VALORANT Patch Notes 8.01

We’re out here reopening halls and updating Agent abilities.
Game Updates
Jo-Ellen “Riot JoEllen” Aragon

Hey, friends! Jo-Ellen here.

January 2024 is almost over, but we’ve still got one more patch before we say goodbye to the first month of the new year. Below, you’ll see some Agent updates as well as one update to Breeze. Keep reading and I’ll see you all back in A Hall.

One last note: we’re always listening to your feedback so please let us know what you think.

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MAP UPDATES

BREEZE

  • A Hall reopened
    • We’re still observing and gathering feedback on the most recent Breeze changes. We’ve been satisfied with the simplifications to A Main, Mid and B Site. However, we’ve noticed that attacking can feel overly restrictive due to the changes in addition to the closure of A Hall. As a result, we’re reopening A Hall to give attackers more options while retaining the rest of the changes to the map.

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AGENT UPDATES

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SKYE

In the latter half of 2023, Skye became an increasingly dominant force within the Initiator role and began to clearly overshadow her peers in pick rate both in solo queue and coordinated play. Her core ability, Guiding Light (E), has been a main factor in her prominence, as it offers strong combat advantage, valuable recon and provided Skye with the only recharging flash amongst the Initiators. While we like Skye’s position having a mix of flash and recon and the diversity that can be brought to team comps, she’s lacked clear downsides to balance out this broad power.

These changes are centered around pushing Skye to be more intentional with Guiding Light (E). They should create a clearer opportunity cost when taking Skye in comps while also maintaining her uniquely powerful combination of combat advantage and recon within the Initiator role. We hope this update will land Skye in a spot where she is still viable in solo queue and coordinated play, but give room for other flash Agents to thrive. We'll be sure to keep a close eye to see if further changes are needed.

  • Removing the recharge on Guiding Light (E) sharpens the decision point of when to commit one throughout the round and balances the power of it providing both combat advantage and recon as a signature. This should create clear tradeoffs with use cases like early round info gathering and push Skye to be more deliberate while maintaining her unique optionality.
  • Skye’s flash activating at the end of the duration pushes her to be more intentional when throwing fake flashes while also making it easier for Skye to fly Guiding Light (E) to its max distance and still get its output.
  • Guiding Light (E)
    • Guiding Light no longer regenerates charges during a round.
    • Guiding Light now automatically activates the flash at the end of its lifetime.

In the 6.07 patch, we removed the yellow warning indicators that appeared for people who were being chased by a close Seeker (X). We’re adding the indicators back in to make interactions with Seekers (X) more clear in chaotic engagements.

  • Seekers (X)
    • When a Seeker gets close to its target, the target player will now get a yellow directional warning indicator.

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ISO

We’re updating Iso to push the agency and combat advantage that you get from Double Tap (E).

  • The increase to energy orb duration provides a slightly larger time window to deal with threats around you and still get your shield.
  • Increasing the buff and shield duration should give you slightly more time to find the right engagements to take.
  • Reduction in the visual width of the Double Tap (E) shield should increase the combat advantage you have when entering space by providing enemies less telegraph that you are swinging around the corner.
  • Double Tap (E)
    • Shootable orb duration increased 2 >>> 3 seconds 
    • Initial buff and shield duration increased 15 >>> 20
    • Shield width reduced 120 >>> 100

We’ve reduced the cost of Contingency to better reflect the value we see it generating in game.

  • Contingency (C)
    • Cost reduced 250 >>> 200

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RAZE

With her Blast Pack (Q), Raze is often able to traverse a vast amount of space and suddenly become a threat to enemies. This audio update is meant to make it clearer when Raze is potentially Blast Packing (Q) into your area, especially when a lot of other action is going on at the same time.

  • Blast Pack (Q)
    • Audio for Raze traveling through the air with Blast Pack is now louder when she is traveling towards you

GAMEPLAY SYSTEMS UPDATES

Projectile Jump Throw Normalization

We have implemented a feature to make jump throw lineup behavior more consistently reproducible. If you press the throw projectile input within 100 ms of jump start, the projectile will consistently have the same amount of velocity imparted from the thrower and as a result land consistently in the same location.

Most existing jump throw lineups should still behave as they have in the past while being more consistent in output. In some cases, some minor adjustments may need to be made.

HRTF

HRTF will now be enabled if ticked and using Stereo speaker configuration.

PERFORMANCE UPDATES

  • Improved boot and match load times by optimizing file IO performance.

PLAYER BEHAVIOR UPDATES

BUG FIXES

AGENTS

  • Gekko
    • Fixed a bug where occasionally Thrash's (X) explosion was blocked from affecting enemies due to corners of geometry.
  • Iso
    • After eliminating practice bots in the Range, Iso’s energy orbs will now spawn. They will still not spawn in Shooting Tests.
  • Reyna
    • After eliminating practice bots in the Range, Reyna’s Soul Orbs will now spawn. They will still not spawn in Shooting Tests.

GAMEPLAY SYSTEMS

  • Fixed an issue when transitioning from inspect to scope using the Outlaw.
  • Fixed bullet tracers with Chamber’s Tour De Force (X) and the Operator when penetrating through corners.
  • Fixed a minimap visual issue where when you first load into a match, it showed a similar VFX to Omen’s From The Shadows (X).
  • Fixed an issue where the Spike’s white circle indicator on the minimap did not appear when Spike was dropped on the edge of someone’s minimap.

MAPS

  • Breeze
    • Fixed a bug where the A Hall Door was starting in the open position.
  • Lotus
    • Fixed a bug where you could stand on top of the crumbled pillar on C Site.
  • Icebox
    • Fixed a bug where you could stand on the container in B Green.
  • Split
    • Fixed a bug where you could stand on a vent in B Garage.

MODES

  • Team Deathmatch
    • Fixed a bug where, if the Outlaw was picked up from a weapon spawner, it had no reserve ammunition.

PREMIER

  • Fixed a bug that was causing Premier Standings to not load your zone/division the first time you click into it.
  • Fixed a bug that was causing teams to not appear on the Standings tab right after their Season Match.