaking A. Watch your step.

You can check out how the changes translate in-game below:

Progression updates

“Below are features that we’ve wanted to make for a while just as much as you’ve wanted them. We’ll admit, there’s still so much more that we can do, like inclusion of additional filtering options, a search function, expansion of the random feature to other content types, and more. The team wants it and are working on it—but we didn’t want to wait until every possible option was covered for us to release the changes here. Better a version of something than not having it at all.

This team shares the same belief as the rest of VALORANT: that the value of a ‘live service’ game means we can develop with you and improve over time. It does mean that sometimes new stuff may seem bare bones as we vet a feature’s value, incrementally. As we push forward with both Favorites, Filters, and Randomizer (along with other QoL) we’re taking this step by step approach. Give us your feedback so we can improve this game together.” – Micah Worsham, Manager, Game Production.

• Can now mark Favorites in Collection: These Favorites will persist for your account until you change them and allow you to filter down to the items that represent your style best.
  • Weapon skins
  • Player Cards
  • Sprays
  • Gun Buddies
  • Account Level Borders
• Added ability to equip a “Random Favorite” for every weapon type
  • Equipping this particular weapon will make it so that in each game you play,you get one of your favorite weapons (along with one of the variants you own) at random each time you enter a match.
• Added the ability to filter your Collection
  • Weapon Skins
    • Favorites / Non-Favorites
    • Owned / Unowned
    • Tiers
  • Player Cards, Sprays, Gun Buddies, Level Borders
    • Favorites / Non-Favorites
    • Owned / Unowned

Bug fixes

Agents

• Fixed issue where KAY/O’s NULL/CMD disabled Killjoy’s Turret if the turret is hit by a pulse but Killjoy is not
• Fixed issue where Killjoy’s Turret fires straight forward after firing at an enemy and then losing sight of them
• Fixed issue where Killjoy’s Turret would fire with no target when coming online if it was disabled while firing at a target
• Fixed a bug where Phoenix would not automatically re-equip a weapon at the end of Run It Back
• Fixed Breach’s Rolling Thunder showing dead enemies hit in the combat report
• Fixed issue where if a player was deafened by multiple sources, when the first deafen ended it removed the deafening effect completely

Valorant patch notes 5.05

With Valorant Champions 2022 well underway, Riot is keeping things simple in Valorant patch 5.05. In this patch, there are a smattering of smaller updates and bug fixes.

Social updates

• Fixed an issue that allowed you to report yourself
• Fixed an issue where some of you did not receive a notification when attempting to join a party you’ve been kicked from
• Fixed an issue where a blank user would appear in the Social Panel when joining a party where players are in-game
• Fixed and issue where you could not successfully report a player in Agent Select after the game has been running for 30 minutes
• Fixed an issue where players with non-English characters in their Riot IDs could not be found via Invite by Riot ID
• Fixed an issue that caused the Context Menu and Friend Note text fields to close when a Friend’s status updated in the Social Panel
• Fixed an issue that caused the Party Leader’s matchmaking lobby selection to affect in-game Party Members’ status in the Social Panel

Gameplay systems updates

• Fixed a bug where binding the “Home” key to an action does not work
• For certain languages, the tooltip values of rewarded credits in Overtime Rounds was incorrect.
  • Updated tooltip values to reflect that you will start with 5000 credits at the start of Overtime Rounds, no matter if you win or lose the previous round.

Valorant patch notes 5.04

Valorant patch 5.04 heralds the beginning of Episode 5 Act 2, though this time there is neither a new agent nor map for players to get to grips with. In fact, there are no agent or map changes to be seen, with the only real change coming to the game’s crosshair system, and with it the best Valorant crosshairs.

Gameplay systems updates

“We’ve added a few quality of life improvements to crosshairs and are excited to share them with you!”

