A new VALORANT patch is expected to hit the live servers later today. Patch 4.08 will introduce Fade, a new agent born in Turkey, to the game and will bring changes to other agents such as Jett, Neon, and Sova.
Fade is an initiator that has the potential to be played in professional matches as she has a utility kit that can gather info on the opponents and incapacitate a bombsite full of enemies during executes or retakes. Her ultimate looks promising as well because she throws a wave of energies that goes through walls and that energy creates a trail to the opponents, deafening and hitting them with decay damage that lasts 12 seconds.
Moving on to Jett, who has been one of the most popular agents since the game launched, the changes are massive. She will not be able to instantly dash after pressing “E”, the Tailwind skill, as the devs implemented a .75 second delay. This skill was considered overpowered by casuals and professional players and the best Jett players in the world certainly abused it.
Sova has also been nerfed. The duration and health of its Owl Drone have been significantly reduced and the Dart Reveal’s number of pings has been reduced, while the initial delay before the first ping reveals has been increased. Sova’s Shock Dart also deals less damage now. As for Neon, the devs buffed the battery energy received after killing an enemy and buffed her High Gear mobility ability.
Here are the full notes for VALORANT Patch 4.08.
Agent updates
Fade
She’ll arrive at the game later today.
Jett
The team loves what Jett has continually brought to the fight, but as the game has evolved, some of her impacts have pushed beyond what we think is healthy for the tactical promise of VALORANT. Our update to Tailwind aims to address these concerns while maintaining the aggressive site takes and awe-inspiring highlight plays Jett should bring to the roster. Check out our full article on the Jett update here for a complete breakdown of our approach and the philosophies that drove this update. We expect this change to have ripple effects on the Agents around Jett and the ecosystem overall, so we’ll keep a close eye not only on Jett, but any cascading impacts on the entire roster.
- Tailwind
- Upon pressing E, Jett consumes her Tailwind charge and after a .75 second delay, activates a 12-second window where she’s able to dash on next key press.
- Jett’s Tailwind charge can still be regained with 2 kills.
- To keep parity with the changes to Jett dash, the functionality for Dash during Knife rounds in Escalation will be adjusted.
Neon
We’ve been keeping an eye on Neon and wanted to make some quality of life changes to help remove some friction when playing as, or with, Neon.
- General
- Battery energy received upon killing an enemy increased 25 percent>>>100 percent.
- High Gear
- We’ve noticed Neon has faced some friction when using movement to lead into combat, specifically failed inputs due to the velocity restriction. We hope these changes help with making her slide a lot more natural when engaging in fights.
- Slide cannot be cast during equip delay.
- Velocity restriction removed.
- Neon can now slide sideways and forward, and only requires that she is moving.
- Energy drain increased 6.7/s>>>10/s.
- Fast Lane
- Wall damage removed.
- This change is intended to push Fast Lane into a more attractive option for Neon, or for an ally by preventing the disruptive portion of doing incidental damage and by adding a bit of safety moving forward.
Sova
At high-level ranked or pro play, Sova’s been a staple for quite some time. While his power has not been felt as viscerally as Jett’s, his impact in coordinated settings is nearly unmatched. We wanted to focus on addressing the amount of space that the Owl Drone practically guaranteed, and introduce additional counter play opportunities for opponents. A reduced Drone duration means Sova has to incur more risk in his positioning to clear deeper angles, and the adjustments to ping reveal (below) give opponents more opportunity to mix up their repositioning without feeling forced to completely exit the area. Shock Dart has also taken a hit as we continue to sharpen damage outputs on non-ultimate abilities, so that they kill less frequently.
- Owl Drone
- Duration reduced 10s >>> 7s.
- Health reduced 125 >>> 100.
- Dart reveal
- Number of reveal pings reduced 3 >>> 2.
- Initial delay before first ping reveals increased 1.2s >>> 1.6s*.
- *Delay between the first and second ping remains 1.2s.
- Quality of Life
- Changed crosshair color to green to better stand out against the white HUD.
- Removed delay on [Target Hit] confirmation text.
- [Target Hit] confirmation text now remains on the player HUD when transitioning out of Owl Drone.
- [Target Hit] confirmation text now remains on screen for 2s, previously 1s.
- Adjusted audio on drone dart hits for both Sova, and the player hit, to make confirmations more noticeable.
- Fixed a bug with Owl Drone, where the Dart Cooldown UI element would not properly update after tagging an opponent.
- Shock Dart
- Max Damage decreased 90 >>> 75.
- Radial damage has been scaled in accordance with new max damage.
Agent ability ammo
Jett’s Bladestorm, Raze’s Showstopper, and Sova’s Hunter’s Fury will now show how much ammo they have left when equipped.
Competitive Updates
5-stack queues
- Reduced Rank Rating gain/loss penalty for different 5-stack configurations.
- If EVERYONE in your party is Iron–Diamond 2:
- No RR penalty if within normal grouping.
- 25 percent RR penalty for all players if any player falls outside of normal grouping.
- If ANYONE in your party is Diamond 3–Immortal 3 (but no one in your party is Radiant):
- 25 percent RR penalty for all players.
- If ANYONE in your party is Radiant:
- 75 percent RR penalty for all players.
- Tuned matchmaking to reduce wait time for 5-stacks.
- You can read the basics on how Rank Rating penalties work for 5-stacks in our previous patch notes.
Bugs
Agents
- Fixed a bug where Jett could find herself unable to use abilities or weapons when using Tailwind immediately after depleting her Bladestorm daggers.
- Fixed a bug where Yoru could teleport out of bounds when using Gatecrash.
- Fixed various exploits allowing Yoru to use weapons before fully decloaking at the end of his ultimate.
Performance
- Fixed a bug in the Shooting Range where bots would respawn unarmed.
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