VALORANT Patch 9.10

Overview

Morning, gamers. It’s Ash. Let’s talk about Patch 9.10.

Continuing the spirit of year-end patches, we took a closer look at Controllers, Sentinels, and our boy Phoenix. There are quite a few changes to our gameplay systems and armory, including a rework to how the Combat Report works, adding the new Regen Shield, and tuning adjustments to weapons that will surely change the tides of future pistol rounds. Let’s just say, I’ll be buying Frenzy more often.

• Regen Shield
• Damage Absorption: 25 HP
• Regeneration Pool: 50 HP
• Absorbs 100% of incoming damage taken before damage to health occurs.
• After a brief delay, the shield regenerates by draining any remaining points left in the Regeneration Pool.
• Cypher
• We’re adjusting the Trap Wire to increase the counterplay time window after hitting it, so that there is more of a balance between a well-crafted setup and enemies deliberately trying to break trap wires. Additionally, this will help team compositions who don’t have as much utility to deal with unbreakable traps.
• Cypher’s ultimate has been extra powerful after adding the second reveal and the removal of time restriction on enemy corpses in patch 5.10, so we’re bumping up the cost to put it more in-line with other comparable ultimates.
• Trap Wire :
• Trap wire now has updated minimap icon treatment to better display what the trap wire is connected to.
• Neural Theft :
• Sage
• With the added dash speed reduction on Slowing Orb, well-timed, proactive casts of her Slowing Orb should feel rewarding and make slows a more meaningful debuff against duelists with dashes.
• Healing Orb : Self Heal 30HP >>> 50HP
• Slowing Orb : Now will additionally reduce the dash speed of enemies caught inside the slowing zone by 50% similar to the Concuss changes in the Gameplay Systems Updates later in the patch notes.
• Resurrection : Ult Cost 8 >>> 7
• Deadlock
• Deadlock’s visuals for health on the Annihilation Cocoon and Barrier Mesh have been updated to make their health states more clear.
• Omen
• Dark Cover :
• This should prevent Omen from placing one-way smokes on small ornamental pieces of Geometry, like the fuse boxes in the main of Split B and only allow him to place smokes where players can stand.
• Clove
• Not Dead Yet :
• Phoenix
• Curve Ball :
• 2 kill reset to generate an additional charge
• Hot Hands :
• Cost 200 credits
• Blaze :
• Initial projectile goes through walls, allowing Blaze to function similarly to Harbor’s High Tide.
• Jett
• Sunset
• Combat Report
• This happens most often with utility, such as Breach’s Flashpoint or Skye’s Guiding Light: You use your utility and get killed, but inadvertently also discover you blinded players you never saw or engaged with.
• With these kinds of cases in mind, we’re making a change to the Combat Report:
• In its place, you will see an animated hourglass. Once the round ends, utility usage statistics will become available and persist through pre-round of the next round.
• Concusses
• We also think this strengthens defensive teleports compared to dashes as more flexible repositioning options to compensate for their weakness in entry capabilities.
• Overheal UI Visual Update
• Smoke Visual Update
• The following Agents’ smokes have been affected:
• Brimstone
• Omen
• Clove
• As VALORANT has grown and evolved, you all have learned how to take advantage of different methods of swinging and peeking. Because of the way bullet tagging in VALORANT works (slowing down when shots land on you), shot players are often tagged and then slowed down into the walking state and as a result their weapons become quickly more accurate.
• We want to maintain this intuitive relationship between player movement speed and accuracy, so we’re opting to increase all moving state accuracy penalties (AKA “movement error”) and encourage intentionality in movement when shooting.
• SMGs are unaffected, as we believe that their mobile accuracy is a core part of how the weapons are unique within the arsenal.
• The Ghost having more bullets than the Frenzy didn’t make intuitive sense given their unique strength and weakness profiles amongst the pistols.
• Pistol Inaccuracy Changes
• Classic
• Right Click Burst Jumping Inaccuracy: 2.1 >>> 2.25
• Walking Inaccuracy: 0.84 >>> 1.1
• Run Inaccuracy: 2 >>> 2.3
• Ghost
• Run Inaccuracy: 2 >>> 2.3
• Rifles
• Run Inaccuracy: 5 >> 6
• Machine Guns
• Run Inaccuracy: 6 >>> 6.5
• Pistol Bullet Count Changes
• Ghost
• There have been fewer Phantom purchases over time with new maps being released and higher proficiency in shooting. The Phantom and Vandal’s current differences are intended to keep their identities unique while still being relatively competitive with each other. These changes are intended to make the Phantom feel better to use primarily and reduce frustrating instances of headshots doing less damage than expected at different distances. These breakpoints will remove some instances of 140 headshots and all instances of 124 in 1 headshots (excluding wall penetration).
• Phantom
• 35 damage per bullet (15 - 30m)
• 31 damage per bullet (30m+)
• Now:
• 35 damage per bullet (20m+)
• Killjoy
• Clove
• Fixed an issue where ambient audio elements were not playing pre-round for Pearl, Breeze, and Sunset.
• Added a visual divider on Invite Division standings that shows the cutoff for demotion at the end of Stage E9A3. Teams below the divider after standings finalize will be demoted at the start of the next Stage.
• Added a message that notifies you if your team has qualified for playoffs. The first time you return to the Premier hub after your team has met the qualification requirements, you’ll see the message.
• Added a Contender Eligibility expiration date on the Premier tab of the Career page. Contender Eligibility for 2024 expires at the end of Stage E9A3.
• Reach Immortal 3 or higher peak rank in Competitive.
• Play in a Playoff match in Elite 5.
• Added QR Code Login feature for Riot Client using Riot Mobile App
• No more typing in your Riot ID and password - open Riot Mobile, scan the code, and you're in.
• Learn more about Riot Mobile here .
• Fixed an issue where games in a best of 3 match were all listed as finals in Premier match history. Games are now correctly listed as Game 1, Game 2, or Game 3.
• Fixed an issue where sensitivity is severely reduced when using Jett and Raze ultimate abilities until engaging Focus.