• Added the ability to select a custom crosshair color.
  • Go to Settings >> Crosshair >> Primary, Aim Down Sights, or Sniper Scope
  • On the drop down menu for color, select Custom and input the Hex Code (6-digit RGB) value of desired color
  • If a non-Hex code is entered, crosshair will revert to the previous color.
• Added the ability to independently tune horizontal and vertical crosshair lines.
  • Go to Settings >> Crosshair >> Primary or Aim Down Sights >> Inner/Outer Length
    • Disabling the middle “chain” icon enables independent tuning.
    • Left slider is for horizontal line and the right slider is for the vertical line.
• Added the ability to copy spectating player’s crosshair settings
  • When spectating another player, type “/crosshair copy” or “/cc” to import the crosshair of the player you are spectating and save it as a new crosshair profile
• Increased the number of crosshair profiles available from 10 to 15

Bugs

• Fixed a bug where Yoru’s Gatecrash would sometimes leave floor markers in incorrect locations

Valorant patch notes 5.03

Valorant patch 5.03 brings a fresh round of Chamber nerfs, as well as changes to hitbox multipliers for certain agents. The Agent Browser has also had a visual refresh, and the game’s engine has been updated.

General updates

• Engine update to Unreal Engine 4.26
• This update improves the tool set available to our developers in many ways, however this change will likely go unnoticed by you, as the goal of any Engine update is to happen under the radar.
• There are some known issues this time around though, mostly the UI is misbehaving. We’re fixing these as quickly as we can, but expect some funkiness in the game and in the Main Menu. If anything interrupts your gameplay, please submit a bug report.
• Agent Browser visual design refresh
• Just thought we should leverage some of the cool Agent art and lean more into our VALORANT style.

Agent updates

Chamber

As players in both ranked and pro play have mastered Chamber, his strengths have started to overshadow his weaknesses, making the counterplay to Rendezvous and his arsenal not as effective as we’d hoped. Chamber’s overall strength has also felt outsized, and we believe that we can reduce the complete power of his kit while still keeping him competitive with the rest of the roster.

• Rendezvous (E)
• Base Cooldown increased 20s >>> 30s
• Recall Cooldown increased 20s >>> 30s
• Cooldown set to 45s whenever a Rendezvous anchor is destroyed
• Diameter size of the “ring” Chamber can stand that allows him to activate Rendezvous decreased 21m >>> 15m
  Chamber’s Rendezvous is intended to be powerful at holding space, but the generous radius allowed him to take that space with more aggression than intended. This change should require Chamber to exert more effort to access off-angles.
• We hope that a harsher punishment for destroyed Rendezvous anchors, and the reduced radius will demand Chamber mains to be more careful in their use. This change also brings the counterplay of Chamber’s destructible objects more inline with the behavior of other destructible objects in the game.
• Trademark (C)
• Slow Duration decreased 9.5 >>> 6s
• Tour De Force (X)
• Ultimate Points Required increased 7 >>> 8
• Slow Duration decreased 9.5 >>> 6s
• Headhunter (Q)
• Bullet Cost increased 100 >>> 150
• It’s important that Headhunter is a powerful sidearm for Chamber but at its current price point Chamber doesn’t have to engage in making difficult economic decisions as meaningfully as other Agents. This should most noticeably impact Chamber’s decision making on pistol rounds and save rounds. The ultimate point change to Tour De Force is also working towards this goal.

Ability regional damage breakup

We’re updating the ultimates for the following Agent so that they follow similar regional damage rules to our weapons—where hitting the head and legs of an enemy applies different damage multipliers. Intent is to reward precision and create intuitive consistency across damage in VALORANT.

For Neon specifically, it also gives us more tuning levers for balancing her across different skill levels. This change should also add depth to the mastery needed when tracking while sprinting that her ult demands.

Neon

• Overdrive
• Damage per shot reduced 22 >>> 18
• Killzone increased 15m >>> 20m
• Leg shot multiplier reduced 1.0 >>> 0.85
• Headshot multiplier increased 1 >>> 3

Chamber

• Tour De Force (X)
• Leg shot multiplier reduced 1.0 >>> 0.85

Jett

• Bladestorm (X)
• Leg shot multiplier reduced 1.0 >>> 0.85

Gameplay systems updates

• Added ability to change “Ghost” keybind outside of Custom Games
• This option is listed under Settings >> Controls >> Actions

BUGS

Agents

• Fixed an issue with Jett’s Tailwind where switching weapons in the middle of the dash would cause the weapon pull out animation to take longer than desired.

