Valorant Patch 7.07 Removes Ranked Restrictions for Five Stacks

It’s Valorant patch notes time yet again, but this week’s iteration is pretty surprising. Following feedback on the ranked restrictions introduced in the last update, Riot has chosen to walk the changes back given “how important it is to play with your friends.”

Just two weeks ago Riot released Valorant patch 7.06, an update which saw restrictions to the FPS game‘s high-level ranked queue. In an attempt to stomp out botting and boosting, Valorant‘s devs decided to limit who Ascendant-level players and above could party with.

If you were Platinum and above you’d be able to five stack with the game’s best squads, but this led to complaints from lower-level players who just want to play with their friends, and concerns that smurfing at low ELOs would worsen as a result.

In response, Riot has pulled the restrictions, but confirms that it “recognizes that boosting is a risk to competitive integrity and are working on an appropriate long term solution that doesn’t impact your ability to play with friends in a five stack.”

Valorant 7.07 patch notes

Below are the full patch notes for the 7.07 update, courtesy of Riot Games.

Competitive Updates

After listening to your feedback, we have decided to remove the recent rank restriction made to five stacks that was implemented in Patch 7.06. We know how important it is to play with your friends and your need for flexibility in order to do that.

Initially, the rank restriction was made to prevent people from illegitimately boosting to the highest ranks like Radiant. In the end, we realized that your ability to have flexibility with your five stack was more important than the very small number of people who abuse this exploit. However, we still recognize that boosting is a risk to competitive integrity and are working on an appropriate long term solution that doesn’t impact your ability to play with friends in a five stack.

Map Updates

Haven

• Updated the destruction VFX for the destructible door panels located at Mid Doors/Garage in order to make it easier to see through as it falls away.

Performance Updates

• Enabled multithreaded rendering for discrete Intel GPUs and lowered required CPU core count.

Bug Fixes

General

In Patch 7.06, we fixed a bug that allowed the game to output surround sound when certain conditions were met, but the surround mix was untested and unsupported. Valorant currently only supports stereo and mono sound output.

• To simulate surround sound on headphones, we offer an HRTF setting. We do not recommend combining the HRTF setting in game with other surround sound virtualization software at the same time since this will result in double processing.
• Note that other surround sound virtualization software cannot derive surround sound information from the stereo mix.

Agent

Cypher

• Neural Theft (X) now completes even if Cypher dies after casting.
• Fixed an issue where you could remain blinded if spectating a flash through Cypher’s Spycam (E) as the round ended.

Gekko

• Dizzy’s (E) enemy detection range is now correctly reduced while inside of Viper’s Pit (X) ability.

Premier

• Fixed an issue where the Attacker team takes priority over the Defender team in the Overtime vote.
• Fixed a bug where a second timer bar would appear after the “Choose Side” vote had already ended.
• Fixed a bug where certain scenarios would cause subsequent Overtime Priority votes to occur in the following round.

With these changes to ranked, it’s worth checking out our list of the best Valorant crosshairs – after all, if you’re looking to ascend the Valorant ranks and reach Radiant, you’ll need to stay sharp.