Valorant Episode 7 Act 3: New Agent Iso Goes Live Alongside Patch 7.09

Riot has released new Valorant agent Iso alongside a significant patch for its hugely popular team-based shooter.

Riot said update 7.09 addresses issues in the balance of power between Sentinels, especially Cypher, and some other Agents on the roster.

“Sentinels often craft very deliberate setups only to have Agents like Raze, Skye, and Fade destroy them with typical utility use,” Riot explained. “In this patch, we’re updating Cypher’s Trapwire (C) to try to sway these interactions more in his favor, and to encourage enemy Agents to have to be more intentional and deliberate if they aim to use their utility to counter Sentinel setups.”

Here are the Valorant update 7.09 patch notes in full, per Riot Games:

AGENT UPDATES

ISO

• Iso goes live!

CYPHER, SKYE, FADE and RAZE

This patch, we’re looking to address some issues in the balance of power between Sentinels, especially Cypher, and some other Agents on the roster. Sentinels often craft very deliberate setups only to have Agents like Raze, Skye, and Fade destroy them with typical utility use. In this patch, we’re updating Cypher’s Trapwire (C) to try to sway these interactions more in his favor, and to encourage enemy Agents to have to be more intentional and deliberate if they aim to use their utility to counter Sentinel setups.

Cypher

• These changes force attackers to actively destroy traps to break Cypher’s setups and push interactions with utility like Prowlers (C) and Trailblazer (Q) more in Cypher’s favor. In addition, the potency of the traps when they snag an enemy has been increased slightly to make sure opponents have to respect their threat.

Trapwire (C)

• Decreased the time until the trap concusses a captured enemy 3 >>> 1.5 seconds.
• After concussing an enemy or an enemy in the trap being killed, the Trapwire (C) no longer destroys itself but instead re-arms after 0.5 seconds, allowing it to ensnare another enemy.
• Duration of tag slow when hit by the trap increased 0.75 >>> 2 seconds.

These changes to Skye and Fade are meant to add more strategic depth to the placement of Cypher’s Trapwire.

Skye

• Trailblazer (Q)

Adjusted Trailblazer’s collision so that it goes under Trapwires placed at mid-height. This won’t affect the hitboxes for weapon damage.

Fade

• Prowler (C)

Adjusted Prowler (C) collision so that they go over Trapwires placed at foot height and under Trapwires placed at head height. This won’t affect the hitboxes for weapon damage.

Raze

Raze will have to be more precise with her Paint Shells (E) in order to deal damage to enemies, including destroying enemy traps. Additionally, Raze will need to be more intentional in picking between using the Blast Pack (Q) for mobility or damage.

Paint Shells (E)

• Primary grenade explosion radius 6m >>> 5.5m.
• Secondary grenades explosion radius 6m >>> 5.25m.
• Primary grenade explosion minimum damage 15 >>> 1.
• Secondary grenades explosion minimum damage 15 >>> 1.
• Damage multiplier to enemy utility 250% >>> 100%.

Blast Pack (Q)

• Satchel doesn’t deal damage until fully armed.
• Satchel arm time increased 0.5 seconds >>> 1.5.

WEAPONS UPDATES

JUDGE

With the changes below, we’re sharpening the Judge’s identity as a hunker-down style shotgun by reducing some of its effectiveness while moving. With the reduced mag size, we’re hoping to create more opportunities for enemies to catch a person reloading their Judge as well as nudge the person with the Judge to be more efficient in order to get multi-kills.

Judge

• Reduced max mag size from 7 >>> 5
• Increased Jumping spread from 1.25 >>> 2.25
• Increased Running spread from .10 >>> .75

PLAYER BEHAVIOR UPDATES

• When reporting others in game, there is now an added option to also mute who you’ve just reported.

SOCIAL UPDATES

• Updated the icons that appear in the Friends List when friends are playing other Riot Games.
• We now detect people in Riot Mobile and TFT, and display unique icons for people playing these games.
• People who are online in Riot Mobile have a “gray dot” Player Card Image.
• The failsafe “Unknown Product” icon is now a red Riot fist instead of the gray dot.
• Updated the icons shown for people in LoL, LoR and WildRift.

PREMIER UPDATES

Premier Stage E7A3 is live with a few updates and new features! As always, good luck in your games!

Premier Practice

• There will be windows of time where you can queue for practice on select non-match days, check your calendars for the schedule! These matches will follow Premier match structure, but will not affect your Premier Score.

Enrollment Updates

• Teams created before or during the new ‘Team Creation Window’ will now be able to recruit members and participate in Premier at any point during the Stage!

Timeouts

• Every match, teams will have one timeout per side and an additional time out in Overtime.

Premier Crests

• Crests will now reflect your team’s performance and evolve over the entire stage.

Playoff Qualification Threshold

• We’re lowering the qualification threshold in this stage to 600 points. We recognize that during this busy time of the year, it can be harder to schedule your team’s matches so we wanted to make it more forgiving if you have to miss a week.

Matchmaking

• We’ve made some slight adjustments to find you fairer matches during the weekly matches.

Zones

• Some regions can’t support the same number of divisions, so we’ve made adjustments to certain zones to support generally healthier queue times and improved match fairness.

BUG FIXES

General

• Fixed an issue where some people’s hardware configurations resulted in a white screen at login.

Gameplay Systems

• Fixed a rare issue where detaching from a rope would cause a footstep noise.

Iso launches as part of Valorant Episode 7 Act 3. The 23rd Agent to enter the game, Iso is a new Duelist, a Chinese fixer for hire with unique gun skills that translate to creating bulletproof protection for himself. Here’s how his kit works.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.