Turn Up the Pressure // Episode 3 Act II Kickoff Trailer and Patch Notes 3.05

A lot of things are going on in Valorant, lining up with the release of the new map: Fracture, that has been live for an exclusive Fracture only queue, to a collaboration with Zed and Valorant with a very captivating sound effects on your favorite gun skins.

VALORANT PATCH NOTES 3.05

VALORANT Episode 3 continues with Act II, with new features all collected in this article for easy reading (Fracture map, fresh Battlepass, Spectrum skinline!).

This patch adds more consistency to the damage that abilities deal to opposing abilities, tweaks to everyone’s favorite two robots, and a follow through on our attempt to adjust our rank distribution mentioned in a previous Ask VALORANT.

Don’t skip the Fracture-only queue and new XP Boost for Premium Battlepass owners.

AGENT UPDATES

Brimstone, Sova, and Breach are all receiving consistency changes to ability damage. We want to reward those of you who are creative with the ability sandbox, using your tools to solve the obstacles other Agents are creating. To ensure this, physical objects across VALORANT need to interact in a reliable and consistent manner, so you can properly plan and execute without knowing ability-specific interactions.


BREACH


Aftershock (C)
Now deals damage to the following:

• Killjoy Alarm Bot
• Killjoy Nanoswarm
• Killjoy Lockdown
• Cypher Tripwire
• Reyna Leer
• Sage Barrier Orb
• Sova Recon Bolt
• KAY/O Zero/Point

BRIMSTONE


Orbital Strike (X)
Now deals damage to the following:

• Killjoy Nanoswarm
• Cypher Trapwire
• Sage Barrier Orb
• Sova Recon Bolt
• KAY/O Zero/Point

SOVA


Hunter’s Fury (X)
Now deals damage to the following:

• Killjoy Nanoswarm
• Cypher Trapwire
• Sage Barrier Orb
• Sova Recon Bolt
• KAY/O Zero/Point

KILLJOY

Killjoy’s Turret is a versatile ability that provides information, chip damage, and a powerful slow. While manageable during mid to later rounds, the Turret can be especially oppressive on pistol rounds down longer sightlines, where the tagging intensity combined with weapon spread makes it challenging to press forward. These changes aim to slightly tone down the Turret’s ability to impede rushes, and give opponents more counterplay options.


Turret (E)
Bullet tagging reduced 72.5% slow >>> 29.5% slow



RAZE

The Boom Bots' ability to clear space, spot, and track opponents, as well as one-shot enemies with Light Shields, left you with limited options on how to counterplay—especially during low economy rounds. So, we’re trading off reduced damage output for an ability cost reduction in order to introduce more Boom Bot counterplay options. This should also increase the frequency that Raze mains can use Boom Bot to create space.


Boom Bot (C)
Max damage reduced 125 >>> 80
Min damage reduced 50 >>> 30
Cost reduced 400 >>> 300

MAP UPDATES

NEW MAP: Fracture is live!
See below for more info on the Fracture map rotation

COMPETITIVE UPDATES

Immortal 1/2/3 rank tiers are back!
The Leaderboard will update to distinguish between those of you in each Immortal tier.
Updated Ranked grouping restrictions to accommodate return of Immortal 1/2/3:
Diamond 1 → Immortal 1
Diamond 2 → Immortal 2
Diamond 3 → Immortal 3
Adjusted Competitive ranked distribution as detailed in a previous article

Fracture only queue!
This queue is a standard, Unrated mode that will give players a chance to practice the new map before they see it in Competitive play.
Fracture-only queue will be available for 2 weeks, afterwards Fracture will enter other modes, including Competitive.

PROGRESSION UPDATES
PREMIUM BATTLEPASS BONUS XP
Upgrading to the Premium Battlepass will grant a 3% XP boost toward Battlepass tier progression for all matchmade games until the end of Act II
We believe the Battlepass experience is at its best when you’re able to earn hype rewards as you unlock tiers, hitting major milestones and feeling good about what you’ve earned.
This is not retroactive, so upgrading early will give you access to the most amount of XP
The XP boost does not apply toward Daily or Weekly Missions

SOCIAL UPDATES
Updated AFK detection logic to deter players from farming Battlepass/Account Levels by AFKing in game modes like Deathmatch and Snowball Fight

PERFORMANCE UPDATES
Updated the ping calculation to exclude the server frame time.
Updated markers used by NVIDIA Reflex
NVIDIA Reflex is used to reduce and measure rendering latency. This update should allow Reflex to better pace frames by adding present markers as well as fixes on some older markers.

BUGS

AGENTS
Fixed a bug where concurrent, overlapping ally and enemy Viper smoke could cause the nearsight and decay to never remove
Fixed a bug where Omen could become stuck in other objects if they were blocking the return location of From the Shadows
Omen will no longer equip his weapon slower than intended after casting Dark Cover
Astra will no longer equip her weapon slower than intended after exiting Astral Form
Fixed KAY/O’s NULL/cmd waves from destroying the glass on Ascent

COMPETITIVE
Fixed a bug that would cause the Leaderboard to infinitely load when searching for a specific player.

ESPORTS FEATURES
For Coaches, the Loading screen should now properly display all of the Agent select information (Agent compositions of both teams, etc)
Fixed an issue where Observer Moderators could not see the pause match timer option if they disconnected and then reconnected during a round