VALORANT Patch 8.01 notes: All agent and map changes

After a neat start to the year with Episode Eight, VALORANT is now ready to embrace a new patch this week—and it isn’t bearing the best news for Skye mains. 

Set to be deployed today, Jan. 23, VALORANT Patch 8.01 aims to bring huge map and agent changes, much-needed gameplay system updates, and a long list of bug fixes. Here are all the details. 

Everything included in VALORANT Patch 8.01

Breeze’s A Halls are no longer restricted

Having noted community feedback and the meta, Riot Games said that while most of Breeze’s recent changes were fine, restricting A Halls was too hard on the attacking side. With VALORANT Patch 8.01, you can traverse A Halls like before the Episode Seven, Act Two update. 

This is definitely a great change, considering how predictable it had become to hit the A Site as an attacker, giving defenders easy competition. Now, the defenders will have a harder time holding Pyramids and the yellow box and also have to invest a trap in the halls to control a flank.

Skye nerf, yet again

Skye has basically been an untamable beast, thanks to her flexible initiating kit. But that ends right here, with Patch 8.01 choking her Guiding Light to death. 

Guiding Light, aka the bird flash, is no longer rechargeable, meaning players will get a total of two flashes per round. As a small “buff” to balance it, when deployed, Guiding Light will always end in a flash, no matter whether the player pops it or not. Well, as much as it’s being marketed as a buff, it really isn’t. It disheartens me that I can no longer fake a flash or just not pop it to avoid team blinding. 

Unfortunately, as much as I don’t like this nerf, something had to be done about Skye’s continuous dominance in the meta. With Patch 8.01, her reign is definitely over. Here are all the Skye changes in the patch:

• Guiding Light (E)
  • Guiding Light no longer regenerates charges during a round.
  • Guiding Light now automatically activates the flash at the end of its lifetime.
• Seekers (X)
  • When a Seeker gets close to its target, the target player will now get a yellow directional warning indicator.

Iso is rising up the meta

Iso is getting an excellent update to his Double Tap and Contingency abilities with VALORANT Patch 8.01, pushing his viability in the positive direction. With higher shield duration, a narrower shield, and increased time to shoot the energy orb, I can definitely see a lot more Iso picks in the near future. Here are all the Iso changes in Patch 8.01:

• Double Trap (E)
  • Shootable orb duration increased two >>> three seconds 
  • Initial buff and shield duration increased 15 >>> 20
  • Shield width reduced 120 >>> 100
• Contingency (C)
  • Cost reduced 250 >>> 200

Raze will be a bit less sneaky

The sound of Raze using her satchels to traverse will be more apparent, starting in Patch 8.01. So you will have an easier time tracking those unpredictable satchel jumps on Bind.

• Blast Pack (Q)
  • Audio for Raze traveling through the air with Blast Pack is now louder when she is traveling toward you.

More consistency for lineup larries and performance updates

VALORANT Patch 8.01 is bringing a change that will make lineups requiring jump throws easily reproducible. “If you press the throw projectile input within 100 ms of jump start, the projectile will consistently have the same amount of velocity imparted from the thrower and as a result land consistently in the same location,” the patch notes read. 

If this works as intended, you should be able to avoid accidents with jump throw lineups going forward. If you’re wondering, this change shouldn’t change most of your existing jump throw lineups. But be prepared to make minor adjustments to some of your tricks. 

As a second gameplay system update, HRTF will now be enabled if checked in the settings and using the Stereo speaker configuration.

Performance updates, yay

Players have been frustrated with VALORANT’s boot and match load times for a while now, but Patch 8.01 seemingly fixes it by optimizing file I/O performance. We have yet to see how well this will improve the game’s loading speeds and matchmaking process.

All bug fixes in VALORANT Patch 8.01

Hang on tight, for this list is going to be huge. 

Agents

• Gekko: Fixed a bug where occasionally Thrash’s (X) explosion was blocked from affecting enemies due to corners of geometry.
• Iso: After eliminating practice bots in the Range, Iso’s energy orbs will now spawn. They will still not spawn in Shooting Tests.
• Reyna: After eliminating practice bots in the Range, Reyna’s Soul Orbs will now spawn. They will still not spawn in Shooting Tests.

Gameplay systems

• Fixed an issue when transitioning from inspect to scope using the Outlaw.
• Fixed bullet tracers with Chamber’s Tour De Force (X) and the Operator when penetrating through corners.
• Fixed a minimap visual issue where when you first load into a match, it showed a similar VFX to Omen’s From The Shadows (X).
• Fixed an issue where the Spike’s white circle indicator on the minimap did not appear when Spike was dropped on the edge of someone’s minimap.

Maps

• Breeze: Fixed a bug where the A Hall Door was starting in the open position.
• Lotus: Fixed a bug where you could stand on top of the crumbled pillar on C Site.
• Icebox: Fixed a bug where you could stand on the container in B Green.
• Split: Fixed a bug where you could stand on a vent in B Garage.

Modes

• Team Deathmatch: Fixed a bug where, if the Outlaw was picked up from a weapon spawner, it had no reserve ammunition.

Premier

• Fixed a bug that was causing Premier Standings to not load your zone/division the first time you click into it.
• Fixed a bug that was causing teams to not appear on the Standings tab right after their Season Match.

You can check out the full patch notes for VALORANT Patch 8.01 here.