Valorant 7.04 Early Patch Notes Revealed, Ushers in Major Agent Balancing

In a continuous quest to enhance gameplay and player experience, Riot Games has revealed a preview of their upcoming patch 7.04 for VALORANT. This patch aims to make significant changes to agent balance, impacting over half of the roster. Below you can find the key changes coming with this update and the start of Episode 7 Act 2.

VALORANT PATCH NOTES 7.04

EDITOR’S NOTE

This is a preview of the Agent balance changes shipping with Patch 7.04 at the start of Episode 7 Act 2. The complete Patch Notes with all upcoming updates will go up next week.

AGENTS

VALORANT asks you to make tough decisions when interacting with enemy utility—shooting, dodging, and timing your moment to take a decisive action. We want everyone to come away from rounds feeling like they had the possibility of making a better play if only they were a little faster or smarter. The team has noticed that when faced with multiple pieces of utility or some of larger scale ultimates, your avenues for counterplay can sometimes be overloaded, leading you to feel unsure of what’s happening or what you could do differently next time.

While Patch 7.04 includes changes to over half of the roster, the changes are sharply focused on increasing game state clarity by making the following adjustments:

Reducing the frequency of large area of effect of ultimates
Reducing the amount of time utility is active in the world
Reducing the HP of shootable utility
We also believe the Ultimate cost updates below better align large area, high-impact ults with the pressure they place on the enemy, creating both a better pacing of the round-defining abilities and a clearer choice competition between high and low cost ults.

Though many of these changes are subtle, We hope all together they improve gamestate clarity and the sense that you have even more opportunities for your skill to shine through. —June Cuervo, Agent Designer

BREACH

Aftershock (C)
- Ticks reduced from 3 to 2
- Damage increased from 60 per tick to 80

Rolling Thunder (X)
- Ultimate points increased 8>>>9

BRIMSTONE

Orbital Strike (X)
- Ultimate points increased 7>>>8

FADE

Prowler (C)
- Time to re-equip gun takes slightly longer after using the ability

GEKKO

Mosh Pit (C)
- The impacted area does 10 damage per second before exploding

Wingman (Q)
- HP reduced 100>>>80

Thrash (X)
- Thrash’s explosion had a little makeover to make it easier to see and understand the area it has affected (on top of being beautiful)

KILLJOY

Lockdown (X)
- Ultimate points increased 8>>>9

OMEN

Paranoia (Q)
- No movement velocity imparted when casting

SKYE

Skye has become a keystone of the current meta through her blend of recon and space taking utility. While we like that she can potentially unlock new comps through this combo, we think she has lacked clear weaknesses compared to her peers given the wide range of value she brings. These changes reduce the distance in which Guiding Light can provide info. Changes also helps reduce the amount of time enemies need to worry about her flash when she flies it a great distance without activating it. We’ve also reduced the health of Trailblazer and Seekers to make them slightly easier for enemies to deal with, Skye’s ultimate cost will increase to better reflect the high level of baseline value it provides.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on these updates to see if they push the choice competition between Skye and her peers into a healthy place, or if further updates are needed in either direction.—June

Guiding Light (E)
- Max duration while casting reduced 2.5s >>>2s

Trailblazer (Q)
- HP reduced 100>>>80

Seekers (X)
- Ultimate Points increased 7 >>>8
- Seeker Health decreased 150>>>120

SOVA

Recon Bolt (E)
- Total number of scans reduced 3>>>2

VIPER

Viper’s Pit (X)
- Ultimate points increased 8>>>9

ASTRA

We’ve noticed a large power disparity between Astra’s Gravity Well and Nova Pulse. Our goal is to create clearer use cases for both abilities: Gravity Well will be Astra’s tool for controlling space, and Nova Pulse for quickly affecting an area. At the same time, we hope to reduce some of the oppressive and long duration pressure Astra’s stars produce by providing enemies a chance to push past activated Gravity Well during its windup period if they act quickly.

We’re updating Cosmic Divide to help clarify the overall game state by eliminating uncertainty around whether you or your enemies are close enough to the wall to be heard. We also think this gives Astra’s wall a clearer power profile for her and her allies to play around.—June

Gravity Well (C)
- Startup time increased .6>>>1.25
- Gravity time duration decreased 2.75>>>2.0

Nova Pulse (Q)
- Startup time decreased from 1.25>>>1.0

Cosmic Divide (X)
- Audio now is blocked completely by the wall rather than muffled

JETT

Since the last time we released changes to Jett, she has continued to be a mainstay of both competitive and professional play. We like that the dash changes in 4.08 pushed her to be more deliberate and tactical, but still feel that Jett is often given more reliable power windows and generous tuning than other Duelists and Agents in general.

Our goal with these changes is further sharpening Jett as the aggressive, high precision Duelist by increasing the intentionality of her ability usage and power windows. We want to maintain her unique ability to break through chokes and dash onto site, while reducing her defensive power-holding angles and her ability to reactively undo tactical mistakes with her array of quickly cast abilities.

We believe these changes align Jett’s overall power level and place in the Tactical Cycle with our other Agents, while maintaining Jett’s unique role and fantasy on the VALORANT roster. To help explain our thought process, we’ve provided context on how each change aims to support these goals, and we’ll be keeping a close eye on how these changes land at all levels of play. —Sherry Fan, Agent Designer

Tailwind (E)
- Dash window decreased 12s>>>7.5s
  - At 12s, Jett could often find value activating her dash without clear intention or make incorrect calls but still have time to find another use for the dash. Shortening this window pushes Jett to be more deliberate with her calls and reduces Tailwind’s power at defensively holding angles, while minimally impacting her ability to proactively use the dash to break onto a site.
- Activation windup increased 0.75s>>>1s
  - Increasing Tailwind’s windup should promote proactive use by reducing Jett’s ability to activate it reactively when caught off guard or in the middle of a fight and successfully escape.

Cloudburst (C)
- Duration decreased 4.5s>>>2.5s
- Time to re-equip gun takes slightly longer after using the ability.
  - We want to reduce some of the persistent safety Jett gets dashing into or escaping with smokes, sharpening Cloudburst to be a fast but powerful tool that forces players to be quick and precise with their decisions.

Updraft (Q)
- Charges decreased 2>>>1
  - With two Updrafts, we’ve seen moments where Jett escapes situations where they’ve been tactically outplayed by throwing enemies off by relying on Updraft’s unpredictable movement. We hope to reduce some of the unhealthy movement extremes Updraft can produce and increase the importance of using it at the right time.

Blade Storm (X)
- Ultimate points increased 7>>>8
  - Jett’s ultimate has proven one of the most flexible, reliable and economically powerful gun replacement Ultimates because of its lack of a timer, reset on kills, and harmony with Jett’s movement. This change should bring Blade Storm up to the same cost of comparable weapon ults, such as the Tour De Force and Showstopper.