VALORANT Patch 12.09 marks an important balance update, with
Riot Games focusing heavily on
Neon and the current strength of shotguns during high-mobility situations. After being temporarily disabled on PC because of a Fast Lane exploit linked to specific NVIDIA graphics settings, Neon has now returned to the game. However, her comeback entails significant changes designed to reduce how easily she can break timing, create pressure, and escape fights, while still preserving her identity as a fast-paced Duelist.
The biggest change affects High Gear, as jumping while sprinting no longer gives Neon an airborne speed bonus. Instead, her air speed while using High Gear will now match melee speed, making her movement easier to track and punish. Her fuel will also only regenerate from kills when her ultimate is active, although passive regeneration remains unchanged. Riot also improved the visual effects of her slide to make its direction and origin clearer, giving opponents more readable counterplay amid chaotic situations.
Shotguns lose strength
Alongside the Neon changes, Riot is also reducing shotguns’ effectiveness while moving, jumping, or using ropes. The goal is to push shotguns back toward their intended role: holding tight angles, defending close-range spaces, and clearing corners with deliberate positioning. All shotguns are now less accurate while moving, with run, walk, crouch-walk, and jump accuracy standardized across the weapon class. Crouching now provides a 15% accuracy multiplier, matching rifles, while shotgun spread has been heavily increased on ropes.
Some key notes from the latest Dev Update. Credit: VALORANT/Riot Games
The Bucky shotgun received some of the most direct nerfs, with reduced close-range pellet damage and increased spread across several movement states. The Judge also had its minimum spread increased on PC, with the same console change set to arrive in Patch 12.11, while the Shorty saw its fire rate reduced from 3.33 to 3.0. Beyond weapon balance, Patch 12.09 also includes several bug fixes for agents such as Chamber, Jett, Sage, Tejo, Viper, and Vyse, as well as improvements to Riot’s text evaluation system in multiple languages and PC support for AMD Anti-Lag 2.
ALL PLATFORMS
AGENT UPDATES
Neon has been on our radar for a while now, and we’ve been working through changes to address the amount of impact she can have in games. This is related to a more complex pacing and strategy problem with multiple elements to solve (strong Duelists and shotguns, weak Sentinels, higher Initiator signature cooldowns), but for the time being we are going to release Neon and shotgun changes first to more quickly correct the balance of combat.
Her current role in breaking timings and creating pressure is correct, but her movement and evasiveness are pushing too far into combat space. We want to encourage Neon players to be intentional and make more meaningful decisions while playing her, so we’re making changes to her mobility in the air and giving her a greater resource tradeoff on High Gear. This should also allow opponents to have more opportunities for counterplay, as well as shave some additionally generously-tuned snowballing potential.
For a deeper dive on all the upcoming changes and why, you can read more about it <here>. Neon
Jumping with High Gear active no longer provides any speed bonus while Neon is airborne. Instead, Neon’s air speed while sprinting will match melee speed.
Fuel will only regenerate with a kill when Neon's ultimate is active
Improved VFX to more clearly communicate the direction and origin of her slide
COMPETITIVE UPDATES
- We’re testing MMR changes for modes other than Competitive, Unrated, and Swiftplay. These changes should result in better, more consistent matches. We’ll use what we learn to improve Competitive, Unrated, and Swiftplay in the future.
BUG FIXES
- Agents
- Chamber
- Fixed a bug where ADS-ing while firing Chamber’s Headhunter created an animation that covers too much of the screen
- Jett
- Fixed a visual bug where Jett's Tailwind was not playing the intended first-person animations when left-handed setting is enabled
- Fixed a bug where using Jett's Drift caused performance drops
- Miks
- Updated tooltip description of Harmonize.
- Fixed bug where the preview cone for his ultimate would not show unless the ability was fully equipped
- Sage
- Fixed an issue where a full health Sage could use Healing Orb on herself while affected by Decay, because she is not actually losing any health. This would consume the ability needlessly, since her health returns to normal once Decay wears off.
