Valorant Cheats Explained - Aimbots, ESP, Wallhacks, Vanguard Detection

I've spent the last three years watching the Valorant competitive scene evolve — and I've seen the cheating problem shift from "occasional nuisance" to "genuine epidemic" in certain rank brackets. After diving deep into forums, analyzing Riot's anti-cheat updates, and talking to players on both sides of this issue, I've put together what I believe is the most comprehensive breakdown of Valorant cheats you'll find anywhere.

Here's the thing — whether you're a frustrated legitimate player trying to understand what you're up against, a curious gamer wondering how these tools actually work, or someone considering cheating yourself (spoiler: I'm going to give you every reason not to), this guide covers it all.

If I can help even one person understand the full picture before making a decision they'll regret, this article did its job. Let's dive in.

What Are Valorant Cheats and Why Do They Exist?

Valorant cheats are third-party software tools designed to give players unfair advantages by manipulating game data, automating actions, or displaying information that should be hidden. The motivations vary wildly — some people want to climb ranked without putting in the work, others sell boosting services for profit, and honestly? Some just want to watch the world burn.

According to Riot Games' own data from 2024, Vanguard — their kernel-level anti-cheat system — has banned over 4.5 million accounts since launch. That number sounds massive, but it represents an ongoing arms race that neither side is winning definitively.

The cheat market for Valorant is estimated to generate millions annually. Private cheat subscriptions run anywhere from $15 to $300+ per month depending on features and "undetection" claims. It's a full-blown underground economy.

Types of Valorant Cheats — A Complete Breakdown

Understanding what you're dealing with requires knowing the full taxonomy of cheat types. Each works differently, carries different detection risks, and serves different purposes.

Aimbot — The Most Notorious Cheat Type

An aimbot automatically aims at enemies for you, either snapping directly to targets or subtly adjusting your crosshair toward them. Modern aimbots are super sophisticated compared to what existed even five years ago.

Key aimbot features include:

Smoothing — This is the big one. Raw aimbots snap instantly to targets, which looks obviously inhuman. Smoothing adds artificial delay and curve to the aim movement, making it appear more natural. Higher smoothing values = slower, more human-looking aim. Lower values = faster but more detectable.

FOV (Field of View) settings — This limits the aimbot's activation zone. A 360-degree FOV aimbot locks onto anyone on your screen. A 5-degree FOV only activates when your crosshair is already nearly on target — much harder to detect but requires some actual aim.

Bone selection — Lets cheaters choose which body part to target. Head-only targeting maximizes damage but looks suspicious when you hit 90% headshots. Body targeting is more "legit" looking.

Visibility check — The aimbot only activates when the target is actually visible (not behind a wall). Without this, you'd snap-aim through walls, which is an instant giveaway.

Here's the catch: even with all these "humanization" features, good players and spectators can often tell something's off. The micro-adjustments, the reaction times, the way the crosshair moves — it's never quite right.

ESP (Extra Sensory Perception) and Wallhacks

ESP displays information about enemies that you shouldn't have access to. This is arguably more game-breaking than aimbots because information is everything in a tactical shooter.

Common ESP features:

• Box ESP — Draws rectangles around enemy players, visible through walls

• Skeleton ESP — Shows enemy bone structure, letting you see their exact pose and movement

• Health bars — Displays enemy HP so you know who to prioritize

• Name/distance tags — Shows player names and how far away they are

• Weapon display — See what gun enemies are holding

• Snap-lines — Lines drawn from your position to enemies

Wallhacks are essentially simplified ESP — they just make walls transparent or highlight enemies through surfaces.

The best part (for cheaters, anyway) is that ESP doesn't directly affect your aim, so it's harder to detect through gameplay analysis. The worst part? It completely destroys the tactical integrity of a game built around information warfare.

Triggerbot — The "Subtle" Option

A triggerbot automatically fires when your crosshair passes over an enemy. You still have to aim yourself — the cheat just handles the shooting timing.

Some players consider this "less cheating" because it requires manual aiming. That's cope. It's still giving you inhuman reaction times and perfect timing on every engagement. In a game where milliseconds matter, this is a massive advantage.

HWID Spoofers — The Ban Evasion Tool

When Riot catches you cheating, they don't just ban your account — they ban your hardware. Vanguard creates a unique fingerprint from your PC components: motherboard serial, CPU ID, GPU identifier, MAC addresses, hard drive serials, and more.

HWID spoofers attempt to mask or change these identifiers so you can create a new account after a hardware ban. They're essentially required for repeat offenders because buying a new account means nothing if Vanguard recognizes your PC.

Do they work? Sometimes. Vanguard's fingerprinting has gotten super aggressive, and spoofers are in a constant cat-and-mouse game with detection updates.

Colorbot — The Pixel-Reading Alternative

Colorbots work differently from traditional cheats. Instead of reading game memory (which Vanguard monitors), they analyze your screen's pixels in real-time and move your mouse when they detect enemy character colors.

