Riot Games just rolled out Valorant Patch 5.10, addressing multiple bugs and balance issues. This includes potentially significant changes to Valorant’s meta, with some characters seeing a variety of buffs and nerfs. The new patch also includes multiple quality-of-life improvements, including changes to text chat moderation.
Riot launched Valorant in 2020 as a free-to-play team-based hero shooter. Critics have compared the game to Valve’s Counter Stike: Global Offensive and Blizzard’s Overwatch. However, while the game generally saw positive reviews, Valorant faced criticism for its invasive Vanguard anti-cheat system and extremely toxic voice and text chat.
The 5.10 patch introduces a battery of balance changes to Agents Harbor, Cypher, and Fade. Valorant’s Harbor has seen the fewest gameplay changes, with developers increasing the purchasable charges of his Cascade ability from 1 to 2. Riot’s changes to Cypher and Fade are more substantial, buffing the former and nerfing the latter’s overpowered abilities. Valorant’s new update also introduces a Real-Time Text Evaluation system for chat moderation and a variety of miscellaneous bug fixes and quality-of-life improvements.
Meanwhile, Riot noticed Cypher’s declining popularity among Valorant players and gave him a variety of buffs. These include increasing the maximum length of his Tripwire ability from 1,000 to 2,000. Riot is also expanding the range of his Neural Theft ability from 1,200 to 1,800. Said ability can also now detect enemies twice after a 4-second delay, and developers removed the timer for casting it on enemy corpses. Valorant's newest update also introduces a few quality-of-life improvements for the character.
On the other hand, Fade’s adjustments mainly focus on nerfing her overpowered Prowlers ability. These include improving the Prowler’s hitbox and reducing its duration from 3 to 2.5 seconds. The delay between when the Prowler reaches and bites its target was also increased from 0.4 to 0.6 seconds. Furthermore, the Nearsight debuff inflicted by the Prowler’s bite will now wear off after 2.75 seconds instead of 3.5. The Prowlers will also fizzle out without debuffing their target if the latter teleports away. Finally, Valorant’s developers have increased the cost of Fade’s Nightfall ability.
Riot Games also continues to address the toxicity in Valorant’s community by introducing a system for Real-Time Text Evaluation in this latest update. Riot didn’t detail how the new system will work, but it will mute players who send disruptive text messages in-game. The system is rolling out in North America first, though Riot plans to expand it to other regions soon. Valorant’s developer intends to continue updating this system to better moderate text communication.
Valorant is available on PC.
Source: Riot Games