Valorant received Patch 1.07 this week, which marked a major shift for several of the game's Agents, including some of the most popular picks, like Sage and Breach. Riot's endless quest to buff Viper to acceptable levels continues, and competitive players now have a way to rebalance lopsided matches.

　　The first major change the patch brings is a large nerf to Sage, reducing the amount she heals by 40%, and making her self-heal even slower. Her barrier now takes three seconds to fortify, in an attempt to punish reactive use. Killjoy's Nanoswarm has also been severely nerfed, with a 33% reduction to damage and a brief delay before the swarm begins to strike.

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　　In other Agent news, the Viper buffs continue aplenty: She can now place her toxic screen during the buy phase, and even through spawn barriers. It also goes up much faster than before. Breach received a minor buff, getting an additional flash for his inventory. The patch notes promise more Breach changes to come, so if you like the big bearded guy, keep your eyes peeled for more.

　　In more general changes, shotguns have been nerfed once again, with their headshots now dealing less "aimpunch"--inaccuracy due to flinching--as well as increasing the price of the Judge and reducing damage on the Shorty. (A previous patch also took aim at the shotguns.) Additionally, players in 4 v 5 (or worse) competitive games will now have the option to "remake" their match by requeueing to even the odds through a vote.

　　Full patch notes below:

　　

AGENT UPDATES

SAGE

Heal Heal reduced from 100 over 5 seconds >>> 60 over 5 seconds Self heal reduced from 100 over 5 seconds >>> 60 over 10 seconds

Our goal is to reduce the amount of healing done throughout the round. Disincentivize Sage from self healing and make it more expensive to do so.

　　

Slow Orb Size reduced by 30%

This should slightly reduce the power of Slow Orb and increase intentionality. Right now, slow orb unintentionally covers a lot more ground than it should be if aimed properly.

　　

Barrier Orb Cost reduced from 400 >>> 300 Fortifying Barrier: Wall forms at 400 HP—after a 3 second delay, the wall becomes fortified to 800 HP

　　Our hope is to increase counterplay on Barrier and reduce the strength of the wall during reactive use.

　　

KILLJOY

　　

Nanoswarm Added a brief windup before damage begins DPS reduced from 60 >>> 40 Visual effects have been added to make it easier to spot the grenade on the ground Stealth audio range has been slightly increased

Killjoy’s Nanoswarm has been a terror to play against. It’s meant to be a strong stalling and post plant tool—but we feel it’s currently dealing far too much damage and players aren’t able to engage in the desired counterplay.

　　

Turret No longer revealed by Sova’s Recon Bolt More effectively shoots at an enemy’s last known location

VIPER

　　

Toxic Screen Can now be placed during the buy phase of rounds, through spawn barriers Toxic Screen now goes up faster along it’s full length, once it starts to form

This change should allow Viper, in many situations, to get her wall placed pre-round and then join her team before the barrier drops—or create uncertainty about her location when the round begins. Increasing the speed of the wall rising should reduce the awkward period that occurs after it starts to rise but isn’t covering all the angles Viper and her allies would expect.

　　

Decay Decay on all smoke abilities no longer affects allies

This is mainly targeted towards Viper’s Pit, and should help reduce some of the unintentional collateral damage she can cause to her team, while also opening new strategies for playing around her ult as a team.

　　

Viper’s Pit The area of Viper’s Pit is now shown on her team’s minimap when deployed

BREACH

　　(Note: These are not all the potential Breach changes we want to do, but as part of our ease-in, intentional-balance philosophy, we want to be measured. Stay tuned for more...potentially.)

　　

Flashpoint Off-screen flashes now match behavior of other flashes in the game and apply a minimum amount of flash more aggressively Charges increased from 2 >>> 3 Reduced windup time from 0.6 seconds >>> 0.5 seconds

Breach should be a choice pick in offensive entry and breaking utility. While the flash’s power was pretty good, too few charges were holding him back on being able to provide this value for his team. Considering he needs teammates to capitalize on his flashes, this should make up for that cost by simply having more of them.

　　

Rolling Thunder Detonation delay between blasts decreased from 0.3 >>> 0.255

　　

Slow Orb Size reduced by 30%

0SOVA

　　

Slow Orb Size reduced by 30%

1

　　

