Summary:
- Almost every one of the agents either got buffed or nerfed, shaking up Valorant’s meta big time.
- Many agents had their ability durations and effects made consistent to create a consistent experience during gameplay.
Just when you thought your favorite agent was strong, Valorant drops Patch 11.08 with a wave of adjustments that will change how you play. No matter if you play Duelists, Initiators, or Sentinel, you’ll feel it. This is a fresh start for a lot of players, with some fan favorites being nerfed and surprises with buffs.
Universal Agent Changes
Valorant Patch 11.08 has come out with broad agent changes intended to improve gameplay consistency.
- Visibility range for Nearsight was increased from 5m to 7m for abilities from Omen, Reyna, Skye, and Fade.
- Length of Concuss from non-ultimate abilities has been normalized to 2.5 seconds. This includes agents such as Breach, Gekko, Neon, and Astra.
- The combat stim effects from abilities used by Brimstone, Reyna’s Empress, and KAY/O’s Overdrive have also been synced. It slightly weakens these effects, but unifies their rates of fire and movement bonus regardless of their source.
Major Agent Nerfs and Buffs
With Valorant Patch 11.08, we are looking at the biggest agent balance update to date. Particularly, Riot made massive changes to the meta by nerfing and buffing nearly every agent in the game.
Controllers
Astra
- Gravity Well’s Fragile duration has been cut in half from 5s to 2.5s, and the cooldown increased from 45s to a full minute.
- Her Nova Pulse’s Concuss duration was also reduced from 3.5s to 2.5s, with the cooldown being increased from 45s to 60s as well.
- The cooldown for Nebula increased from 25s to 35s.
Brimstone
- Stim Beacon has two effects reduced from 15% to 10%: the fire rate increase and the movement speed increase.
Omen
- Dark Cover now has a longer cooldown time, from 30 seconds to 40 seconds.
- Paranoia got a projectile speed increase from 16m/s to 20m/s, while the travel distance decreased from 32.5m to 25m.
Viper
- Initial contact is now 10 health instead of 30 health for the Decay infliction.
Initiators
Gekko
- General’s cooldown when you reclaim it went from 10s to 20s.
- Wingman’s health went down from 80 to 60. Meanwhile, Concuss duration was reduced from 3.5s to 2.5s.
- Thrash’s health went from 200 to 180.
Breach
- Fault Line’s cooldown increased from 40s to 60s, and the initial windup decreased from 1.2s to 1.1s. At the same time, the Concuss duration decreased from 3.5s to 2.5s.
- Flash Point’s Flash duration increased from 2s to 2.25s.
- Decreased Rolling Thunder’s width from 23m to 18m, as well as Concuss’ duration from 6s to 4s. Lastly, Ult points decreased from 9 to 8.
KAY/O
- Fault Line’s cooldown increased from 40s to 60s, and the initial windup decreased from 1.2s to 1.1s. At the same time, the Concuss duration decreased from 3.5s to 2.5s.
Fade
- Haunt can now be used every 60 seconds instead of every 40 seconds. Also, its duration now lasts 1.5 seconds instead of 2 seconds.
- Prowler is now visible at 7 meters instead of 5.
- Nightfall’s Deafen and Marked will be for 8 seconds now instead of 12 seconds, and Nightfall is now only 20 meters wide instead of 24. Lastly, Decay deals 80 damage consistently, instead of having the damage go down over time.
Sentinels
Cypher
- Spycam has more cooldown after being destroyed, up from 45s to 60s.
- Trapwire’s windup was also decreased: 1.5s to 0.9s on PC, and 2.5s to 1.9s on console.
- Players will no longer be revealed after 0.5 seconds of Trapwire winding up. Moreover, Trapwire Zap will no longer concuss its target. It will slow and reveal its target for 1 second instead.
Sage
- Riot knocked 100 credits off Sage’s Barrier Orb, lowering its cost from 400 to 300.
- They also decreased the Fortification delay from 3.3 seconds to 2 seconds, along with decreasing the health of the barrier segments from 800 to 600.
Vyse
- Arc Rose can now be destroyed after a flash windup instead of being invulnerable. At the same time, the duration of Flash was decreased from 2.25s to 2.0s. Moreover, the cooldown after destruction was slightly increased from 45s to 60s, and recalling the ability will now always incur a 20s cooldown.
- Shear’s Wall Trap will now spawn instantly upon an enemy entering and then leaving its trigger zone. Enemies will also hear an audio cue, which is only audible to the enemy, when they enter the trigger zone.
- Razorvine’s Health went down from 40 to 20.
- The windup on Steel Garden was increased from 3.4s to 4.4s, and the Radius was decreased from 32.5m to 26m.
Deadlock
- GravNet’s cooldown saw an increase, from 40 seconds to 60 seconds.
- Barrier Mesh will now cost 300 instead of 400. Meanwhile, health on smaller nodes will change from 570 to 480.
Duelists
Yoru
- Yoru’s Gatecrash got its health reduced from 60 to 20.
- Fakeout’s flash time went down from 3 seconds to 2 seconds.
- Blindside’s flash time also went down from 1.75 seconds to 1.5 seconds.
- Yoru can’t use Blindside, nor can he set up his fakeout when he’s in Dimensional Drift. But he can cast the initial Gatecrash and the reactivation of Gatecrash and Fakeouts.
Neon
- Neon’s High Gear now takes longer to recharge to full battery: from 20 seconds to 1 minute. But the battery drain reduction increased the amount of time Neon can sprint with a full battery from 12 seconds to 16 seconds.
- Relay Bolt’s concuss duration decreased from 3.5 seconds to 2.5 seconds.
Waylay
- Saturate’s Hindered duration went down from 4 seconds to 3 seconds.
- Ultimate no longer creates an afterimage of Waylay, and Waylay is no longer displaced while casting Ult.
- Convergent Paths’ Hindered duration dropped from 7 seconds to 6 seconds. Meanwhile, the initial windup lost 1 second, from 2 to 1.
- Convergent Paths’ Width also saw a decrease, from 18m to 13.5m, as well as the movement speed buff from 15% to 10%.
Conclusion
Patch 11.08 could really light a fire under players to reconsider how they will play every Valorant agent. With so many ability changes across the spectrum of agents, Riot is making it clear that gunplay is once again going to be the main focus for the game. You may love it or you may hate it. But it’s going to bring a new, more tactical pace to the game.
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