This external approach makes them harder to detect through memory scanning. The tradeoff? They're less precise, can be confused by similar colors in the environment, and still produce detectable mouse movement patterns.

DMA (Direct Memory Access) Cheats — The High-End Option

DMA cheats are the premium tier. They use a secondary PC connected to your gaming PC via a specialized PCIe card. The second PC reads your game's memory directly through hardware, completely bypassing software-based anti-cheat.

The setup costs hundreds of dollars in hardware alone, plus the cheat subscription. It's primarily used by cheat developers testing their software and by streamers who cheat while broadcasting (yes, this happens more than you'd think).

Here's the catch: Vanguard has gotten better at detecting 2PC setups. The IOMMU and DMA protection features in modern systems, combined with Vanguard's kernel-level access, have made this method less foolproof than it once was.

Skin Changers and Radar Hacks

Skin changers let you see different weapon skins locally — they don't affect gameplay directly but still violate ToS and can trigger bans.

Radar hacks display enemy positions on your minimap. Similar to ESP but presented in a more compact format.

How Vanguard Actually Detects Cheats

Vanguard is Riot's anti-cheat system, and it's genuinely one of the most aggressive in the industry. Understanding how it works explains why cheating in Valorant is riskier than in most games.

Kernel-Level Access — The Controversial Foundation

Vanguard runs at ring-0, the deepest level of your operating system. It loads when your PC boots — not when you launch Valorant. This gives it visibility into everything running on your system.

Why does this matter? Traditional anti-cheats running at user level (ring-3) can be bypassed by cheats running at kernel level. Vanguard eliminated that hierarchy advantage by operating at the same depth.

The controversy? A kernel-level driver from a game company has access to literally everything on your PC. It's a significant security consideration that many legitimate players find uncomfortable. Riot has addressed this repeatedly, but the concern isn't unreasonable.

Hardware Fingerprinting

Vanguard builds a detailed profile of your PC's hardware configuration. When you get HWID banned, this fingerprint is blacklisted. Creating a new account on the same hardware triggers an instant ban.

The fingerprint includes:
- Motherboard serial number
- CPU identifier
- GPU serial
- Hard drive/SSD identifiers
- Network adapter MAC addresses
- RAM configuration
- TPM module data
- And more we probably don't know about

This is why spoofers exist — and why they're in constant development.

Behavioral Analysis

Beyond signature detection, Vanguard analyzes gameplay patterns. Inhuman reaction times, impossible accuracy percentages, suspicious movement patterns — all flagged for review.

This is where "legit cheating" (using low settings to appear human) still fails. Over thousands of engagements, statistical anomalies emerge.

Player Reports and Spectator Review

Reports from other players trigger additional scrutiny. Enough reports on your account = manual review by Riot's anti-cheat team. They can spectate your matches, analyze your gameplay data, and make judgment calls.

This is why cheaters often get banned even when using "undetected" cheats. The software might evade automated detection, but humans can still spot suspicious play.

VAN Error Codes — What They Mean

If you've encountered Vanguard issues, you've probably seen cryptic error codes. Here's what the common ones mean:

VAN 152 — Vanguard isn't running. Usually means Vanguard failed to start at boot or was disabled. Restart your PC.

VAN 178 — Vanguard encountered an error during initialization. Often related to Secure Boot or TPM settings.

VAN 5 — Connection error to Riot's servers. Network issue, not a ban.

VAN 9001 — Vanguard detected a problem with your system configuration. Can indicate detected cheats or conflicting software.

VAN 68 — Vanguard was restarted or reinstalled. Requires game restart.

Getting repeated VAN errors after installing new software? That software might be triggering Vanguard's detection systems.

Ban Types and What Actually Happens When You're Caught

So what happens when Vanguard catches you? The consequences escalate based on severity and history.

Account Ban

Your Riot account is permanently suspended. All purchased content — skins, battle passes, agents — gone. Any linked games (League of Legends, Teamfight Tactics) are also affected since they share the same Riot ID.

The kicker? Riot doesn't refund anything. You agreed to the Terms of Service.

HWID Ban

Your hardware is blacklisted. Any new account created on that PC gets automatically banned — sometimes instantly, sometimes after a few games (Riot delays some bans to gather data on new cheat methods).

This is the real punishment. Account bans are a $5 problem (new accounts are cheap). HWID bans require either:
- Buying a new PC
- Replacing multiple components
- Using spoofers (unreliable)
- Giving up on Valorant entirely

Ban Waves

Riot doesn't always ban cheaters immediately upon detection. They often collect data on new cheats, identify all users, then ban everyone simultaneously in "waves."

This serves two purposes: it makes it harder for cheat developers to know when their software was detected, and it catches people who might switch cheats thinking they're safe.

The UnKnoWnCheaTs community has tracked major ban waves affecting tens of thousands of accounts simultaneously. The data collection thread on that forum has over 239,000 views — that's how many people are anxiously waiting to see if their cheat got detected.

