Valorant Patch Notes 11.10: Hidden Buffs That Will Change Your Agent Picks

Additionally, this update introduces crucial gameplay system changes that directly impact agent utility, including improved healing visibility and unified debuff removal. What many players might overlook, however, are the hidden buffs tucked away in bug fixes and agent interactions. For instance, Harbor’s Cove now grants assists, and various damage abilities interact properly with his utility. Most importantly, competitive players should note the new MFA requirements for high-ranked games that will affect the competitive landscape alongside these agent adjustments.

Harbor Rework: Aggressive Controller with Initiator Utility

Harbor receives a complete overhaul in the latest patch, transforming him from an underperforming controller into a dynamic force with initiator-like capabilities. Riot’s design team has fundamentally reimagined his water-based abilities, giving him stronger offensive potential while maintaining his controller identity.

Cove Moved to Signature Slot with Shield Toggle

Harbor’s Cove ability undergoes the most significant transformation, becoming his signature ability (free) rather than a purchasable skill. The new Cove functions similarly to Omen’s smokes, allowing precise placement with enhanced targeting controls. Players can now hold FIRE to extend placement distance or ALT FIRE to bring it closer, with a RELOAD toggle for switching targeting views.

Furthermore, Cove retains its shield functionality but with a crucial improvement—the shield becomes a separate action. Players first place the water smoke, then reactivate to add bullet protection when strategically needed. This shield can still be destroyed by enemy fire, and its health state is now better reflected in visual water animations. Consequently, Cove becomes significantly more versatile for both site executes and defensive holds.

Storm Surge: New Nearsight and Slow Ability

Storm Surge completely replaces Harbor’s former Cascade ability, giving him true initiator utility. When equipped and fired, Storm Surge creates an explosive whirlpool that activates after a brief delay, applying both a nearsight effect and slow to enemies caught within its radius.

Essentially, this new ability functions as a hybrid between a flash and slow orb, making Harbor substantially more effective at disrupting defensive setups before site entry. The projectile can bounce off surfaces before detonation, allowing for creative usage around corners and over obstacles.

Reckoning Rework for Area Control

Harbor’s ultimate, Reckoning, has been completely redesigned to align with his more aggressive playstyle. Rather than creating a stationary circular area, the new Reckoning sends a massive wave of water that barrels forward in a line, applying nearsight and slow effects to any enemies it contacts.

This directional approach makes the ultimate far more impactful for site executes and retakes, essentially functioning as a wide-area crowd control tool. The forward-moving design also makes it easier to use effectively during coordinated pushes, significantly increasing Harbor’s value in team-based offensive strategies.

High Tide Cost and Slot Adjustment

High Tide remains mechanically similar to its previous iteration but shifts from being a signature ability to a standard purchasable skill costing 300 credits. This adjustment balances Harbor’s enhanced offensive capabilities, requiring players to manage their economy more carefully when utilizing his wall.

Despite the slot change, High Tide maintains its functionality—creating a vision-blocking water wall that can be guided with precision and slows enemies who pass through it. Players familiar with this ability will find its mechanics unchanged, preserving existing gameplay knowledge while adding economic considerations.

Updated Voice Lines and Map-Specific Dialog

Beyond mechanical changes, Harbor receives updated voice lines that reflect his reworked abilities and enhance his character integration. Notably, new conversational dialog with agents Tejo and Waylay adds personality depth and lore connections.

In addition, Harbor now has unique match-opening voice lines on newer maps Abyss and Corrode, giving him more contextual presence within the game world. These audio updates complement the mechanical changes, creating a more cohesive and distinct agent identity to match his newly aggressive hybrid controller design.

Clove Nerfs: Reducing Snowball Potential in Ranked

Clove has maintained an iron grip on the controller meta since their introduction, boasting an impressive S-tier status with a 10.07% pick rate and 52.6% win rate across competitive matches. Even more telling, Clove holds the highest kill share at 11.5% despite not being a duelist. Patch 11.10 introduces targeted adjustments aimed at curbing this dominance without completely dismantling the agent’s core identity.

Ruse Charge Limit While Dead

Previously, Clove players could utilize multiple smoke charges after being eliminated, creating a significant post-death impact that no other controller could match. According to the patch notes, Ruse charges are now restricted to 1 maximum when Clove is dead. This change specifically targets scenarios where Clove’s team already holds an advantage, preventing the agent from exerting excessive influence from beyond the grave.

