VALORANT Tier List: Best Agents After Patch 13.10's Buffs

Patch 13.10 landed on November 10 and quietly reshuffled the Sentinel role without touching a single weapon stat. Cypher, Killjoy and Vyse all got their post-destruction cooldowns trimmed, Sage's Healing Orb got easier to land, and Riot rewrote how assists are earned for the first time in years. None of it screams "meta shift" the way a new agent or a nerfed rifle would, but stack it on top of October's Patch 13.09 — which added the Duelist Hush and quietly nerfed Clove — and the agent select screen looks different than it did a month ago.

This is our opinion ranking of where every major agent sits right now, built from Riot's own Patch 13.10 notes and Patch 13.09 notes, not from scraped win-rate numbers we can't verify ourselves. Treat the tiers as a starting point for queue decisions, not gospel.

01What Changed in Patch 13.10

The headline change is Sentinel cooldowns. Cypher's Spycam, Killjoy's Turret and Vyse's Arc Rose all went from a 60-second cooldown after being destroyed down to 45 seconds, which means a Sentinel who gets their utility shot off early no longer loses access to it for most of a long round. Cypher's Reclaim cooldown went up slightly, from 15 to 20 seconds, to keep the overall kit in line with Killjoy and Vyse. Sage's Healing Orb also got a quiet quality-of-life pass: it tracks allies more accurately now, and the crosshair stays visible while you're aiming it at a teammate, so fewer heals should whiff in a messy firefight.

Assists changed too. You now earn a damage assist for landing more than 10 damage on an enemy within three seconds of a teammate's kill, while dealing at least 50 damage to someone your team eventually kills still counts regardless of timing. Healing assists only trigger if the player you topped up gets a kill within 10 seconds after the heal wears off. None of that moves agent power directly, but it does make support-heavy Sentinels and Controllers look better on the scoreboard, which matters if you're choosing an agent to climb rather than to pad stats.

Here's exactly what changed on the three affected Sentinels, straight from the patch notes:

Zoom out to Patch 13.09 and the picture gets more interesting. Hush, VALORANT's newest Duelist, arrived on October 27 with a telekinesis-based passive that lets her pick up weapons, the Spike on attack, and interact with switches from further away than anyone else in the roster. In the same patch, Clove took two real nerfs: the movement speed bonus on Pick-me-up dropped from 15% to 10%, and while killing a Clove right after they activate Not Dead Yet now hands the killer an ultimate point and a signature-ability charge, that's a buff for the enemy team, not for Clove's own player.

02S-Tier: Lock These In Every Game

These are the agents we'd queue without hesitation on the current patch, whether you're solo-queuing into ranked or filling out a five-stack.

• Killjoy — The biggest direct beneficiary of the cooldown change. A 15-second-faster Turret respawn means Killjoy can reset her lockdown-and-retake kit almost every round instead of playing around a single Turret for long stretches, and her Lockdown ultimate is still one of the best site-retake tools in the game.
• Cypher — The Spycam cooldown drop is a bigger deal than the Reclaim nerf costs him. Cypher can now reposition and re-tripwire a flank faster after his Spycam gets picked off, and his cage-and-camera information game is still the gold standard for a Sentinel on defense.
• Jett — Untouched by Patch 13.10, and she didn't need to be. Jett's dash-and-peek mobility and Operator-friendly updraft still make her the default aggressive Duelist pick across every rank, patch notes or not.
• Omen — Also unchanged this patch, which is itself a compliment. Omen's smoke flexibility, free teleport repositioning, and a blind that doesn't require line of sight keep him the safest Controller pick on almost every map in the pool.

03A-Tier: Strong and Flexible

Excellent picks that either got a direct buff this patch or simply have a kit that holds up regardless of what Riot touches.

• Vyse — Arc Rose's faster respawn (also 60s down to 45s) plugs the biggest hole in her kit: losing her trap-and-wall setup for most of a round after someone shoots it. She's still a defensive-minded Sentinel, but she can now afford to be more aggressive with where she places utility.
• Sage — The Healing Orb accuracy fix sounds minor until you've whiffed a heal on a teammate sprinting through a firefight. It's a small change that meaningfully raises her floor without touching the Slow Orb wall or resurrection ultimate that make her a staple anchor pick.
• Viper — Unaffected by anything in 13.09 or 13.10, and that's fine — her wall-and-pit zone control is still the best answer to stacked-site executes in the current map pool.
• Fade — No changes this patch, but her Prowl and Haunt reveal kit remains the most reliable way to clear angles before a post-plant, especially now that dealing assist-relevant damage is slightly easier to rack up.

04B-Tier: Capable With the Right Comp

Solid agents that need a specific map, comp or playstyle to really shine right now.

• Hush — Too new to fully grade. Her telekinesis passive is a genuinely different utility angle for a Duelist — grabbing the Spike or a dropped weapon from range can win rotations outright — but without a full patch cycle of balance data beyond her launch notes, we're labeling her B-tier and unconfirmed until Riot weighs in again.
• Astra — Still one of the best global-map-control Controllers on paper, but her setup cost in the first 30 seconds of a round remains a real liability against fast-executing teams, patch or no patch.
• Sova — The recon-and-damage Initiator kit is as useful as ever for information, but he leans hard on landing Shock Darts and Recon Bolts precisely, which keeps him a step below Fade for players who don't have those lineups memorized.
• Breach — A strong flash-and-stun kit for coordinated fives, weaker in solo queue where teammates don't always capitalize on the openings he creates.

Hush's official gameplay reveal predates Patch 13.10 — Riot showed off her telekinesis kit on October 18, 2026, ahead of her October 27 launch in Patch 13.09.

05C-Tier: Needs a Buff

Agents we'd steer away from on the current patch unless you're specifically built around their kit.

• Clove — The only agent to take a real balance hit across these two patches. A smaller Pick-me-up speed boost makes Clove's signature "die and keep fighting" gimmick noticeably less safe to use aggressively, and the Not Dead Yet change actively punishes getting caught using it. Clove's still playable as a Controller who can contest a site alone, but the margin for error just got thinner.
• Raze — Nothing changed for her directly, but in a patch cycle that pushed Sentinels and support play forward, her explosive, space-taking kit is easier to play around than it used to be once defenders have their utility back online faster.

06How We Built This Tier List

We didn't invent win rates or pull numbers from a tracker we can't verify. This ranking comes entirely from reading Riot's own patch notes and weighing what each change actually does in a round, which is a slower process than copying a stat site but a more honest one.

How We Built This Tier List

1. 1We started from Riot's own 13.10 and 13.09 patch notes, not third-party win-rate sites, to see exactly what numbers moved.2 min
2. 2A cooldown dropping from 60s to 45s is a real power buff; Sage's targeting fix is quality-of-life. We weighed them differently.3 min
3. 3A 15-second cooldown cut matters more on a Sentinel who anchors a site all round than it would on a Duelist's dash.3 min
4. 4Hush only has launch-patch notes behind her, so we labeled her kit's long-term standing as unconfirmed instead of guessing a win rate.2 min
5. 5Only then did we slot agents into S through C, comparing them against others who play the same role on the same maps.2 min

Expect this list to move again once Riot publishes full win-rate data for Patch 13.10 or drops the next balance pass. Sentinels just got easier to play aggressively, Clove got harder, and Hush is still an open question — check back after her first full competitive cycle before building a season-long main around her.