The most recent update, which took place today, for Riot Games’s FPS Valorant includes several changes to the characters, guns, and maps. Riot also released an article explaining the patch notes, which we will summarize below.
Learning to fire your weapon with accuracy can be difficult in Valorant, especially if the player hasn’t played a game like CS:GO. To help with this, Riot has reduced the “Recovery times” of all rifles (Vandal, Phantom, Bulldog, and Guardian). This means you can shoot longer without feeling the effects of recoil. Meanwhile, the machine guns (Ares and Odin) had overall accuracy increased, especially for Ares. In my experience, machine guns were being largely ignored. It going to be interesting to see if the changes are enough to make them mainstream.
Changes to agents—Sage, Cypher, Omen, Viper, Brimstone, and Phoenix—are included in the patch, as well. The most significant are that Sage’s Slow Orb had its duration and slowing power reduced, Cypher’s cage no longer slows enemies, Omen’s Dark Cover duration, speed, and cooldown got increased, and finally, Viper’s Snake Bite had its radius increased. The prices of many character’s abilities were also tweaked to account for how powerful they are.
One change that affects all players is the max amount of credits. Riot lowered it from 12,000 to 9,000. The article explains:
We’re noticing that players/teams who manage to bank a high amount of credits are maintaining a rich economic state for too long, and it becomes a monumental challenge for the opposing team to dethrone their economy.
The map with the most changes is Split. The developers felt that it was too easy to defend the two points, so they made adjustments like moving barriers and adding walls to allow attackers more cover. But with every map, they fixed exploits that Cypher had that allowed him to place a Spy Camera where no one could destroy it.
One of the more humorous updates is that Cheaters will stop being called “Hackers”. Some in the community believe calling cheaters “hackers” gives them too much credit, and it appears Riot agrees.
Hopefully, these changes will make Valorant even more enjoyable to its fanbase. If you want to learn more about Valorant’s characters, check out our Valorant character and abilities guide.
