Valorant, the free-to-play FPS title by Riot Games, received a major update yesterday. Update 4.04 brings several balancing changes, reworks the Icebox map, and fixes bugs. In this article, we will discuss all the tweaks made to different Agents.
Omen received changes to several of his abilities. The cooldown of his Dark Cover ability is reduced to 30 seconds and its projectile speed is increased to 6,400. But it now costs 150. Speaking of cost, the cost of Shrouder Step is reduced to 100, and its pre-teleport delay is decreased to 0.7 seconds. Forward spawn offset has been added to Paranoia so that players near Omen aren’t hit.
Brimstone received the least amount of changes. The deploy radius of his Sky Smoke ability is increased to 5,500 and its smoke height now matches other controllers. Its deployment time is reduced to one second as well. Using Stim Beacon will now give Brimstone a 15% speed boost as well.
- Improved the system used to place abilities at targeted ground locations. This update should make it easier to find valid placement locations in tight spaces. These are the abilities affected:
- Omen’s Shrouded Step
- Viper’s pit
- Chamber’s Trademark and Rendez-vous
- Every Killjoy ability
- Yoru’s Gatecrash
- Sage’s Barrier Orb
- Max Stars reduced 5 > 4
- Cooldown on retrieving a Star increased 14 > 25
- Cooldown Increased 25 > 45
- Gravity Well Size Decreased 525 > 475
- Cooldown Increased 25 > 45
- Nova Pulse no longer affects anyone fully underneath the Nova Pulse.
- Cooldown Increased 14 > 25
- Nebula size increased 410 > 475
- While in Astral form, pings are no longer blocked by level geometry that Astra cannot see
- Increased the speed of the overlay that covers Astra’s screen when transitioning in and out of Astral form
- Fixed an issue where Stars were placed slightly above the location Astra was targeting.
- Fuel drain increased 50% when Toxic Screen and Poison Cloud are both active.
- Viper’s fuel bar now turns red when she does not have enough fuel to activate her abilities.
- Toxic Screen now has yellow lights that indicate when it is on cooldown
- Removed delay on Toxic Screen disabling when Viper is suppressed.
- Added a unique VO line that plays when her smoke is disabled by suppress.
- Poison Orb now has a yellow light to indicate when it is on cooldown.
- Removed delay on Poison Orb disabling when Viper is suppressed.
- Added a unique VO line that plays when her smoke is disabled by suppress.
- Duration decreased 6.5 > 5.5
- Decoy HP: 150
- Decoy is now a full running version of Yoru and can only be sent running forward
- Enemies within the cone are flashed
- Cooldown charge refresh removed, switched back to 2-kill reset
- Gatecrash can be faked by pressing F, while hovering over the beacon
- Fake teleport will play audio and portal visuals as if Yoru is attempting to teleport.
- Yoru is not revealed to enemies
- Yoru is now able to cast all utility out of his ultimate
- Yoru’s footsteps can now be heard within 15m of Yoru’s location
As mentioned above, the massive update isn’t only focused on Agents. It reworks the Icebox map, fixes several bugs, and brings competitive updates. You can learn more about the rework via our previous article.
You can also check out the complete patch notes via the official site.
