Valorant Episode 4 Act II kicks off today and it brings with itself a ton of changes, including a major shakeup in terms of Agent balancing. Yoru receives a major overhaul, something that the community has been requesting for a while now. Perhaps the rework will help Yoru’s pick-rates in Valorant and make him one of the fan-favourites again.
Yoru receives a buff to Fakeout, which is now a fully copy of Yoru. The copy will run forward, and when damaged, will explode and debuff enemies around him. Additionally, when the copy is shot, it faces the direction of the person that fired the shot and rushes their position in a canal direction. Essentially, mimicking exactly how players would react to being shot at, thus, strengthening the illusion.
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Valorant Patch Notes 4.04
General Changes in Valorant Patch 4.04
- Improved the system used to place abilities at targeted ground locations. This update should make it easier to find valid placement locations in tight spaces. These are the abilities affected:
- Omen’s Shrouded Step
- Viper’s pit
- Chamber’s Trademark and Rendez-vous
- Every Killjoy ability
- Yoru’s Gatecrash
- Sage’s Barrier Orb
Omen
Dark Cover
- Cooldown decreased 40s >>> 30s
- Cost increased 100 >>> 150
- Projectile Speed increased 2800 >>> 6400
Shrouded Step
- Cost decreased 150 >>> 100
- Pre teleport delay decreased 1s >>> 0.7s
Paranoia
- Added forward spawn offset, so players adjacent to Omen are not hit
Brimstone
Sky Smoke
- Deploy time decreased 2 >>> 1 second
- Deploy radius increased 5000 >>> 5500
- Smoke height increased to match other Controllers
Stim Beacon
- Now also applies a 15% speed boost in addition to RapidFire.
Astra
Stars
- Max Stars reduced 5 >>> 4
- Cooldown on retrieving a Star increased 14 >>> 25
- Astra can now pick up placed Stars during the Buy Phase to refund their charge immediately.
- Max distance of Star Placement increased 10000 >>> 30000 to allow her to place Stars across the furthest corners of maps.
Gravity Well
- Cooldown Increased 25 >>> 45
- Gravity Well Size Decreased 525 >>> 475
- Gravity Well no longer affects anyone fully underneath the Gravity Well.
Nova Pulse
- Cooldown Increased 25 >>> 45
- Nova Pulse no longer affects anyone fully underneath the Nova Pulse.
Nebula
- Cooldown Increased 14 >>> 25
- Nebula cooldowns are now sequential instead of simultaneous
- Nebula size increased 410 >>> 475
Astral Form
- While in Astral form, pings are no longer blocked by level geometry that Astra cannot see
- Astra’s targeting ring in Astral form is reduced to one ring that reflects the now unified size of all her utility
- Astra’s targeting ring no longer randomly disappears when aiming across some map locations
- Increased the speed of the overlay that covers Astra’s screen when transitioning in and out of Astral form
- Fixed an issue where Stars were placed slightly above the location Astra was targeting.
For a complete breakdown of all new rebalances and changes in Valorant Patch 4.04, head on over to the official Valorant patch notes linked here.
