It’s exactly two weeks since the release of Valorant’s Act III. Patch 1.11 just came out and among other things, it also added the new agent – Skye.
Valorant’s Act III started on October 13 but it didn’t include the new agent Skye. Riot Games promised a big patch two weeks after and remained true to their word. Today’s October 27 and patch 1.11 just went live – adding Skye and introducing some notable changes.
What’s New in Patch 1.11?
Skye
The latest agent to grace the roster of playable characters in Valorant is Skye. We already went over her list of abilities but here’s a short recap.
By the looks of it, she’ll be a flexible pick but will mainly focus on supporting her allies and sticking along with them. Will she be better than Sage? Considering the latter was nerfed over and over there’s a high chance players will now prefer Skye over Sage. Skye will be available in the competitive scene starting November 9.
Agent Changes
One of the trends we have observed is that attacking teams can have a really hard time breaking entrenched defenders. Although every piece of the game can influence this type of trend (move speed, weapon tuning, map design, Agent balance), we think there are a few targeted character changes that can help give attackers more opportunities to break entrenched defenders. Each is listed below.
Breach
- Full flash time increased from 1.75 >>> 2
Cypher
Trapwire
- Disabled and revealed upon death
Spy Camera
- Disabled and revealed upon death
Killjoy
- Alarmbot and Turret now deactivate if she is more than 40m away from them—reentering the 40m range reactivates her little friends.
Turret
- Cooldown after pickup reduced from 20 seconds >>> 10 seconds
Alarm Bot
- Range at which Alarmbot can be detected decreased from 9m >>> 7m
- Cooldown after pickup reduced from 20 seconds >>> 7 seconds
Nanoswarm
- Range at which Nanoswarm can be detected decreased from 5m >>> 3.5m
- Damage increased from 40/s >>> 45/s
- Damage now ticks smoother and faster while in Nanoswarm, instead of in chunks of 10 every ¼ of a second
Competitive Updates
- Icebox enters the Competitive map rotation
- Icebox will be available for use in official esports competition (e.g., First Strike) after four weeks in Competitive queue (November 29, barring any issues)
- Shorter Unrated queue times for the highest-rank players
- We’ve taken steps to further solve issues for elite players experiencing long queue times for Unrated. We’re also further investigating improvements to reducing long queue times for all primary modes.
- Added location of the current gamepad to the loading screen for all modes
- Adjusted Combat Score to factor in non-damaging assists
Similarly, to Skye, Icebox won't be available in the esports scene for some time - November 29 to be exact. Riot's dev team will probably do their best to polish the new map and make sure it's as balanced as possible.
Economy Update
- Attackers who lose but survive the entire round without planting the Spike receive a reduced number of credits (1,000)
- Defenders who lose but survive the entire round after the Spike has detonated also receive reduced credits (1,000)
- Dying to the Spike will no longer count as a death in KDA statistics
- Additional economic information added as a tooltip when hovering over the exclamation mark next to “Min Next Round” in the shop
These changes are intended to increase richness in decision making regarding when it is worthwhile to save your gear vs. go for the round win. Additionally, this will allow teams that can secure round wins to more effectively chip away at the economy of opponents that opt to save out expensive weapons on a round loss.
Quality of Life
- Left-handed view model is now available for players. Players can swap their first-person view-model to lefthanded by going to the settings menu and swapping their view model to “Left-Handed”. Changing this will also show all other players as left-handed when spectating.
- You can now send a direct message by clicking a friend's name in chat instead of having to type their name out
- Players that have been AFK or alt-tabbed for more than 5 minutes will now appear as 'Away' in the Social Panel
- Adjusted team colors to remain fixed for the full duration of a game for observers instead of having the Attacking side always appear as red, and the defending side always appear as green
That about covers the most important details from this patch. Excited about the new update? Tell us on our Facebook page, unless you’re already playing the new agent.
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