Developers released the full notes on March 30 for VALORANT’S patch 2.06. The patch features long-awaited updates such as reworks for Viper and Yoru, as well as a Bucky nerf and HRTF. Find out more about path 2.06 updates here.
Viper has been a controller put on the back-burner ever since her release. She is infamous for her 0% pick rate in competition. This was a red flag that developers knew they had to address at some point, so it seems that patch 2.06 is the time to do so.
New passive Toxin updates to Viper make all of her abilities more of a threat to the enemy team. After passing through Viper’s Poison Cloud, Toxic Screen, or her Pit are instantly inflicted with at least 50 decay. The decay level continues to increase from there as long as players remain in contact with toxin. While in cloud, Decay over time is decreased from 15 to 10 and out of Ciper’s cloud delay before health regen is decreased from 2.5 to 1.5. The Toxin update creates Viper’s abilities to be a larger threat than they originally were. It should cause players to think twice before pushing through any of her abilities. Not only will their vision be hindered, but their health points will also be taking hits.
Viper’s Poison cloud can now be immediately redeployed when picked up. To balance this out, it grants a temporary charge instead of a permanent charge. An interesting upgrade to Poison Cloud, if it is active when Viper dies, Poison Cloud will stay up for an extra 2 seconds, or until she runs out of fuel. This will help Viper’s team have a little extra protection, especially if they are playing defense against an aggressive push. Finally, the pickup distance for Poison Cloud has been increased from 200 to 400.
A small change, but Viper’s Snakebite has its equip time decreased from 1.1 seconds to .8. With all these changes in mind, developers have added Practice Tools in custom games to allow players to get used to Viper’s rework. In custom games with cheats and infinite abilities enabled, Viper can hold down “activate” on Poison Cloud and Toxic Screen to recall them. Poison Cloud’s landing location is shown on the minimap while equipped.
Yoru’s addition to VALORANT’S duelist list has been an infamous one. So far, he has not proved as viable to compete with the other agents within his category. The buffs in place in patch 2.06 hope to strengthen his appeal to duelist players.
His Blindside sees some alterations in this rework. The flash activation time is now decreased from 0.8 seconds to 0.6 seconds. His Flash duration is then increased from 1.1 to 1.5 seconds, making it .4 seconds longer than Phoenix’s flash. This increased Flash duration could sway Phoenix mains to consider Yoru in his place.
Gatecrash, Yoru’s signature ability, also gets a lot of adjustments in this patch. Gatecrash is now no longer refreshed on kills. Now it is replenished every 35 seconds regardless of kill count. The lifetime of the Gatecrash fragment is also increased by ten seconds (from 20 to 30 seconds). The range at which the Gatecrash fragment is revealed from stealth is also decreased from 7m to 4m. Visuals for visibility range have also been added to the moving fragment. These updates should make Yoru’s signature ability more viable for gameplay. Before this rework, Gatecrash was known to be mostly useless, save for some rare sight infiltrations.
Dimensional Drift has also been a point of controversy. The rework to this ability is honestly not too much, though. The Ult Points have been reduced from 7 to 6, which is not a huge change. Yoru can now reactivate Gatecrash while in Dimensional Drift. This addition will take some practice for Yoru players to master, but it may pave ways for Yoru players to infiltrate and take sights with more ease- which is in part what he was intended to be used for in the first place
Finally, the infamous Bucky has been nerfed. The only people angry about this are the players who have abused its alternate fire mode for far too long, “We want to focus the Bucky more on it’s actual primary firing mode (left click) and make that the strength you try to optimize when choosing a bucky vs its alternate firing mode (right-click). The right click should be more of a tool you can use when you can’t get into that effective left-click range, or you just need some reliable chip damage. The spreads are reduced on both to increase reliability and smooth the damage curve. The alt-fire’s significant reduction in pellet count is a trade off to being able to extend the range as much as it does for a shotgun,” the development team wrote.
Here are the numbers for the Bucky nerf:
Will the Viper and Yoru reworks make them more viable for VALORANT players? Only time will tell if the patch 2.06 updates succeed with their intention to fix two of the previously most unpopular agents.
Head Related Transfer Function, or HRTF is a new addition to VALORANT within patch 2.06 This sound processing allows players wearing headphones to play audio in a simulated surround sound audio space. HRTF has been around in other fps games such as CS:GO for a while now, and has finally made it to VALORANT.
Check out more about HRTF here:
Head Related Transfer Function (HRTF) in VALORANT’S Patch 2.06?
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