Valorant patch 3.05 official notes: New map Fracture, massive Breach updates, and Competitive changes

Valorant patch 3.05 is gearing up to be an incredibly big one. Not only will it be introducing a new map, Fracture, to the shooter, but it will also bring in extensive Agent updates as well.

Breach will be receiving a lot of love this time around, and the amount of quality-of-life updates that he will be hit with might just once again make him a viable pick in the meta.

Moreover, Brimstone, Raze, Killjoy, and Sova will also be up for some tweaks this time around, and it’s quite safe to say that the Valorant Episode 3 Act 2 Agent meta will be going through a lot of changes.

Valorant fans looking for a detailed description of the patch can look up Riot’s official website.

However, for a brief overview, here are all the major updates.

Valorant patch 3.05 official notes

#1. Map Updates

Fracture in Valorant (Image via Riot Games)

NEW MAP: Fracture is live!

#2. Agent Updates

Brimstone, Sova, and Breach are all receiving consistency changes to ability damage. Riot wants to reward players who are creative with the ability to sandbox and use their tools to solve the obstacles other Agents are creating. To ensure this, physical objects across VALORANT need to interact in a reliable and consistent manner, so players can properly plan and execute without knowing ability-specific interactions.

Breach

Aftershock (C)

Now deals damage to the following:

Killjoy Alarm Bot
Killjoy Nanoswarm
Killjoy Lockdown
Cypher Tripwire
Reyna Leer
Sage Barrier Orb
Sova Recon Bolt
KAY/O Zero/Point

Brimstone

Orbital Strike (X)

Now deals damage to the following:

Killjoy Nanoswarm
Cypher Trapwire
Sage Barrier Orb
Sova Recon Bolt
KAY/O Zero/Point

Sova

Hunter’s Fury (X)

Now deals damage to the following:

Killjoy Nanoswarm
Cypher Trapwire
Sage Barrier Orb
Sova Recon Bolt
KAY/O Zero/Point

Killjoy

Killjoy’s Turret is a versatile ability that provides information, chip damage, and a powerful slow. While manageable during mid to later rounds, the Turret can be especially oppressive on pistol rounds down longer sightlines, where the tagging intensity combined with weapon spread makes it challenging to press forward. These changes aim to slightly tone down the Turret’s ability to impede rushes, and give opponents more counterplay options.

Turret (E)

Bullet tagging reduced 72.5% slow >>> 29.5% slow

Raze

The Boom Bots' ability to clear space, spot, and track opponents, as well as one-shot enemies with Light Shields, left you with limited options on how to counterplay—especially during low economy rounds. So, Riot is trading off reduced damage output for an ability cost reduction in order to introduce more Boom Bot counterplay options. This should also increase the frequency that Raze mains can use Boom Bot to create space.

Boom Bot (C)

Max damage reduced 125 >>> 80
Min damage reduced 50 >>> 30
Cost reduced 400 >>> 300

#3. Competitive Updates

Immortal 1/2/3 rank tiers are back!
The Leaderboard will update to distinguish between those of you in each

Immortal tier.

Updated Ranked grouping restrictions to accommodate return of Immortal 1/2/3:

Diamond 1 → Immortal 1
Diamond 2 → Immortal 2
Diamond 3 → Immortal 3
Adjusted Competitive ranked distribution as detailed in a previous article

Fracture the only queue!

This queue is a standard, Unrated mode that will give players a chance to practice the new map before they see it in Competitive play.
Fracture-only queue will be available for 2 weeks, afterwards Fracture will enter other modes, including Competitive.

Progression Updates

Premium Battlepass Bonus XP:

Upgrading to the Premium Battlepass will grant a 3% XP boost toward Battlepass tier progression for all matchmade games until the end of Act II
We believe the Battlepass experience is at its best when you’re able to earn hype rewards as you unlock tiers, hitting major milestones, and feeling good about what you’ve earned.
This is not retroactive, so upgrading early will give you access to the most amount of XP
The XP boost does not apply toward Daily or Weekly Missions

#4. Social Updates

Updated AFK detection logic to deter players from farming Battlepass/Account Levels by AFKing in-game modes like Deathmatch and Snowball Fight

#5. Performance Updates

Updated the ping calculation to exclude the server frame time.
Updated markers used by NVIDIA Reflex
NVIDIA Reflex is used to reduce and measure rendering latency. This update should allow Reflex to better pace frames by adding present markers as well as fixes on some older markers.

#6. Bugs

Agents:

Fixed a bug where concurrent, overlapping ally and enemy Viper smoke could cause the nearsight and decay to never remove
Fixed a bug where Omen could become stuck in other objects if they were blocking the return location of From the Shadows
Omen will no longer equip his weapon slower than intended after casting Dark Cover
Astra will no longer equip her weapon slower than intended after exiting Astral Form
Fixed KAY/O’s NULL/cmd waves from destroying the glass on Ascent

Competitive

Fixed a bug that would cause the Leaderboard to infinitely load when searching for a specific player.

Esports Features

For Coaches, the Loading screen should now properly display all of the Agent select information (Agent compositions of both teams, etc)
Fixed an issue where Observer Moderators could not see the pause match timer option if they disconnected and then reconnected during a round

Edited by Yasho Amonkar