Millions of players play Valorant, but not everyone knows the features of certain types of weapons, of which there are quite a few in the game. In this material, you will find advice, characteristics, and features of the 10 most popular types of weapons that exist in Valorant.

The first weapon - Vandal

The Vandal is the most popular rifle in the game due to its ability to kill with one shot to the head at any range. Not long ago, the developers reduced the number of extra rounds from 75 to 50, but this did not affect the popularity of the weapon.

Information and tips for shooting with Vandal

The Vandal is effective at any distance, from close to long, thanks to its high damage. 40 units to the body, 37 to the legs, and 160 to the head, which does not decrease with distance, as it happens with other types of weapons.

The rifle has two shooting modes: normal, which is better for close and medium distances, due to the fact that in this mode there is a higher rate of fire than in the other. Thanks to this, you can outshoot opponents at close range faster, but controlling the recoil will be more difficult for you.

The second mode is aimed shooting. When pressing the right mouse button, the weapon will have a 1.25x magnification sight, which makes it easier to aim at medium and long distances. Although the aimed mode has its drawbacks, primarily the rate of fire of the weapon drops, but controlling the recoil is easier than in the first mode.

The second weapon - Operator

The Operator is one of two sniper rifles in the game, equivalent to the AWP in CS:GO. Like in CS:GO, it kills with one shot to the body and is popular among players who prefer sniper rifles.

Information and shooting tips with Operator

The Operator is effective at medium and long distances. The sniper rifle has 3 magazines with 5 rounds each and inflicts 150 damage to the body, which is enough to kill an opponent in any situation. The Operator inflicts only 120 damage to the legs, which is not enough to kill an opponent who has light or heavy armor. A headshot inflicts 255 damage, which leaves no chance for your opponents. The damage also does not decrease with distance, as with the Vandal rifle.

If you are a fan of this sniper rifle, it is better for you to aim at the body, as this is enough to kill an opponent in any situation. The best tactic is to look for positions for long-range shots and try to avoid any close combat encounters. The Operator loses to any weapon in close combat, so if you miss the first shot, or there are more than one opponent, you will have no chance at all.

The Operator has two aiming modes, 2.5x and 5x, which allows for better aiming at long distances.

Do not try to shoot in non-aim mode or on the move, as in these cases the shot will be unpredictable and can go in any direction.

The sniper rifle suits agents like Jett and Chamber best due to their game abilities. For Jett, this is "Tailwind" which allows her to quickly cover a large distance, and for Chamber, it's "Rendezvous", using which he teleports from the combat encounter to a point he previously specified.

The third weapon - Phantom

Phantom is a competitor to Vandal, so it also enjoys popularity, but among those players who prefer to spray more than aim for the head. In a recent update, the developers reduced its additional magazines from 75 to 50, but it still remains a favorite weapon for its fans.

Information and tips for shooting with Phantom

The most effective range for Phantom is close and medium due to its rate of fire and damage. You can also use it at long range, but unlike Vandal, the damage it inflicts decreases with distance.

At a range of 0 to 15 meters, the head damage is 156, 39 to the body, and 34 to the limbs. At a distance of 15 to 30 meters, it's 140 to the head, 35 to the body, and 29 to the limbs, and at a distance of 30 to 50 meters, it's 124 to the head, 31 to the body, and 26 to the limbs.

A unique feature of Phantom is that it's the only rifle with a silencer, which hides the tracers from the bullets from opponents, and after 40 meters, the shot from this rifle becomes silent.

Phantom also has two firing modes, the non-aiming mode is suitable for close ranges, due to the advantage over others in rate of fire, the spray is harder than in the second mode, but at close range, it can be easily controlled.

However, the second mode is more suitable for medium and long distances, because the spray becomes much easier, which helps to hit the opponents better during the shooting, but the rate of fire is lower than in the first one. An advantage of the second mode is the 1.25x scope.

The fourth weapon - Odin

Odin is one of the two machine guns available in the game, its peculiarity is that it has one of the highest penetration capabilities and a lot of bullets in the magazine.

Information and tips for shooting with Odin

Odin has a large ammo capacity in the magazine, specifically 100, and an effective rate of fire, which also increases during shooting. Thanks to this, you can quickly outshoot opponents at close and medium distances. The machine gun's damage drops after 30 meters, specifically from 95 to the head to 77, 38 to the body to 31, 32 to the legs to 26.

Due to its high penetration ability, Odin is popular among players who play as agents such as Sova, Cypher, Fade, as they can mark opponents with their abilities and then shoot them through a wall or another object on the map.

Odin has two firing modes, the first of which is the unscoped mode. It has only one advantage, which is the speed of the character's movement with the machine gun in their hands, and its firing pattern looks like this

The second mode of the machine gun is the most effective due to its higher rate of fire, 1.25x scope, and an easier spray pattern than the first one.

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Fifth Weapon - Guardian

The Guardian is a semi-automatic rifle, popular among players who prefer aiming for the head.

