VALORANT Patch Notes 3.0: All New Changes in Episode 3

Valorant Patch notes 3.0 has released and they bring some important changes along with regular bug fixes. After the 2.10 Patch notes were canceled on account of some core problems, 2.11 was a big one, because technically, it held 2 patch notes together. The recent patch is very important as it holds the inclusion for Episode 3 in Valorant.

It has brought the usual 26-day rotation of gameplay modes among Replication, Escalation, and Snowball Fight along with some regular screenings. The article speaks all about the new inclusions and bug fixes Valorant Patch Notes 3.0 has brought to us.

Related: What Are Valorant Pride Cards And What Do We Know About Them?

Valorant Patch Notes 3.0

As the developers mentioned, “While there are a lot of changes with this patch, they are focused around refining two critical components of the game: Increasing the importance of precise gunplay and expanding the tactical sandbox. Game-spanning changes like these can be painful as we are asking you all to relearn many things that you’re now comfortable with.”

“There will be times when you are forced to make harder choices about what you bring into battle each round or forced to engage with an opponent differently—but just know that your enemies are facing the same challenges” added Max Grossman and Sal Garozzo, the Co-Lead Designers of Valorant.

Valorant has adjusted ability pricing, cooldown rates, and ultimate costs on every Agent because certain agents were able to have too much impact with their abilities without making any significant trade-offs. The changes introduced for all agents are:

• Signature abilities now only provide a minimum of one charge per round instead of accumulating a charge every round.
  • For example, if you have a two charge signature ability and you end the round with one charge remaining, you will not gain an additional charge
• Charges gained from cooldowns are now always temporary
• Visibility returns faster during the fadeout period of all flashes.

Some changes made to agents apart from the ones leaked before the patch was introduced are:

ASTRA

Astral Stars/ X

• Stars are now inactive when placed during the buy phase
  • When the barriers drop, her Stars charge for 1.4 seconds before becoming active and usable.
• On Attack, Astra can now see the Spike’s location in Astral form
  • This representation does not animate so it will not provide additional info on the status of the Spike.
• Recall cooldown increased 8 >>> 15

OMEN

Dark Cover (E)

• Granted signature charges reduced 2 >>> 1
• Omen now must buy his second smoke for 100
• Cooldown time increased 35 >>> 40

SOVA

Recon Bolt (E)

• Cooldown time increased 35 >>> 40

VIPER

Snakebite (C)

• Duration reduced 8 >>> 6.5
• Outer edges of Viper’s acid patch form faster to ensure it is lethal if an enemy sits in the entire duration

KILLJOY

• Alarmbot (Q)Cooldown after pickup increased 7 >>> 20
• Turret (E)Cooldown after pickup increased 10 >>> 20

SKYE

Trailblazer (Q)

• Vision radius increased 1750 >>> 2250
• Max concussion duration increased 3 >>> 4

Guiding Light (E)

• Skye no longer needs to re-equip to trigger her flash
• Guiding Light’s projectile now goes around corners tighter when free flying and is more responsive to guiding
• Audio attenuation when cast reduced 3250 >>> 1250

RAZE

Model Update

• Model has been updated with a polish pass

Weapon Updates

With the changes to walk accuracy, shooting while walking will be significantly less effective at medium ranges, rewarding players who proactively stop before they shoot. Valorant has reduced the running accuracy of Sidearms and SMGs in an attempt to tighten up engagements with those weapons while maintaining some of their identity in terms of mobility by being able to move and shoot somewhat accurately at shorter ranges.

Some changes made to weapons apart from the price changes leaked before the patch was introduced are:

All Weapons

• Bullet tagging changed from 75% slow >>> 72.5% slow
  • “Tagging” is the slowing effect you feel when hit by bullets
• Weapon Deadzones changed from 30% >>> 27.5%
  • “Deadzone” in VALORANT refers to the movement speed at a player becomes inaccurate

RIFLES

• Walking inaccuracy changed from 1.3 >>> 2.0
• Running unchanged at 5.0

HEAVIES

• Walking Inaccuracy changed from .5 >>> 2.4
• Running unchanged at 6.0

SMGs

• Walking inaccuracy changed from .3 >>> 1.0
• Running inaccuracy changed from 2.0 >>> 2.5

CLASSIC

• Walking inaccuracy changed from .25 >>> .84
• Running inaccuracy changed from 1.5 >>> 2.1

FRENZY

• Walking inaccuracy changed from .25 >>> .8
• Running inaccuracy changed from 1.0 >>> 2.0

GHOST

• Walking inaccuracy changed from .25 >>> .92
• Running Inaccuracy changed from 1.85 >>> 2.3

SHERIFF

• Walking inaccuracy changed from .25 >>> 1.2
• Running inaccuracy changed from 2.0 >>> 3.0

JUDGE

• Damage falloff at 10m changed from 13 per pellet >>> 10 per pellet
• Damage falloff at 15m changed from 10 per pellet >>> 7 per pellet

BULLDOG

• Hip-fire (full auto mode) firing rate increased from 9.15 RPS >>> 9.5 RPS

COMPETITIVE UPDATES

For Episode 3, Valorant’s major focus for Ranked is matchmaking accuracy and fairness. Here are the primary player experience goals:

• We want winning games to matter most—at all skill levels.
• We want to improve individual performance evaluation because we believe it helps identify more fair and balanced matches.
• We want you to see their rank as an accurate representation of your current skill level.
• We want you to have fewer motivations for playing on different accounts and to get to their proper rank faster.