The adjustment primarily affects pre-execute scenarios, as pointed out by high-ranked players. If Clove is eliminated before a site push, they can now only place a single smoke rather than covering multiple angles. Essentially, this forces Clove players to survive longer during crucial moments or make difficult choices about which angle deserves priority coverage.

Nevertheless, this limitation hardly impacts average gameplay in most ranked matches. As community analysis reveals, typical players rarely maximize post-death utility, often dying early or mismanaging cooldowns. The real strength of this adjustment lies in its effect on higher-tier competitive play, where calculated utility usage makes the difference between winning and losing rounds.

Pick Me Up Overheal Reduced to 50 HP

The second major nerf addresses Clove’s self-sustain capabilities. The overheal amount provided by Pick Me Up has been reduced from 100 HP to 50 HP, aligning it more closely with Reyna’s Devour ability. This adjustment directly tackles Clove’s survival rate in direct duels and extended engagements.

Unlike most controllers who excel at team support rather than fragging, Clove’s kit enabled a selfish, duelist-oriented playstyle that contributed to their disproportionate success rate. The overheal reduction means players must approach fights more cautiously, as engagements that previously left Clove surviving with minimal health will now often result in elimination.

This change follows a previous nerf in patch 11.08 that increased Pick Me Up’s cost from 100 to 200 credits and reduced its duration from 10 to 8 seconds, demonstrating Riot’s continued effort to find the right balance for this powerful ability.

Impact on Controller Meta in Competitive Queue

These adjustments address what developers identified as Clove’s “snowballing power”. When Clove’s team gained an advantage, they consistently outperformed other controllers, creating an imbalance in the competitive queue where alternative controller options felt suboptimal.

Indeed, Clove’s pseudo-duelist playstyle had been warping the controller meta, a role traditionally rewarding teamwork and clever utility rather than solo fragging potential. With Astra and Omen already receiving nerfs in recent patches, these changes represent Riot’s attempt to restore balance to the controller category.

Although the nerfs are meaningful, they preserve Clove’s core strengths. Players can still rely on quick repositioning, decent sustain, and versatile map control. Rather than completely reworking the agent, these calibrated adjustments aim to reduce Clove’s overwhelming presence without rendering them irrelevant to the meta.

Gameplay System Changes That Affect Agent Utility

Patch 11.10 introduces several under-the-hood system changes that directly impact how agent abilities interact with the game environment. These quality-of-life improvements enhance player experience across both PC and console platforms, focusing on clearer visual feedback and streamlined interactions with debuffs and the user interface.

Healing Visibility in Team HUD

A crucial visual update arrives for the Team HUD at the top of your screen, finally addressing a long-standing issue with healing visibility. The health bars now display a distinctive teal color that fills progressively when you or teammates are recovering health. This visual indicator makes tracking healing status much more intuitive, especially during chaotic firefights or post-plant situations.

Prior to this change, players often struggled to determine if allies were actively healing or simply low on health. The new system clearly differentiates between these states, with the health bar returning to its standard white color once healing completes. This enhancement proves particularly valuable when coordinating with ability-based healers like Sage, Skye, or Harbor, allowing for more precise timing of engagements.

Unified Debuff Removal via Use Object Button

Perhaps the most impactful gameplay change affects how players interact with stacked debuffs. The “Use Object” button (F on PC, Square/X on Console) now removes all persistent attached debuffs simultaneously when held down. This streamlines a previously cumbersome process where players needed to remove each debuff individually.

For practical application, consider scenarios where multiple utility effects stack on a single player. If caught by both Cypher’s Tracking Dart and Deadlock’s GravNet simultaneously, holding the Use Object button now clears both debuffs at once. This change significantly reduces vulnerability windows when affected by layered utility, creating new counterplay opportunities against agent combinations.

Collections UI Overhaul for PC and Console

Beyond in-match improvements, Patch 11.10 delivers a complete redesign of the Collections interface. PC players will notice the most dramatic change with Weapons and Buddies now displayed in an efficient grid layout rather than the previous carousel system. This organization method allows faster navigation and improved visual scanning of inventory items.

Additional enhancements include:

• A dedicated page for viewing and equipping player titles on PC
• Expanded custom skinline backgrounds across more Collection screens
• Enhanced visual presentation that highlights premium weapon skins with their intended esthetic

These interface improvements may seem purely cosmetic, ultimately, they create a more intuitive browsing experience that reduces time spent navigating menus between matches. One technical note: Korean players will receive these Collections updates slightly later with Patch 11.11 due to regional player flow adjustments.

