Valorant Patch Notes v1.03: Guardian buff, Twin Hunter orb, more

Valorant v1.03 is now live on the servers and while it isn't the biggest update it will still be warmly welcomed by the community. There are several changes here including some minor map fixes, while the Guardian assault rifle has been made more viable for players with a price reduction and stat boost.

Guardian buffed

(Picture: Riot Games)

One gun you are likely to see a lot more of going forward is the Guardian which has been not only reduced in price from 2700 points to 2500. Its wall-banging potential has also gone up, bringing it in line with the Phantom and Vandal, going from Medium penetration power to heavy. However it's not all good news for Guardian lovers with it's rate of fire decreasing 6.5s to 4.75.

• Read more: Phantom vs Vandal: Which is the best? a guide to Valorant's two main ARs

The new price point plus increased stats make this a viable option when unable to shell out 2900 needed for the "standard" assault rifles.

New Spike Rush Orb

Spike rush is still getting some love with the introduction of the Twin Hunters orb. This is quite different from the other orbs we have seen so far in that when collected sends two wolves(!) to attack the nearest opponent. These wolves are no slouches either, with 150hp. Once they see an opponent they will race towards them and attack, slowing and near sighting them upon impact.

• Read more: Riot comments on requested Valorant Pick & Ban system, Deathmatch mode and more

The wolves time out after 15 seconds.

Valorant v1.03 patch notes

WEAPON UPDATES

• Guardian
  • Price reduced from 2700 >>> 2500
  • Rate of Fire reduced from 6.5 >>> 4.75
  • Penetration power increased from Medium >>> Heavy
  • Input queue updated from 0.083 >>> 0.1175
• Up until now, the Guardian has lived in a strange position in the arsenal. Price-wise, it remained close to the premium rifles while not adequately competing with their power, making it too pricey as an alternate economic option, but not powerful enough to be considered as a premiere weapon choice. Its fast fire rate made it more powerful in close range situations than we’d like, given our goals for the weapon’s long-range, precision shot fantasy, and—despite its semi-automatic, heavy-hitting firing style—it matched other rifles in terms of penetrating power. We hope these changes will sharpen the Guardian’s identity as a long-range, versatile weapon, with its heavy penetration values and lower price providing some more nuanced choice competition to the rifle category of the arsenal.

MAP UPDATES

• Haven
  • Removed spot where Spike was unable to be retrieved once dropped.
• All Maps
  • Fixed multiple spots where players were able to clip inside level geometry
  • Removed more locations where Sova’s sensor arrow was able to go through walls

MODE UPDATES

• Spike Rush
  • New Orb: Twin Hunters
    • Capturing the orb releases two hunting wolves to track down the two nearest enemies (from orb location, they will not change targets after spawning).
    • Wolves speed up when they spot an enemy and dash at them when close, slowing and near-sighting for 4 seconds upon impact.
    • Wolves have 150 HP and can be damaged
    • Wolves will time out at 15 seconds, or when their target is killed
  • Split: Orb Location
    • Mid defender side orb has been moved onto mid platform to make it slightly less defender favoured

QUALITY OF LIFE

• Surrender changes
  • Unrated Mode vote requirements to pass changed from 100% to 80%
  • Competitive Mode vote requirements to pass remains at 100%
  • You can now call a surrender vote starting with round 5 versus round 8
  • A new button in the in-game menu has been added to call a surrender vote
  • We know it can be at times challenging to get a surrender vote to pass given it has historically required a unanimous vote. For Unrated Mode, which is meant to be lower stakes than Competitive (no rank on the line), we have made adjustments so if the vast majority of the team wants to surrender (80%) they can now opt-out of that match and find a fairer fight sooner.
  • For Competitive Mode we plan to keep the vote requirement as unanimous, because surrendering has an impact on your rank (all unplayed rounds count as loss credit), we want to make sure the team is in full agreement before a decision is made that will negatively impact a player’s rank. We’ve also slightly reduced the minimum rounds needed to be played so that if players have a particularly bad start, they can opt-out of that match earlier.
• In the Collection screens, there is now a checkbox to toggle between showing all items or only owned ones (additional options and improvements for managing your collection will be coming in future patches)
• Fixed a bug where the mission “You or your ally plant/defuse spikes” sometimes did not take into account plants and defuses by allies
• Transition screens and startup screens are now letterboxed
• Fixed text overlap issues in the Battlepass and Contract screens in some languages
• Players in custom games with cheats enabled can select a different Agent to use on the next round in the cheats menu.
• Removing a friend will now prompt a confirmation dialogue
• Pressing Escape while typing in the chatbox will clear the message
• Revised layout of confirmation dialogs to make primary action larger and always on the left; applied colour in various places, like using red for destructive actions; revised the locations of some confirmation and cancel buttons for consistency
• Minor fixes for visual artifacts on Bind on Intel GPUs
• Minor render improvements for modern hardware
• Added an error popup for crashes on startup linking to troubleshooting guide for crashes
• Patch notes and payment windows will scale correctly on 4K monitors
• IME input on payment windows will now work correctly (Japanese/Chinese)
• Players can now view individual skin levels in the collections and store view
• Updates to censored hit impact effects for better readability
• Added Agent silhouettes for observers
• Improved render performance for silhouettes
• Agent health bars are now visible to observers
• Fulfilling a buy request while moving will no longer interrupt your movement
• Custom Games Tournament Mode:
• Custom games can now be set to Tournament Mode. This allows every player in the game to have access to the Toggle Match Timer cheat in-game without having all other cheats enabled. It also allows observers to be flagged as moderators, which grants them access to additional cheats that they can use as necessary. Regular observers cannot use cheats anymore.
• We'll be looking at expanding the list of moderator cheats in future patches.

BUG FIXES

• Fixed a Cypher bug where traps that were placed such that they were on the inside of a doorway, would not trigger when someone walked through them
• Fixed an issue with the Match Timer hitching under unstable network conditions
• Fixed an issue where players couldn’t jump off ascenders if jump was bound to the mousewheel
• Fixed some visual issues that could occur when reconnecting to the game while dead
• Fixed Barrier phase announcement showing up in normal games for observers
• Fixed various UI issues on observer scoreboard

The complete patch notes can be found on the official Valorant website.