Here’s some of what players can expect from these changes:

• Reduced the possibility of feeling “hard stuck” on older accounts. If your skill improves, your rank should properly reflect that, regardless of account age.
• Matchmaking accuracy will improve across all ranks, which should lead to a smoother ranked climb and reduce how hard you may swing up and down in rank
• While winning games is still the most important factor, individual performance will also be accounted for to improve matchmaking at Immortal+
  • This should result in better matches at the highest levels.
• Close games will have a smaller effect on rank rating gains and losses
• Adjusted our Rank Rating curves, so climbing (or falling) should feel less volatile
• Updated Rank distribution
• Placements raised to Diamond 1

PERFORMANCE UPDATES

Players with medium to high spec machines (CPU bound systems) may see up to 6% performance improvements as a result of the following work:

• Improved clipping plane calculations using multithreading
• Improved thread utilization across multiple cores for distributed tasks
• Optimized camera calculations
• Optimized ambient audio for each map
• General optimizations for all ability animations

SOCIAL UPDATES

• Hover Cards have been added to the social panel
  • Hover over your friends’ list to quickly learn more about the players you have added. 
• You can now invite to party with Riot ID in custom game

GAMEPLAY TECHNOLOGY

KILLFEED

• Your kills will get an additional highlighted border to make them stand out
• Kill assists will also be shown to the left of the killfeed entries
• The killfeed will also display a highlighted border for your assist portrait
• The killfeed will display certain ultimate abilities when players on either team are killed in a second-life state or revived.
• Added multi-colored killfeeds in cases where kills would result in the same team color appearing side by side

“ROUND ROLLBACK” FEATURE

• This feature allows you to set the game back to the start of a previous round and re-play the game starting from there
• To enable the feature, go to “Options” while setting up a Custom Game and toggle “On” Tournament Mode
  • Moderators can activate a rollback
  • If Cheats are enabled as a Custom Game option, all players can activate a rollback.
• During the match, the Round Rollback feature can be found in the “Cheats” section of the Menu.
• Added the ability to toggle on and off the outer crosshair lines!
• Adjusted assist timings and thresholds for utility-based assists to make them more consistent across different Agent abilities.

PROGRESSION UPDATES

• Happy anniversary VALORANT! To celebrate we have added a new Year One Event Pass—this is similar to a Battlepass but it’s completely free and has some really cool goodies.
  • This will be active for the duration of Patch 3.0 and will only last till 3.01 goes live. So remember to get your goodie bag before the party ends.
• What’s a party without friends? We’ve also added a Squad Boost: You will get extra XP when you play in a premade group.
  • +8% boost for one additional player, +12% for two, +16% for three, and +20% for a full squad.
  • This will also be active for the duration of 3.0.
• We’re also permanently adding Account Leveling: A new way to recognize and reward you for your time playing in all VALORANT game modes.
  • Your account Player Card will now display a numeric level based on how much you play.
  • In addition to that, you will also be boosted to a certain level based on how many games you’ve played before Patch 3.0.
  • For more details, check out here.

BUGS

AGENTS

• Characters blocked by Sage’s Barrier Orb when resurrected now break the wall to ensure they don’t get pushed inside map geo
• Fixed Skye’s Seekers showing up on the minimap even when they aren’t visible to an enemy
• Fixed Viper’s ultimate not showing as active on the team UI when Viper’s Pit is up
• Fixed bug where Cypher’s Spy Camera could be placed inside the map on mid Icebox
• Fixed a bug where Reyna’s Dismiss ability could not be rebought if the Buy Menu is closed and reopened during the same Buy Phase
• Fixed a bug where cancelling Sova’s Hunter’s Fury while charging the shot allows player to skip unequip animation by equipping a weapon, ability, or Spike
• Fixed a bug where picking up Cypher’s TrapWires/Cages and Killjoy’s Nano Swarms during the Buy phase would prevent you from purchasing a second charge

COMPETITIVE

• Fixed a bug that was causing a delay in recent Competitive game’s Ranked Rating updates in Match History
• Fixed a Career screen visual bug that would show up for those who dropped out of Immortal
• Fixed a bug that caused a friend’s career to infinitely load

SOCIAL

Fixed a bug where friends’ names were merging together in the social panel when interacting with them, jumbling them together at times. Word scramble no longer!

CONTENT SUPPORT

• Fixed an issue causing a hitch when viewing skins in the Collection.

GAMEPLAY TECHNOLOGY

• Fixed a bug where the inner crosshair toggle feature wasn’t working
• Fixed a bug where AOE kills were not rewarding the appropriate character if the enemy was in a debuffed state
• Fixed a bug where the Spike icon pulse and beeping sound were not in sync
• Fixed a bug where Ally defuse progress bar sometimes fails to appear
• Fixed a bug where Observer’s Killfeed has no team colors
• Reverted our fix for the “swirly arms” in the last patch, since it was causing significant animation snapping

---

Also Read – Valorant Patch Notes 2.08 comes with a new Tropical Map “Breeze” and Battle Pass