Valorant update 3.05 patch notes: Fracture map, ranked updates, ability changes

Connor Knudsen
fracture map art

Valorant’s newest patch notes, update 3.05, include changes to various ability changes and updates to competitive. Oh, and not to mention the new “H” shaped map called Fracture.

Of the changes that are coming with Valorant’s leaked Patch 3.05, most exciting is the addition of the heavily teased new map, Fracture. This map is one of Valorant’s most unique right away, with a signature “H” shaped design that spawns defenders in the middle of the map and attackers on either side at the top or bottom. There will be an unrated Fracture-only queue for players just wanting to try it out.

Also in these notes are changes are some changes to the way agents’ abilities will work against one another, battlepass XP rewards, and updates that will add back tiers to the Immortal ranking.

For more of a full rundown on the details of the patch notes, hitting servers on September 8, continue reading below.

sova valorant
Sova is one of the agents receiving changes in Patch 3.05

Valorant Agent Changes in Patch 3.05

Agents receiving changes in these notes are Killjoy, Raze, Breach, Brimstone, and Sova. These changes, for the most part, deal with how the agents’ abilities harm other abilities in the game. But, there are a few exceptions.

One such exception are the changes to Raze’s Boom Bot, making it hit a bit less hard, but also cost a bit less.

Boom Bot (C)

  • Max damage reduced 125 >>> 80
  • Min damage reduced 50 >>> 30
  • Cost reduced 400 >>> 300

Killjoy also sees some changes that aren’t strictly ability-related, with her Turret now slowing significantly less.

Turret (E)

  • Bullet tagging reduced 72.5% slow >>> 29.5% slow (84.31% Decrease in slowing.)

The remaining three agents all get changes to one of their abilities and how it affects others in the game. See full patch notes below.

Competitive Updates

fracture map
Fracture will bring a whole new style of gameplay to Valorant

The biggest thing to note here is that Immortal 1/2/3 rank tiers are now back, allowing players to better distinguish between their Immortal cohorts.

Because of this ranked restrictions have also been updated to reflect the return of Immortal 1/2/3, primarily pertaining to queuing up with Diamond-ranked players. Those restrictions can be seen below.

  • Diamond 1 → Immortal 1
  • Diamond 2 → Immortal 2
  • Diamond 3 → Immortal 3

Premium Battlepass Updates

Agents who have upgraded to the premium battlepass will now receive a 3% XP boost towards tier progression. This comes in addition to the premium rewards that now come as a part of the feature, incentivizing players to go premium earlier, rather than later as this boost is not something that can be used retroactively.

This XP boost does not apply to daily or weekly missions.

Other than these changes include updated AFK detection in modes like Deathmatch and Snowball fight as well as performance updates to ping calculation to exclude the server frame time.

Full patch notes below via Riot Games.

Valorant 3.05 patch notes

AGENT UPDATES 

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 

Turret (E) 

  • Bullet tagging reduced 72.5% slow >>> 29.5% slow 

RAZE 

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 

  • 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

About The Author

Connor is a former writer at Dexerto based in Oklahoma City who covered Overwatch, New World and more. A lifetime gamer, he has been covering gaming and esports since 2018, and has competed since 2010. Yet, despite all of that, he still can't aim.