If you loved warming up against hard bots at the Practice Range’s Spike defuse and plant setups before your ranked VALORANT games, Patch 9.02 may disappoint you quite a bit.
Initially pointed out by players in a July 30 Reddit post, the latest update seems to have removed the much-loved Spike defuse and plant practice sites from the Range, with no indication of when or whether they will return. Interestingly, Riot Games replaced the Teleporters that led to those practice sites with the doors from the new Basic Training tutorial. The doors, strangely, do nothing—for now.
For those unaware, Patch 9.02 added the new Basic Tutorial system to VALORANT PC. Returning players can now select one of two scenarios from the lobby’s Practice menu: The Range or Basic Training. New players have to go through the new tutorial and also have the option to play a practice game against AI.
According to our tests, after Patch 9.02, you can only load into the Spike defuse and plant practice scenarios if you choose to replay (or play) the Basic Training tutorial. Of course, replaying the entire introductory tutorial to load into a practice scenario every time doesn’t make sense. This brings us to the question: Why would Riot remove the Spike defuse and plant scenarios from the Practice Range at all?
“As someone who used those as their warm up before playing comp, I am very pissed!” one player wrote in a comment on Reddit, summing up the emotions of many. “I used the defuse warm up to practice counter strafing, since the hard bots were cracked and would one tap you,” another player shared. Not to forget, you could also practice your abilities there, which gave beginners more ways to learn about agents instead of restricting them to just a tutorial.
If seen from Riot’s viewpoint, it could be a move to optimize the Practice Range, probably because most VALORANT players never banked on the Plant and Defuse scenarios for their practice in the first place. However, given how they offered a welcome variation in warmup, many aren’t happy about the update and want to see the deleted practice scenarios return someday.
Considering Riot at least added the doors to fill the Teleporters’ gaps, it certainly looks like the developer could be cooking something up, so I wouldn’t conclude those practice features are gone forever just yet.
