Valorant streamers have long asked Riot for the ability to hide their identities in game. Now the Valorant developers have finally obliged with something they are calling “Incognito Mode,” or the ever ubiquitous “Streamer Mode” as most have taken to calling it.

This is in addition to a ton of other changes that have hit Valorant in Patch 1.07, including a number of observer improvements that should make esports matches that much more exciting as the folks running the show get more tools in their belt.

A number of balance adjustments also hit this patch, with notable changes to Sage, shotguns, Killjoy’s “Nano Swarm”, and more.

With Incognito mode comes a number of benefits for those who stream Valorant. Instead of displaying the name of a streamer, when this mode is enabled, it will display the name of the Valorant agent being played.

This means that streamers will be able to play in some relative peace and quiet. They also won’t be able to be stream sniped by enemy players, dogpiled on by the enemy team, nor will they receive a bunch of random invites to games they didn’t sign up for.

Observers will finally be able to do a number of features that they have had for quite some time for CSGO in Valorant with Patch 1.07. Namely, observers can toggle aim lines for players (something that wasn’t possible until now,) which team outlines are visible, can toggle team-based crosshair coloring for spectated targets and more.

Here’s the full list of improvements:

• 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’s Sky Smokes and Breach’s Rolling Thunder
• Hit impact VFX improvements (see dedicated section for breakdown)

Shotguns have been historically one of the weaker weapon types in Valorant. While you can certainly lurk and catch players unaware with a shotty, it’s so much harder to execute well than a well placed AR or OP shot.

Fortunately Riot has seen these issues and are making the following changes to adjust for this. Additionally, the Shotty, Judge were both nerfed, while the Vandal was slightly buffed.

• When getting headshot by a shotgun, the aimpunch will be lower than all the other weapons
• All 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 tagging
• New tagging: 30% slow for .5s on a smooth curve going back to normal speed

Killjoy, Sage, Viper, Breach, and Sova all received balance adjustments in Valorant Patch 1.07. The most notable of these changes were sage, who taook a gigantic nerf to her healing, slow orb, but recieved a buff to her Fortifying Barrier, which now strengthens over time.

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

Slow Orb

• Size reduced by 30%

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

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

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

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

Breach

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

Rolling Thunder

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

Concussion

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

Sova

• Updated the physics on Sova’s cape so that it should wiggle outside his hitbox less frequently 
• Polish work on Sova’s 1P hands to bring them up to the fidelity bar of the rest of our agents