Valorant's latest 2.03 patch notes are here to mess with your mains. Under the balancing microscope this time around is teleporting newcomer Yoru and soul-sucking vampire Reyna, two duelists that excel in 1v1 scenarios. While Yoru's ultimate is gaining some extra utility that can help his entire team, it's also losing one of its most entertaining uses: body blocking.
Here's the full rundown of agent changes coming in patch 2.03:
YORU
Gatecrash (E)
- Gatecrash now displays the range at which the tether can be seen by enemies while moving on the minimap
- The range that enemies are able to hear the audio of a Gatecrash teleport is now displayed on the minimap
Dimensional Drift (X)
- While in Dimensional Drift, Yoru’s minimap is now visible
- Enemies within Yoru’s vision range, while in Dimensional Drift, are now revealed to ally minimaps as well
- Dimensional Drift can no longer body block enemies
REYNA
- Maximum Devour(Q) and Dismiss(E) charges reduced from 4 to 2
- Cost of Devour and Dismiss charges increased from 100 to 200
- Slain enemies that Reyna has damaged in the last 3 seconds now drop Soul Orbs, even if Reyna does not land the killing shot
BRIMSTONE & PHOENIX
- The audio of the Incendiary and Hot Hands lingering fire zone will be easier to hear when other actions and sounds occur nearby.
I'm glad to see Yoru is getting a little love by automatically sharing enemy locations he sees while in his ghostly form, but it's a bummer that it's coming at the expense of his body blocking. Undoubtedly it's annoying to come up against repeatedly, but I can't get enough of watching players exploit Yoru's bulletproof ghost form to be a human meat shield.
In the best of cases, body blocking could even be used to deny an enemy their escape from the bomb's detonation, like in this clip from uR_Tragic.
Favorite way I've used Yoru's ult so far from r/VALORANT
Reyna's mini-rework here is also notable. From what I can tell, she's trading the maximum capacity of her soul-sucking abilities for a more consistent feed of soul orbs.
I played a bunch of Reyna around the launch of Valorant and definitely found it annoying to lose out on a dosage of health because an ally stole the final blow on my kill. Dropping soul orbs on assists is a natural quality-of-life change, but reducing her number of uses from 4 to 2 is a huge new limiter. With four charges, Reyna was basically guaranteed to sap some use out of every fight she won—now, that'll only work twice.
Two charges should still cover the number of scrapes most players get into before dying or winning the round, but it will certainly limit Reyna's potential to pop off and turn around a 1v4 situation.
Patch 2.03 is also bringing a handful of weapon changes mostly focusing on Valorant's lower-tier guns:
MARSHAL
- Movement speed when zoomed is now at 90% of unzoomed movement speed (previously, zoomed movement speed was 76% of unzoomed)
- Price decrease from 1100 to 1000
- Zoom magnification increased from 2.5x to 3.5x
STINGER
- Price increased from 1000 to 1100
- Full auto fire rate reduced from 18 to 16
- Full auto fire now reaches max spread at bullet 4, instead of bullet 6
- Adjusted pitch (vertical) recoil curve for full auto, recoil climbs more aggressively past the 3rd bullet
- Burst fire pitch (vertical) recoil adjusted to be more aggressive after the first burst
- Added more error on bursts after the first one
- Improved recovery time on burst mode from .45 to .4
FRENZY
- Price increased from 400 to 500
Escalation, a new casual mode with an interesting twist on gun game, is launching alongside patch 2.03. For the full patch notes, including more details on Valorant's plans to address AFK players, check out Riot's official blog post.
