Valorant Patch Notes 1.08: Raze nerf, Guardian buff, map changes, more

Valorant Patch 1.08 is here! This time around, Riot have made changes to Raze’s Blast Pack, tweaked the Guardian and made some changes to map rotation. Here are the full patch notes for the September 16 update.

Following the significant changes from Patch 1.07, Riot have reined in the changes during their latest patch. As part of Patch 1.08, Raze will be receiving a slight nerf, with a minor reduction in the radius of damage dished out — the satchel will no longer harm allies.

Some considerable changes to the Guardian have been done to make it a more viable weapon in the meta, via a reduction in price and increased rate of fire. The infamous randomized map rotation has now been fixed too, with an all-new ‘pseudo-randomization’ being implemented — no more back-to-back-to-back Split… Yay!

Below are the full patch notes for the 1.08 update.

Riot Games

Here’s a summary of the changes coming in Patch 1.08.

Valorant update 1.08: Full patch notes

AGENT UPDATES

Raze

Blast Pack

• Initial damage reduced to 15 with a .2 meter inner radius, falling off to 5 minimum damage.
• Once the satchel lands, it arms after .5 seconds, increasing it’s max damage to 50.
• Shooting the Blast Pack causes it to detonate, dealing its current damage amount.
• Satchel no longer does damage allies.
  • Raze’s Blast Pack has been dishing out damage without giving enemies much counterplay. This change should help make it very clear when Blast Pack’s damage poses a threat while maintaining the utility aspects of the Blast Pack that players have begun to master. The Blast Pack now does not ‘fizzle’ when shot and will still do damage, meaning it should still be approached carefully if in lethal range.

WEAPON UPDATES

Guardian buff

• Price reduced from 2500 >>> 2400.
• Improved Rate of fire from 4.75 >>> 5.25 RPS (rounds per second).
• Improved weapon recovery from .35 after 3 bullets to .2925 after 3 bullets.
  • We don’t think the Guardian can (or should) compete directly with the Phantom or Vandal but we’d like it to have a place where players can feel good opting into the gun at the new price, is a competitive purchase in certain economic circumstances or map scenarios, and isn’t as punishing when an enemy gets close!

MAP ROTATION CHANGES

It’s happening! The possible pool of maps you can get placed on is now ‘pseudo-random’ rather than pure random. What that means is if you just played, say, Haven, the matchmaker will deprioritize that map in your next game.

• Matchmaking queue for all modes has been updated to measure all your recently played maps, throughout all modes, so that for any given queue you:
  • Have a better chance of playing on a map you haven’t played recently.
  • Are much less likely to play on the same map several games in a row.

QUALITY OF LIFE

• Observers will now see a timer rather than their screen being obscured when observing a player who is blinded
  • Full screen blind for observers can be turned back on in the options, for all you masochists.
• Minimap performance improvements.
• The social panel will now pause sorting while you’re hovering or interacting with it.
• Updated verbiage in the All Ranks modal in the Career page to be more consistent with Competitive overtime rules.

BUG FIXES

• Prime Classic VFX fixed
  • There was a bug in which upgrade Prime levels (2–4) were not playing the correct tracers, sound fx, and other VFX.
• Fixed a bug where the End of Game screen would display a “Still processing” message, and then wouldn’t show that match in your Career tab.
• Fixed a bug where “High Skill Disparity” would display in Custom Game Lobbies.