Riot Games has launched patch 1.04 for its tactical shooter Valorant. This latest update buffs and nerfs several agents, as well as updates the Classic pistol.

Viper gets buffed, especially her Viper’s Pit ultimate. The agent can now be outside the skill’s area-of-effect (AOE) for up to 15 seconds while enemies inside the AOE will have their minimap obscured.

“With Viper being allowed out of her ult for such a short period of time, we felt that she was not only limited in the plays she could make, but also gave too much continuous information to her enemies.

The ability to move outside the ult smoke more freely should provide some new and interesting mind games for Viper to play – and hopefully puts the strategic pressure back on the enemy.”

The temporary damage from Viper’s decay debuff, which is applied when enemies come into contact with her smokes, has also been increased from 10 to 15 per second and now sustains for two-and-a-half seconds before it starts to wear off.

Lastly, her Poison Cloud and Toxic Screen abilities now last longer when activated at the same time as they do not “consume additional fuel beyond the cost of having one active”.

On the other hand, Raze and Brimstone have been nerfed. The cost for both agents’ ultimate abilities, Showstopper and Orbital Strike, have been increased to seven ult points. The reason for this is because both skills were apparently too “impactful” at a lower cost.

In addition, Brimstone’s Stim Beacon will no longer accidentally buff enemies, while its effect radius will not be visible to the opposing team anymore.

“The Stim Beacon is meant to be a pretty situational ability but we felt that revealing Brimstone’s location and having the potential to accidentally buff enemies was making this ability significantly weaker than we’d like.”

Patch 1.04 also tweaks the Classic pistol, which is the weapon players get for free every round. Several bugs for the gun, such as running and jumping inaccuracy penalties, have been fixed, while the efficacy of the right-click spread shot has also been tuned, alongside a 10 per cent accuracy bonus while crouching or staying stationary.