The new VALORANT patch is here and there are quite a few changes for Riot Games’ FPS fanbase. Here’s how these changes will affect your daily games.
The latest VALORANT’s patch update (2.06) brings some much-needed changes to some agents as well as a few weapons.
The update comes days after Sentinels secured the VALORANT North American Champions tour title. The latest update brings changes to Viper, Yoru and also significantly alters the Buckey shotgun. Changes to these agents and the weapon will have a big impact on the game’s professional scene.
Changes to Viper in the latest VALORANT patch update
The 2.06 update nerfs Viper, which was a much-needed change to the agent. Viper’s passive ability, Toxin has received a few balance changes. The decay over time (Toxin) is now down to ten seconds from the previous fifteen. This reduction will significantly reduce Viper’s Cloud damage in team fights. However, Riot Games has somewhat compensated for the same by reducing the delay before health decrease from 2.5 to 1.5. The reduction in delay means opponents take damage much faster after getting out of the agent’s smoke.
Viper can pick up poison cloud grenades from further away. The Toxic Screen ability stays up for an additional two seconds before deactivating.
Yoru’s Gatecrash receives a fixed cooldown
Yoru’s blindside is now slightly quicker thanks to a lower activation time. The Flash duration is now 1.5 seconds compared to the previous 1.1. One of the biggest changes to Yoru is to its Gatecrash ability. Instead of refreshing on every kill, Gatecrash will now refresh every 35 seconds. The fixed time will allow Yoru players to plan their movement and not rely on final blows in order to use this ability.
What changed with VALORANT’s Bucky shotgun?
In addition to changes to the agents and their abilities, the VALORANT 2.06 update also has weapon updates. Bucky has been one of the strongest weapons in VALORANT for the last few patches. The much-needed nerf to the weapon will see a re-balancing of its primary and alternate fire uses.
We want to focus the Bucky more on it's actual primary firing mode (left click) and make that the strength you try to optimize when choosing a bucky vs its alternate firing mode (right-click). The right click should be more of a tool you can use when you can't get into that effective left-click range, or you just need some reliable chip damage.
Here are the changes to Bucky in the latest update:
- Primary fire (left-click) bullet spread decreased 3.4 >>> 2.6.
- Decreased spread on Alt-fire (right-click) 3.4 >>> 2.0.
- Updated damage curve for both primary and alt-fire.
- 0m–8m is 20 damage per pellet.
- 8m–12m is 12 damage per pellet.
- Beyond 12m is 9 damage per pellet.
- Reduced amount of pellets in a right-click shot from 15 >>> 5.
Interested readers can check out the full list of changes in the VALORANT 2.06 update here.
Stay tuned to Esports.gg for the latest VALORANT news and updates.