VALORANT Patch Notes 12.09: Neon and Shotgun Nerfs Finally Arrive

Riot Games has released VALORANT Patch 12.09, and this one is going to feel important for anyone tired of Neon sprinting through fights with a shotgun in hand. The new update directly targets two of the biggest pain points in the current meta: Neon’s extreme mobility and the strength of shotguns while moving. Riot says the goal is to make combat feel more fair, reduce overly aggressive shotgun play, and give opponents more room to fight back.

VALORANT Patch 12.09 Finally Nerfs Neon

Neon has been one of the most frustrating agents to deal with in recent patches, especially when paired with close-range weapons. Her ability to break timings, pressure defenders, and take fights at awkward angles has made her a nightmare in ranked.

With Patch 12.09, Riot is not completely changing her identity. Neon is still meant to be fast, aggressive, and disruptive. However, Riot believes her evasiveness has gone too far in actual combat situations, which is why the team is reducing how much value she gets from movement during fights.

The biggest change is tied to High Gear. Jumping while High Gear is active no longer gives Neon a speed bonus in the air. Instead, her air speed while sprinting now matches melee speed.

Riot is also changing how her fuel works. Fuel will now only regenerate from kills while Neon’s ultimate is active, although passive fuel regeneration still remains. On top of that, Riot has improved the visual effects for her slide so players can better read where she is coming from during fast engagements.

Shotguns Receive Major Accuracy Nerfs

Neon is not the only target in VALORANT Patch 12.09. Riot has also nerfed every shotgun, with a clear focus on reducing their effectiveness while moving, jumping, and using ropes.

Shotguns are supposed to be strongest when holding tight angles, defending close-range spaces, or clearing corners with proper timing. However, Riot says they have become too effective in high-mobility situations, especially when players are aggressively swinging or jumping into fights.

All shotguns are now less accurate while moving. Riot has standardized run, walk, crouch-walk, and jump accuracy across shotguns. Crouching now gives shotguns a 15 percent accuracy multiplier, matching rifles. This means the Bucky gets a slightly better crouch modifier, while the Judge and Shorty lose some of their previous crouch accuracy advantage.

Shotguns are also much less accurate while using ropes. Riot says shotgun spread will increase significantly when players are on a rope, especially while moving. That should make rope-based shotgun plays much less reliable.

Full VALORANT Patch Notes 12.09

ALL PLATFORMS

AGENT UPDATES

Neon has been on our radar for a while now, and we’ve been working through changes to address the amount of impact she can have in games. This is related to a more complex pacing and strategy problem with multiple elements to solve (strong Duelists and shotguns, weak Sentinels, higher Initiator signature cooldowns), but for the time being we are going to release Neon and shotgun changes first to more quickly correct the balance of combat. 

Her current role in breaking timings and creating pressure is correct, but her movement and evasiveness are pushing too far into combat space. We want to encourage Neon players to be intentional and make more meaningful decisions while playing her, so we’re making changes to her mobility in the air and giving her a greater resource tradeoff on High Gear. This should also allow opponents to have more opportunities for counterplay, as well as shave some additionally generously-tuned snowballing potential. 

For a deeper dive on all the upcoming changes and why, you can read more about it <here>. 

Neon

• High Gear
  1. Jumping with High Gear active no longer provides any speed bonus while Neon is airborne. Instead, Neon’s air speed while sprinting will match melee speed.
  2. Fuel will only regenerate with a kill when Neon’s ultimate is active
     • Fuel will still regenerate passively
  3. Improved VFX to more clearly communicate the direction and origin of her slide

COMPETITIVE UPDATES

• We’re testing MMR changes for modes other than Competitive, Unrated, and Swiftplay. These changes should result in better, more consistent matches. We’ll use what we learn to improve Competitive, Unrated, and Swiftplay in the future.

