Valorant 10.04 update patch notes: Waylay, agent buffs & nerfs, map pool changes, more

Valorant update 10.04 is around the corner, bringing in Waylay as a new Duelist, as well as some major buffs and nerfs for other Agents. 

At the start of 2025, Riot Game introduced a new Agent to Valorant in the form of Tejo. The Colombian Initiator has made waves on Future Earth already, prompting the devs to roll out a few fixes.

You’d be forgiven for not expecting another new Agent anytime soon, but, Riot have done just that. Waylay, a Thai Duelist, was revealed during Masters Bangkok on March 2, and is set to have some powerful abilities. 

She will be arriving in the 10.04 update, but that’s not all. There are some other mighty big changes coming to Valorant. 

Waylay joins Valorant

As noted, the big headline change in 10.04 is the addition of Waylay. The Duelist will start to roll out on March 5. This staggered release will get underway at 9 am PT. 

Waylay looks to mostly be about speed, but her abilities will also disrupt opponents in a few other ways too. 

• Refract: INSTANTLY create a beacon of light on the floor. REACTIVATE to speed back to your beacon as a mote of pure light. You are invulnerable as you travel.
• Light Speed: EQUIP to prepare for a burst of speed. FIRE to dash forward twice. ALT FIRE to dash once. Only your first dash can send you upward.
• Saturate: INSTANTLY throw a cluster of light that explodes upon contact with the ground, HINDERING nearby players with a powerful movement and weapon slow.
• Hinder: Applies a debuff that SLOWS which impacts: Fire Rate, Recoil Recovery, Equip Time, Reload Speed, Movement Speed, and Jump Speed
• Convergent Paths: EQUIP to focus your prismatic power. FIRE to create an afterimage of yourself that projects a beam of light. After a brief delay, you gain a powerful speed boost and the beam expands, HINDERING other players in the area.

Riot Games

Waylay is Valorant’s newest Agent.

Agent buffs and nerfs: Tejo, Clove, Deadlock, Iso, and Neon

Additionally, there are going to be some big changes coming to Tejo, Clove, Deadlock, and Iso. Tejo will no longer be able to destroy Killjoy’s Lockdown, and his Guided Salvo damage is down from 70 to 65.

As for Clove’s changes, Riot have noted that she “has been overperforming in ranked” and needs tweaks. The cooldown on her Ruse has been increased by 10 seconds, and her Pick Me Up move speed timer has decreased down to five seconds. 

Map pool changes

There are also big changes to the map pool. Ascent and Icebox will be returning to competitive and deathmatch queues. Abyss and Bind, however, are out.

To mark Ascent’s return, Riot have made a changed part of the B Main wall along B Lane to protect it from bullet penetration. So, RIP to those players who spam the Odin there.

You can check out the full patch notes from Riot Games for Valorant’s 10.04 update below.

Valorant update 10.04 patch notes

ALL PLATFORMS

AGENT UPDATES

• Waylay
  • Our newest Duelist, Waylay, is joining the roster from Thailand! She’ll be released in a staggered rollout to all regions starting at 9:00 AM PT on March 5th.
  • Refract
    • INSTANTLY create a beacon of light on the floor. REACTIVATE to speed back to your beacon as a mote of pure light. You are invulnerable as you travel.
  • Light Speed
    • EQUIP to prepare for a burst of speed. FIRE to dash forward twice. ALT FIRE to dash once. Only your first dash can send you upward.
  • Saturate
    • INSTANTLY throw a cluster of light that explodes upon contact with the ground, HINDERING nearby players with a powerful movement and weapon slow.
      • Hinder
        • Applies a debuff that SLOWS which impacts:
          • Fire Rate
          • Recoil Recovery
          • Equip Time
          • Reload Speed
          • Movement Speed
          • Jump Speed
  • Convergent Paths
    • EQUIP to focus your prismatic power. FIRE to create an afterimage of yourself that projects a beam of light. After a brief delay, you gain a powerful speed boost and the beam expands, HINDERING other players in the area.

