VALORANT 10.04 patch notes: Huge Clove nerfs, agent reworks, Ascent changes, and more

It’s time to welcome a new Act in VALORANT’s V25 season with Patch 10.04. The year’s second Act brings a ton of content to look forward to, including a new agent and several changes to existing features. 

Besides introducing VALORANT’s eighth duelist, Waylay, Patch 10.04 deploys meta-stirring changes to four existing agents—Clove, Deadlock, Iso, and Tejo—across all platforms, massive map and feature updates, some console-specific agent tweaks, and a bunch of bug fixes. It’s set to go live on March 5 after Riot completes server maintenance.

Now that you know the summary, here’s the full VALORANT Patch 10.04 notes.

VALORANT Patch 10.04: All changes, buffs, and nerfs

Waylay joins VALORANT Protocol

The very prismatic and powerful Waylay is finally here to stir up the duelist meta with her enigmatic light-based powers. From invincible teleportation to game-changing speed boosts, she offers everything you need to make space for your team. She’s the game’s first “space taking duelist” since Jett and Raze, so get ready to see a significant shift in team comps for certain maps.

If you’re looking for an overview of her abilities and some basic tips and tricks to play her well, our comprehensive Waylay guide is exactly what you need.

Clove gets massive nerfs

Disappointing a bunch of Clove mains, Riot has finally decided to curb the Scottish controller’s dominating pick rate in ranked games with some significant nerfs. For starters, their smokes now have a longer cooldown of 40 seconds, up from 30. Ruse and Pick Me Up have also received some major tweaks. The intention is to encourage “Controller diversity by making space for other Agents who have similar strengths.”

Here are all the Clove changes deployed with VALORANT Patch 10.04:

Meddle

• No longer explodes after a 1.3 second timer after casting. 
• Explodes after contact with the ground after a 0.75s timer.
• Projectile audio has been updated to fit this new behavior.

Ruse

• Cooldown duration increased from 30s >>> 40s

Pick Me Up

• Health buff duration increased from 8s >>> 10s 
• Move speed duration reduced from 8s >>> 3s

Deadlock now has a new signature ability

Similar to the rework we saw for Phoenix before, Deadlock’s signature ability has now been changed to support her reactive stalling potential. Barrier Mesh is now a basic ability, costing 400 credits, while GravNet takes its place with a rechargeable feature. To make this change balanced, Riot has added a few tweaks to increase some of its counterplay.

Here are all the Deadlock changes included with Patch 10.04:

Barrier Mesh

• Changed to a non – signature ability
• Cost: Free >>> 400 credits

GravNet

• Changed to a signature ability with 40s cooldown
• Total Size decreased from 16m >>> 13m
• Gravnet’s Projectile audio loop has been updated to increase its gameplay clarity
• When an enemy removes the net, the audio cue of the net breaking now plays for all players

Iso gets a huge rework

Iso’s Undercut, Contingency, and Double Tap have been reworked to “redistribute power around his kit to make him a more well-rounded agent.”

Here are all the Iso changes included with Patch 10.4:

Undercut

• Reduced charges from 2 >>> 1
• Cost increased from 200 >>> 300 credits
• Now applies Suppression alongside Vulnerability for the same duration (4s) on players hit.

Contingency

• Now has an Alt-Fire cast that makes the wall move at half the speed.
• This does not affect the duration of Contingency.

Double Tap

• Iso now receives a Heavy Penetration tag rather than a Wall Penetration tag when the shield is broken. This means he’s slowed more upon his shield breaking .

Kill Contract

• Bug fix: If Iso doesn’t have Double Tap’s buff applied, the ultimate will now automatically apply it so that won ultimate duels always spawn an orb.

Tejo gets a damage nerf on Guided Salvo

Tejo’s Guided Salvo missiles have been the perfect counter to Killjoy’s Lockdown. In fact, it has been too easy to counter any non-player objects with the missiles because of how easy they are to target at a point. But this is no longer the case, now that Patch 10.04 has nerfed the missiles for good. You’ll now require more teamplay to break a Killjoy ultimate with Guided Salvo.

Here are all the Tejo changes included with Patch 10.04:

Guided Salvo

• Damage decreased from 70 >>> 65
• Guided Salvo now does 50 percent less damage to non-player objects

Small Neon change to increase counterplay

VALORANT Patch 9.04 updates the VFX around Neon’s Overdrive to make her directionality clearer when she is fighting with Overdrive active.

Map pool updates and a huge Ascent map change

With patch 9.04, Ascent and Icebox maps are back in Competitive and Deathmatch rotation, while Abyss and Bind have been removed.

While Icebox hasn’t received any change, a significant portion of the wall separating Ascent’s B Main from the first lane has now been bulletproofed. According to Riot, “the weapon spam here at barrier drop is currently creating unhealthy gameplay and frustrating experiences,” which it intends to fix with the update. 

Here’s what Ascent B Main looks like now:

Minor gameplay system change and major bug fixes across platforms

Combat Reports have received an overhaul to the detailed damage breakdown panel to be more organized and intuitive. Besides this, there are a number of big bug fixes to make note of in this patch:

• Checked in a more systemic fix to an issue where Neon could jiggle her head up and down while sliding if mashing strafing inputs.
• Fixed an issue where Fade’s hands got stuck in place if she crouched while holding Night fall out.
• Fixed an issue in the Competitive mode where the Rank Shield icon on the Match History page would disappear after playing a non-Competitive game.

Console-only agent updates in VALORANT Patch 10.04

While Riot believes in maintaining the same “best version” of VALORANT across all platforms, some platform-specific changes may be absolutely necessary for competitive fairness due to the controller-keyboard difference. In Patch 10.04, the following changes were made to standardize the console experience to the PC version.

Neon

Overdrive

• Head Damage Multiplier increased 2.5 >>> 3.0 (Standardizing to PC)
• Body Damage Multiplier: 1.0 (unchanged, already same as PC)
• Leg Damage Multiplier increased 0.75 >>> 0.85 (Standardizing to PC)

Sprint

• Fuel Drain Per Second: 0.11 >>> 0.1 (Standardizing to PC)

Yoru

Dimensional Drift

• Unequip delay decreased 1.2s >>> 0.8s (Standardizing to PC)

Fakeout

• Max flash duration increased 2.0s >>> 3.0s (Standardizing to PC)
• Flash explosion delay increased: 0.6s >>> 0.8s 

Blindside

• Max Flash Duration increased from 1.25s >>> 1.75s (Standardizing to PC)
• Flash Explosion Delay: 0.7s >>> 0.6s (Standardizing to PC)

Reyna

Leer

• Health increased 40 >>> 100 (Standardizing to PC)
• Similar to Yoru’s Decoy Flash, Leer continues to have a slightly longer (+0.2s) activation time and duration.