Valorant Patch 1.04 Doesn’t Nerf Sage

The Valorant patch we’ve all been waiting for has finally dropped and it turns out it’s not nearly as big as we thought. Let’s take a look at patch 1.04.

Many of us expected that patch 1.04 in Valorant will nerf Sage even further. Despite several changes, the agent is still a must-have on any line-up and it seems that won’t change for any of the upcoming events. Oh, that’s right Riot Games dropped a major game-changing patch right before the start of the biggest Valorant tournament in North America – the PAX Arena Valorant Invitational. Will the meta for the event change accordingly or will teams stick to their old tactics?

Onto the actual patch notes:

Agent Changes

Viper

Viper's Pit

Max time outside of her ult before it collapses changed from 5>>>12 seconds
Viper can hold the ability key to drop her ult early
Enemies in Viper’s Pit have their minimap obscured and do not provide minimap detection to their allies
Increased the brightness of the red enemy glow at the edge of Viper's near-sight

With Viper being allowed out of her ult for such a short period of time, we felt that she was not only limited in the plays she could make, but also gave too much continuous information to her enemies. The ability to move outside the ult smoke more freely should provide some new and interesting mind games for Viper to play—and hopefully puts the strategic pressure back on the enemy. The other improvements should push Viper’s advantage in her own smoke and help her avoid getting traded by enemies using minimap vision to target her.

Decay

Enemy decay per second increased from 10 to 15 from all sources.
After exiting Viper's smoke, enemy decay sustains for 2.5 seconds before starting to fade

Fuel

Having both Poison Cloud and Toxic Screen active does not consume additional fuel beyond the cost of having one active

Now, those are some serious buffs and if they don’t make Viper viable we don’t know what else will. Viper’s Pit is now outright insane as it should’ve been from the start. The fact that she can simultaneously use Poison Cloud and Toxic Screen at no additional cost might be a bit too good. After all, imagine the crowd control.

Raze

Showstopper ultimate Cost changed from 6 to 7 Ult points

Raze’s ultimate is one of the most impactful in the game and useful in almost any situation. As a result, it is being used a bit too often. So we’re upping the cost by 1, which should help reduce how often players have to face her Showstopper.

Brimstone

Orbital Strike ultimate cost changed from 6 to 7 Ult points
Stim Beacon no longer Buffs enemies and no longer shows its effect radius to enemies
Brimstone’s Arms Fidelity

Raze and Brimstone get the same treatment witch each of them getting an increased point cost to their ultimates. Brim’s Stim Beacon is now even better and his arms fidelity is now proper. Ttthanks, Riot?

Cypher

Cyber Cage can now be picked up during the buy phase

Nothing too impressive here, not sure why it’s not in the quality of life section.

Weapon Updates

Classic

Fixed bug where running inaccuracy on the right-click was much higher than intended running was adding a 1.5 penalty because it was referencing our generalized running error curves for pistols
Fixed bug where jumping had no inaccuracy penalty
Running spread is changed from 3.4 >>> 2.1
Jumping spread changed from 1.9 >>> 2.3
Walking spread changed from 1.9 >>> 1.95
Added a 10% bonus to accuracy when crouching and stationary
Intent is to feel consistent with crouch providing an accuracy benefit

The basic pistol in Valorant is now even worse, so just forget it exists. Don’t use it.

For the full notes, check out the official Valorant website. Maybe Riot didn’t want to change Sage right before the big event today, so perhaps patch 1.05 will be the one to nerf her.