• Clove
  • Clove has been overperforming in ranked so we’re making some adjustments to their abilities to keep ranked in a healthy spot. Similar to balance changes we’ve made in the past, we’d like to continue encouraging Controller diversity by making space for other Agents who have similar strengths.
  • Meddle
    • No longer explodes after a 1.3 second timer after casting. Explodes after contact with the ground after a 0.75s timer.
    • Projectile audio has been updated to fit this new behavior.
  • Ruse
    • Cooldown duration increased from 30s >>> 40s
  • Pick Me Up
    • Health buff duration increased from 8s >>> 10s
    • Move speed duration reduced from 8s >>> 3s
• Deadlock
  • As Deadlock players have improved over time, her reactive stalling potential is solidifying as one of her unique strengths. As a result, we want to encourage GravNet as one of her primary tools to pounce onto targets that are disrespecting the areas she controls.
    • To account for GravNet swapping to a signature, we’ll be shrinking the size and increasing some of its counterplay. Since the skill will be cast more frequently, we’d like to encourage plays to be more intentional and precise about placement. 
  • Barrier Mesh
    • Changed to a non-signature ability 
    • Cost: Free >>> 400 credits
  • GravNet 
    • Changed to a signature ability with 40s cooldown
    • Total Size decreased from 16m >>> 13m
    • Gravnet’s Projectile audio loop has been updated to increase its gameplay clarity.
    • When an enemy removes the net, the audio cue of the net breaking now plays for all players.
• Iso
  • Since his updates in patches 8.11 and 9.0, Iso has been a bit of a one-trick pony around his Double Tap. These changes are intended to redistribute power around Iso’s kit to make him a more well-rounded agent. Changes to Undercut intend to increase his overall strategic options, and Contingency is receiving an alternate cast paradigm to support slower play and its ability to isolate angles. 
  • We’re reverting Iso’s Double Tap tagging change, as trying to kill Iso through his shield is already a highly frustrating and powerful moment. 
  • Changes to Kill Contract are intended to ensure that won duels in the arena always spawn an orb.
  • Undercut
    • Reduced charges from 2 >>> 1
    • Cost increased from 200 >>> 300 credits
    • Now applies Suppression alongside Vulnerability for the same duration (4s) on players hit.
  • Contingency
    • Now has an Alt-Fire cast that makes the wall move at half the speed
      • This does not affect the duration of Contingency.
  • Double Tap
    • Iso now receives a Heavy Penetration tag rather than a Wall Penetration tag when the shield is broken. This means he’s slowed more upon his shield breaking.
  • Kill Contract
    • BUGFIX: If Iso DOES NOT have Double Tap’s buff applied, the ultimate will now automatically apply it so that won ultimate duels always spawn an orb. 
• Neon
  • VFX around Neon’s Overdrive have been updated to make Neon and her directionality clearer when she is fighting with Overdrive active. 
• Tejo
  • Since Tejo’s release, we’ve been monitoring the interaction where Tejo can destroy Killjoy’s Lockdown with his Guided Salvo. 
  • For context, we typically prefer when abilities interact in a way that allows players to be creative in how they use them to respond to other utility used in the round.
    • But in the case of Tejo’s Guided Salvo cooldown model, both players get into unsatisfying stalemates where neither Tejo nor Killjoy want to be the first person to cast. So we’re changing Guided Salvo so that it requires more teamplay to successfully destroy a Killjoy ultimate. Killjoy’s Lockdown will now survive Guided Salvo with 5 HP.

Guided Salvo 

• Damage decreased from 70 >>> 65 
• Guided Salvo now does 50% damage to non-player objects.

MAP UPDATES

• Map Rotation
  • Ascent and Icebox are back IN the COMPETITIVE and DEATHMATCH queues.
  • Abyss and Bind are OUT of the COMPETITIVE and DEATHMATCH queues.
• Ascent
  • While bullet penetration is a meaningful system that rewards map knowledge and situational execution, we feel like the weapon spam here at barrier drop is currently creating unhealthy gameplay and frustrating experiences. This change will give Attackers some added safety at barrier drop when first approaching B Main.
  • B Main
    • Changed part of the B Main wall along B Lane to non-pennable.  

GAMEPLAY SYSTEMS UPDATES

• Combat Report
  • Overhauled visuals of the detailed damage breakdown panel to be more organized and intuitive.

BUG FIXES

• Agents
  • Neon
    • Checked in a more systemic fix to an issue where Neon could jiggle her head up and down while sliding if mashing strafing inputs.
  • Fade
    • Fixed an issue where Fade’s hands got stuck in place if she crouched while holding Nightfall out.
• Competitive
  • Fixed an issue where the Rank Shield icon on the Match History page would disappear after playing a non-Competitive game.

KNOWN ISSUES

• General
  • There is a bug where the first person camera angle may be slightly offset from the expected player point of view while spectating another player.

CONSOLE ONLY

AGENT UPDATES

• Generally speaking, we believe that the best version of VAL is true across all platforms. As a result, we only look to make console-specific changes when absolutely necessary. We’d like to take this opportunity to adjust any changes that may no longer be needed. If you’re curious, we approach this problem by taking a look at data and community feedback to evaluate performance on each platform.
• Neon
  • We’ve been paying close attention to Neon for a long time on console… After her nerfs in patch 9.11, we looked at her current power-profile and are comfortable in increasing some of her potential.
  • Overdrive
    • Head Damage Multiplier increased 2.5 >>> 3.0 (Standardizing to PC)
    • Body Damage Multiplier: 1.0 (unchanged, already same as PC)
    • Leg Damage Multiplier increased 0.75 >>> 0.85 (Standardizing to PC)
  • Sprint
    • Fuel Drain Per Second: 0.11 >>> 0.1 (Standardizing to PC)
• Yoru
  • Yoru often occupies a niche, high-mastery, high-return position in the Agent roster. Yoru’s kit is difficult to master but players can realize significant returns on their time investment. When looking at the data, his power-profile overall was lower than expected for the effort required. 
  • We took a look at your feedback around his kit feeling “clunky” on console, and have looked to remove some of the changes that are both making his kit feel more difficult to execute.
  • Dimensional Drift
    • Unequip delay decreased 1.2s >>> 0.8s (Standardizing to PC)
  • Fakeout
    • Max flash duration increased 2.0s >>> 3.0s (Standardizing to PC)
    • Flash explosion delay increased: 0.6s >>> 0.8s
      • Note: We’re keeping the console-specific counterplay added to Yoru’s Fakeout.
  • Blindside
    • Max Flash Duration increased from 1.25s >>> 1.75s (Standardizing to PC)
    • Flash Explosion Delay: 0.7s >>> 0.6s (Standardizing to PC)
• Reyna
  • Reyna’s Leer is relatively weaker than we expected over time.
    • Leer Health increased 40 >>> 100 (Standardizing to PC)
      • Note: Similar to Yoru’s Decoy Flash, Leer continues to have a slightly longer (+0.2s) activation time and duration. This patch does not change that.