Legit Cheating vs. Rage Cheating — The Spectrum

The cheating community distinguishes between two approaches:

Legit cheating uses conservative settings designed to appear human. Low aimbot FOV, high smoothing, ESP without obvious tells. The goal is climbing ranks without getting caught.

Rage cheating uses maximum settings — instant headshots, full ESP, no attempt to hide. Usually done on throwaway accounts for the "fun" of dominating lobbies before the inevitable ban.

Here's what neither group admits: both get caught eventually. Legit cheating just delays the inevitable. The statistical patterns emerge over time, reports accumulate, and Vanguard's behavioral analysis flags the account.

I've seen forum posts from "legit cheaters" who went months without detection, then got hit in a ban wave that caught software they'd been using since day one. The delay wasn't safety — it was Riot gathering data.

The Arms Race — Cheat Developers vs. Vanguard

This is the part that fascinates me. The relationship between Vanguard and cheat developers is a genuine technological arms race.

Vanguard pushes an update. Cheat developers analyze what changed. They develop bypasses. Riot detects the bypasses. New Vanguard update. Cycle repeats.

The "undetected" claims you see on cheat sites have expiration dates. Every cheat eventually gets detected. The question is when, not if.

Premium cheat providers maintain their reputation by:
- Constantly updating their software
- Beta testing on sacrificial accounts before releasing updates
- Implementing their own detection systems to know when Vanguard changes
- Limiting user counts to reduce detection surface area

Free cheats? They get detected almost immediately. The detection-to-ban pipeline for public free cheats is often measured in hours.

What Legitimate Players Should Know

If you're here because you're frustrated by cheaters ruining your games, I hear you. Here's what helps:

Report consistently. Reports matter more than people think. Enough reports trigger manual review.

Understand what you're actually seeing. Not everyone hitting good shots is cheating. Valorant has genuinely cracked players. But if someone's tracking you through walls or hitting shots that defy human reaction time, report and move on.

Know that Riot is trying. Vanguard is aggressive for a reason. The cheating problem would be exponentially worse without it. Is it perfect? No. Is it better than most competitors? Absolutely.

The ranked integrity is better than it looks. Cheaters tend to cluster in certain rank brackets (low ranks with rage cheaters, high ranks with boosters). The middle ranks are cleaner than forums suggest.

FAQ

Are "undetected" cheats actually safe to use?

No. "Undetected" means the cheat hasn't been detected yet. Every cheat eventually gets caught. The timing is unpredictable — could be days, could be months. But the ban will come, often retroactively catching everyone who used the software.

Can I get banned for using legitimate overlay software like Discord or Overwolf apps?

Generally no. Riot has whitelisted common legitimate software. However, some overlay tools have triggered false positives historically. If you're getting VAN errors after installing new software, that's your warning sign.

What's the difference between a temporary ban and a permanent ban in Valorant?

Valorant doesn't really do temporary bans for cheating. You get competitive cooldowns for leaving games or toxicity, but cheating = permanent account ban plus potential HWID ban. There's no "three strikes" system.

Can I appeal a Valorant ban if I think it was a mistake?

You can submit a support ticket, but successful appeals are extremely rare. Riot's position is that Vanguard doesn't make mistakes — if you're banned, they have evidence. False positives do happen occasionally, but they're typically resolved in ban waves when Riot identifies the error.

How do I know if someone in my game is actually cheating?

Look for patterns, not individual moments. Everyone hits lucky shots sometimes. Cheaters show consistent impossible behavior: perfect tracking through smokes, inhuman reaction times on every engagement, pre-aiming angles they shouldn't know about. When in doubt, report and let Riot investigate.

Does using a VPN help avoid detection or bans?

No. VPNs hide your IP address, not your hardware fingerprint. Vanguard's detection operates at the system level. VPNs are irrelevant to anti-cheat.

What happens to my other Riot games if I get banned in Valorant?

Your entire Riot account is affected. If you're banned for cheating in Valorant, you lose access to League of Legends, TFT, and any other Riot title on that account. Everything tied to that Riot ID is gone.

Final Thoughts

Look, I get the temptation. Valorant is hard. Climbing ranks takes hundreds of hours. Watching someone else hit shots you can't seems unfair.

But here's the reality I've seen play out countless times: cheating doesn't give you what you're actually looking for. The rank doesn't feel earned. The wins feel hollow. And eventually — always eventually — you lose everything anyway.

The players who genuinely enjoy Valorant long-term are the ones who put in the work. The aim trainers, the VOD reviews, the conscious improvement. That journey is the actual game.

If you're on the fence about cheating, I hope this guide gave you enough information to make an informed choice. And if you're a legitimate player frustrated by cheaters, know that Vanguard is genuinely one of the better anti-cheat systems out there. The problem isn't solved, but it's being fought.

Now get back in there and hit some headshots — the real way.