Today, Riot Games launched an exciting new update for its tactical shooter VALORANT. Episode 3 Act II is now live alongside Patch 3.05, with battlepass, SPECTRUM Zedd skinline, and new map Fracture.
Act II Battlepass
Price
- 1,000 VP
Key Items
- Free
- Artisan Ghost Weapon Skin w/ Variants
- Time’s Up Gun Buddy
- Artisan Gun Buddy
- Nice Try! Spray
- Versus // Phoenix + Phoenix Card
Paid
- Artisan Foil (melee) w/ Variants
- Artisan Phantom
- Nitro Operator
- Nitro Vandal
- Varnish Sheriff
- Follow Me Gun Buddy
- Does Not Compute Spray
- Unstoppable // Reyna Card
AGENT UPDATES
Brimstone, Sova, and Breach are all receiving consistent changes to ability damage. They want to reward those who are creative with the ability sandbox, using your tools to solve the obstacles other Agents are creating. To ensure this, physical objects across VALORANT need to interact in a reliable and consistent manner, so you can properly plan and execute without knowing ability-specific interactions.
BREACH
Aftershock (C)
Now deals damage to the following:
- Killjoy Alarm Bot
- Killjoy Nanoswarm
- Killjoy Lockdown
- Cypher Tripwire
- Reyna Leer
- Sage Barrier Orb
- Sova Recon Bolt
- KAY/O Zero/Point
BRIMSTONE
Orbital Strike (X)
Now deals damage to the following:
- Killjoy Nanoswarm
- Cypher Trapwire
- Sage Barrier Orb
- Sova Recon Bolt
- KAY/O Zero/Point
SOVA
Hunter’s Fury (X)
Now deals damage to the following:
- Killjoy Nanoswarm
- Cypher Trapwire
- Sage Barrier Orb
- Sova Recon Bolt
- KAY/O Zero/Point
KILLJOY
Killjoy’s Turret is a versatile ability that provides information, chip damage, and a powerful slow. While manageable during mid to later rounds, the Turret can be especially oppressive on pistol rounds down longer sightlines, where the tagging intensity combined with weapon spread makes it challenging to press forward. These changes aim to slightly tone down the Turret’s ability to impede rushes and give opponents more counterplay options.
Turret (E)
- Bullet tagging reduced 72.5% slow >>> 29.5% slow
RAZE
The Boom Bots’ ability to clear space, spot, and track opponents, as well as one-shot enemies with Light Shields, left you with limited options on how to counterplay—especially during low economy rounds. So, they are trading off reduced damage output for an ability cost reduction in order to introduce more Boom Bot counterplay options. This should also increase the frequency that Raze mains can use Boom Bot to create space.
Boom Bot (C)
- Max damage reduced 125 >>> 80
- Min damage reduced 50 >>> 30
- Cost reduced 400 >>> 300
MAP UPDATES
NEW MAP: Fracture is live!
- See below for more info on the Fracture map rotation
COMPETITIVE UPDATES
- Immortal 1/2/3 rank tiers are back!
- The Leaderboard will update to distinguish between those of you in each
Immortal tier.
- The Leaderboard will update to distinguish between those of you in each
- Updated Ranked grouping restrictions to accommodate the return of Immortal 1/2/3:
- Diamond 1 → Immortal 1
- Diamond 2 → Immortal 2
- Diamond 3 → Immortal 3
- Adjusted Competitive ranked distribution as detailed in a previous article
- Fracture only queue!
- This queue is a standard, Unrated mode that will give players a chance to practice
the new map before they see it in Competitive play. - Fracture-only queue will be available for 2 weeks, afterward, Fracture will enter
other modes, including Competitive.
- This queue is a standard, Unrated mode that will give players a chance to practice
PROGRESSION UPDATES
Premium Battlepass Bonus XP
- Upgrading to the Premium Battlepass will grant a 3% XP boost toward Battlepass tier progression for all matchmade games until the end of Act II
- We believe the Battlepass experience is at its best when you’re able to earn hype rewards as you unlock tiers, hitting major milestones, and feeling good about what you’ve earned.
- This is not retroactive, so upgrading early will give you access to the most amount of XP
- The XP boost does not apply toward Daily or Weekly Missions
SOCIAL UPDATES
- Updated AFK detection logic to deter players from farming Battlepass/Account Levels by AFKing in-game modes like Deathmatch and Snowball Fight.
PERFORMANCE UPDATES
- Updated the ping calculation to exclude the server frame time.
- Updated markers used by NVIDIA Reflex
- NVIDIA Reflex is used to reduce and measure rendering latency. This update should allow Reflex to better pace frames by adding present markers as well as fixes on some older markers.
BUGS
Agents
- Fixed a bug where concurrent, overlapping ally and enemy Viper smoke could cause the nearsight and decay to never remove
- Fixed a bug where Omen could become stuck in other objects if they were blocking the return location of From the Shadows
- Omen will no longer equip his weapon slower than intended after casting Dark Cover
- Astra will no longer equip her weapon slower than intended after exiting Astral Form
- Fixed KAY/O’s NULL/cmd waves from destroying the glass on Ascent
Competitive
- Fixed a bug that would cause the Leaderboard to infinitely load when searching for a specific player.
Esports Features
- For Coaches, the Loading screen should now properly display all of the Agent select information (Agent compositions of both teams, etc)
- Fixed an issue where Observer Moderators could not see the pause match timer option if they disconnected and then reconnected during a round