All Valorant launch update agent nerfs & buffs

Bill Cooney

The debut 1.0 update for Riot’s new FPS Valorant was a big one, and it contains a number of changes for agents from the closed beta. We have all the info you’ll need to know to be at the top of your game no matter who you play.

With the new character Reyna, there will officially be 11 Valorant agents at launch, and the full 1.0 patch notes contained significant changes for five of them, so there’s a good chance your main has been affected.

Sage, Raze, Jett, Phoenix and Omen will all see significant changes at release, ranging from their ultimate all the way down to their round-by-round purchasable abilities. Here’s all the Valorant patch 1.0 changes.

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Sage’s Healing Orbs will be even more valuable with an increased cooldown.

We’ll start with Sage, who’s Healing and Barrier orbs have been tweaked once again. The Healing Orb’s cooldown has been increased from 35 to 45 seconds, which will mean fewer uses throughout rounds for players, making it an even more valuable ability than before.

Her Barrier is going from 1000 to 800 HP, and will only last 30 seconds instead of 40, this means the ability will definitely have less of an impact, but still serve as an effective, but definitely not permanent, stalling tactic against the enemy.

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Phoenix and Jett will both play a bit differently at release.

Raze’s changes are pretty simple, all she sees is the radius of her blast pack reduced from 2 to 1, which will still allow her to boost jump with it, but makes it less threatening to enemies and less of a damage-dealing tool.

Smokes are a crucial part of Valorant, and now Jett could have one of the most powerful line of sight denying abilities in the game after the duration of her Cloud Burst got bumped up from four all the way to seven seconds. Her Tailwind boost ability will also now break Cypher’s Tripwire, hopefully making her the quintessential speedy hero she’s been marketed as.

Phoenix sees major changes to all of his abilities and even his ultimate. Blaze will now last eight seconds instead of six, which is intended to go along with the following changes to its healing and damage:

  • Blaze Damage: 15 every 0.25 second to 1 every 0.033 seconds
  • Blaze Healing: 3 every 0.25 seconds to 1 every 0.16 seconds

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Hot Hands healing has also been reduced from 3 every 0.25 seconds to 1 every 0.08 seconds to match the damage over time changes of Blaze.

Phoenix will be even deadlier around corners now, since his Curveball flash now lasts 1.1 seconds instead of the beta’s 0.8. Finally, the Run it Back ultimate will now reload the agent’s weapons on respawn, which is a huge quality of life upgrade.

Omen got almost every piece of his kit tweaked, similar to Phoenix.

Last, but certainly not least, we come to Omen, who also had every single one of his abilities tweaked for Valorant’s full release. Paranoia will now equip like a weapon, instead of autocasting, which should make it easier to hit enemies with it.

Omen now enters a “phaser” world when using Dark Cover, where he can see through walls to place his smokes, which can now be even more precisely placed with new controls. One last change of life if for From the Shadows, which can now be cancelled, but will still drain Omen’s ultimate charge if activated.

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About The Author

Bill is a former writer at Dexerto based in Iowa, who covered esports, gaming and online entertainment for more than two years. With the US team, Bill covered Overwatch, CSGO, Influencer culture, and everything in between.