A new VALORANT patch is set to hit the live servers today, implementing flash changes to Initiators and Duelists, and remodeling Fracture.
The devs have reworked both sites of Fracture with quality of life updates and changed Skye, KAY/O, Reyna, and Yoru’s flash abilities. Riot noticed that Duelists with a flash ability like Yoru and Reyna were being outclassed by initiators like Skye and KAY/O when trying to generate kills for themselves, hence the balance changes. The updates should make duelists thrive in this scenario like the agent designers initially intended.
On top of the Fracture rework and the agent changes, Riot has also pushed progression updates and fixed a few agents’ bugs. Here’s everything that has changed in VALORANT with Patch 5.07.
Skye
“Guiding Light’s destructibility didn’t feel like meaningful counterplay, instead overtly punishing when Skye tried to throw them at a longer range. By increasing the top-end output and rewarding Skye for bending her birds into the right spots, we intend to foster more teamwork and differentiate her Guiding Light from other flashes in the game—especially when compared to duelists.”
⦁ Guiding Light (E) flashbang scaling paradigm changed.
⦁ The max flash duration of Skye’s Guiding Light now scales from one second to 2.25 seconds over a 0.75 seconds charge up after being cast.
⦁ Guiding Light can no longer be shot and destroyed.
⦁ New VFX, UI, and sounds added to communicate new gameplay intent.
⦁ Unequip Delay out of Guiding Light increased 0.75 seconds > 0.85 seconds.
KAY/O
“KAY/O’s underhanded FLASH/DRIVE (right-click) has been overperforming relative to other “pop” flashes (example, Phoenix’s flash or Yoru’s flash). And we feel as though labbed out left-click overhand throws aren’t generating a powerful enough reward for the mastery required to get them to pop in the right place. This tuning weakens the right-click when compared to pop flashes from duelists, with the belief that KAY/O should pay a cost for his versatility.”
⦁ FLASH/DRIVE (Q):
⦁ Underhand (right-click) flashbang max duration decreased from two seconds > 1.25 seconds.
⦁ Overhand (left-click) flashbang max duration increased from two seconds > 2.25 seconds.
⦁ Unequip Delay out of both flashes increased from 0.6 seconds > 0.85 seconds.
Reyna
“Reyna’s flash underperforms as a selfish entry-tool, especially at higher skill levels. This set of changes is intended to give Reyna more agency around how she decides to peek after casting Leer. Also, it should sharpen Leer as a powerful angle-breaking tool against Operators on maps with longer sightlines. We’ve also felt like individual casts of the eye remain in the world for too long when the eye isn’t destroyed. If Reyna is now able to make more selfish plays off her Leer, we then wanted to reduce some of the value it has when thrown for teammates.”
⦁ Leer (C):
⦁ Wind-up of nearsight effect decreased from 0.6 seconds > 0.4 seconds.
⦁ Range Restriction on Leer removed.
⦁ Nearsight unequip delay decreased from 0.7 seconds > 0.5 seconds.
⦁ Duration decreased from 2.6 seconds > 2.0 seconds.
Yoru
“Yoru is a tricky agent, as we need to balance him around his capability to throw flashes during his ultimate. We opted to go with a simple duration increase for Blindside as we feel maintaining the turning counterplay around his flash and clone is important to avoid excessively frustrating situations.”
⦁ Blindside (Q) duration increased from 1.5 seconds > 1.75 seconds.
⦁ Flash Visual Updates:
⦁ 3P visuals for flashed enemies and allies now render behind the player’s head the moment that the flash starts to fade. This should give a clearer indication if players are full flashed or if the flash has started to fade.
⦁ 1P visuals when fully flashed now shrink overtime to give a better indication of when the full flash will end and the flash fading out will begin.
⦁ Increased the window for awarding assists on flashes, nearsights, and concusses from one > three seconds after the debuff starts to fade.
⦁ “We felt the assist window on these debuffs didn’t reflect their actual duration of impact, and want to make sure the supportive players are more often recognized and rewarded for setting up situations their teammates capitalize on.”
Map updates
Fracture
“Fracture is receiving quite a few quality-of-life changes alongside some larger updates to Dish/A Drop and A Ropes. Going to go in the order of minor to major changes.”
- Arcade – “Opened a cubby here to make it easier for Attacking side to hold against Defender aggression from both directions.”
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After:
- B Site – “Jump up has been changed to a ramp directly onto the site platform, which should make moving around that space more straightforward.”
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After:
- B Generator – “Space here tightened slightly to make smoking this spot easier. A small corner has also been removed to simplify attempts to re-clear the site.”
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After:
- Defender Spawn – “Removed a small cubby to slightly simplify those retakes.”
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After:
- A Halls – “Improved movement and simplified the space in A Halls by removing a corner.”
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After:
- A Site – “A minor simplification of the space as part of the overall changes to the surrounding areas.”
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After:
- A Dish – “The dish is intact but removed the far path to make moving through this space more direct for both sides. We found trying to watch/control these spaces simultaneously was unnecessarily difficult for all. The team hopes the changes here and on A Drop will encourage everyone to use this route more often.”
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After:
- A Drop – “The drop down is no longer a 50/50 check when entering, which should make it a little more appealing as a way for Attackers to squeeze A site from two sides.”
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After:
- A Rope – “This path has been a little too easy for Attackers to control with a single smoke. The adjustments should give Defenders more options for both the initial hold and retaking A. Watch your step.”
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After:
Progression Updates
⦁ Can now mark Favorites in Collection: These Favorites will persist for your account until you change them and allow you to filter down to the items that represent your style best:
⦁ Weapon skins
⦁ Player Cards
⦁ Sprays
⦁ Gun Buddies
⦁ Account Level Borders
⦁ Added ability to equip a “Random Favorite” for every weapon type:
⦁ Equipping this particular weapon will make it so that in each game you play, you get one of your favorite weapons (along with one of the variants you own) at random each time you enter a match.
⦁ Added the ability to filter your Collection
⦁ Weapon Skins:
⦁ Favorites / Non-Favorites
⦁ Owned / Unowned
⦁ Tiers
⦁ Player Cards, Sprays, Gun Buddies, Level Borders:
⦁ Favorites / Non-Favorites
⦁ Owned / Unowned
Bug fixes
Agents
⦁ Fixed issue where KAY/O’s NULL/CMD disabled Killjoy’s Turret if the turret is hit by a pulse but Killjoy is not.
⦁ Fixed issue where Killjoy’s Turret fires straight forward after firing at an enemy and then losing sight of them.
⦁ Fixed issue where Killjoy’s Turret would fire with no target when coming online if it was disabled while firing at a target.
⦁ Fixed a bug where Phoenix would not automatically re-equip a weapon at the end of Run It Back.
⦁ Fixed Breach’s Rolling Thunder showing dead enemies hit in the combat report.
⦁ Fixed issue where if a player was deafened by multiple sources, when the first deafen ended it removed the deafening effect completely.
