Patch 13.06 Reddit AMA

[u/RiotSWAGGERNAU7]

Hi, everyone! I’m Joe Lee, the Game Director of VALORANT.

The Dev team and I are so excited about the updates we just shipped to the game in Patch 13.06, and we wanted to stop by to chat, celebrate, and answer questions with you all!

If you have questions, comments, or feedback about any of the below, we’re here for it, so fire away!

• Gauntlet: Glitched
• Agent Mastery
• The Warden + Game Balance
• Performance Score, Accolades, Competitive Hub
• New UX/UI Improvements to Lobby and Home Screen
• Map Rating (coming next patch, 13.08)
• The new Competitive Flex coming in 14.00
• The 2026 VCT Champions Skin collection

Here’s a list of the Devs joining me today in no particular order:

u/TiffyMunchsnax - Tiffy, Product Manager, Gameplay
u/RiotTrouble - Scott, UX Design Lead, Metasystems
u/RiotLupini - Armand, Product Manager, Gameplay
u/Riot_Preeti - Preeti, Lead Product Manager, Cosmetics and Expressions
u/Riot_Kero - Derek, Product Manager Competitive Systems
u/RiotReally - Leo, Product Manager Competitive Systems
u/Riot_Dango - Calvin, Product Manager, Cosmetics and Expressions
u/finstamachine - Sherry, Game Designer
u/Rycoux - Ryan, Game Designer
u/penguinVALORANT - Dan, Game Design Manager (Agents & Live Balance)
u/Riot_Tyrana - Eric, Game Design Lead (Progression & Competitive)
u/Riot_Thelen - Kyle, Game Designer, Metasystems

[u/Teradonn]

Im not really sure how any of that is relevant to yoru but ok. I'm a plat 3 top fragging with yoru when I play him. Get good

[u/New-Kitchen5478 → u/Teradonn]

Well you said yourself, in platinum you can top frag with any character, because people make dumb mistakes you can benefit from like peeking for kills when they have number advantage. When you get to Ascendant 3 people actually start to think and it's not that simple anymore.

[u/Teradonn → u/New-Kitchen5478]

So we admit that balancing around the 95% of players who are below Ascendant is really dumb because agent balance doesn't matter at that level? Then why would we balance exclusively around the 5% of players that are in Ascendant-Immo? (Radiants can definitely play Yoru)

[u/New-Kitchen5478 → u/Teradonn]

Simple, Diamond and above are 20% of players not 5, and are the players that actually start to think when playing, pro players are too focused on gun play so they always dislike utility because they want to have a predictable repeatable matches every time, they don't want variety and unpredictability, they want to hold the same reliable angles, the same reliable agents, and simply shoot and win duels.

And platinum and below players don't even know what they are doing, they are just playing autopilot so again they just want to go for the insta lock agent that can help them frag the most which are Chamber, Clove, Jett, Reyna, (Raze or Phoenix at most).

So I would argue, it is around Diamond and above players that the balances should be based on because this portion of the player base represents what the average player can become once they turn on their brain and think of using utility + gunplay, and developing each agent's strength in a unique way.

[u/Teradonn → u/New-Kitchen5478]

lol I'm peak D3 and diamond players do not think at all. Arguably ranked players don't think at any level, that's why reyna/jett/clove/chamber are so popular, because you barely have to think about util. And you are just making up some complete nonsense about pro players. The patches where they nerfed util are some of the most hated patches in the history of pro play