A new patch arrived on the Valorant servers this morning. Patch 5.03 showed up after a scheduled update delay as developers needed more time to update the game engine and work on balancing agents like Chamber, Neon, and Jett.
Similar Content: VALORANT 5.03 Patch delayed to next month
VALORANT's engine has been updated to Unreal Engine 4.26, which will improve the toolset available to developers in many ways. This change will likely go unnoticed by most players, but Riot Games has previously said it's aware of some issues with the game's UI. The developers are trying to fix the issues as quickly as possible, but players may experience some "strangeness" in the game and the main menu.
As for the agent changes, the most noticeable changes occurred on the Chamber. A major nerf came as the agent's strengths began to outshine his weaknesses. The devs increased the base cooldown and recall cooldown of Encounter, decreased the slow time of Business Card and Sharp Style, and increased the Ultimate Points required to activate Sharp Style.
In addition to the Chamber nerfs, Riot fixed bugs with Jett, Reyna, and Killjoy, while introducing a change to Neon and Jett's ultimate abilities. As usual, the developers have made some quality-performance updates in this latest patch as well.
Here are the full notes for VALORANT Patch 5.03.
General Updates
- The game engine has been updated to Unreal Engine 4.26.
- This update improves the tools available to developers in many different ways, but this change will go unnoticed by you because the Unreal Engine update is intended to happen out of sight.
- However, there are some problems that we are aware of at the moment, and most of them are caused by the user interface acting on its head. We've rolled up our sleeves to fix these issues as quickly as possible, but you may still see some quirks in-game and in the main menu. If you encounter something that interrupts your gameplay, please file a bug report.
- Made some visual refreshes in the agent selection screen.
- We wanted to take advantage of the beautiful spy visuals we have and get a little closer to the VALORANT style.
Agent Updates
Chamber:
Both ranked and pro players have mastered the Chamber. Chamber's strengths began to overshadow his weaknesses, making counterattacks against the Gathering and the opportunities at his disposal less effective than we expected. Chamber's overall strength also grew to a level that no one else could match. That's why we believe we can make changes so that it remains an important option amongst other agents while reducing the power of its holdings.
Meeting (E)
- Base cooldown increased: 20 sec. >>> 30 sec.
- Recall cooldown increased: 20 sec. >>> 30 sec.
- The cooldown will now be 45 seconds when any Encounter teleporter point is destroyed.
- Circle area where Chamber can activate Encounter has decreased in diameter: 21 meters >>> 15 meters
- Chamber's Rendezvous was designed to be strong at holding a ground, but the large activation area allowed Chamber to take over an area much more aggressively than intended. This change will now cause Chamber to spend more effort reaching corners.
- We hope that when the rendezvous teleports are destroyed, being punished more severely than before and the shrinkage of the activation area will push Chamber players to use this ability more carefully. This change also makes Chamber's gameplay tactics against destructibles more consistent with attitudes towards other destructibles in the game.
Business card (C)
- Slow duration decreased: 9,5 sec. >>> 6 sec.
Sharp Style (X)
- Required ult points increased: 7 >>> 8
- Slow duration decreased: 9,5 sec. >>> 6 sec.
Headhunter (Q)
- Bullet cost increased: 100 >>> 150
- It's important that the Headhunter is a powerful weapon for Chamber, but due to its current cost, it doesn't require Chamber to make as difficult and meaningful economic decisions as other agents. This change is specifically intended to visibly influence the decisions Chamber makes in pistol rounds and economy rounds. Sharp Style's ultimate point change also serves this purpose.
Regional Damage Distribution of Abilities
The reason we're updating the next agent's ult is so that the agent's ability is consistent with the regional damage rules that our weapons are subject to. Normally, different damage multipliers are activated when you hit an enemy's head or leg. The purpose of this change is to reward accuracy and highlight the importance of consistency at VALORANT.
In the case of neon, it gives us more possibilities to balance it at different skill levels. It also adds a different depth to the proficiency that players must have to follow the enemy while sprinting with their ultimate.
Neon:
Energy Burst (X)
- Damage per shot decreased: 22 >>> 18
- Kill range increased: 15 meters >>> 20 meters
- Leg hit multiplier decreased: 1,0 >>> 0,85
- Headshot multiplier increased: 1 >>> 3
Chamber:
Sharp Style (X)
- Leg hit multiplier decreased: 1,0 >>> 0,85
Jet:
Sharp Storm (X)
- Leg hit multiplier decreased: 1,0 >>> 0,85
Gameplay System Updates
- The ability to change the "Ghost" key assignment outside of special games has arrived.
- You can find this option under Settings >> Controls >> Actions tab.
ERRORS
agents
- jett'of like the wind Fixed a bug that caused the draw animation of the weapon to take longer than intended when changing a weapon while dashing forward with his ability.
Gameplay Systems
- Fixed a bug that caused Reyna/Killjoy UI elements to appear even though the Hide UI option was enabled.
- Fixed a bug that caused the destruction animation to show inconsistency when tapping the orb rapidly.
KNOWN ISSUES
- Changing the reticle transparency in-game causes the reticle preview image to flicker.
- Spike announcements UI looks wrong.
