Valorant Episode 2: Formation arrives today, bringing with it a brand new Agent and changes to the existing roster. Eager to know everything new and different in this version of the game? We’ve broken down the highlights from the update below and also included the full Valorant 2.0 patch notes for the January 12 update. Scan through them and prepare yourself to jump back into the newly revamped competitive rankings.
Valorant update 2.0 Patch Notes - January 12
© Riot Games
The biggest addition in the 2.0 patch notes is the addition of Yoru, a brand new Duelist who misleads his opposition. We’ve already got a full breakdown of his abilities you can read by clicking here, but in short he's a tricksy, teleporting fellow capable of faking footstep sounds across the map As usual, you can pay to unlock him immediately or work through to the fifth level of his Contract to unlock him for free.
Beyond Yoru, Controllers Brimstone and Omen have had some changes, with the former receiving a few speed buffs and the latter getting a small nerf. Brimstone will now deploy smokes further and have them last longer, while Omen’s blind costs more and his smokes travel slower.
The Classic has also had an adjustment, making it less useful for spamming burst shots on the ground and while airborne. Looks like we might actually have to start aiming with it. With those major updates in mind, here are the full patch notes for the Valorant 2.0 patch notes on January 12.
Yoru
- Yoru was added to the game.
Brimstone
- Stim Beacon
- Will now cast quickly (no equip time)
- Molotov
- Cost reduced: $300 -> $200
- Sky Smokes
- Cast rage increased: 4200 -> 5000
- Smoke duration increased: 14.25 -> 19.25
- Sound
- Brimstone no longer makes a sound enemy players can hear when confirming his smoke locations.
Omen
- Paranoia
- Cost increased: $200 -> $400
- Dark Cover
- Projectile speed decreased: 4000 -> 2800
© Riot Games
Weapon updates
Classic (Alt. Fire)
- Jumping error increased: .4 >>> 1.0
- Increased input queue on right-click: 0.065 >>> .225
- Firing consecutively now jumps in error, starting at 1.9 for the first burst, 2.5 for the second, and then the third/fourth burst will be at a 6.0
- Right-click now has a recovery curve starting at .1s
- The Classic is proving to be a master-of-none choice in pistol rounds, with the exception of jump right-clicks and spamming right-clicks. The spread changes aim to pull the effective range of the jump bursts and the firing error/recovery aim to put some more finesse into how effective you can be while spamming it out. Input queue will help shots between bursts come out more smoothly.
Competitive updates
- New Competitive regional leaderboards (Jan. 12)
- Rank system updated, including rank progress bar, numerical progress, and further distribution changes to make it easier to climb out of the lower ranks
- Immortal and Radiant ranks are now capped at a premade size of two
- New ranked rewards for Episode 1 (pair of Gun Buddies based on your highest Act Rank achieved during Episode 1)
- Many more changes! Read our rank changes summary article for the complete breakdown.
Social updates
- The “Add Friend” button has been removed from the in-game player list
Bugs
- Fixed an issue where Omen could sometimes teleport past the buy phase barriers
- Fixed an issue where Omen could plant the Spike while elevated on a Sage wall
- Fixed an issue where players on the opposing team could be seen on the minimap long after leaving line of sight
- Fixed an issue where the desktop resolution was not restored after alt-tabbing from the game when playing in fullscreen mode, at lower-than-native resolution. Thank you to player fl0m for bringing this to our attention!
- Fixed an issue introduced in the 1.14 patch that incorrectly calculated client ping by including client frametime in the calculation
Known issues
- Preview videos for weapon levels currently don’t have audio.
- Rest assured, the skins still have respective audio in-game, we just have some issues with audio for preview videos found in the Store and Collections.
Those are the full Valorant update 2.0 patch notes for January 12. Click here to see more Valorant guides, including our breakdown of Yoru’s abilities. For further details on the logic behind the changes here, read Riot's breakdown of the update on the Valorant website. Now that you’ve swotted up on the changes, you can jump in and start working through the new battle pass.