Valorant 12.06 patch notes bring Waylay & Viper ability changes

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The latest update to Valorant, patch 12.06, is now live! It includes adjustments to the Agents Waylay and Viper. Here’s a rundown of what’s changed.

Valorant has kicked off 2026 with some significant updates, the biggest being the introduction of a new playable character named Miks.

In the latest update (patch 12.05), Riot Games made adjustments to several agents, including Yoru, Skye, and Clove. They also continued their efforts to combat smurfing by adding more security measures. Plus, a new pistol, the Bandit, was introduced, and maps like Breeze and Lotus received updates.

The latest update, patch 12.06, includes adjustments to Waylay’s Saturate ability and Viper’s ultimate, Vipers Pit.

Waylay nerfed in 12.06

The main update is a change to Waylay’s Saturate: it’s now an Equip ability instead of an Instant one.

Riot explained that changing Waylay’s ‘Saturate’ ability from an instant-use power to one tied to an equipped item means she can no longer immediately slow enemies while jumping or when they touch her, and doing so now carries more risk.

As a fan, it’s great to see Waylay thinking about protecting herself instead of just setting up opportunities for others. It shows she’s motivated to minimize her own risks and play strategically, which is awesome!

Viper’s ultimate ability has been tweaked internally to make it more reliable and prevent casting errors. While some players might not notice the difference, others should find it more consistent.

The full patch notes for the 12.06 update can be found below.

Valorant 12.06 patch notes

ALL PLATFORMS

GENERAL UPDATES

  • We’ve updated Victory, Defeat and Draw end-of-game visuals and sound effects.

AGENT UPDATES

We’re glad Waylay is fitting well into teams, but we’ve observed that her Saturate ability, combined with her other skills, often creates scenarios where opponents have no effective way to respond.

We’ve noticed that some players are combining Waylay’s abilities to apply Saturate to opponents very safely, allowing their teammates to follow up without much danger. We believe Duelists are most effective when they take some risks themselves, and that risk should primarily fall on the Duelist, not their team.

Changing Waylay’s ‘Saturate’ ability from an instant use to one tied to equipping an item means she can’t quickly slow down enemies while jumping or when they touch her without putting herself in danger. This encourages Waylay to work with her team to stay safe, instead of relying on the ability to set up opportunities for her teammates.

Waylay

  • Saturate changed from INSTANT to EQUIP.

We’re updating the behind-the-scenes technology for Viper’s Pit. These changes should make the map run more smoothly and reliably, and fix issues where abilities sometimes wouldn’t activate, especially in specific areas like Haven A Tower or Icebox A Pipes. Most players shouldn’t notice a difference, but we expect a more consistent experience overall.

Viper

  • Viper’s Pit chemical cloud has been updated to be more consistent in the way it spreads around map geometry.

Yoru

  • Added new voice lines

COSMETICS UPDATES

We’ve heard from many players since launching Flex over a year ago. They like the idea, but feel it doesn’t work as well as it could because it uses movement speed from abilities instead of basic attacks. Ability movement speed is only 90% as effective as movement speed from attacks.

Players told us they often avoid using Flex items because they worry about accidentally activating them during a match, which slows them down at important times. We’ve tested a solution and are now releasing it. This update ensures all Flex items work properly and fairly in third-person competitive play.

  • Flex movespeed is being increased to match Melee movespeed. This will apply to all past and future Flex.
  • Big thanks to all of you for feedback and special shoutout to Grim, Ethos, Tokibbi, Ellum, Joshiwashi, and LakiEats for sharing their feedback with us personally!

PERFORMANCE UPDATES

  • We’re enabling Push-model Replication as an optimization for our game servers and to unlock future performance gains. We don’t expect anything to change with your game client, so let us know if you see anything weird!

BUG FIXES

Agents

  • Fixed a bug where Veto’s Crosscut icon was missing on the minimap when the Enemy Highlight Color setting was set to red.
  • Fixed a bug where some of Miks’ Harmonize 1P VFX were disappearing early.
  • Fixed a bug where Miks’ Harmonize targeting UI could overlap with an ally’s loadout.
  • Fixed a bug where Miks’ Waveform ability placement UI would persist briefly in 3P after he placed a smoke.
  • Fixed a bug where Miks’ M-pulse could be stuck in certain spots on the map and could not be destroyed.
  • Fixed a bug where Clove’s post-death Ruse could not be unequipped without casting it.
  • Fixed a bug that allowed Tejo’s Guided Salvo to be cast three times.

Thanks to

– @billyvlr

General

  • Various spacing and sizing fixes across End of Game.
  • Adjusted the spacing around the sub navigation across all pages so elements aren’t squished together
  • Reduced the overall text sizes in summary, scoreboard, timeline, and performance
  • Timeline
  • Adjusted the sizes of the match round boxes to fit more across the screen
  • Leaderboards
  • Fixed the spacing between rows
  • Career Match History
  • Fixed alignment issues in the left buttons and dropdown
  • Adjusted the text sizes within each match row

Store

  • Numerous fixes across the overall store experience
  • Fixed a bug where skin names in the rotational store had clipped text in Japanese.
  • Fixed misaligned text on the accessories shop, rotational store tiles, radianite point store, and when selecting a gifting recipient.
  • Fixed misaligned subheader text when purchasing a skin.
  • Fixed an issue with squished bundle images in the gifting center.
  • Fixed an issue where weapons were too high on the purchase complete screen.
  • Added a hover state when mousing over offers in the featured store.
  • Adjusted opacity of offer tile when gifting a flex in the gifting center.

PC ONLY

BUG FIXES

Premier

  • Fixed an issue where the View Team modal would sometimes incorrectly display the zone icon as a blank white box
  • Fixed a bug where the tournament queue timer wasn’t properly showing the time to queue up by
  • Fixed a bug where “Make Captain” and “Transfer Ownership” options were not disabled during a tournament

PROGRESSION UPDATES

  • Battlepass has added paginated arrow buttons to ease selecting between the chapters.
  • Scroll issue has been fixed and you can now scroll forwards and backwards on reward tiers and tracker.

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2026-03-31 16:20