Gameplay Systems

• Fixed a bug where some Reyna/Killjoy HUD elements were still visible after enabling Hide User Interface.
• Fixed a bug where defuse animation wouldn’t consistently play if the orb is tapped in rapid succession.

Known issues

• Changing crosshair opacity settings in-game causes crosshair preview visual to flicker
• Spike Announcements UI displaying incorrectly

Valorant Patch notes 5.01

Valorant patch 5.01 dishes out some balancing changes to Phoenix, Yoru, and KAY/O. They also feature an upgrade to Riot’s smurf detection systems. You can find the full patch notes below.

AGENT UPDATES

Phoenix

We believe Phoenix’s Curveball is the cornerstone of his kit, and as we explored adjustment options it became clear that Curveball being more powerful unlocks his kit as a whole. So we wanted to assess Phoenix in a world where Curveball is more competitive with the rest of the ecosystem to get a sense for the impact of the changes. We view Phoenix as an aggressive entry Agent, so the additional Run It Back and Blaze changes are intended to support his proactive intentions when taking space or fights early on into rounds.

• Curveball (Q)
  ⦁ Flash Max duration increased 1.1s >>> 1.5s
  ⦁ Flash Windup decreased .7s >>> .5s
• Blaze (C)
  ⦁ Phoenix will now equip his weapon earlier if he stops bending his wall
• Run it Back (X)
  ⦁ Phoenix will now spawn at the marker with the amount of shields he had when the ability was cast.

Yoru

We’ve noticed you Yoru players having a bit of friction achieving the dream of setting up a master plan while in ultimate. We’re hoping these changes will reduce a bit of that problem, rewarding you for using your flash during ultimate, while still preventing unhealthy play patterns that leave enemies without counterplay.

• Dimensional Drift (X)
  ⦁ Increased duration of ultimate 10s >>> 12s
  ⦁ Reduced unequip time 1.2s >>> 0.8s

KAY/O

KAY/O hasn’t had much of a quality of life pass since we’ve last had some changes so we wanted to reduce some pain and help you access more parts of the kit that haven’t felt as accessible.

• FRAG/ment (C)
  ⦁ Zone diameter reduced 10m >>> 8m
  ⦁ Damage now applies without needing line of sight
  ⦁ We’ve noticed a lot of inconsistencies with how the FRAG/ment is communicating the actual damage zone on the ability. We wanted to be consistent with how the visuals were showing the damage zone, so we’ve removed the line of sight requirement to apply damage.
• NULL/cmd (X)
  ⦁ Now, only allies will hear the full channel audio of reviving KAY/O, while downed
  ⦁ Enemies will only hear a short audio cue when the revive has started, matching a similar gameplay pattern to playing around ultimate orbs or tapping the bomb

GAMEPLAY SYSTEMS

• New Smurf Detection functionality (North America) – This addition to our smurf detection systems is designed to make sure that new players (that means all new accounts) are matched up with players of the correct skill level, much faster than before. We’re testing this change in North America first, to make sure everything is working correctly before a global rollout. Testing begins the week of July 11th, 2022
• Improved collision behavior when walking next to or behind another player. This should heavily reduce the amount of jitteriness experienced when moving close to your allies (rushing a site as a group or moving out of spawn should feel better!).

GAME MODES

• Twin Hunters in Spike Rush will now damage destructible walls

PERFORMANCE UPDATES

• Fixed an issue where having the Raw Input Buffer setting enabled caused scrolling in chat or friends list to go directly to the top or bottom

BUGS

Performance

• Fixed an issue where having the Raw Input Buffer setting enabled caused scrolling in chat or friends list to go directly to the top or bottom

Yoru

• Fixed a bug with Dimensional Drift where the invulnerability kicked in later than intended after it was cast.

Sova

• Fixed issue with Sova’s Shock Bolt not damaging enemy traps and other game objects (other than players)

Fade

• Fixed issue where Fade’s Haunt would sometimes reveal enemies that were on the other side of a thin wall

Valorant patch notes 5.0

Valorant patch notes 5.0 is, unsurprisingly, filled with changes – though nothing for agents this time around. As the new Valorant Pearl map slides into the rotation, we will be saying a fond farewell to Split for the time being. Pearl’s not the only addition, either, with a new rank – Ascendant – being implemented in Competitive.

