Meta Changes Incoming: Riot plans to shake up the Valorant world with Patch 5.12

The year 2022 was a step forward for Valorant and Valorant Esports. With 32 Million dollars raised from Valorant Champions 2022 bundle to a 40% increase in the viewer count saw a successful Valorant Esports year. The active player base for Valorant increased by four million in a year, and with more and more players and streamers coming to Valorant, this number will seemingly go up.

With a successful year behind us, Riot continues the tradition of shaking up the meta. Like League of Legends, Riot will roll out significant changes with Valorant patches 5.12 and 6.0 ahead of the new Valorant year. Starting with significant agent changes in patch 5.12.

Valorant Patch 5.12 Changes:

Last night, Riot released the Valorant PBE Valorant PBE(Public Beta Environment) Patch 5.12 notes. It featured a plethora of changes to multiple agents and the long-awaited changes to Valorant's most broken agent, Chamber. We have already discussed the Chamber nerfs in another article. Let's focus on the other changes featured in the PBE 5.12 patch.

Valorant Agent Changes:

• Breach:
  • Rolling Thunder (X) Ultimate Points increased to 8
• Cypher:
  • Trapwire (C) Health increased to 20 HP.
• Fade:
  • Prowler (C) Health decreased to 60 HP.
• Harbor:
  • High Tide (E) Duration increased to 15s.
  • Cascade (C) Duration increased to 7s.
• KAY/0:
  • ZERO/POINT (E) Health increased to 20 HP.
  • Ultimate points increased to 8.
• Killjoy:
  • Lockdown (X) Health increased to 200 Credits.
  • Nanoswarm (C) Health increased to 20 HP.
• Omen:
  • Paranoia (Q) Cost decreased to 250 Credits.
• Phoenix:
  • Blaze (C) Cost decreased to 150 Credits.
• Raze:
  • Boom Bot (C) Health decreased to 60 HP.
  • Blast Pack (Q) Health increased to 20 HP.
• Sage:
  • Barrier Orb (C) Fortify delay increased to 3.3s.
  • Healing Orb (E) Self-heal total amount decreased to 30HP.
  • Healing Orb (E) Ally heal total amount increased to 100HP.
• Sova:
  • Recon Bolt (E) Health increased to 20HP.
  • Recon Bolt (E) Cost increased to 300 Credits.
• Skye:
  • Regrowth (C) Cost decreased to 150 Credits.
• Viper:
  • Viper's Pit's (X) Smoke integrity regen time increased to 25.0s.
  • Viper's Pit's (X) Max time out of smoke decreased to 8.0s.
  • Ultimate points required have risen to 8.
• Yoru:
  • Gatecrash (E) Health decreased to 60
  • Gatecrash (E) Cost reduced to 150 Credits

Gameplay system updates:

• Assist Tail Tuning: The assist grace period for abilities Flash, Stun, Smokes, and Slow increased by one second. The added assist grace for Suppression with a 3s grace period.
• Damage-inflicting abilities, e.g., Raze's boombot, will not interact with enemy abilities that damage, except Skye's trailblazer and Cypher's trip wire. These abilities include Brimstone's incendiary, Killjoy's Swarm grenade, Phoenix's hot hands, Blaze, Kay/O's fragment and zero point, Raze's paint shell and Blast pack, Sova's shock bolt and Hunter's fury and Viper's Snakebite.
• The already existing abilities which interacted with other abilities were also changed. The damage multiplies of such abilities were reduced.
• Abilities will now be immune to allied damage. 

Valorant Weapon Update:

Riot will add a third damage range to spectre. The change will be as follows:

• Old Spectre: 
  • 0-20m - 26 damage
  • 20m+ - 22 damage
• New Spectre:
  • 0-15m - 26 damage
  • 15m-30m - 22 damage
  • 30m+ - 20 damage

Riot also addressed and fixed multiple other bugs with the update. The patch will change the game the most.

While there are too many changes, a good TLDR for the 5.12 patch is as follows:

• Major Chamber updates (Nerfs + Buffs)
• Every 1HP ability buffed to 20HP
• Damage-inflicting abilities can interact with other abilities.
• Health decrement to previously hard-to-destroy abilities viz Prowler, Boombot.
• Cost changes and Ult point changes to a few abilities
• Bug fixes.

Riot is also actively working on a problem related to in-game toxicity and finding measures to counter practices that affect a player's gaming experience, including Insta-locking agents, Griefing, Abusive comms, and chat. Riot also plans to address smurfing to enhance the user experience and make the game much more accessible and welcoming to everyone.

Credits: Riot Games