Valorant Patch 4.0: Full Notes Detailed

Valorant's Patch 4.0 has gone live. This update includes new Agent Neon, a fresh Battlepass, and more.

Valorant players have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of Neon, the game's new Agent from the Philippines. Her fast-paced and electrifiying abilities are sure to put a jolt into any match. With the release of Patch 4.0, Neon is finally live and ready to be put to the test. Along with a new Agent, a few weapons have been given some balance updates. Maps such as Bind and Breeze have also received some reshaping to help adjust the attacker/defender dynamic during matches.

Below, we've listed the full patch notes for this latest update so you can see exactly what has changed.

Valorant Patch 4.0: Full Notes Detailed

Agent Updates

• Neon is now live.

Weapon Updates

Melee

• Right click hitboxes are now 1.5x larger. Left click hitboxes are now larger than a right click and have a slightly longer range too.
• Targets closer to the center of your knife attacks will get hit first, so you still have precision if you need it.
• Bonus: Knifing walls now have instant feedback when slicing up walls (predicted on the client side).

Spectre

• Firing error occurs at earlier bullet stages. For example, instead of errors occurring at bullets 4, 7, 10 (in terms of firing order) they will instead happen at bullets 3, 6, 8.
• Increased pitch and yaw (vertical and horizontal) recoil multipliers when running/jumping/on ascender from 1.25 to 1.5.
• Protected bullet count from yaw (horizontal) switching while spraying, decreased 8 to 5 bullets.
• Lowering time to switch yaw from .24 to .18 seconds. While spraying, the time you have until you could switch yaws (horizontal movement) again is lower, meaning it can happen more often

Ares

• Removed spin up.
• Firing rate increased from 10 to 13.

Guardian

• Removed firing rate penalty on ADS (Aiming Down Sight).
• Added an extra bullet before it enters a recovery curve.

Bulldog

• Hip fire rate increased 9.5 to 10.
• Recovery on burst fire improved from .4 to .35. Inaccuracy is accrued any time the weapon is re-fired prior to a complete duration of a weapon’s respective Gun Recovery Time. Lower recovery time should improve burst fire efficiency.

Map Updates

Bind

• The double stack of cover at short A has been changed to remove a very powerful one-way smoke location that made the area a little too difficult for Attackers to approach. Sentinels will still be able to clog the space, but the new layout should open a few options for attackers pushing in.
• There’s also a small, new bench for a mix up when taking that first peek.

Breeze

• Increased the width of the A Main choke and removed 50/50s (where you must choose one of two locations an opponent may be located). This should give defenders more options when playing around A Main. It also removes the 50/50 when both entering or exiting the cave, allowing you to be more methodical when pushing.

• Added a stack of two crates in cave. This provides some cover for attackers pushing the cave while also giving defenders more options for contesting the space.
• Adjusted cover on the back of A Site and extended the pool to the far wall. The cover changes should give defenders both a safe place to fall back to and more cover on retakes. Extending the pool should make playing in this space more comfortable. Plant site extension is also to match the new shape of the pool.
• Adjusted curved wall in mid. This change simplifies the space and removes the extra pocket.

• Added cover to the pillar on B Site, blocked off the back site with a new wall, and added a stack of crates to B Wall. The new cover on the pillar allows for new pre and post plant opportunities. The adjusted back site breaks the head peek to B Main while also giving players new cover to work with. This new cover should be useful when falling back and retaking.
• The new stack of crates limits some angles from B Main, gives you new options when holding or retaking, and should break up some awkward fights that can occur on thin walls.
• Door on A can no longer be reactivated until it is finished opening or closing.

Competitive

• Starting with Patch 4.0, accounts that have yet to play in Ranked are required to reach account level 20 before they are able to enter the Competitive queue. For those that have not yet reached account level 20, but have already played in Competitive queue, you will still be able to play in ranked.

Reduced 5-stack Rank Rating penalty

• Diamond 2 and below players will see their RR penalty reduced by 25% compared to the current balance. This means the new minimum penalty is 25% reduced gains/losses compared to the previous 50%.
• We only made this change for ranks not breaking into, or on, the leaderboard to help maintain leaderboard integrity.

Increased Map Randomization

• Increased map weights, which should lead to an increase in map variety and reduction in map duplicates from match to match.

Bugs

Game Systems

• Fixed an issue where the Signature Kill Counter was not updating visually.

Esports Features

• Coaches should no longer experience the issue where swapping targets with number keys + mouse clicks occasionally fails.

Known Issues

• Fix for Joy's banner to be addressed in Patch 4.01.