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A complete breakdown of how Riot's hardware bans work, how long they last, and what your real options are — pieced together from Riot's official support docs and community reporting.
You just got hit with a VAL 5 error in Valorant and you're staring at your screen wondering if you've been banned. Let's cut straight to it.
Vanguard has your hardware fingerprinted, and every single Riot account you try to use on that PC will get flagged and banned almost immediately. But there is a way around it, and I'm going to explain exactly how all of this works.
VAN 152 is a Riot Vanguard hardware ID ban on your PC, not a bug. Reinstalling will not clear it. What it means, how long it lasts, and your two options.
I've spent years deep in this ecosystem, scouring official Riot support pages, Reddit threads, Discord communities, and player forums. What I've compiled here is the most comprehensive tier list of every known reason Vanguard bans players, ranked by severity and likelihood.
Some tools claim to "permanently change" your hardware IDs. Others talk about "temporary emulation." Which one do you actually need? And more importantly, which one actually works against Vanguard?
Let's break down how Valorant's ban system actually works, what makes Vanguard different from every other anti-cheat you've dealt with, and what you need to know before you waste time on methods that haven't worked since 2023.
Vanguard is a kernel-level anti-cheat that loads before you even reach your desktop — and it doesn't care whether a modification is cosmetic or competitive. So what actually happens if you run a skin changer on Valorant? We break down how Vanguard detects skin changers, what types of bans Riot enforces, and what your options are if you've already been caught.
So let's break down exactly how to get unbanned from Valorant in 2026, what your real options are, and why most of the advice you've been reading online is completely outdated.