VALORANT Patch Notes 2.09

With VCT Masters Stage 2 on the horizon, it’s important we don’t get too crazy with balance changes and focus on getting VALORANT in a healthy state just in time for Reykjavík.

Still, the Viper instant decay adjustment, Breeze tweaks, and Game System improvements should be welcome updates.

Oh and go play Replication, it’s live, for a limited time!

AGENT UPDATES

VIPER

As we tune the numbers on Toxin, we’re hoping to maximize the depth of gameplay around her smoke while maintaining the overall advantage it provides Viper. Before the last change, enemies tended to disregard and simply push through the smoke, but with instant decay at 50, we’ve seen it swing too far in the other direction—where her possible victims avoid it at all cost. 

With the below change, we’re hoping to find a balance point where opponents feel that—with the proper coordination and utility usage—they can break through her smoke. Likewise, Viper players will now attempt to stay a step ahead and counter the enemy’s plans to capitalize on the opening her debuffs apply.

We believe with this tuning, along with the bullet damage breakpoints of our guns, we are maximizing her decay’s power when both sides are on full buys. But we remove some of the more outsized effects it had at 50, such as its one shot kill combination with the Marshal and its impact in pistol-versus-pistol.

MODE UPDATES

Replication goes live! (please read our complete game mode breakdown)

MAP UPDATES

Breeze

• Blocked vision of the gaps above Mid-Wood Doors and A Metal Doors
• Smoothed player collision in various locations

GAME SYSTEM UPDATES

• Added tactical timeouts to Tournament Mode Custom Games
  • 2 tactical timeouts can be called per game, per team.
  • Tactical timeouts last 60 seconds.
  • Tactical timeouts freeze all player movements for the duration of the timeout.
  • For technical pauses, the standard Pause Match Timer option is still available.
• Improved the visual synchronization of bullet tracers and impact effects for Observers
  • This should fix most cases where it looks like a player is killed before a bullet reaches them in our esports viewing experience.
• Adjusted color of placeable utility on the minimap to match team color for Observers
• Adjusted color of names in player loadout HUD to match team color
• Spaced the End Game Phase and Pause Match Timer options in Custom Games to prevent misclicks
• Improved feel on rope ascenders in high latency situations
• Minor performance optimizations to UI in matches

BUGS

Agents

• Added team colors for placed Agent abilities, for observers
• Fixed issue where Astra’s Nebula was slightly offset once fully formed
• Fixed bullet impacts on Sova’s Owl Drone wings appearing in the wrong locations
• Fixed issues across multiple Agents with incorrect damage icons for abilities showing up in the killfeed
• Fixed issue where Killjoy’s Nanoswarm audio would cut off if it was destroyed right after activation
• Fixed an issue where Skye’s Seekers did not show how many enemies were affected in the combat report
• Omen can no longer drop the Spike or weapons while casting From the Shadows
• Fixed an issue where Killjoy’s Alarmbot would display flashed visual effects while invisible

Game Systems

• Fixed an issue where weapons could be instantly reloaded after spamming orb pick-ups
  • Thanks for raising this issue here!
• Fixed an issue where the sound was lowered by 5dB

Weapons

• Fixed 1P snow impacts that occurred rarely in gunfights

Breeze Map

• Fixed a number of exploits around the map
• Fixed an issue where players could sandwich themselves in between Sage’s wall and the Mechanical Doors on Breeze (or Ascent)

Competitive

• Fixed a bug that was causing a player’s leaderboard rank to not show up on their Act Rank badge
• Fixed a bug that was showing the ranked rating threshold on the leaderboard for previous Acts
  • Only the current Act should show a ranked rating threshold bar from now on.