Riot Games announced all the details regarding the upcoming new agent, Fade, after hosting the first-ever international VCT Masters 2022 Reykjavík. She will be introduced in the upcoming VALORANT patch 4.08, and along with this, it will bring new features, Episode 4 Act 3 Battle Pass, rank reset, and balance changes.
The most interesting of them is Jett getting nerfed as her signature ability, i.e., Tailwind has been tweaked a bit so that the Jett players will now have to think before committing an angle. Apart from Jett, we can see Sova being nerfed and Neon getting a buff, and you can find the complete details in the VALORANT patch 4.08 notes.
VALORANT 4.08 Patch Notes
Agent Updates: Fade Goes Live
Fade is the new addition and the nineteenth agent from Turkey to join the Valorant agent pool. She will be having the role of an Initiator. The initial gameplay trailer and the details regarding her abilities look quite promising. She can be a potential replacement for Sova and might be a new upcoming meta agent. Here are the complete details regarding her abilities.
Fade: Abilities
- Ability 1 – Prowler (250 Creds): EQUIP a Prowler. FIRE will send the Prowler out, causing it to travel in a straight line. The Prowler will lock onto any enemies or trails in their frontal vision cone and chase them, nearsighting them if it reaches them. HOLD the FIRE button to steer the Prowler in the direction of your crosshair.
- Ability 2 – Seize (200 Creds): Equip an orb of nightmare ink. FIRE to throw the orb which will plummet to the ground after a set amount of time. Upon hitting the ground, the ink will explode and create a zone in which enemies who are caught in it cannot escape the zone by normal means. RE-USE the ability to drop the projectile early in flight.
- Signature Ability – Haunt (Free): Equip a nightmarish entity. FIRE to throw the orb, which will plummet to the ground after a set amount of time. Upon hitting the ground, the orb will turn into a nightmarish entity that will reveal the location of enemies caught in its line of sight. Enemies can destroy this entity. RE-USE the ability to drop the projectile early while in flight.
- Ultimate Ability – Nightfall (7 Ult Points): EQUIP the power of Fear. FIRE to send out a wave of nightmare energy that can traverse through walls. The energy creates a trail to the opponent as well as deafens and decays them.
Jett
The team loves what Jett has continually brought to the fight, but as the game has evolved, some of her impacts have pushed beyond what we think is healthy for the tactical promise of VALORANT. Our update to Tailwind aims to address these concerns while maintaining the aggressive site takes an awe-inspiring highlight plays Jett should bring to the roster.
Check out our full article on the Jett update here for a complete breakdown of our approach and the philosophies that drove this update. We expect this change to have ripple effects on the Agents around Jett and the ecosystem overall, so we’ll keep a close eye not only on Jett, but any cascading impacts on the entire roster.
Tailwind
- Upon pressing E, Jett consumes her Tailwind charge and after a .75 second delay, activates a 12-second window where she’s able to dash on next key press
- Jett’s Tailwind charge can still be regained with 2 kills
- To keep parity with the changes to Jett dash, the functionality for Dash during Knife rounds in Escalation will be adjusted
Neon
We’ve been keeping an eye on Neon and wanted to make some quality of life changes to help remove some friction when playing as, or with, Neon.
General
- Battery energy received upon killing an enemy increased 25%>>>100%
High Gear
We’ve noticed Neon has faced some friction when using movement to lead into combat, specifically failed inputs due to the velocity restriction. We hope these changes help with making her slide a lot more natural when engaging in fights.
- Slide cannot be cast during equip delay
- Velocity restriction removed
- Neon can now slide sideways and forward, and only requires that she is moving
- Energy drain increased 6.7/s>>>10/s
Fast Lane
- Wall damage removed
- This change is intended to push Fast Lane into a more attractive option for Neon, or for an ally by preventing the disruptive portion of doing incidental damage and by adding a bit of safety moving forward.
Sova
At high-level ranked or pro play, Sova’s been a staple for quite some time. While his power has not been felt as viscerally as Jett’s, his impact in coordinated settings is nearly unmatched. We wanted to focus on addressing the amount of space that the Owl Drone practically guaranteed, and introduce additional counter play opportunities for opponents.
A reduced Drone duration means Sova has to incur more risk in his positioning to clear deeper angles, and the adjustments to ping reveal (below) give opponents more opportunity to mix up their repositioning without feeling forced to completely exit the area. Shock Dart has also taken a hit as we continue to sharpen damage outputs on non-ultimate abilities, so that they kill less frequently.
Owl Drone
- Duration reduced 10s >>> 7s
- Health reduced 125 >>> 100
- Dart Reveal
- Number of reveal pings reduced 3 >>> 2
- Initial delay before first ping reveals increased 1.2s >>> 1.6s*
- *Delay between the first and second ping remains 1.2s
- Quality of Life
- Changed crosshair color to green to better stand out against the white HUD
- Removed delay on [Target Hit] confirmation text
- [Target Hit] confirmation text now remains on the player HUD when transitioning out of Owl Drone.
- [Target Hit] confirmation text now remains on screen for 2s, previously 1s
- Adjusted audio on drone dart hits for both Sova, and the player hit, to make confirmations more noticeable
- Fixed a bug with Owl Drone, where the Dart Cooldown UI element would not properly update after tagging an opponent.
Shock Dart
- Max Damage decreased 90 >>> 75
- Radial damage has been scaled in accordance with new max damage.
Agent Ability Ammo
- Jett’s Bladestorm, Raze’s Showstopper, and Sova’s Hunter’s Fury will now show how much ammo they have left when equipped
Competitive Update
5-Stack Queues
- Reduced Rank Rating gain/loss penalty for different 5-stack configurations
- If EVERYONE in your party is Iron–Diamond 2:
- No RR penalty if within normal grouping
- 25% RR penalty for all players if any player falls outside of normal grouping
- If ANYONE in your party is Diamond 3–Immortal 3 (but no one in your party is Radiant)
- 25% RR penalty for all players
- If ANYONE in your party is Radiant
- 75% RR penalty for all players
- If EVERYONE in your party is Iron–Diamond 2:
- Tuned matchmaking to reduce wait time for 5-stacks
Bugs
Agents
- Fixed a bug where Jett could find herself unable to use abilities or weapons when using Tailwind immediately after depleting her Bladestorm daggers
- Fixed a bug where Yoru could teleport out of bounds when using Gatecrash
- Fixed various exploits allowing Yoru to use weapons before fully decloaking at the end of his ultimate
Performance
- Fixed a bug in the Shooting Range where bots would respawn unarmed
Are you happy with the changes Riot made with this patch? Let us know in the comment section below.
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