VALORANT Patch 12.05

Overview

We’ve got a bunch of pretty sweet updates to share today with the start of Act 2, including welcoming VALORANT’s newest Agent from Croatia, Miks!

Also, the Live Balance team wanted to drop a bit of extra context around some of the changes, so be sure to read the italicized sections for more info from the Dev team! Here’s what’s changing:

• Assist Banners have been added to the HUD to celebrate when you get an assist.
• Your Killfeed has also been updated to more clearly illustrate assists and assisting abilities.
• Status Effect Tags on the HUD have been updated for clarity.
• Bok, Miks ! Say hello VALORANT’s newest Controller!
• Ally targeting UX/UI has been updated on Sage to match Miks’s targeting experience.
• Sage also got a model update to reflect her current state in VALORANT’s story.
• Yoru, Clove, and Skye have all received balance updates. Breach got new voice lines.
• The Competitive Map Pool has been updated, and Lotus received some changes to A-site.
• Knockout is the new Limited Time Mode. AROS and Skirmish: 2v2 are leaving the queue.

GENERAL UPDATES

For 12.05, we’ll be putting our focus on supporting coordinated teamplay and increasing pick diversity across the board. While we do think individual skill really shines when it comes to your gunplay and execution, we still think strategy is best formed as a team and using Agents to work together.

So the Agent updates below are intended to take a little bit of power away from a couple Agents who are a bit too selfish and strong on their own (like Clove and Yoru). Plus, we’re adding Miks to the roster, who’s basically the ultimate wingman for his team. Well, aside from Wingman of course.

AGENT UPDATES

Straight from Croatia, Miks takes the stage channeling pure sound energy. With his infectious passion and sonic powers, he rallies his squad to move as one as they set the tempo on the battlefield together. Our newest Controller will start rolling out to all regions at 10:00AM PST on 3/18. M-pulse Waveform Bassquake You can also learn more about Miks on his Agent page, as well as his gameplay trailer and Dev Diary on our YouTube channel. Sage Crystal Model Update With the change to initiator utility cooldowns at the end of last year, we started reevaluating the removal of Guiding’s Light recharge. At 45s, there was little downside to using this ability right at round start for soft scouting - and we wanted her to be more intentional and deliberate in utility usage. At 60s, this tradeoff became much sharper. Yoru is crowding out the viability of flash Initiators and sometimes even Sentinels, especially in higher ranks and Pro play. He has the strongest map-wide rotation ability on the roster, can take forward space extremely well, and has one of the strongest general use flashes in the game. In general, we think Yoru is too strong and is starting to bleed into other roles at the cost of comp diversity. So we’re adjusting his strongest abilities, Gatecrash and Blindside, so that Yoru has to make more meaningful tradeoffs when he decides to use them. Blindside Clove has been an ever-present pick in ranked since launch and also has much higher winrate than other agents. Our hope is that with some adjustments of their power and the addition of Miks that there will be more options in the Controller space.

• Miks
• M-pulse
• Waveform
• Bassquake
• You can also learn more about Miks on his Agent page, as well as his gameplay trailer and Dev Diary on our YouTube channel.
• Sage
• Crystal Model Update
• Skye
• Yoru
• Blindside
• Clove
• Meddle
• Breach

GAMEPLAY SYSTEMS UPDATES

• Assist Banners
• Killfeed Updates
• Status Effect Tags
• Observers and spectators can now see Ability Map Targeters like Clove’s Ruse, Brim’s Sky Smoke, Tejo’s Guided Salvo, etc. Ability Map Targeters will also show up in Replays.

MAP UPDATES

• Map Pool Updates
• ABYSS and CORRODE are OUT of Competitive and Deathmatch queues.
• Lotus
• Jump up to Vines moved to help attackers get out of Lobby and avoid utility dump. BEFORE AFTER
• Wall outside of Tree room has been reinforced to remove wall penetration. BEFORE AFTER
• Extra room added outside of A-site stairs to help hold A-site and let defenders play further back from rubble BEFORE AFTER
• A-site plant zone has changed so you can no longer plant for breakable/link BEFORE AFTER

MODES UPDATES

All Random One Site and Skirmish: 2v2 are heading out. Thanks for playing!

• New Limited Time Mode
• Resurrection delay scales with round length, from near-instant early in the round to several seconds later on
• Team Territories
• Capture orbs to shift the line toward the enemy, expanding your territory and compressing theirs
• Crossing into enemy territory applies a debuff, forcing the pushing team to coordinate their timing
• Crossing into enemy territory also obfuscates your minimap, reducing your ability to track enemy positions while in their territory
• Loadouts
• Round Structure
• Rounds last 3 minutes
• Eliminate all enemies to win the round
• First team to 4 rounds wins the match
• Agents & Abilities
• Earn your ultimate with kills or orb captures
• Ultimate charge resets on death and at the start of each round
• Match Length
• Leaving Limited Time Modes

BUG FIXES

• Agents
• Fixed a bug where Veto’s Interceptor would detect a stealthed Cypher Spycam .
• Fixed a bug where Harbor’s relic was not glowing when equipping Storm Surge in Left Handed Mode.
• Fixed a bug where picking up a dead player’s weapon would cause you to auto-equip it when they were resurrected.
• Fixed a bug where Brimstone’s Sky Smoke equip pose was displaying unintended VFX when viewed far away.
• Fixed a bug where Deadlock’s Barrier Mesh could be used to float into the air by completely blocking the ziplines at Attacker spawn on Fracture
• General
• Fixed an issue where a friend’s most recent match was not always updating in the Career view.
• Fixed an issue where the progression bar could overlap with the top tabs in the EOG Progression tab.
• Fixed an issue where the focus highlight could be delayed on the EOG Timeline screen.

PREMIER UPDATES

• Welcome to Stage V26A2! Matches start on March 18.
• Teams with a Premier Score of at least 500 qualify for Playoffs on April 26.
• Your awards hub will temporarily display that you haven't unlocked any rewards. This will be fixed in patch 12.06.

COMPETITIVE UPDATES

• We're adjusting the Ranked Rating thresholds to hit Immortal 2, 3 and Radiant to bring parity to leaderboard requirements across all of our regions.
• We made a QoL update to the new Rank summary screen that we implemented in patch 12.04.

BUG FIXES

• Battlepass