Information and Tips for Shooting with the Guardian

The Guardian is effective at medium to long distances, due to its single-shot mode and high damage - 195 to the head, 65 to the body, and 48 to the legs, which does not change depending on the distance.

The Guardian is no different from most weapons in the game, and also has two shooting modes. The difference between the first mode and the second is in the speed of the character's movement with the weapon in hand. In the first mode, the character moves faster, but the pattern of continuous fire looks worse than in the second due to the lower bullet grouping.

The second mode has a 1.5x scope, which allows for better aiming at long distances, and a continuous fire pattern that is more appealing.

Sixth Weapon - Sheriff

The Sheriff is a powerful pistol with high damage that kills with a headshot up to 30 meters away with a single shot. It is a useful and popular pistol in an economic or pistol round, with which you can turn the situation in your favor.

Information and Tips for Shooting with the Sheriff

The Sheriff is the most popular pistol in the game due to its price, damage inflicted, and high penetration power. The pistol has often been the star of clutch plays in economic rounds, thanks to the ability to kill with a single headshot, but this is only possible up to 30 meters, after which the damage decreases from 159 to 145 and it is no longer possible to kill a heavily armored player with one shot.

Even though this is a pistol, its effective range is not close but medium, because it has only a single shot mode and not as much damage to the body and legs as to the head. The damage to the body is 55 and to the legs 46, which drops after 30 meters to 50 and 42. This indicates that in most cases an opponent with an automatic weapon at close range will win a shootout against a player with a Sheriff, if the first shots do not hit the head.

The pistol has 5 clips with 6 rounds each and a rather chaotic, although compact, fire pattern.

The Sheriff does not have an aiming mode.

Seventh Weapon - Judge

The Judge is the only automatic shotgun in Valorant, popular among players who love close-range combat, as it is the most effective weapon at short distances.

Information and Tips for Shooting with the Judge

The Judge is a very short-range weapon because after 10 meters the damage drops almost by half. It's better to buy the shotgun on the defense side or for heroes who have abilities to get closer to enemies, for example, Omen, Raze, Jett, Neo, Yoru.

To use the Judge effectively, you should only engage in combat at close range, up to 10-15 meters, and aim at the chest. This is because a shotgun blast releases 12 shots, so it's necessary to reduce the chance of missing these pellets for successful enemy hits.

The shotgun has only a standard firing mode and a chaotic pattern in automatic mode.

Eighth Weapon - Ares

Ares is the second machine gun in Valorant, which in itself is a budget version of Odin with reduced characteristics on almost all indicators except for reload speed, but the magazine also contains half as many rounds, only 50.

Information and Tips for Shooting with Ares

Ares is a machine gun with strong penetrating ability and high rate of fire, which is effective up to 30 meters. After 30 meters, its damage drops and it becomes more difficult to control the spray.

Like Odin, Ares is useful to buy for such characters as Sova, Fade, Cypher, because of their ability to illuminate enemies through walls and then penetrate them.

The standard mode only provides an advantage in character movement speed, and the pattern looks like this.

In the second mode, there is a 1.15x sight, and the pattern becomes easier to control.

Ninth Weapon - Stinger

Stinger is a submachine gun that is effective at close range, it has two firing modes: automatic and in bursts of 4 rounds.

Information and Tips for Shooting with Stinger.

Stinger is a weapon for economical rounds, which is effective at close ranges up to 15 meters. After 15 meters, headshot damage drops from 67 to 57, body damage from 27 to 23, and leg damage from 22 to 19. The magazine holds 20 rounds, but due to the high rate of fire, they won't last long.

To utilize its main advantage, namely the high rate of fire, it's better to shorten the distance and aim for the body, leaving your opponents with no chance to react to you.

The normal mode is better for distances up to 7-8 meters due to the highest rate of fire that exists in Valorant - 16 shots per second, which does not allow you to control the fire at medium and long distances.

The aimed mode is effective at close-to-far ranges because the Stinger fires 4 rounds at a time, and the rate of fire drops to 8 shots per second, which allows you to better aim at the enemy.

Tenth Weapon - Ghost

Ghost is a close-to-medium range pistol, which is most effective in pistol rounds.

Information and Tips for Shooting with Ghost

With Ghost, it's better to keep a distance of 0-30 meters from enemies because after 30 meters, the damage changes from 105 to 87 in the head, from 30 to 25 in the body, and from 25 to 21 in the legs.It performs best in pistol rounds because after buying it, there are still funds left for agent abilities. In these rounds, not all players buy light armor, which makes the pistol a threat to opponents, because Ghost can kill them with a single headshot up to 30 meters.

Ghost has a distinctive pattern that allows you to kill opponents in more than just the head.

These tips and characteristics of each weapon will help you elevate your shooting level and understanding of when each weapon is most effective, to avoid unfavorable situations for you, or favorable ones for your opponent.