Killjoy nerfs, Remake match option and more in Valorant patch 1.07

After a smaller update last time around, the Valorant devs are fully back into the swing of things. Patch 1.07 includes a bunch of interesting agent changes, more shotgun tuning and some major quality of life improvements.

Agents

Killjoy

Following complaints since the beginning of Act II, Nanoswarm has finally received a much needed nerf. This should make various counterplays more viable, whilst maintaining Killjoy’s stalling and post plant prowess.

• 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

Her Turret is no longer revealed by Sova’s Recon Bolt and now shoots at an enemy’s last known location more effectively.

Breach

Breach mains will be pleased to learn of a series of buffs. Riot also added that more changes may be on the way for the Initiator, but they are taking baby-steps to ensure balance.

Flashpoint

• Off-screen flashes now match behaviour 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

The fact that Breach now has 3 flashes is pretty insane and along with the other adjustments puts him back on the map as a top tier agent.

Rolling Thunder

• Detonation delay between blasts decreased from 0.3 >>> 0.255

Concussion

• Concuss now de-scopes players and prevents re-scoping

Sage

Surprisingly to some Valorant fans, Sage got hit kinda hard by the 1.07 update. A collection of nerfs could potentially leave her feeling a little bit weak.

Heal

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

The developers made it clear that the aim with these changes is to “reduce the amount of healing done throughout the round”. Sorry Sage. They also made some fairly significant adjustments to her Slow Orb and Barrier Orb.

Slow Orb

• Size reduced by 30%

Barrier Orb

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

Viper

Updates to Viper’s Toxic Screen could make for some more intriguing plays at the beginning of rounds. Decay and Viper’s Pit have also received minor adjustments.

Toxic Screen

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

Decay

• Decay on all smoke abilities no longer affects allies

Viper’s Pit

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

Remake match option

The heavily requested remake match feature has now been introduced to competitive playlists. Players will now have the chance to end a match and queue for a new one if they are left in a 4v5 at the beginning.

• 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

Every member of the team who called the remake must vote by the end of buy phase in order for it to be successful. Those players who voted to remake will not be penalized in any way, but the people who originally disconnected will still receive a full MMR loss and leaver penalty.

Vandal buff

Riot have buffed the Vandal to bring it “in closer competition with the Phantom”. Sounds good to me. The fire rate has been boosted from 9.25 to 9.75 and the damage has increased from 39 to 40.

Elsewhere in the weapon category, all shotguns have been updated. Aimpunch after being headshot by a shotgun will now be lower than all other weapons, and tagging beyond 10 meters is not so detrimental.

For deeper explanations behind certain changes and details on Hit Impact VFX updates, check out the full patch notes from Riot here.

Other changes

• 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 settings
• Hotkey order for selecting players for observers should no longer shuffle in overtime
• Observers should now see the money on the HUD for the player they are spectating
• Added 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 Thunder
• For anyone who'd rather keep their identity private in-game, we've added these features:

o   Hide my name from non-party members (agent name will be used)

o   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 vote
• Fixed a bug that displayed the Act Rank tooltip in English only when another language was selected