The 1.03 patch for Valorant is live, bringing with it a number of changes. While most of the chances in the update are minor, like map adjustments and bug fixes, one in particular is apt to catch your attention as it changes the functionality of one of the game’s weapons.
Valorant 1.03 patch reworks the Guardian
© Riot Games
Valorant’s 1.03 update features changes to the Surrender option in the game, and weapons like the Guardian. With the new changes, the Guardian will be slightly cheaper with a reduced rate of fire and increased penetration power.
It’s interesting to see how updates like this one rework weapons, and we’re curious to give the Guardian a try with these implemented changes. It sounds like it’ll be a little more cohesive, but Guardian users may need a little time to get used to that reduced rate of fire.
Other things of note in the 1.03 patch include a new orb called Twin Hunters that spawn two wolves to chomp down on nearby enemies. Wolves will have 100HP and can be damaged, which we’re not sure how we feel about.
We had a hard enough time with the dogs in The Last of Us Part 2, now we have to shoot wolves in Valorant? We guess we’ll have to see how these wolves look and how effective they are in inconveniencing the enemy we suppose.
Moving through the patch notes, there are a number of helpful bug fixes and quality of life improvements that players will be happy to see. To run through everything featured in the 1.03 update for Valorant, we’ve included the full patch notes below courtesy of the Valorant blog.
Valorant 1.03 Patch Notes
WEAPON UPDATES
Guardian
- Price reduced from 2700 >>> 2500.
- Rate of Fire reduced from 6.5 >>> 4.75.
- Penetration power increased from Medium >>> Heavy.
- Input queue updated from 0.083 >>> 0.1175.
MAP UPDATES
Haven
- Removed spot where Spike was unable to be retrieved once dropped.
All Maps
- Fixed multiple spots where players were able to clip inside level geometry.
- Removed more locations where Sova’s sensor arrow was able to go through walls.
MODE UPDATES
Spike Rush
New Orb: Twin Hunters
- Capturing the orb releases two hunting wolves to track down the two nearest enemies (from orb location, they will not change targets after spawning).
- Wolves speed up when they spot an enemy and dash at them when close, slowing and near-sighting for 4 seconds upon impact.
- Wolves have 100 HP and can be damaged.
- Wolves will time out at 15 seconds, or when their target is killed.
Split: Orb Location
- Mid defender side orb has been moved onto mid platform to make it slightly less defender favored.
QUALITY OF LIFE
Surrender changes
- Unrated Mode vote requirements to pass changed from 100% to 80%.
- AFK players who are not spawning in are NOT counted as voting participants. So if a player is not spawning on your 5-person team, you don't need a yes. For example, you can surrender with 3/4 votes in unrated, in cases where the 5th team member does not spawn in.
- Competitive Mode vote requirements to pass remains at 100%.
- You can now call a surrender vote starting with round 5 versus round 8.
- A new button in the in-game menu has been added to call a surrender vote.
- Competitive matches have a new win-by-two overtime format with automated votes on whether the game should continue or end in a draw.
Instead of playing a single sudden death round, teams will alternate playing rounds on attack and defense until a team claims victory by being up by 2 rounds. Each round will have a full reset, setting all players at 5000 credits and 4 points short of their ultimate. After every two rounds of overtime, an automated vote will trigger to determine if the match should continue or end in a draw.
The threshold for continuing the match will become stricter as more rounds have been played:
- First vote: 6 players needed to end match in a draw.
- Second vote: 3 players needed to end match in a draw.
- Third vote and on: 1 player needed to end match in a draw.
- If the vote fails, the match will end in a draw.
- Players might gain rank off a draw but will never lose rank.
- Unrated will still use the original Sudden Death format. Custom games now have an option to launch with win-by-two overtime rules.
- In the Collection screens, there is now a checkbox to toggle between showing all items or only owned ones (additional options and improvements for managing your collection will be coming in future patches).
- Fixed a bug where the mission “You or your ally plant/defuse spikes” sometimes did not take into account plants and defuses by allies.
- Transition screens and startup screens are now letterboxed.
- Fixed text overlap issues in the Battlepass and Contract screens in some languages.
- Players in custom games with cheats enabled can select a different Agent to use on the next round in the cheats menu.
- Removing a friend will now prompt a confirmation dialogue.
- Pressing Escape while typing in the chat box will clear the message.
- Revised layout of confirmation dialogs to make primary action larger and always on the left; applied color in various places, like using red for destructive actions; revised the locations of some confirmation and cancel buttons for consistency.
- Minor fixes for visual artifacts on Bind on Intel GPUs.
- Minor render improvements for modern hardware.
- Added an error popup for crashes on startup linking to troubleshooting guide for crashes.
- Patch notes and payment windows will scale correctly on 4K monitors.
- IME input on payment windows will now work correctly (Japanese/Chinese).
- Players can now view individual skin levels in the collections and store view.
- Updates to censored hit impact effects for better readability.
- Added Agent silhouettes for observers.
- Improved render performance for silhouettes.
- Agent health bars are now visible to observers.
- Fulfilling a buy request while moving will no longer interrupt your movement.
Custom Games
- Tournament Mode: Custom games can now be set to Tournament Mode. This allows every player in the game to have access to the Toggle Match Timer cheat in game without having all other cheats enabled. It also allows observers to be flagged as moderators, which grants them access to additional cheats that they can use as necessary. Regular observers cannot use cheats anymore.
BUG FIXES
- Fixed a Cypher bug where traps that were placed such that they were on the inside of a doorway, would not trigger when someone walked through them.
- Fixed an issue with the Match Timer hitching under unstable network conditions.
- Fixed an issue where players couldn’t jump off ascenders if jump was bound to the mousewheel.
- Fixed some visual issues that could occur when reconnecting to the game while dead.
- Fixed Barrier phase announcement showing up in normal games for observers.
- Fixed various UI issues on observer scoreboard.
After reviewing the 1.03 patch notes for Valorant, what are your thoughts? Are you eager to try out the Guardian with its new changes? Are you curious about the orb added to Spike Rush, Twin Hunters? What about the changes to the Surrender system? Comment below!