Patch Notes 1.08: Guardian buff, Raze nerf, and improved map rotation

In the newest patch of VALORANT, the developers introduced some improvements to the map rotation, after multiple complaints from the members of the community stating that they often play on one and the same map. On top of that, Raze received yet another nerf, and a new gun got some love - Guardian.

Max “Orcane” Grossman, Lead Agent Designer, commented on the official VALORANT website:

"This patch is quite a bit lighter than the last but we want to take some time to better understand the impact of our changes. We have already seen some shifts to the meta: Sage and Killjoy are seeing a bit less play, Breach and Viper are making a strong showing, and the Vandal is performing more reliably (especially at close ranges).

While these major Agent changes settle, we have turned our eye on a more pressing issue: the Operator. We know that this weapon can feel very oppressive to play against, often leaving players feeling like there is no hope when attacking. We agree that the Operator is likely having an outsized impact on match outcomes and are testing a suite of changes to address this issue.

For how important the Operator is to the game, we want to make sure we are making the right call, so we’re giving these changes a bit more time to soak internally to make sure we get them just right."

AGENT UPDATES

RAZE

Blast Pack

• Initial damage reduced to 15 with a .2 meter inner radius, falling off to 5 minimum damage
• Once the satchel lands, it arms after .5 seconds, increasing it’s max damage to 50
• Shooting the blast pack causes it to detonate, dealing its current damage amount
• Satchel no longer does damage allies

Raze’s Blast Pack has been dishing out damage without giving enemies much counterplay. This change should help make it very clear when Blast Pack’s damage poses a threat while maintaining the utility aspects of the Blast Pack that players have begun to master. The blast pack now does not ‘fizzle’ when shot and will still do damage, meaning it should still be approached carefully if in lethal range.

WEAPON UPDATES

Guardian

• Price reduced from 2500 >>> 2400
• Improved Rate of fire from 4.75 >>> 5.25 RPS (rounds per second)
• Improved weapon recovery from .35 after 3 bullets to .2925 after 3 bullets

We don’t think the Guardian can (or should) compete directly with the Phantom or Vandal but we’d like it to have a place where players can feel good opting into the gun at the new price, is a competitive purchase in certain economic circumstances or map scenarios, and isn’t as punishing when an enemy gets close!

MAP ROTATION CHANGES

It’s happening! The possible pool of maps you can get placed on is now ‘pseudo-random’ rather than pure random. What that means is if you just played, say, Haven, the matchmaker will deprioritize that map in your next game.

• Matchmaking queue for all modes has been updated to measure all your recently played maps, throughout all modes, so that for any given queue you:
  • Have a better chance of playing on a map you haven’t played recently
  • Are much less likely to play on the same map several games in a row

QUALITY OF LIFE

• Observers will now see a timer rather than their screen being obscured when observing a player who is blinded
  • Full screen blind for observers can be turned back on in the options, for all you masochists
• Minimap performance improvements
• The social panel will now pause sorting while you’re hovering or interacting with it
• Updated verbiage in the All Ranks modal in the Career page to be more consistent with Competitive overtime rules

BUG FIXES

• Prime Classic VFX fixed
  • There was a bug in which upgrade Prime levels (2–4) were not playing the correct tracers, sound fx, and other VFX
• Fixed a bug where the End of Game screen would display a “Still processing” message, and then wouldn’t show that match in your Career tab
• Fixed a bug where “High Skill Disparity” would display in Custom Game Lobbies