BUG FIXES

• Agents
  • Chamber
    • Fixed a bug where ADS-ing while firing Chamber’s Headhunter created an animation that covers too much of the screen
  • Jett
    • Fixed a visual bug where Jett’s Tailwind was not playing the intended first-person animations when left-handed setting is enabled
    • Fixed a bug where using Jett’s Drift caused performance drops
  • Miks
    • Updated tooltip description of Harmonize.
    • Fixed bug where the preview cone for his ultimate would not show unless the ability was fully equipped
  • Sage
    • Fixed an issue where a full health Sage could use Healing Orb on herself while affected by Decay, because she is not actually losing any health. This would consume the ability needlessly, since her health returns to normal once Decay wears off. 
  • Tejo
    • Fixed issue where the Guided Salvo’s equip idle sound kept playing long after cast.
  • Viper
    • Fixed a bug where Sova’s Recon Bolt and Chamber’s Trademark were not affected by nearsightedness in Viper’s Pit
  • Vyse
    • Fixed a bug where possessable drones (Sova’s Owl Drone, Skye’s Trailblazer, Tejo’s Stealth Drone) would trigger the arming audio of Vyse’s wall

PLAYER BEHAVIOR UPDATES

We’ve improved our Riot Text Evaluation system to better detect and apply penalties for text comms abuse in the following languages: Arabic, German, English, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Turkish, Chinese.

WEAPONS UPDATES

Alongside the Neon changes above, we are also changing the effectiveness of shotguns when moving and jumping to encourage players to use them defensively. Shotguns are intended to be most effective for holding tight angles and clearing close range spaces, but right now they’re a bit too effective in high-mobility situations. To reinforce their ideal usage, we are reducing shotgun accuracy while moving. This should make them more impactful when used deliberately and defensively, versus being aggressive on the move. 

All shotguns:

• All shotguns are now less accurate when moving
  • Run, walk, crouch-walk, and jump accuracy has been standardized across all shotguns
  • Crouching now provides a 15% accuracy multiplier for shotguns, matching rifles
    • Bucky: crouch accuracy modifier increased from 10 >>> 15%
    • Judge/Shorty: crouch accuracy modifier decreased from 25 >>> 15%
• Shotguns are now much less accurate while using ropes
  • Your shotgun spread will increase significantly when you’re on a rope, especially if you’re moving:
• Standing still: Accuracy reduced (spread increased from 0.075 >>> 0.75)
• Walking: Accuracy reduced (spread increased from 0.09 >>> 1.5)
• Running: Accuracy reduced (spread increased from 0.1 >>> 3.0)

Bucky: 

• Bucky pellet damage in the 0-8m range decreased
  • Head 40 >>> 34
  • Body 20 >>> 17
  • Legs 17 >>> 14
• Minimum spread increased from 2.6 >>> 3.0
• Walking spread increased from 0.075 >>> 1
• Running spread increased from .1 >>> 2
• Crouch-walk spread increased from .05 >>> .5
• Jump spread increased from 1.25 >>> 4

Judge: 

• Minimum spread increased from 2.25 >>> 2.5
  • Note: this will only apply to PC for now- this spread change will apply to console in Patch 12.11
• Walking spread increased from .075 >>> 1
• Running spread increased from 0.75 >>> 2
• Crouch-walk spread increased from .05 >>> .5
• Jump spread increased from 2.25 >>> 4

Shorty: 

• Fire rate decreased from 3.33 >>> 3.0
• Walking spread increased from .075 >>> 1
• Running spread increased from 0.1 >>> 2
• Crouch-walk spread increased from .05 >>> .5
• Jump spread increased from 1.25 >>> 4

PC ONLY

PERFORMANCE UPDATES

• Added support for AMD Anti-Lag 2, which reduces input latency in certain GPU-bound scenarios. In order to use AMD Anti-Lag 2, you need compatible hardware, with updated drivers from March 9th, 2026 or later.

BUG FIXES

• Agents
  • Neon
    • Fixed an exploit with her Fast Lane where using specific NVIDIA graphics settings impacted competitive integrity. Neon has returned to the game. 
• Progression
  • Fixed issue where dailies shown while hovering over the icon did not match the dailies in the End of Game screen.

CONSOLE ONLY

BUG FIXES

• Agents
  • Phoenix
    • Updated tooltip description of Curveball

KNOWN ISSUES.

Skirmish 2v2: Ascension and Skirmish 1v1: Ascension – Agent abilities do not show up on the Combat Report in the following round after affecting enemies

Modes

Skirmish 2v2: Ascension and Skirmish 1v1: Ascension – Timer is stuck at 00.50 sec in Overtime phase