VALORANT Patch 5.03: Full notes and updates

A new VALORANT patch is set to hit the live servers today. Patch 5.03 comes after a programmed delay of updates as the developers needed more time to update the game engine and work on balancing agents like Chamber, Neon, and Jett.

VALORANT‘s engine has been updated to Unreal Engine 4.26, which will “improve the tool set” available for the developers in “many ways.” This change will likely go unnoticed by most players, but Riot Games has warned beforehand that it is aware of some issues with the game’s UI. The devs are working on fixing it as quickly as possible, but players may experience some “funkiness” in the game and in the main menu.

As for agent changes, the most noticeable balance update is how Chamber will work moving forward. The French sentinel has been substantially nerfed because his strengths have started to overshadow his weaknesses, according to Riot. The developers most notably increased the base cooldown and recall cooldown of the Rendevouz ability, reduced the slow of the Trademark ability, reduced the slow of his Ultimate Tour De Force, and increased the Ultimate Points required to activate Tour de Force.

In addition to the Chamber nerfs, Riot has also tweaked the ultimates of Neon and Jett, while fixing bugs that were happening with Jett, Reyna, and Killjoy. As usual, the developers shipped some general qualify of life updates in this latest patch as well.

Here are the full notes for VALORANT Patch 5.03.

General updates

• Engine update to Unreal Engine 4.26.
  • This update improves the toolset available to our developers in many ways, however, this change will likely go unnoticed by you, as the goal of any Engine update is to happen under the radar.
  • There are some known issues this time around though, mostly the UI is misbehaving. We’re fixing these as quickly as we can, but expect some funkiness in the game and in the Main Menu. If anything interrupts your gameplay, please submit a bug report.

• Agent Browser visual design refresh
  • Just thought we should leverage some of the cool Agent art and lean more into our VALORANT style.

Agent updates

Chamber

As players in both ranked and pro play have mastered Chamber, his strengths have started to overshadow his weaknesses, making the counterplay to Rendezvous and his arsenal not as effective as Riot hoped. Chamber’s overall strength has also felt outsized, and the devs believe that they can reduce the complete power of his kit while still keeping him competitive with the rest of the roster.

Rendezvous (E)

• Base cooldown increased 20 seconds > 30 seconds
• Recall cooldown increased 20 seconds > 30 seconds
• Cooldown set to 45 seconds whenever a Rendezvous anchor is destroyed

• Diameter size of the “ring” Chamber can stand that allows him to activate Rendezvous decreased 21m > 15m
  • Chamber’s Rendezvous is intended to be powerful at holding space, but the generous radius allowed him to take that space with more aggression than intended. This change should require Chamber to exert more effort to access off-angles.
  • We hope that a harsher punishment for destroyed Rendezvous anchors and the reduced radius will demand Chamber mains to be more careful in their use. This change also brings the counterplay of Chamber’s destructible objects more in line with the behavior of other destructible objects in the game.

Trademark (C)

• Slow Duration decreased 9.5 > six seconds

Tour de Force (X)

• Ultimate points required increased seven > eight
• Slow duration decreased 9.5 > six seconds

Headhunter (Q)

• Bullet cost increased 100 > 150
  • It’s important that Headhunter is a powerful sidearm for Chamber but at its current price point Chamber doesn’t have to engage in making difficult economic decisions as meaningfully as other Agents. This should most noticeably impact Chamber’s decision-making on pistol rounds and save rounds. The ultimate point change to Tour De Force is also working towards this goal.

Ability regional damage breakup

The devs are updating the ultimates for the following Agent so that they follow similar regional damage rules to our weapons—where hitting the head and legs of an enemy applies different damage multipliers. The intent is to reward precision and create intuitive consistency across damage in VALORANT.

For Neon specifically, it also gives the devs more tuning levers for balancing her across different skill levels. This change should also add depth to the mastery needed when tracking while sprinting that her ult demands.

Neon

Overdrive (X)

⦁ Damage per shot reduced 22 > 18
⦁ Killzone increased 15m > 20m
⦁ Leg shot multiplier reduced 1.0 > 0.85
⦁ Headshot multiplier increased one > three

Chamber

Tour de Force (X)

⦁ Leg shot multiplier reduced 1.0 > 0.85

Jett

Bladestorm (X)

⦁ Leg shot multiplier reduced 1.0 > 0.85

Gameplay system updates

• Added ability to change “Ghost” keybind outside of Custom Games
  • This option is listed under Settings >> Controls >> Actions

Bugs

Agents

⦁ Fixed an issue with Jett’s Tailwind where switching weapons in the middle of the dash would cause the weapon pull-out animation to take longer than desired.

Gameplay systems

⦁ Fixed a bug where some Reyna/Killjoy HUD elements were still visible after enabling Hide User Interface.
⦁ Fixed a bug where defuse animation wouldn’t consistently play if the orb is tapped in rapid succession.

Known issues

⦁ Changing crosshair opacity settings in-game causes crosshair preview visual to flicker
⦁ Spike Announcements UI displaying incorrectly