The Chamber nerfs that were last week trial-run on the Public Beta Environment server (PBE) are now official as Valorant’s Patch 5.03 notes have been revealed. All the changes to his kit, which include increased teleport cooldown, decreased teleport radius, more expensive Headhunter bullets, and more are now official.
In addition, there are some buffs/nerfs to Agent ultimates as they are related to damage multipliers. Neon, in particular, is one Agent who has benefitted from this change, assuming you’re able to keep your crosshair accurately fixed on an enemy’s head. Now, Overdrive damages x3 more for headshots, while hitting other areas of enemy bodies is less powerful.
Here’s the full overview from Riot Games:
GENERAL UPDATES
Engine update to Unreal Engine 4.26
- This update improves the toolset available to our developers in many ways; however, this change will likely go unnoticed by you, as the goal of any Engine update is to happen under the radar.
- There are some known issues this time around though, mostly the UI is misbehaving. We’re fixing these as quickly as we can, but expect some funkiness in the game and in the Main Menu. If anything interrupts your gameplay, please submit a bug report.
Agent Browser visual design refresh
- Just thought we should leverage some of the cool Agent art and lean more into our VALORANT style.
AGENT UPDATES
CHAMBER
As players in both ranked and pro play have mastered Chamber, his strengths have started to overshadow his weaknesses, making the counterplay to Rendezvous and his arsenal not as ef ective as we’d hoped. Chamber’s overall strength has also felt outsized, and we believe that we can reduce the complete power of his kit while still keeping him competitive with the rest of the roster.
Rendezvous (E)
- Base Cooldown increased 20s >>> 30s
- Recall Cooldown increased 20s >>> 30s
- Cooldown set to 45s whenever a Rendezvous anchor is destroyed
- Diameter size of the “ring” Chamber can stand that allows him to activate Rendezvous decreased 21m >>> 15m
- Chamber’s Rendezvous is intended to be powerful at holding space, but the generous radius allowed him to take that space with more aggression than intended. This change should require Chamber to exert more effort to access of -angles.
- We hope that a harsher punishment for destroyed Rendezvous anchors, and the reduced radius will demand Chamber mains to be more careful in their use. This change also brings the counterplay of Chamber’s destructible objects more inline with the behavior of other destructible objects in the game.
Trademark (C)
- Slow Duration decreased 9.5 >>> 6s
Tour De Force (X)
- Ultimate Points Required increased 7 >>> 8
- Slow Duration decreased 9.5 >>> 6s
Headhunter (Q)
- Bullet Cost increased 100 >>> 150
- It’s important that Headhunter is a powerful sidearm for Chamber but at its current price point Chamber doesn’t have to engage in making dif icult economic decisions as meaningfully as other Agents. This should most noticeably impact Chamber’s decision making on pistol rounds and save rounds. The ultimate point change to Tour De Force is also working towards this goal.
ABILITY REGIONAL DAMAGE BREAKUP
We’re updating theultimates for the following Agent so that they follow similar regional damage rules to our weapons—where hitting the head and legs of an enemy applies different damage multipliers. Intent is to reward precision and create intuitive consistency across damage in VALORANT.
For Neon specifically, it also gives us more tuning levers for balancing her across different skill levels. This change should also add depth to the mastery needed when tracking while sprinting that her ult demands.
NEON
Overdrive
- Damage per shot reduced 22 >>> 18
- Killzone increased 15m >>> 20m
- Leg shot multiplier reduced 1.0 >>> 0.85
- Headshot multiplier increased 1 >>> 3
CHAMBER
Tour De Force (X)
- Leg shot multiplier reduced 1.0 >>> 0.85
JETT
Bladestorm (X)
- Leg shot multiplier reduced 1.0 >>> 0.85
EMBARGO AUG09 6AMPT – PATCH NOTES 5.03
GAMEPLAY SYSTEMS UPDATES
Added ability to change “Ghost” keybind outside of Custom Games
- This option is listed under Settings >> Controls >> Actions
BUGS
Agents
- Fixed an issue with Jett’s Tailwind where switching weapons in the middle of the dash would cause the weapon pull-out animation to take longer than desired. Gameplay Systems
- Fixed a bug where some Reyna/Killjoy HUD elements were still visible after enabling Hide User Interface.
- Fixed a bug where defuse animation wouldn’t consistently play if the orb is tapped in rapid succession.
KNOWN ISSUES
- Changing crosshair opacity settings in-game causes crosshair preview visual to flicker ● Spike Announcements UI displaying incorrectly
As for this week’s new skin bundle. It appears as though it’s likely to be the much-anticipated Reaver 2.0 bundle, which you can check out here.
