Patch Notes 0.47: Raze nerf, melee buff, bug fixes and more!

UPDATE: To patch, EU matchmaking will go down on April 22nd at 3:30AM CEST, then turning off servers - they'll come back up around 9AM CEST while for NA matchmaking will be down at 4:30AM PT and back up at 10AM PT

Even though VALORANT is still in the early days of the closed beta phase, the developers have heard a lot of feedback from the community. Today, the developers have decided to introduce some new changes to the game. Some of the most important changes are the nerfs for Raze, who has been most infamous for her overpowered ability kit. The patch also includes a slight buff for Sage. In addition, several bugs are being fixed - like Cyper’s Spycam, exploits on various maps, and more! Check out the patch notes below that were previously released on the official VALORANT website!

GAMEPLAY AND BALANCE

MELEE DAMAGE

Melee attacks now inflict double the damage per hit to destructibles, including

• Sage’s Barrier
• Haven’s metal double doors

Why?

There weren’t enough options during low econ rounds—such as the first round and right after switching sides—to combat Sage’s Barrier Orb. Our intent is to add a high-risk, high-reward method for players to interact with her wall, while still being able to take it down, no matter their loadout

RAZE

• Reduced Paint Shells from 2 to 1
• Paint Shells now have a kill reset, requiring players to get 2 kills to refresh cooldown
• Tuned and adjusted audio for Paint Shells, Blast Pack, and Showstopper so that they’ll be easier to hear in hectic scenarios
• Fixed an edge case where the secondary cluster of Paint Shells would explode quicker than intended. They now have a minimum duration before exploding.

What’s up with that?

Raze’s goal is to be a highly-threatening duelist that punishes enemies posted in predictable positions, but we felt like the cluster grenades and their number were creating overly oppressive scenarios. Also, players should be supplied proper gameplay information and the audio cues on all of Raze’s abilities didn’t match their threat, so we changed the audio of each. For example, when the Showstopper is equipped or fired from a distance, players should be able to clearly identify and interpret the threat.

SAGE

• Slow Orb now also slows the air speed of players in the zone
• Players can now walk through the Slow Orb without making noise

Why though?

Players were able to circumvent too much of Sage’s Slow Orb by bunny hopping through the zone. We want the minimum slow amount to be a bit more consistent with all movement in the zone, while still allowing for bunny hopping and walking to provide a slight benefit to traversing the zone. Also, we feel adding a stealthy yet slow way to move through the field brings more nuance to playing against the zone and a bit more uncertainty for Sage, since she can't necessarily hear people who move through

MAP UPDATES

• Several exploits fixed on Bind, Haven, and Split
• Split: Orb moved from B Mid to B Main:

1. The intent is to alleviate some pressure from mid and provide more incentive for players to control B Main.

QUALITY OF LIFE

• Reduced outbound network traffic from client for players running at high frames-per-second:

1. Some ISPs and network setups were throttling game traffic, impacting gameplay by causing large spikes in network latency as FPS increased.
2. No impact to gameplay / responsiveness

BUG FIXES

• Fixed a rare server crash caused by packets occasionally being corrupted by some players’ networks
• Cypher’s Spycam can no longer use weapons
• Fixed a bug where footstep audible range would sometimes not appear on the minimap