Riot Games is rolling out Valorant Episode 2 over the next 24-hours, with gamers on NA servers now having full access to the new content.
European servers will be updated on January 13, and will include new Agent Yoru, as well as the new Episode 2 Battle Pass.
Yoru is an infiltration specialist who can send players in the wrong direction and move quickly across the map.
His full special abilities list includes the following:
Q – BLINDSIDE: EQUIP to rip an unstable dimensional fragment from reality. FIRE to throw the fragment, activating a flash that winds up once it collides with a hard surface in the world.
E – GATECRASH: EQUIP to harness a rift tether FIRE to send the tether out moving forward ALT FIRE to place a tether in place ACTIVATE to teleport to the tether’s location.
C – FAKEOUT: EQUIP an echo that mimics footsteps when activated FIRE to activate and send the echo forward ALT FIRE to place an echo in place USE the inactive echo to send it forward.
X – DIMENSIONAL DRIFT: EQUIP a mask that can see between dimensions. FIRE to drift into Yoru’s dimension, unable to be affected or seen by enemies from the outside.
Yoru’s release is a big part of Episode 2 but it’s not the only change made to the game this week. The Valorant 2.0 patch notes also list a number of other changes being made to controller support, and several characters, including Brimstone.
CHARACTER CHANGES
BRIMSTONE
Happy New Year Brimstone players! We know you’ve been hoping for some buffs this holiday season and we have them just in time. Brimstone is all about the big site execute moment. In that spirit, we’ve increased the duration of his smokes and given him more flexibility in where he can position to drop smokes exactly where he wants them. While at it, we didn’t feel Stim Beacon was fitting smoothly into his execution pattern, or into the situations where you might want to use it. Too often Brimstone would pull out Stim Beacon only to see his allies disappearing around a corner, or correctly recognize a fight was coming, pull out stim to get buffed up for it, and get blown up before he could get his gun back up. We think this is a much smoother, more explosive version of Brimstone that we hope you enjoy.
OMEN
Omen’s role as a Controller is to bring consistent pressure. We needed to introduce some tradeoffs in exchange for the consistent pressure his recharging smokes provide. The projectile speed decrease here is meant to give Omen more pressure and responsiveness when smoking nearby targets, while taking a bit longer to get smokes to far away parts of the map that he isn’t actively covering. Paranoia has been quite strong for a while, and rather than reduce its effectiveness and take away some of the most exciting plays Omen can make, we decided to up the cost. On the whole, this brings Omen’s full utility price up to a level that’s more comparable with other Agents as well as making it more important to get value out of Paranoia when you cast it, so that big $400 chunk of cash isn’t wasted.
CONTROLLER SUPPORT
This patch we have a small update that should clarify and differentiate the strengths of our Controllers. Omen and Brimstone have been in competition since beta and usually only one of them is considered viable. By giving each more clear strengths, we hope to make both Agents strong in different situations. Viper is on our radar as well, we believe she is underperforming and are looking at ways to help her out in the future.
Other changes listed in today’s patch notes include:
WEAPON UPDATES
Classic (Alt. Fire)
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Jumping error increased: .4 >>> 1.0
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Increased input queue on right-click: 0.065 >>> .225
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Firing consecutively now jumps in error, starting at 1.9 for the first burst, 2.5 for the second, and then the third/fourth burst will be at a 6.0
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Right-click now has a recovery curve starting at .1s
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The Classic is proving to be a master-of-none choice in pistol rounds, with the exception of jump right-clicks and spamming right-clicks. The spread changes aim to pull the effective range of the jump bursts and the firing error/recovery aim to put some more finesse into how effective you can be while spamming it out. Input queue will help shots between bursts come out more smoothly.
