Valorant’s next patch is about to add its anticipated ranked mode; following yesterday’s developer update from the team at Riot, the full list of patch notes has now been revealed. In addition to Competitive mode, Patch 1.02 is set to make changes to hero abilities, tweak several areas of all maps, boost performance, and add quality of life improvements.
Unfortunately, there’s no release date yet, but we expect Patch 1.02 to launch later this week.
Here’s a summary of what you need to know:
Tagging – the slowing effect you feel when hit by bullets, has been adjusted, in part to up your chances of escape if you’re near cover. We can’t help you much if you’re dancing in the open.
Agent Updates– Viper, Reyna, and Jett have all been buffed slightly, while fixes to some of Cypher’s have been issued.
VIPER
| Toxic Screen now burns through walls, placing emitters at all valid locations (e.g., the ground) over its length |
“Viper Toxic screen is a potentially-strong vision slicing tool, but its access was well…terrible, making it only useful in a few spots on most maps. This should allow Viper to cut up sights, maps, and other unique areas to either fake or help take ground.”
| – Snake Bite, taking damage will make a player fragile for a short time- Fragile is a debuff that increases damage takenNote: the total damage is unchanged (the damage is lowered, but fragile increases it – it all evens out) |
“With Viper applying decay on her smokes, but only providing moderate chip damage on her area-damage skill, pushing through it was hard to punish. With Fragile, Viper’s team should have a big advantage on anyone if they fire on pushing enemies.”
| Poison Orb activation cooldown increased :: .5s >>> 6s |
W”e like Viper’s unique ability to do “one-way” smokes, but some of the locations could create places where it was suicide to push through. An increased window should keep this viable without eliminating the strategy.”
JETT
| Blade Storm now refreshes when used to kill Phoenix during Run It Back. |
REYNA
| Soul Orbs are now spawned when Reyna kills Phoenix during Run It Back. |
CYPHER
| -Fixed an issue where Spycam blocked Spike defusal -Fixed an issue where players could place a Cyber Cage on a Trapwire -Added prevention for Spycam going through teleporter doors on Bind when placed on the frame from the outside |
Smoke tuning – The previous tuning for smokes made it far too punishing for players to push through and take a calculated risk—really encouraging them to be used as a powerful defensive stall tool. Pushing through a smoke will still be risky, just more reasonable.
Bucky weapon update:
- Crouch-walking accuracy: 3.45 >>> 4.1
- Walk accuracy 6.4 >>> 4.4
- Run Accuracy 3.5 >>> 6.4
Competitive mode added; changes from beta:
- Updated rank iconography.
- New name for top rank: Radiant
- Expanded skill disparity range for playing with friends in rank placements
Map updates
“We’re peeling back a bit on the amount of locations that require ability usage, thorough angle checking or teamwork to clear safely.
The intention is that angles that are more difficult to clear are most commonly found in areas meant to reinforce existing territory control. This is to emphasize ability usage and teamwork in order to reliably gain control of these locations. An added benefit is that this encourages ability usage and combat engagements to be spread out across the map which can help prevent the frequency of scenarios where all of the players expend all of their abilities and ultimates in the same place at the same time.
We’ll continue monitoring how the maps are playing and make adjustments as necessary.”
Adjusted numerous locations to allow clearing angles to be a bit more straightforward in the following places:
Haven
- Garage Doors
- Entrance to C Long on Attacker Side
- Cover in A Lobby restructured to open up the space which allows for additional sight lines and traversal options
- C Link
- A Link
- The Entrance to A Sewer and the bottom of A Sewer
Ascent
- Defender spawn entrance
- Attacker side of A Main (Including a self-boost to gain an additional angle to peek A Main as an attacker)
- Garden entrance
Bind
- A Bath entrance
- B Teleporter Exit and B Window entrance
Split
- Defender Spawn
Fixes, Performance Improvements, Quality of Life, Battle Pass
Finally, Riot has issued a number of updates to Valorant’s perfomance, HUD, battle pass, and more. Here’s the full list:
HUD & UI
“We’ve included a set of menu UI changes as part of our ongoing work to clarify the client experience coming out of Closed Beta. This is only a small portion of the improvements, but should push overall usability in a positive direction.Navigation and UI changes are disruptive, so we appreciate your patience adjusting to the new approach and we hope you find the changes to be upgrades after you settle in.
As always, thank you for your continued feedback. We have a long way to go, but we’ll keep hammering on the client UI until it’s a stellar experience for everyone.”