Riot Game’s next big thing VALORANT is getting its second episode released on January 12. Last Episode Act 1 saw a load of new features being added to the game and players can expect this one to drop with a bang as well! Between a new Agent, a brand new Act battle pass, several competitive and map changes and, Agent updates, there’s no shortage of new content.
Let’s start with the most hyped discussion – the arrival of Agent 14, Yoru.
Yoru
“The dimensional fabric here is thin, I’ll tear through.”
As Valorant’s fifth duelist, Yoru makes his much-anticipated arrival in the game. Instead of just focusing on entry-fragging like regular duelists, Riot developed Yoru to be a “lurking duelist.” His unique kit allows him to infiltrate the enemy team’s back lines by displacing himself while also, out-dueling enemies by having positional advantages and making entry play for his team. He can be deadly if played in a coordinated team environment.
Here’s a breakdown of his kit:
Fakeout (C): Probably the most unique ability in Valorant, Yoru equips an echo that mimics footsteps. It is intended to misguide opponents with fake in-game audio where they will hear opponent footsteps and see only fake footsteps approaching if they dare to peek it. Yoru gets 2 fakeouts each costing 100 credits.
Blindside (Q): And another flash. This one acts more like a traditional flashbang from cs. It only pops if it bounces off a surface. This flash will also blind allies if it snaps before them. Yoru receives a maximum of 2 blindsides with each costing 200 credits.
Gatecrash (E): Yoru’s signature ability is kind of like Omen’s teleport and maybe the game’s best outplay tool. Yoru casts a portal that he can choose to be stationary or move along a straight horizontal line. The portal lasts for about 20 seconds within which time, Yoru can teleport to its location. Opponents can see this ability passing by them but we don’t know for certain if they can shoot it down. Yoru receives one at the start of each round and it recharges after 2 kills.
Dimensional Drift (X): Yoru’s ultimate is also kind of Reyna’s ultimate dismiss ability. Yoru wears a mask and gets inside his own dimension where he becomes invisible and invulnerable to the enemies. But something to be mindful of is that when Yoru is in his ultimate, if enemies are too near to him they can see him pass by and he cannot shoot them unless he gets out of his ultimate dimension which again makes a loud noise.
So, is this Agent too overpowered?
Personally, I don’t think so but it’s just crazy the amount of sheer outplay potential it brings to Valorant. But here’s a tip for all of you Cypher and Killjoy mains out there, make sure to check behind your defending backlines every once in a while, you never know when Yoru is going to strike.
The New Battle Pass
Like every other Act, the Battle Pass will cost 1000 Valorant Points to upgrade. It contains 3 brand new skin collections, 9 new gun buddies, 12 player cards, 16 spray paints, and 130 Radianite Points.
Speaking of skins, Riot is releasing another skin bundle with the new patch 2.0.
The Run It Back Skin Bundle
Priced at 5946 Valorant Points, this skin bundle will feature 5 favorite weapon skins from Valorant’s last episode.
Competitive and Map changesSo here’s the big deal, Riot implemented huge competitive changes in this Act. For starters, they added an MMR tracker inside the game. The devs said this RR (Rank Rating) is focused on giving the players an idea of where they stand in between ranks, how much RR they should expect from a game when they are promoting, and why they are promoting to the next rank. Here’s how it works.
- Min 10 RR gain on a win or loss. (Min 5 RR gain for Diamond+)
- Max 50 RR gain on a win.
- Max 30 RR on a loss. (Max 50 RR drop for Diamond+)
- Max 20 RR gain on a draw which depends on individual performance. (Individual performance is only entertained up to Diamond ranks)
- Demotion protection – Lose to 0 RR to demote. (So basically you have min 2 matches to prove yourself at a new rank before you demote)
- Get 100 RR to promote to the next rank. If you demote, you don’t go below 80 RR at that rank. If you promote, you start at 10 RR in the next rank.
They also made slight adjustments to the ranking system.
- Immortal is one rank now, using the Immortal 3 icon. (roughly ~1% of ranked players per region)
- Immortal players can only Solo/Duo queue for competitive matchmaking.
- Added a leaderboard (unique per region) where the top 500 immortal players will get radiant. It updates in real-time and players have to play a min of 1 game per week to stay in the leaderboards.
- Max rank which can be received during placements in Platinum 3
- Players no longer get their rank hidden (?) due to inactivity. It only shows “?” during placement matches.
- Act Rank now gives a triangle with the rank you end the match with. So, there’s no need to win at a particular rank to show it on Act Rank.
In a recent interview, the devs said they are planning on changing Split. Split is well known to be a defensive-sided map with long rotations and close choke points. They are planning to even out the fields a little bit. And with the arrival of Yoru, who knows. With all these long allies and far away sites, his teleport and flashes will come in handy, maybe it’ll be his hunting ground. Fingers crossed.
Also, players will be able to see this in Icebox. For those who do not know, Yoru was kept here in a suit during his beta testing.
Agent and Weapon Updates
Valorant’s new patch 2.0 is focused on tweaking the controllers. Omen gets a pretty significant nerf, Brimstone gets a buff, and Viper tweaks are scheduled for later.
Also, the classic pistol was nerfed a bit with increased jumping error and input queue on right-click, which means no more spamming right click with this weapon.
Still, no updates on the growing “Run and Gun” issue. Devs informed that they are currently working on it and they choose to be extremely careful and precise because a major update like that can make or break Valorant for everyone.
Comment below and let us know your thoughts on this or anything you like or disagree with the update. Also, don’t forget to check out our previous article – Hitman 3 – System Requirements, Price, Release Date & More.
