On Tuesday, Riot Games announced the details of the VALORANT Patch 12.05. It introduces Miks, a new Controller from Croatia whose kit is built around direct interactions with teammates through buffs, crowd control, and smokes deployed via a targeter. His release is scheduled for March 18 at 10:00 AM PST, and it reflects a clear design direction: to encourage more coordinated play while slightly reducing the power of agents considered overly self-sufficient.

In keeping with that philosophy, Riot Games is also revising the UX/UI for ally-targeting. Sage is receiving an update to the targeting interface for her Healing Orb to align it with the experience introduced for Miks, featuring a widget above the targeted ally and an additional highlight around the character model.

From a balance perspective, Skye regains a 60-second cooldown on Guiding Light to make its use more deliberate and to limit the systematic scouting that often occurs at the start of every round. Yoru is being adjusted around his most impactful tools, with Gatecrash seeing its active duration reduced and Blindside lowered from 2 charges to 1, forcing more costly decisions and helping preserve composition diversity.

Clove is also being targeted, particularly in relation to the agent’s ability to influence rounds after death. The duration of Ruse smokes cast while dead has been significantly reduced, while the area of effect of Meddle has been decreased, in an effort to open up more space within the Controller role with Miks entering the roster.

Patch 12.05 is also expected to improve combat readability by introducing assist banners, which appear when your damage or utility contributes to an elimination, with a clearer indication of your involvement. The killfeed has likewise been updated to display the icon of the assisting agent, along with the ability or damage source that enabled the kill. At the same time, status effect tags have been reorganized to be more coherent and easier to read in combat. At the same time, observers and spectators can now see ability targeters on the map, including in replays, which improves execution and utility tracking.

On the content side, the competitive map pool is changing: Lotus and Fracture are entering Competitive and Deathmatch, while Abyss and Corrode are being removed. Lotus is also receiving several adjustments on the A site aimed at limiting wallbangs and spam as barriers drop, improving attacker exits from the lobby, and refining several key areas, including the plant zone. Finally, Knockout becomes the new limited-time mode, a round-based format in which every elimination revives an ally, featuring territories, orbs, and tiered weapon progression, while All Random One Site and Skirmish: 2v2 are leaving the queue.

“Straight from Croatia, Miks takes the stage channeling pure sound energy. With his infectious passion and sonic powers, he rallies his squad to move as one as they set the tempo on the battlefield together. Our newest Controller will start rolling out to all regions at 10:00AM PST on 3/18.

With the change to initiator utility cooldowns at the end of last year, we started reevaluating the removal of Guiding’s Light recharge. At 45s, there was little downside to using this ability right at round start for soft scouting - and we wanted her to be more intentional and deliberate in utility usage. At 60s, this tradeoff became much sharper.

Yoru is crowding out the viability of flash Initiators and sometimes even Sentinels, especially in higher ranks and Pro play. He has the strongest map-wide rotation ability on the roster, can take forward space extremely well, and has one of the strongest general use flashes in the game. In general, we think Yoru is too strong and is starting to bleed into other roles at the cost of comp diversity. So we’re adjusting his strongest abilities, Gatecrash and Blindside, so that Yoru has to make more meaningful tradeoffs when he decides to use them.

Clove has been an ever-present pick in ranked since launch and also has much higher winrate than other agents. Our hope is that with some adjustments of their power and the addition of Miks that there will be more options in the Controller space.These changes specifically target Clove’s outsized ability to help their team win even after death.

Killfeed Updates

We’ve updated how and where status effects appear on your HUD to improve clarity and consistency. When multiple effects are active, you can quickly see what’s affecting you and how long it lasts in predictable areas of the screen, with buffs on the left and debuffs on the right for cleaner organization during combat.

Observers and spectators can now see Ability Map Targeters like Clove’s Ruse, Brim’s Sky Smoke, Tejo’s Guided Salvo, etc. Ability Map Targeters will also show up in Replays.

Map Pool Updates

Overall we are happy where Lotus is at as a map in the pool. But as part of our effort across all maps to reduce weapon spam when the barrier drops, we have changed some walls on A side of the map. We also have been seeing consistent ability usage towards the A-lobby choke when barriers go down. We don't want to stop this completely, but feel moving the jump up to vines will give attackers a better chance to fight for rubble.

BEFORE

AFTER

Introducing Knockout, a round-based tactical elimination mode where every kill resurrects a fallen teammate. Teams stage at a center-line and coordinate pushes into enemy territory across escalating weapon stages to wipe each other out. Stick with your team, trade for each other, and ride the momentum swings as your squad rebuilds kill after kill.

1. Resurrection System

2. Team Territories

3. Loadouts

4. Round Structure

5. Agents & Abilities

6. Match Length

All Random One Site and Skirmish: 2v2 are heading out. Thanks for playing!

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