WEAPON UPDATES

　　All shotguns aimpunch update When getting headshot by a shotgun, the aimpunch will be lower than all the other weaponsAll shotguns tagging tuned for targets beyond 10 meters Hitting an enemy past 10 meters will apply a different tagging value to them instead of the standard taggingNew tagging: 30% slow for .5s on a smooth curve going back to normal speedThe goal of these changes is to improve the feel of playing against shotguns and to ensure that they don’t end up doing odd things. For example, tagging or aimpunching people from longer than expected ranges and then a teammate ends up killing someone who’s debuffed, or makes it hard to fight back against a weapon that should be deadly up close but fairly non-threatening outside its effective range.)Shorty nerf 1st falloff range reduced from 9m >>> 7mUpdated headshot multiplier from 3x >>> 2x (now the same as Judge and Bucky)Our goal here is to make Shorty users work a little harder for the kills they get by requiring them to be a tad closer to their target.Judge Nerf Price increased from 1500 >>> 1600Desire here is to see if giving the Judge a little hit—paired with the other shotgun changes—moves the needle when playing against this gun. We’ll continue to monitor and make other changes if necessaryVandal buff Increased firing rate from 9.25 >>> 9.75Increased damage from 39 >>> 40Goal is to bring the Vandal in closer competition with the Phantom. We believe these weapons aren’t that far off in competition and hope these changes will do that.

　　

HIT IMPACT VFX UPDATE

　　We've made some small adjustments to hit VFX to try and improve hit registration clarity. With how sensitive changes around hit registration can be, we'll be keeping an eye on player feedback on these changes and make adjustments accordingly.

　　See our recent article on hit registration for additional details on some of the issues we're trying to address with these changes:

　　Server hit VFX confirms will now spawn at the location of the hit on the character and stay attached to that position (previously, it spawned at the game space location and stayed there) We've had issues with hit registration clarity caused by players moving into hit VFX (i.e. a player crouches their head into the space of a body shot VFX), which caused confusion on where a shot landed. This change should make it clear where a shot hit, and where on the body, even if a character is moving.An additional client-predicted small spark VFX now spawns immediately at the game space location of a hit With the change to attach our traditional server hit VFX, we wanted to add additional immediate bullet feedback so you can see the area where your bullet landed and adjust your aim accordingly. Think of this new VFX as an improved tracer. It's important to note that a bullet is client-predicted: seeing this DOES NOT mean your shot has registered on the server (similar to tracers).Adjusted the sparks hit VFX coloring and shape adjusted to more closely resemble blood VFX shape Context: We want players to be able to play with either of these options without feeling one gives better clarity than the otherAdjusted the size of headshot VFX, where both blood and sparks are scaled down slightly Especially at large ranges, headshot VFX would often cover up the head of a player and add additional difficulty in tracking players through the effect. We've scaled down this VFX slightly in an attempt to make it easier to keep track of targets.

　　

COMPETITIVE UPDATES

　　Remake match: When a match begins with a 4v5 (or more lopsided teams), players will now have the option to end the game they’re in and queue for a new one. If any player is disconnected at the start of the match (beginning of buy phase) through the entire first round, a remake call may be triggered at the start of the second round by typing /remake in chat.All connected players on the team that called the remake may vote to remake the game— It’s required that all connected players agree to remake the game The remake vote will last for the duration of the buy phase, if the vote is not passed by the end of buy phase it will expireIf the vote is successfully passed and the game is remade, all players who voted do not receive any XP or MMR adjustments for the match. The match will also not show up in match history. All disconnected players not part of the vote will take a full MMR loss for the game, and receive a leaver penalty equivalent to disconnecting from a full match..Act Ranks visuals have been updated to better differentiate wins at different rank tiersChanged some potentially misleading verbiage in the restriction message for players who need to play more unrated games to unlock competitive play This is to better reflect that Deathmatch and Spike Rush do not count towards unlocking Competitive.

　　

QUALITY OF LIFE

　　Observers can toggle aim lines for players (default bind: R)Observers can change which teams outline are visible (defaults: H - All, J - Friendly to spectated player, K - Enemies of spectates players, L - None)Corpse markers shown when corpses are disabled now obey colorblind settingsHotkey order for selecting players for observers should no longer shuffle in overtimeObservers should now see the money on the HUD for the player they are spectatingAdded a setting for disabling the in-game UI (General -> Hide User Interface In Game)Added a setting for disabling the cross-hair (Crosshair -> Disable Crosshair)Observers can hide first person character arms. (General -> Hide First Person Arms)Observers can toggle team-based crosshair coloring for spectated targets via the settings menu (General -> Use Team Color for Crosshair Color)Improved framerate by allowing a wider variety of VFX to be multi-threaded, examples include Brimstone’ Sky Smokes and Breach’s Rolling ThunderFor anyone who'd rather keep their identity private in-game, we've added these features: Hide my name from non-party members (agent name will be used)Hide the names of others in my game who aren't in my party (agent names will be shown)

　　These features take effect from agent select to game end. We also added an option to hide + auto-reject friend requests.

　　Hit impact VFX improvements (see dedicated section for breakdown)

　　

BUG FIXES

　　Fixed a bug where if both teams try to call a surrender vote, the team who called it second wouldn’t get the option to voteFixed a bug that displayed the Act Rank tooltip in English only when another language was selected