A new VALORANT episode means a new patch. Episode Eight and Patch 8.0 officially kick off 2024 for Riot’s tactical multiplayer shooter, which will mark the game’s fourth official full year.
This will be the first episode in which the opening act will not feature a new agent or map, although rumors about a potential new agent are already beginning to swell. Still, there’s plenty to look forward to in VALORANT Episode Eight, including a series of big changes coming with Patch 8.0.
What’s included in VALORANT Patch 8.0?
Long-awaited Deadlock buffs
Deadlock has been a consistent face toward the bottom of overall pick rates and the new 8.0 changes aim to remedy some of the weaker parts of her kit:
- Sonic Sensor is now recallable during a round. Its pickup distance has been increased from 12m to 27m, it takes half a second to concuss an opponent instead of a full second, and both Deadlock and allies can hear its audio cues when deployed.
- The length of Barrier Mesh walls has increased from 6m to 10m.
Deadlock players have been begging for Sonic Sensor to be recallable since the agent was released, and now six months later, we have the technology. Overall Sonic Sensor still feels a bit weak, but the ability to move it during a round is huge to make her kit more flexible.
The Barrier Mesh buff feels like the most impactful, as it makes her ability to choke off angles and delay pushes and retakes more viable, and gives her more areas and scenarios to best utilize it.
Killjoy turret nerfs have arrived at last
Too long has Killjoy’s turret been considered one of the most powerful abilities in the game. This change won’t completely neutralize it, but will limit its effectiveness:
- Turrets’ vision radius has been limited from 180 degrees to 100 degrees.
- When placing the turret, a visual “vision cone” will show on the minimap.
- New VFX and animations will communicate its new radius.
This change should force Killjoy players to be more precise with where they place their turret, making the turret itself easier to avoid or counter on the opposite side. It’s still one of the best defensive tools in the game, but now it’s not so overpowered.
Changes to Icebox and Lotus
Icebox is back with some fresh additions that will shake up gameplay, and Lotus has received some noticeable changes as well.
The pathing in B Main has been “simplified,” with the hanging container removed to open up more predictable fights. The parallel pathing on B has been closed too with the B Orange path closest to Kitchen removed. A window on the Kitchen side of Tube has also been added, which lets defenders exert a little more control over Mid.
Lotus has received some changes that should help defenders out. The section of A Main near the breakable door has been opened up to give defenders more angles to play with. The A Hut has been closed off, but a little cubby for defenders has been placed on the backside.
C Site has more boxes near the main entrance, and the site itself has been given more space for planting the spike. Finally, the time it takes for the rotating doors to fully rotate has increased from eight seconds to 10.
Premier additions
Some new features and quality-of-life additions have been made to Premier:
- Team owners can designate a Team Captain. Team Captains can invite and remove team members, but cannot delete the team or remove the owners.
- Standings for other divisions or previous stages can be viewed in the Standings tab.
- Players can see which division they are seeded into before they play their first match.
- The required score for reaching playoffs has been restored to 675.
Other gameplay changes
- All modes except for Team Deathmatch will now use the current competitive map pool rotation.
- The Outlaw has been added to the weapons arsenal.
- The gun buddy carousel has been fixed so that buddies will appear alphabetically.
- VALORANT will support third-party spatialization software for headphones.
- A Raw Input Buffer bug where swapped primary and secondary mouse keys in Windows mouse settings was not being respected has been fixed.
