Two agents get big changes in the new Valorant patch.
The latest set of Valorant patch notes have been released, and the 9.05 patch is set to bring some big buffs to agents such as Chamber and Astra as well as the Ares machine gun which gets even more powerful.
The 9.05 patch notes are headlined by changes to two key agents; Chamber and Astra. After finally landing in a decent place when it comes to balance, Chamber has recently started to feel slightly underwhelming and is in need of a buff. That comes in the form of a range increase to his TP radius on his Rendezvous ability, which should allow him to play a little more aggressively and play some more unexpected angles.
As for Astra, her buff comes in the way of more utility potential. Her stars are increasing from four to five, which should mean she can be a little more useful than she previously has been, with more potential to use more of her kit as well as still smoking throughout the round. This change follows up some earlier changes in the last patch, which aimed to change which areas of her kit she focused on. Hopefully this change should improve her fortunes.
The other big agent related change comes to abilities that increase your rate of fire, such as Reyna’s Empress. Now they will not impact the recoil patters as much, meaning they remain consistent with the usual patters instead of changing things up and potentially making it harder to hit your shots.
But it’s not just agents getting big buffs in this patch, as the Ares machine gun is also getting some changes. A previous crouch nerf is being undone, now making it the same as the Odin, while the headshot multiplier has gone from 2.4 to 2.5. That may seem like a tiny change, but it now means the Ares will kill with two headshots from within a 30m range, whereas before it would still leave a full health enemy alive.
When it comes to the Valorant console patch notes, the big talking point is that the Breeze map is being added to unrated and Swift Play queues and there’s a ton of bug fixes coming to both PS5 and Xbox Series X/S versions of Valorant.
The full patch notes also include info on some new player behaviour changes, a few tweaks to some maps and provides the patch schedule for the rest of the year, which should make it easier to know when a big patch is coming to Valorant.