Patch 4.08 Overview: Fade's Release, Agent Nerfs & Ranked Changes

"WAKE UP" — that's the slogan of the latest Act of Valorant Episode 4. And yeah, you better fully wake up, as many changes are coming to the game today. In addition to the new Agent, Battle Pass, and skin collection, there are also some nerfs and ranked changes to Valorant. Let's dig into the official Patch 4.08 Notes!

Agent Changes

There are some significant changes coming to the metagame, that's for sure. Finally, people may want to try other Duelist Agents than Jett and other Initiators than Sova. However, Riot also decided to rework Neon quite hard, which no one really expected. We wonder what the reason was? Maybe Riot was afraid that after these Jett nerfs, people would just switch to Neon, but then why wouldn't they go for Reyna? So many questions, so few answers.

Fade

Fade finally goes live! If you want to learn how to play her, be sure to check out our Fade Agent guide. And also make sure to follow our Valorant section here at EarlyGame, as we're currently preparing some lore content where you may learn more about her origin.

Jett

• Upon pressing E, Jett consumes her Tailwind charge and, after a .75 second delay, activates a 12-second window where she’s able to dash on the next key press
• Jett’s Tailwind charge can still be regained with 2 kills

Neon

Now, we don't really understand why Riot went for these changes. If you have any ideas, go to our Discord, and please explain this to us.

General

• Battery energy received upon killing an enemy increased from 25% to 100%.

High Gear

• Slide cannot be cast during equip delay
• Velocity restriction removed
• Neon can now slide sideways and forward, and only requires that she is moving
• Energy drain increased from 6.7 per second to 10 per second

Fast Lane

• Wall damage removed

Sova

Here we have both good and bad news. The bad news is that Sova is now much weaker, and we're not really sure if he will remain in the metagame, especially since Fade is now in the game. However, the good news is that he got lots of Quality of Life changes for the Owl Drone ability!

Owl Drone

• Duration reduced from 10 seconds to 7 seconds
• Health reduced from 125 to 100

Dart Reveal

• Number of reveal pings reduced from 3 to 2
• Initial delay before first ping reveals increased from 1.2s to 1.6s. However, between the first and second ping remains 1.2s

Quality of Life

• Changed crosshair color to green to better stand out against the white HUD
• Removed delay on [Target Hit] confirmation text
• [Target Hit] confirmation text now remains on the player HUD when transitioning out of Owl Drone.
• [Target Hit] confirmation text now remains on screen for 2s, previously 1s
• Adjusted audio on drone dart hits for both Sova, and the player hit, to make confirmations more noticeable
• Fixed a bug with Owl Drone, where the Dart Cooldown UI element would not properly update after tagging an opponent.

Shock Dart

• Max damaged decreased from 90 to 75. Radial damage has been scaled in accordance with the new max damage.

Agent Ability Ammo

• Jett’s Bladestorm, Raze’s Showstopper, and Sova’s Hunter’s Fury will now show how much ammo they have left when equipped.

Competitive Updates

When it comes to ranked updates, it seems that Riot is slowly becoming a little more sympathetic to the idea of 5-stack climbing.

5-Stack Queues

• Tuned matchmaking to reduce wait time for 5-stack queues

• Reduced Rank Rating gain/loss penalty for different 5-stack configurations.

Iron-Diamond 2 Queues

• No RR penalty if within normal grouping
• 25% RR penalty for all players if any player falls outside of normal grouping

Diamond3-Immortal 3 Queues

• 25% RR penalty for all players

Radiant Queues

• 75% RR penalty for all players

Bug Fixes

And to end the Patch Notes, as always, some bug fixes!

Agents

• Fixed a bug where Jett could find herself unable to use abilities or weapons when using Tailwind immediately after depleting her Bladestorm daggers
• Fixed a bug where Yoru could teleport out of bounds when using Gatecrash
• Fixed various exploits allowing Yoru to use weapons before fully decloaking at the end of his ultimate

Performance

• Fixed a bug in the Shooting Range where bots would respawn unarmed

So, this is how Act 3 is about to start! This Episode is probably the most groundbreaking of all we've gotten, and we're curious to see if Riot surprises us with anything else in the upcoming Act 3 updates (and there will only be two more).