- Tejo
- Fixed issue where the Guided Salvo’s equip idle sound kept playing long after cast.
- Viper
- Fixed a bug where Sova's Recon Bolt and Chamber's Trademark were not affected by nearsightedness in Viper's Pit
- Vyse
- Fixed a bug where possessable drones (Sova's Owl Drone, Skye's Trailblazer, Tejo's Stealth Drone) would trigger the arming audio of Vyse's wall
PLAYER BEHAVIOR UPDATES
We've improved our Riot Text Evaluation system to better detect and apply penalties for text comms abuse in the following languages: Arabic, German, English, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Turkish, Chinese.
WEAPONS UPDATES
Alongside the Neon changes above, we are also changing the effectiveness of shotguns when moving and jumping to encourage players to use them defensively. Shotguns are intended to be most effective for holding tight angles and clearing close range spaces, but right now they’re a bit too effective in high-mobility situations. To reinforce their ideal usage, we are reducing shotgun accuracy while moving. This should make them more impactful when used deliberately and defensively, versus being aggressive on the move.
All shotguns:
- All shotguns are now less accurate when moving
- Run, walk, crouch-walk, and jump accuracy has been standardized across all shotguns
- Crouching now provides a 15% accuracy multiplier for shotguns, matching rifles
- Bucky: crouch accuracy modifier increased from 10 >>> 15%
- Judge/Shorty: crouch accuracy modifier decreased from 25 >>> 15%
- Shotguns are now much less accurate while using ropes
- Your shotgun spread will increase significantly when you're on a rope, especially if you're moving:
- Standing still: Accuracy reduced (spread increased from 0.075 >>> 0.75)
- Walking: Accuracy reduced (spread increased from 0.09 >>> 1.5)
- Running: Accuracy reduced (spread increased from 0.1 >>> 3.0)
Bucky:
- Bucky pellet damage in the 0-8m range decreased
- Head 40 >>> 34
- Body 20 >>> 17
- Legs 17 >>> 14
- Minimum spread increased from 2.6 >>> 3.0
- Walking spread increased from 0.075 >>> 1
- Running spread increased from .1 >>> 2
- Crouch-walk spread increased from .05 >>> .5
- Jump spread increased from 1.25 >>> 4
Judge:
- Minimum spread increased from 2.25 >>> 2.5
- Note: this will only apply to PC for now- this spread change will apply to console in Patch 12.11
- Walking spread increased from .075 >>> 1
- Running spread increased from 0.75 >>> 2
- Crouch-walk spread increased from .05 >>> .5
- Jump spread increased from 2.25 >>> 4
Shorty:
- Fire rate decreased from 3.33 >>> 3.0
- Walking spread increased from .075 >>> 1
- Running spread increased from 0.1 >>> 2
- Crouch-walk spread increased from .05 >>> .5
- Jump spread increased from 1.25 >>> 4
PC ONLY
PERFORMANCE UPDATES
- Added support for AMD Anti-Lag 2, which reduces input latency in certain GPU-bound scenarios. In order to use AMD Anti-Lag 2, you need compatible hardware, with updated drivers from March 9th, 2026 or later.
BUG FIXES
- Agents
- Neon
- Fixed an exploit with her Fast Lane where using specific NVIDIA graphics settings impacted competitive integrity. Neon has returned to the game.
- Progression
- Fixed issue where dailies shown while hovering over the icon did not match the dailies in the End of Game screen.
CONSOLE ONLY
BUG FIXES
- Agents
- Phoenix
- Updated tooltip description of Curveball
KNOWN ISSUES.
- Modes
- Skirmish 2v2: Ascension and Skirmish 1v1: Ascension - Timer is stuck at 00.50 sec in Overtime phase
- Skirmish 2v2: Ascension and Skirmish 1v1: Ascension - Agent abilities do not show up on the Combat Report in the following round after affecting enemies
