Valorant has received patch notes for 3.0 which brings some pretty major changes to agents, changes to weapons, competitive tuning, and much more.
Pretty much every agent has seen tweaks at some level. Overall, thought, all agents have seen the following changes:
- Signature abilities now only provide a minimum of one charge per round instead of accumulating a charge every round.
- For example, if you have a two charge signature ability and you end the round with one charge remaining, you will not gain an additional charge
- Charges gained from cooldowns are now always temporary
- Visibility returns faster during the fadeout period of all flashes
Weapons have seen updates as well. Primarily, Riot believes running and gunning has been too powerful. Patch 3.0 is intended to target “tag into accuracy.” Just what does this mean? Well, according to Riot,
““Tag into accuracy” is our internal name for a phenomenon where a fully running player starts firing at you without slowing down; then, you shoot and hit them, applying the tagging debuff and slowing them down. This inadvertently drops their speed enough to make their bullets more accurate, even if they aren’t trying to come to a stop.”
It turns out this is actually the cause behind many running and gunning scenarios. Overall, all weapons will see the following changes:
- Bullet tagging changed from 75% slow >>> 72.5% slow
- “Tagging” is the slowing effect you feel when hit by bullets
- Weapon Deadzones changed from 30% >>> 27.5%
- “Deadzone” in VALORANT refers to the movement speed a player becomes inaccurate
The Valorant patch notes touch on performance updates, social updates, competitive updates, and progression. The big item here is Account Leveling, a new addition reward you for your time spent in-game. At the top level, you’ll see:
- Your account Player Card will now display a numeric level based on how much you play.
- In addition to that, you will also be boosted to a certain level based on how many games you’ve played before Patch 3.0.
Riot also posted a longer explainer here, including a summary on how you’ll level your account:
- You earn AP by playing matches.
- The amount of AP you gain per match is based on the duration and results of the match.
- You will also be rewarded bonus AP for your first win of the day.
- AP only goes toward your Account Level, and does not contribute to your Battlepass or Agent Contract XP.