Map updates

Pearl

• NEW MAP: Pearl goes live!
• Pearl-only queue
• This queue is a standard, Unrated mode that will give players a chance to practice the new map before they see it in Competitive play.
• Pearl-only queue will be available for 2 weeks, then after that Pearl will enter Competitive.

Split

• We are temporarily removing Split from the map pool in Unrated and Competitive queues.
• There are reasons! You can read more about our decision in our map pool update article.

Competitive updates

NEW RANK: Ascendant

• Added an additional rank above Diamond, below Immortal, called “Ascendant.”
• We believe our lower ranks have a few too many of you, especially Bronze and Silver. When we were looking at rank distribution, we realized that if we were to move some of you up and out of those lower ranks, it would overpopulate Platinum and Diamond. So by adding a new rank we can better distribute you across ranks, keep the prestige of high ranks, while helping better define the skill level of each rank.
• Moved the rank MMR targets that determine rank down, due to the addition of the new Ascendant rank, for all ranks below Ascendant. Moved the ranked target for Immortal 1/2/3 and Radiant up.
• These are the cut-offs that say “You should be X MMR to reach this rank”. MMR targets determine your RR gains and help push your rank to match your MMR.
• This means players will go up in rank, if they are below Ascendant.
• To align with our expectations of what it means to be in the highest ranks of VALORANT, Immortal+ players will find it harder to climb back to their previous episode rank. This means Immortal will also have a smaller leaderboard population in all regions.
• Due to the seasonal reset, you may not see a rank increase at the start of the Episode without putting in some work; but the reset will be “less harsh” compared to the last Episode reset. So because we are pushing the player base upwards to fill Ascendant, the reset will not hit you as hard.
• Next time we reset ranks it will probably push you down more than this Episode’s reset. Please remember that the “less harsh” reset is unique to this Episode because of the introduction of Ascendant.
• Grouping restrictions for Ascendant are 3 ranks above or below the Ascendant ranked player
• This fits in with our Platinum+ rule set for grouping.
• The highest placement allowed has increased to Ascendant 1 (previously Diamond 1)
• Five stacking 25% RR penalty now starts at Immortal 1 (previously Diamond 3)
• Solo/Duo/5-stack restriction now starts at Immortal 1 (previously Diamond 3)
• Remember, Diamond 3 and above could previously only solo, duo, and 5-stack. This restriction now begins at Immortal 1.
• By adding another rank we were able to push the Five Stack penalty and Solo/Duo restrictions into Immortal. This makes it more straight forward, Immortal is where the leaderboard starts and because of this we try to hold players more accountable for their standings.
• Due to a naming clash with the new rank, we’ve renamed Sage’s tier 8 Agent Contract unlock—the new Sage title is “Dauntless”
• Renaming this title was not something we chose lightly, but after talking about the title we felt like it was a chance to give the title more meaning to Sage and her personality/theme.

Bugs

Maps

• Fixed a bug on Haven that was preventing players from using their spray on a wall in A Garden

Agents

• Fixed a bug where Jett could equip a weapon during Tailwind
• Fixed a bug where Agents revealed by Sova’s Recon Bolt or
• Fade’s Haunt would sometimes briefly appear in an incorrect location on the minimap
• Fixed a bug where the scope visual effect would sometimes disappear when aiming with Chamber’s Tour De Force

Game Systems

• Fixed a bug where using an Ultimate point orb or defusing the Spike at maximum range could cause channelling and progress bar animations to flicker
• Fixed a bug where the use channelling progression bar does not update if the player disconnects and reconnects during the match
• Fixed a bug where some weapon equips could play the wrong equip speed animation, which could visually misrepresent when you were able to fire. Some situations impacted by this bug were:
• Cypher exiting Spycam
• Capturing Ultimate point Orbs
• Cancelling and completing Spike plant
• Fixed a bug where the use channelling progression bar does not update if the player disconnects and reconnects during the match
• Fixed a bug where some weapon equips could play the wrong equip speed animation, which could visually misrepresent when you were able to fire. Some situations impacted by this bug were:
• Cypher exiting Spycam
• Capturing Ultimate point Orbs
• Cancelling and completing Spike plant