VALORANT Patch Notes 5.03

Jeff Landa

8/9/2022

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 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