Hidden Buffs in Agent Interactions and Bug Fixes

Beyond the headline changes, patch 11.10 delivers numerous subtle yet impactful fixes that substantially alter agent interactions. These hidden buffs address longstanding issues that experienced players will immediately notice in their matches.

Harbor’s Cove Now Grants Assists

One of the most noteworthy improvements involves Harbor’s signature ability. Players using Cove will now receive proper credit through the assist system when enemies are eliminated while affected by the ability. This seemingly minor adjustment rewards tactical smoke placement, encouraging Harbor players to use their utility more strategically rather than solely for personal protection.

Damage Abilities Now Affect Cove Properly

Several agent abilities have received backend adjustments to ensure proper interaction with Harbor’s Cove. Viper’s Snake Bite, Brimstone’s Incendiary, Sova’s Hunter’s Fury, and Killjoy’s Nanoswarm now correctly damage Harbor’s Cove shield. This consistency fix addresses frustrating scenarios where area-denial utilities inexplicably failed to affect the water barrier, creating more predictable gameplay interactions.

Omen’s Dark Cover Minimap Fix

Omen mains will appreciate the visual adjustment to Dark Cover’s minimap representation, which now matches the darkness level of other dome smokes. This seemingly cosmetic tweak actually provides crucial information parity between all controller agents, ensuring players receive consistent visual feedback regardless of which smoke-based controller is on their team.

Yoru’s Blindside VFX and Audio Adjustments

Yoru receives multiple quality-of-life improvements addressing longstanding visual and audio inconsistencies. Observers can now see Yoru’s Blindside immediately instead of after it bounces, enhancing spectator clarity. Moreover, the flash will display correct color VFX when multiple Yoru players appear in the same match, eliminating confusion about which team deployed the utility.

Perhaps most significantly, a critical audio bug has been fixed where Blindside’s projectile sound was audible to enemies while stealthed. This correction prevents unintentional information leakage that previously undermined Yoru’s deceptive capabilities.

Clove’s Not Dead Yet Revive Location Fixes

Clove players will benefit from stability improvements to their signature resurrection ability. The patch resolves a persistent issue where Clove would occasionally revive in unexpected or invalid locations when casting Not Dead Yet. This fix eliminates frustrating situations where players would respawn in vulnerable positions or glitched areas, ensuring more consistent resurrection mechanics.

Together, these subtle adjustments demonstrate Riot’s commitment to technical refinement alongside the more prominent agent reworks. Though easily overlooked, these fixes significantly improve gameplay reliability and tactical depth across multiple agents.

Competitive and Esports Updates That Influence Agent Picks

Beyond agent changes, patch 11.10 introduces vital competitive ecosystem updates that will subtly shift agent selection patterns at higher ranks.

MFA Requirement for Ascendant+ Players

Starting with patch 11.10, competitive integrity gets reinforced through mandatory multi-factor authentication (MFA) via the Riot Mobile app for all Ascendant, Immortal, and Radiant players in North America, Latin America, Brazil, and South Korea. This security measure targets the highest-ranked players who can “inflict the greatest harm when smurfing” and prevents account sharing violations like win trading. Players in lower ranks remain unaffected, yet the impact on agent selection patterns will be substantial as smurfing decreases at the apex of ranked play.

Pick’Ems Launch for GameChangers Tournament

For the first time, Valorant integrates esports engagement directly into the game client with Pick’Ems for the 2025 Game Changers Championship. Beginning November 13th, players can predict tournament outcomes through the client or website, with picks locking approximately 20 minutes before the first match on November 20th. The reward structure includes the “Aura Farming” title for participation, Pocket Killjoy Buddy for top 50% finishers, Golden Pocket Killjoy Buddy for top 20%, and the exclusive “100%” title for perfect predictions. This tournament features 10 women’s teams competing for a $500,000 prize pool in Seoul, South Korea.

Premier Team Info Access via Social Panel

PC players receive enhanced Premier team visibility through new social integration features. The update enables viewing any team’s roster, zone, division, and current Premier score by right-clicking on teams in standings or friends in the social panel. This transparency facilitates better team assessment, strategic preparation, and community engagement with the competitive ecosystem.