Each new VALORANT Act shakes up the meta with new content and adjustments to existing systems. With Patch 12.05, Miks is joining the roster, Yoru is getting significant nerfs, and changes to Lotus are bound to reinvent how you play the A site in Competitive.
Here’s everything coming to VALORANT in Patch 12.05 on March 18.
Table of contents
All changes included in VALORANT Patch 12.03
New Controller, Miks
Miks is the new Controller joining the VALORANT roster. With the kit centered around music, he brings a lot of energy to the battlefield. While he has default smokes, everything else in his kit is centered around supporting teammates, including an AoE healing ability.
New mode, Knockout
Riot also introduces a new mode to VALORANT, replacing All Random One Site and Skirmish 2v2, which are leaving the queue. Knockout is the evolution of Team Deathmatch, featuring the same maps and similar loadout rules, but with the gameplay focused more on teamplay and trading.
Map pool and Lotus changes
With Patch 12.05, Abyss and Corrode are leaving the Competitive map pool, replaced by Lotus and Fracture. Among the returning maps, Lotus is receiving a couple of fundamental changes on the A side that address Odin spam and util dumps.
Here are the Lotus changes in Patch 12.05:
- A Lobby wall thickened to remove wall penetration from the barrier drop.
- A Root moved to help attackers get out of A Lobby and avoid the utility dump.
- A Tree wall reinforced to remove wall penetration.
- Outside the A Stairs expanded to hold A-site.
- A-site plant zone moved to prevent planting for A Link.
The changes affect some of the core playstyles on the A-site of Lotus, including the utility dump into A Lobby at the start of the round. What is a default plant on A for A Link is now also irrelevant, forcing you to play on site or A Tree more than before. On the upside, you can no longer get spammed through the wall while holding A Tree, which follows a set of similar changes Riot made to Corrode in Haven with Patch 12.00.
Yoru, Clove, and Skye nerfs
To lean more into teamplay and strategizing, Riot is nerfing some of the more dominant picks across both ranked and pro play, alongside a few other changes. These adjustments aim to introduce more meaningful trade-offs when utilizing abilities to gain value.
Skye
- Guiding Light: Added 60s cooldown.
Yoru
- Gatecrash: Duration decreased from 30s to 15s.
- Blindisde: Charges reduced from two to one.
Clove
- Ruse: Smoke duration when cast when dead reduced from 14s to 6s.
- Meddle: Area of effect reduced from 6m to 4m.
Gekko and Killjoy
- Wingman and Alarmbot: Now apply their effects through smokes.
Assist banners and killfeeds
With Patch 12.05, whenever your utility or damage contributes to a teammate’s kill, you’ll see an assist banner at the bottom of your screen alongside an ability icon in the killfeed. This gives you more information about which ability helped your teammate, but you can’t do the same when looking at the enemies, as this info is only visible to your team.
This comes alongside more UI changes, bug fixes, an update to Sage’s model, a new Blackthorn bundle, and more.
