Valorant patch 1.03 is officially live, representing one of the game’s first patches following the recent implementation of ranked mode. Surprisingly, Riot Games seems to be fairly content with the way things are in ranked, with the League of Legends developer opting to keep their “balance changes light” in order to allow the meta to “evolve naturally.” What we have instead is a patch filled to the brim with quality of life updates, punctuated by the addition of a new Spike Rush Orb and some significant changes to the Guardian.

Riot Games recently took to its official Valorant website to detail the full patch notes for update 1.03. The econ-friendly Guardian has seen a drop in price as well as a significant drop in rate of fire, acting as a necessary trade-off in order to better justify the weapon’s increase in penetration power from medium to heavy. This is all being done in order to help the Guardian sharpen its identity as “a long-range, versatile weapon.”

Patch details are rather on the light side elsewhere, with Spike Rush notably getting a new Orb called Twin Hunters that acts a bit like League of Legends’ Twin Shadows active, sending out two beings to seek out the nearest two enemies. Without further ado, here are the patch notes for Valorant update 1.03 (link to the full list of QoL changes and bug fixes right here):

Valorant Patch 1.03

WEAPON UPDATES

Guardian

• Price reduced from 2700 >>> 2500
• Rate of Fire reduced from 6.5 >>> 4.75
• Penetration power increased from Medium >>> Heavy
•  Input queue updated from 0.083 >>> 0.1175
  •  Up until now, the Guardian has lived in a strange position in the arsenal. Price-wise, it remained close to the premium rifles while not adequately competing with their power, making it too pricey as an alternate economic option, but not powerful enough to be considered as a premiere weapon choice. Its fast fire rate made it more powerful in close range situations than we’d like, given our goals for the weapon’s long-range, precision shot fantasy, and—despite its semi-automatic, heavy-hitting firing style—it matched other rifles in terms of penetrating power. We hope these changes will sharpen the Guardian’s identity as a long-range, versatile weapon, with its heavy penetration values and lower price providing some more nuanced choice competition to the rifle category of the arsenal.

MAP UPDATES

Haven

• Removed spot where Spike was unable to be retrieved once dropped.

All Maps

• Fixed multiple spots where players were able to clip inside level geometry
• Removed more locations where Sova’s sensor arrow was able to go through walls

MODE UPDATES

Spike Rush

•  New Orb: Twin Hunters
  •  Capturing the orb releases two hunting wolves to track down the two nearest enemies (from orb location, they will not change targets after spawning).
    • Wolves speed up when they spot an enemy and dash at them when close, slowing and near-sighting for 4 seconds upon impact.
    • Wolves have 100 HP and can be damaged
    • Wolves will time out at 15 seconds, or when their target is killed

•  Split: Orb Location
  • Mid defender side orb has been moved onto mid platform to make it slightly less defender favored

Valorant is now free to play on PC.

So, thoughts on the latest Valorant patch? How do you feel about the Guardian changes? Let us know in the comments section below, and as always, stay tuned to Don’t Feed the Gamers for all the latest gaming and entertainment news! Don’t forget to follow DFTG on Twitter for our 24/7 news feed!