Patch notes · Sage

• 2.02

  Plant the Spike on a Sage wall

  Fixed issue where the Spike could be planted on Sage's wall on the sites on Icebox.

• 2.00

  Plant the Spike on a Sage wall

  Fixed an issue where Omen could plant the Spike while elevated on a Sage wall.

• 1.14

  Barrier Orb cast

  Barrier Orb can't be cast in Buy Phase. Although this was a hotfix solution intended to prevent an exploit with Omen, this change is overall a solid one that we believe creates cohesion across what can and can't be cast in buy phase. Most of the abilities cast during buy phase are meant to set up more permanent utility.

• 1.14

  Barrier deterioration

  Once fortified, Barrier no longer loses health over time—Barrier only starts to deteriorate a few seconds before it expires. Overall, we've been happy with how the fortified barrier has been playing but wanted to make some changes to prevent the mitigation of the fortifying counterplay, while rewarding Sage players that successfully fortify their walls. By removing the mitigation of the counterplay, we are able to investigate future opportunities to reward players that succeed in getting their barriers to fortify.

• 1.11

  Wall segments no longer breaks

  Sage wall segments no longer breaks if a player dies on top of them.

• 1.07

  Heal reduced

  Heal reduced from 100 over 5 seconds, to 60 over 5 seconds. Our goal is to reduce the amount of healing done throughout the round.

• 1.07

  Self heal reduced

  Self heal reduced from 100 over 5 seconds, to 60 over 10 seconds. Our goal is to disincentivize Sage from self healing and make it more expensive to do so.

• 1.07

  Slow Orb size reduced

  Slow Orb size reduced by 30%. This should slightly reduce the power of Slow Orb and increase intentionality. Right now, slow orb unintentionally covers a lot more ground than it should be if aimed properly.

• 1.07

  Barrier Orb cost

  Barrier Orb cost reduced from 400 to 300 credits.

• 1.07

  Barrier Orb fortifying

  Fortifying barrier wall forms at 400 HP—after a 3 second delay, the wall becomes fortified to 800 HP. Our hope is to increase counterplay on Barrier and reduce the strength of the wall during reactive use.

• 1.07

  Viper's smoke abilities decay on allies

  Decay on all Viper's smoke abilities no longer affects allies. This is mainly targeted towards Viper's Pit, and should help reduce some of the unintentional collateral damage she can cause to her team, while also opening new strategies for playing around her ult as a team.

• 1.04

  Ultimate targeting unified

  Gun pickup targeting and Sage Ultimate targeting unified with ally character highlights, saving VRam and GPU performance.

• 1.02

  Spike would float

  Fixed a bug where the Spike would float in the air if it had been placed on a Sage wall.

• 1.01

  Barrier Orb cast range

  Barrier Orb cast range reduced from 20 to 10 meters. As a Sentinel, Sage is supposed to be most effective when defending territory that she already controls. The 20m cast range was allowing Sage to aggressively take control of neutral territory in a way that was inappropriate for her role in Valorant. This range reduction aims to keep her strong while defending territory but reduce her efficacy at taking ground.

• 1.0

  Inaccurate movement

  Fixed a bug where players were fully movement inaccurate after being resurrected or respawning.

• 1.0

  Healing Orb cooldown

  Healing Orb cooldown increased from 35 to 45 seconds. We like how much Sage is able to heal in a single heal, but felt she was able to use it too frequently during a round.

• 1.0

  Barrier Orb health

  Barrier Orb segment health reduced from 1000 to 800.

• 1.0

  Barrier Orb duration

  Barrier Orb duration reduced from 40 to 30 seconds.

• 1.0

  Barrier Orb duration

  Friendly Barrier Orb walls now show on the minimap. Previous changes to Sage's Barrier Orb helped give it more counterplay options in pistol/early round but it's still having too much impact in any given round. Our hope is that the wall stays a powerful stalling tool, but asks you to think more about when in the round you want to use it.

• 1.0

  Optimized VFX

  Optimized abilities VFX for Sage.

• 1.0

  Sound visualization

  We've brought in more sounds made by Agents under the category of sounds that display their audio distance on the mini-map via the white circle. This includes ability sounds, reloads, spike interactions and more. Why? We wanted to provide players with the ability to understand when their noise can be heard by enemies and give them an idea of how far the sounds can be heard.

• 0.50

  Slow Orb duration

  Slow Orb zone duration decreased from 9 to 7 seconds.

• 0.50

  Slow Orb slowing amount

  Slow Orb slowing amount decreased from 65% to 50%. We all know Sage is OP. We've decided to try to reduce some of her stopping power while still allowing her to fulfill her role as the premier staller in VALORANT. These changes aim to reduce the overall efficacy of her Slow Orb, especially if they are chained back-to-back.

• 0.50

  Resurrected players would have jittery movement

  Fixed rare movement bug where resurrected players who were tagged would have jittery movement in 1st-person perspective.

• 0.50

  Barrier Orb cost

  Sage Barrier Orb increased from 300 to 400 credits.

• 0.50

  Ability details in the combat report

  Ability details in the combat report will now correctly appear in the buy phase of the round when teams switch sides.

• 0.50

  Players appeared to be standing

  Fixed a rare bug where players appeared to be standing, when they were actually crouching.

• 0.49

  Smoothed out movement

  Smoothed out movement during player-to-player collisions.

• 0.49

  Barrier Orb spawn

  Barrier Orb will only spawn a chunk of the barrier if it is supported by the ground, this means it will sometimes only spawn 2 barrier chunks.

• 0.49

  Barrier Orb placement

  Barrier Orb can no longer be placed on "small" pieces of geometry, it must be placed on the ground or on top of boxes. We love supporting boost gameplay, especially when multiple characters combine their abilities (looking at you Jett and Omen). However, we felt with the current placement requirements, characters were able to boost to too many unintended spots. With this change, players can still boost into some unexpected positions, but they hopefully won't be 30 feet in the sky and floating in the middle of the site to look through a tiny pinhole in the map.

• 0.49

  Ultimate icon

  Fixed the ultimate ability icon above teammates' heads showing as charged after gaining 1 ult point instead of when actually charged.

• 0.47+

  Slow Orb slows air

  Slow Orb now also slows the air speed of players in the zone.

• 0.47+

  Slow Orb without walking noise

  Players can now walk through the Slow Orb without making noise. Why though? Players were able to circumvent too much of Sage's Slow Orb by bunny hopping through the zone. We want the minimum slow amount to be a bit more consistent with all movement in the zone, while still allowing for bunny hopping and walking to provide a slight benefit to traversing the zone. Also, we feel adding a stealthy yet slow way to move through the field brings more nuance to playing against the zone and a bit more uncertainty for Sage, since she can't necessarily hear people who move through.

• 0.47+

  Barrier Orb receives double damage

  Melee attacks now inflict double the damage per hit to destructibles, including Sage's Barrier. Why? There weren't enough options during low econ rounds—such as the first round and right after switching sides—to combat Sage's Barrier Orb. Our intent is to add a high-risk, high-reward method for players to interact with her wall, while still being able to take it down, no matter their loadout.

• Beta

  Availability of Sage

  Sage is in the active duty since the very beginning of the Beta.