Valorant Patch 13.09: New Agent Hush, Clove Nerf, Ranked System and Balance Update

Riot Games has released the Valorant patch notes for update 13.09. The headline addition is new Agent Hush, but this Valorant new update carries a long list of other changes too: reworked ability descriptions, new buff terminology, balance adjustments to Clove and Jett, buffs to the Warden rifle, and a big batch of bug fixes.

New Agent: Hush

Hush has arrived in the game. She hails from Guangdong province and uses telekinesis to crack the most classified cases. Riot announced her officially on October 18, right before the Valorant Champions 2026 grand final.

Her kit breaks down like this:

• Telekinesis (Passive) — Hush can pick up weapons and the Spike (on attack) and interact with switches from farther away than other Agents.
• Displacement — equip, then fire to throw it or alt-fire to prime it, and reactivate to steer it toward your crosshair. It explodes on contact or after a delay, pulling everyone nearby toward the center and concussing anyone who collides with a surface or another player. The charge resets every two kills.
• Flashbulb — equips and aims the same way as Displacement, but instead of pulling players in, it blinds anyone looking at it when it goes off.
• Flow — instantly drops an anchor. If Hush is airborne, she hovers briefly before getting pulled toward it.
• Suspension (Ultimate) — primes instantly, fires forward with crosshair steering, and detonates on reactivation or a second trigger pull, lifting every nearby player into the air.

Reworked Ability Descriptions and Tooltips

Riot rewrote every ability description in the game for clarity and consistency. Passive descriptions now show up in more places, including Agent Select and the Agent Hub, covering passives that never had an in-game explanation before, like Neon’s battery.

The ability tooltip itself got a redesign too. It now surfaces an Agent’s role and keybinds at a glance, and it pops up at more useful moments, like when you’re testing a new Agent on the Range.

New Buff Terms: Haste and Snapshot

Riot gave two buffs official names for the first time.

Haste - now refers to the increased movement speed buff, separate from Combat Stim, which boosts fire rate, equip speed, reload speed, and recovery speed. That distinction should make it clearer exactly when you’re getting a Combat Stim, a Haste buff, or both at once. The Haste tag now shows up on Brimstone’s Stim Beacon, Clove’s Pick-me-up, Miks’ Harmonize, Neon’s High Gear and Overdrive, and on Waylay’s Convergent Paths, which got renamed since it did the exact same thing.

Snapshot - is now the official term for the still-image silhouette reveal, the kind of debuff you see from Cypher’s Neural Theft or Spycam.

Clove and Jett Changes

Clove came first. She’d already been nerfed once but still held a high win rate and pick rate, so Riot cut her down further:

• Pick-me-up: movement speed bonus dropped from 15% to 10%
• Not Dead Yet: killing Clove right after she activates her ultimate now grants the killer a signature-ability refresh point. On top of that, Clove no longer earns ultimate charge from kills she gets while the ability is active.

Jett’s change had nothing to do with balance. Riot just pulled her passive out of the Buy Menu so it matches how every other passive ability is handled.

Ranked System Updates

Hush is the first Agent to launch since Performance Score went live, so expect her scores to look a little rough around the edges for the first few days while Riot figures out how to grade good utility use on her kit.

A few smaller quality-of-life tweaks landed on the end-of-game screens too. PC players now get hover text for trades on the scoreboard, plus a new “learn more” screen that explains what Performance Score actually measures.

Map Rating now weighs your best match of the Act more heavily, which should do a better job capturing both consistency and peak performances.

Riot also raised the bar for Accolades. Now the First Blood Accolade was popping up too often, so the threshold is now higher. Your historical Accolade count won’t be affected.

Store Updates

Korea only: players can now buy Radianite Points directly in-game.

Weapon Balance: Warden Buffs

After watching how the Warden performed in live matches, Riot decided it needed better base handling to justify its 2900-credit price tag:

• smoothed out vertical recoil on the first few bullets
• tightened bullet spread on follow-up shots
• reduced second-bullet error from.25 to.2
• reduced third-bullet error from.6 to.5

Bug Fixes

Agents

• Clove: fixed Ruse’s ability map being visible to enemies positioned below her; fixed the Pick-Me-Up timer sometimes staying on the HUD after use
• Cypher: fixed Cyber Cage changing orientation when placed on angled surfaces
• Deadlock: fixed the captured enemy’s voice line failing to play during Annihilation
• Gekko: fixed Mosh Pit damaging destructible objects outside its intended area
• Omen: fixed Shrouded Step’s arrival effects ending early
• Raze: fixed Boom Bot continuing to track an enemy after they teleported
• Sova: fixed Hunter’s Fury hitting players standing behind him
• Tejo: fixed Special Delivery carrying over into the next round and damaging or concussing players after the transition; fixed Guided Salvo targeting the wrong spot or failing to cast when a target moved out of range
• Yoru: fixed Gatecrash’s sound effects repeating when the ability was used while suppressed

Multiple Agents

• Fixed vulnerability effects showing up in the wrong spot on Gekko’s Wingman, Killjoy’s Turret, and Raze’s Boom Bot
• Fixed placement indicators for Tejo’s Guided Salvo and Brimstone’s Orbital Strike appearing offset from the player
• Fixed Chamber’s and Omen’s positions briefly showing up on enemy minimaps after teleporting
• Fixed certain Cypher, Vyse, Viper, and Killjoy abilities being visible to opponents through walls during the Buy Phase
• Changed the Veto and Vyse UI prompt from “PICK UP” to “RECALL” to match other retrieval abilities

General

• Fixed ability placement sometimes burning multiple charges or dropping the ability in the wrong spot
• Fixed ability map cursors and placement indicators disappearing while equipping or using certain abilities
• Fixed enemies outside your vision range showing up on the minimap while Nearsighted
• Fixed ability maps staying visible instead of getting obscured by back-to-back flashes
• Fixed missing or incorrect ability descriptions while controlling certain abilities

Valorant Patch 13.09 Release Date

Patch 13.09 goes live in Valorant today, October 27. It rolls out first in North America, Brazil, and LATAM, with Europe and the rest of the world following on October 28.