Riot Games has released a new patch for VALORANT and a ton of changes are coming to the game along with the latest game engine. Here are all the major changes that you need to know.
The VALORANT engine has now been updated to Unreal Engine 4.26 to improve its tool set. The impact of this change is felt more on the backend as players will not feel any real change.
Riot Games has already intimated players that they might feel some glitches, which will be fixed over time.
The biggest hit of this patch is seen on agent Chamber. His entire kit is essentially nerfed as players will face a long cooldown on Rendezvous, less slow effect on his trademark as well as his ultimate. The points required to unleash Tour de Force have also been increased.
The patch notes are as follows:
Valorant Patch Notes 5.03
General updates
- Engine update to Unreal Engine 4.26.
- This update improves the toolset available to our developers in many ways, however, this change will likely go unnoticed by you, as the goal of any Engine update is to happen under the radar.
- There are some known issues this time around though, mostly the UI is misbehaving. We’re fixing these as quickly as we can, but expect some funkiness in the game and in the Main Menu. If anything interrupts your gameplay, please submit a bug report.
- Agent Browser visual design refresh
- Just thought we should leverage some of the cool Agent art and lean more into our VALORANT style.
Agent updates
Chamber
As players in both ranked and pro play have mastered Chamber, his strengths have started to overshadow his weaknesses, making the counterplay to Rendezvous and his arsenal not as effective as Riot hoped. Chamber’s overall strength has also felt outsized, and the devs believe that they can reduce the complete power of his kit while still keeping him competitive with the rest of the roster.
Rendezvous (E)
- Base cooldown increased 20 seconds > 30 seconds
- Recall cooldown increased 20 seconds > 30 seconds
- Cooldown set to 45 seconds whenever a Rendezvous anchor is destroyed
- Diameter size of the “ring” Chamber can stand that allows him to activate Rendezvous decreased 21m > 15m
- Chamber’s Rendezvous is intended to be powerful at holding space, but the generous radius allowed him to take that space with more aggression than intended. This change should require Chamber to exert more effort to access off-angles.
- We hope that a harsher punishment for destroyed Rendezvous anchors and the reduced radius will demand Chamber mains to be more careful in their use. This change also brings the counterplay of Chamber’s destructible objects more in line with the behavior of other destructible objects in the game.
Trademark (C)
- Slow Duration decreased 9.5 > six seconds
Tour de Force (X)
- Ultimate points required increased seven > eight
- Slow duration decreased 9.5 > six seconds
Headhunter (Q)
- Bullet cost increased 100 > 150
- It’s important that Headhunter is a powerful sidearm for Chamber but at its current price point Chamber doesn’t have to engage in making difficult economic decisions as meaningfully as other Agents. This should most noticeably impact Chamber’s decision-making on pistol rounds and save rounds. The ultimate point change to Tour De Force is also working towards this goal.
Ability regional damage breakup
The devs are updating the ultimates for the following Agent so that they follow similar regional damage rules to our weapons—where hitting the head and legs of an enemy applies different damage multipliers. The intent is to reward precision and create intuitive consistency across damage in VALORANT.
For Neon specifically, it also gives the devs more tuning levers for balancing her across different skill levels. This change should also add depth to the mastery needed when tracking while sprinting that her ult demands.
Neon
Overdrive (X)
⦁ Damage per shot reduced 22 > 18
⦁ Killzone increased 15m > 20m
⦁ Leg shot multiplier reduced 1.0 > 0.85
⦁ Headshot multiplier increased one > three
Chamber
Tour de Force (X)
⦁ Leg shot multiplier reduced 1.0 > 0.85
Jett
Bladestorm (X)
⦁ Leg shot multiplier reduced 1.0 > 0.85
Gameplay system updates
- Added ability to change “Ghost” keybind outside of Custom Games
- This option is listed under Settings >> Controls >> Actions
Bugs
Agents
⦁ Fixed an issue with Jett’s Tailwind where switching weapons in the middle of the dash would cause the weapon pull-out animation to take longer than desired.
Gameplay systems
⦁ Fixed a bug where some Reyna/Killjoy HUD elements were still visible after enabling Hide User Interface.
⦁ Fixed a bug where defuse animation wouldn’t consistently play if the orb is tapped in rapid succession.
Known issues
⦁ Changing crosshair opacity settings in-game causes crosshair preview visual to flicker
⦁ Spike Announcements UI displaying incorrectly
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