Episode 1 of Valorant is already behind us as patch 2.0 went live. What’s new in Episode 2 Act 1? Here’s all you need to know.
The latest Valorant patch went live on January 12 (13 for some regions) and brought mainly balance changes. Let’s take a look.
Agent Updates
- Yoru joins the Valorant Roster
Controllers
This patch we have a small update that should clarify and differentiate the strengths of our Controllers. Omen and Brimstone have been in competition since beta and usually only one of them is considered viable. By giving each more clear strengths, we hope to make both Agents strong in different situations. Viper is on our radar as well, we believe she is underperforming and are looking at ways to help her out in the future.
Brimstone
Happy New Year Brimstone players! We know you’ve been hoping for some buffs this holiday season and we have them just in time. Brimstone is all about the big site execute moment. In that spirit, we’ve increased the duration of his smokes and given him more flexibility in where he can position to drop smokes exactly where he wants them. While at it, we didn’t feel Stim Beacon was fitting smoothly into his execution pattern, or into the situations where you might want to use it. Too often Brimstone would pull out Stim Beacon only to see his allies disappearing around a corner, or correctly recognize a fight was coming, pull out stim to get buffed up for it, and get blown up before he could get his gun back up. We think this is a much smoother, more explosive version of Brimstone that we hope you enjoy.
Stim Beacon
- Will now quick cast (no equip time)
Molotov
- Cost reduced: $300 >>> $200
Sky Smokes
- Cast range increased: 4200 >>> 5000
- Smoke duration increased:14.25 >>> 19.25
Sound
- Brimstone no longer makes a sound that enemies can hear when confirming the location of his smokes
Omen
Omen’s role as a Controller is to bring consistent pressure. We needed to introduce some tradeoffs in exchange for the consistent pressure his recharging smokes provide. The projectile speed decrease here is meant to give Omen more pressure and responsiveness when smoking nearby targets, while taking a bit longer to get smokes to far away parts of the map that he isn’t actively covering. Paranoia has been quite strong for a while, and rather than reduce its effectiveness and take away some of the most exciting plays Omen can make, we decided to up the cost. On the whole, this brings Omen’s full utility price up to a level that’s more comparable with other Agents as well as making it more important to get value out of Paranoia when you cast it, so that big $400 chunk of cash isn’t wasted.
Paranoia
- Cost increased: $200 >>> $400
Dark Cover
- Projectile speed decreased: 4000 >>> 280
Viper
No updates just yet, but we’re taking this opportunity to say we’ve got our eye on her. We still believe she is underperforming as a whole and we’re looking at changes for her in the new year.
Weapon Updates
Classic (Alt. Fire)
- Jumping error increased: .4 >>> 1.0
- Increased input queue on right-click: 0.065 >>> .225
- Firing consecutively now jumps in error, starting at 1.9 for the first burst, 2.5 for the second, and then the third/fourth burst will be at a 6.0
- Right-click now has a recovery curve starting at .1s
The Classic is proving to be a master-of-none choice in pistol rounds, with the exception of jump right-clicks and spamming right-clicks. The spread changes aim to pull the effective range of the jump bursts and the firing error/recovery aim to put some more finesse into how effective you can be while spamming it out. Input queue will help shots between bursts come out more smoothly.
Competitive Updates
- New Competitive regional leaderboards (Jan. 12)
- Rank system updated, including rank progress bar, numerical progress, and further distribution changes to make it easier to climb out of the lower ranks
- Immortal and Radiant ranks are now capped at a premade size of two
- New ranked rewards for Episode 1 (pair of Gun Buddies based on your highest Act Rank achieved during Episode 1)
- Many more changes!
Social Updates
- The “Add Friend” button has been removed from the in-game player list
Bugs
- Fixed an issue where Omen could sometimes teleport past the buy phase barriers
- Fixed an issue where Omen could plant the Spike while elevated on a Sage wall
- Fixed an issue where players on the opposing team could be seen on the minimap long after leaving line of sight
- Fixed an issue where the desktop resolution was not restored after alt-tabbing from the game when playing in fullscreen mode, at lower-than-native resolution. Thank you to player fl0m for bringing this to our attention!
- Fixed an issue introduced in the 1.14 patch that incorrectly calculated client ping by including client frametime in the calculation
Known Issues
- Preview videos for weapon levels currently don’t have audio.
Rest assured, the skins still have respective audio in-game, we just have some issues with audio for preview videos found in the Store and Collections.
In addition to all the balance changes, fans will once again be able to get their hands on certain skins with the Run it Back bundle.
We're bringing back select skins from Prime, Sovereign, Spline, Nebula, and Oni for a limited time. Here's your second chance to snag some of the most coveted skins with the Run It Back Bundle, available in the shop today. pic.twitter.com/JGXC8Upl5T
— VALORANT (@PlayVALORANT) January 12, 2021
Episode 2 Act 1 also adds a new Battle Pass, Regional Leaderboards, and a Competitive Refresh.
New Agent, new Battlepass, and new ways to dominate. It's all in Formation, kicking off with Act I. pic.twitter.com/ulWEEBq6l1
— VALORANT (@PlayVALORANT) January 12, 2021
If you’re getting error 39 after the new patch, worry not. You’re not alone and the main reason for it is server connectivity so just give Riot some time to patch things up. Are you excited about the new Episode? Drop us a comment on Facebook or come join the discussion on our Discord server!
For more Valorant news and everything else gaming or esports check EarlyGame.
