Patch Notes 4.04: Big changes for Controller agents and Icebox

Patch Note 4.04 will change many things in the game, especially the influences of controller agents and teams’ game plans on Icebox.

AGENT UPDATES

Riot Games has improved the system that is used to place abilities at targeted ground locations. Now, it will be easier to find a place for the abilities below:

• Omen’s Shrouded Step
• Viper’s pit
• Chamber’s Trademark and Rendez-vous
• Every Killjoy ability
• Yoru’s Gatecrash
• Sage’s Barrier Orb

Omen

• Dark Cover: Its cooldown has been decreased from 40s to 30s and the ability will cost 150, 50 more than before. Lastly, the projectile speed has been increased from 2800 to 6400.
• Shrouded Step: Cost has been cut 50, from 150 to 100 and the pre teleport delay has been decreased from 1s to 0.7s.
• Paranoia: Players that are adjacent to Omen won’t be affected by the skill.

Brimstone

• Sky Smoke: The smoke’s deploy time is now 1 second instead of 2 and its deploy radius will be 500 more than before, 5500. Smoke height has been increased to match other Controllers.
• Stim Beacon: It applies a %15 speed boost on top of the RapidFire.

Astra

• Stars: Astra will have 4 stars instead of 5 and the cooldown on retrieving a Star is now 25, 11 more than before. Astra can now pick up placed Stars during the Buy Phase to refund their charge immediately. The max distance of Star Placement has been increased to 30000 from 10000, which will allow her to place Stars across the furthest corners of maps.
• Gravity Well: Cooldown increased from 25 to 45 and its size decreased from 525 to 475. It won’t affect anyone fully underneath it.
• Nova Pulse: The cooldown has been increased to 45 from 25 and it won’t affect anyone fully underneath it.
• Nebula: Cooldown increased from 14 to 25, Nebula cooldowns are now sequential instead of simultaneous and its new size is 475, bigger than the latest 410.
• Astral Form: Pings won’t be blocked by level geometry that she can’t see in Astral form. Her targeting ring is reduced to one ring that reflects the now unified size of all of her utility. The targeting ring won’t disappear when aiming at some map locations and the overlay that covers her screen when transitioning in and out of Astral form is faster now. Lastly, Riot fixed an issue: Stars were placed slightly above the location Astra was targeting.

Viper

• Fuel: Fuel drain is %50 more when Toxic Screen and Poison Cloud are both active. Her fuel bar will turn red when she doesn’t have enough fuel to use her abilities.
• Toxic Screen: The cooldown after deactivating has been increased from 6 to 8 and the cooldown timer now starts once her smoke starts dissipating. Deactivation delay has been reduced to 0.8 from 1 and the ability now has yellow lights that indicate when it is on cooldown. When Viper is suppressed, she won’t have a delay disabling the ability and there will be a unique VO line that plays when her smoke is disabled by suppress.
• Poison Cloud: Its cooldown after deactivating has been increased from 6 to 8 and again the cooldown starts once her smoke starts dissipating. The deactivation delay decreased from 1 to 0.8 and the same with Toxic Screen it will have a yellow light to indicate its cooldown. Removed delay and unique VO are also coming to Poison Cloud.
• Snake Bite: Duration decreased to 5.5 from 6.5.

Yoru

• Fakeout: Charges reduced from 2 to and the decoy hp will be 150. Decoy is now a running version of Yoru and it will only be sent running forward. You will need to right-click to place a stationary marker for the decoy and reactivate it to create the running decoy. The decoy will turn to the enemy once it gets damaged and explode after a short delay. Enemies within the cone will be flashed.
• Gatecrash: Charges increased from 1 to 2 and the cost is now 200 credits. You will be able to use the ability again once you get two kills and it can be faked by pressing F. Teleport beacon’s time needed decreases from 1.5 to 0.5s. Its speed is now 800 and the teleport beacon’s in-game audio while traveling is reduced from 22.5m to 12.5m. If you want to fake teleport, the beacon will create a decal on the floor for 30 seconds to indicate the location of the fake teleport.
• Dimensional Drift: Its duration increased from 8 to 10s. Yoru won’t be revealed to enemies and the unequip delay time increased from 0.6 to 1.2s. He is now able to cast all utility out of his ultimate and his footsteps will be heard within 15m of his location. Lastly, cast delay added upon casting Dimensional Drift, preventing the invulnerability frame on cast.

MAP UPDATES

• Ascent: B orb can now be taken from the lower box instead of the higher one.

• The door that is near the attackers’ side on the B site has been moved to the first cubby. This will change the B Long tactics both on attacking and defending.

• The green lane on B Long has been widened to make the space more comfortable.

• The pocket in front of the container has been extended for better angles toward B Site and Snowman.

• Yellow container’s placement has been changed as seen below and a couple of crates have been added adjacent to it.

• The lower container will no longer be with us as seen below. The upper container’s doorway is now wider and its position has been adjusted.

• B site has been narrowed, this will allow controllers to comfortably use their utility.

• The building near the defenders’ spawn has been closed off.

• Plant zone on B site adjusted

• The back wall in Kitchen adjusted.

• Crates have been added to block the vision between the under-tube and B site.

• Boiler ramp geo has been narrowed and now smokes will fully cover the area.

• Cover on back A site adjusted

• Head peak on attacker side pipes removed.

• The doorway angle where you could see your opponent's feet is now closed.

COMPETITIVE UPDATES

The new “deterministic map system” for LATAM has been announced. According to Riot: “The goal of this system is to increase the variety of maps that players will encounter”. If everything goes smoothly, the system will be available for every region in the upcoming days/weeks.

Deterministic Map System

• It will follow 3 rules when picking a map.
• It will look at players’ last 5 maps for the mode they want to play.
• It will remove maps that a player has played twice in the past 5 games.
• It will pick the least played map.

BUGS

Agents

• Fixed issue where enemies wouldn’t trigger Cypher’s Trapwire in rare situations.
• Fixed the boom not showing up for Astra if planted while in Astral Form
• Fixed a bug where Viper’s Toxic Screen audio could play in the next round if it is activated right on round end
• Fixed Yoru’s Gatecrash icon showing up as a big white circle on Brimstone’s targeting map
• Fixed a bug where Chamber’s teleport would sometimes fail when cast immediately after firing the last bullet of Headhunter
• Fixed a bug where Chamber’s Tour de Force would inconsistently spawn slow zones when firing at KAY/O during NULL/CMD.

Social

• Fixed an issue with AFKs in Escalation game mode.

Esports Features

• Fixed a bug where the timer would overlap itself while viewing the mega map as an observer.

Game Systems

• Fixed an issue where you could tap the scroll wheel to activate the defuse audio without actually initiating a defuse.

All images credited to PlayValorant.com