Valorant Beginner’s Guide: How To Play in 2022

For players making their debut to tactical shooters, Valorant might seem like too much of a challenge. With heavy emphasis on teamwork, skill, and communication, getting the hang of everything is going to take a while unless you’re coming from CS:GO – but fret not!

To help you get started, we’ll give you three easy steps to understanding the basics, strategies and mechanics you’ll encounter when you jump into Valorant for the first time.

In Valorant, matches consist of attackers and defenders squaring off in a fight to be the first team to win 13 rounds. Each round is split up by a 30-second buy-phase followed by a 90-second fighting-phase.

To win a round, the attacking team will have to either plant a ‘Spike’ or eliminate the enemy team, while defenders have to prevent that from happening by eliminating attackers, defusing the ‘Spike’, or running out the clock.

Before heading in to battle, players will first have to choose what agent they’ll be playing as. Each one features a unique set of skills for players to use throughout the match. These range from having healing effects, dealing damage, impairing vision and even teleportation.

Players will also get to use creds to buy weapons at the start of each round during the buy-phase. These creds can also be used to buy skill charges that, unlike weapons, won’t be lost upon death. The amount of creds you have to spend are determined by how well you played the previous round.

Sometimes, the smartest play for your team will be to not buy weapons at all, saving your creds for future rounds instead. While this might sound counterintuitive at first, how you spend your creds should always be determined by how you play. On the other hand, players might need to support teammates by buying them weapons to help secure a round win.

The first round is important in turning the momentum in your favor. As both teams initially start out with 800 creds, winning the first round means that your team will be able to buy better weapons than the enemy team next round. In terms of what you should buy the first round, you have a few viable options:

• Buying extra armor gives you 25 additional health points at the cost of 400 creds. Having a bit of added padding against oncoming fire should give you more time to fend off foes.
• Buying skill charges lets you take advantage of your agents’ abilities from the get-go. This is a great option for players using agents with vision impairing skills.
• Upgrading your pistol isn’t a must, but the starter pistol won’t do well against players equipped with better weapons. Our favorite go-to gun is the Ghost as it boasts a decent rate of fire, great damage and the chance to headshot enemies with a single shot.

An eco-round is a strategy teams use to save creds for the following round, allowing everyone to buy better weapons together and increase their odds of winning. During eco rounds, teams usually don’t expect to win that particular round. Instead, their goal is to take out as many enemies as possible to force them into spending their creds next round. For attackers playing eco, they’ll also focus on planting the Spike, as that will reward bonus creds. Here are a few tips to increase your chances of a successful eco round:

• Think of eco rounds as ones you’re meant to lose. There’s no pressure on you winning! Instead, focus on dealing as much damage as possible and getting a few kills. Often the enemy team will be overconfident against a team without rifles, making them push too aggressively or ignoring skills. Use that to your advantage by playing it slow and picking your shots. Losing an eco-round while getting 3-4 kills always should be seen as a win. Because, if you can take out that many with pistols, it’ll be a heck of a lot easier with rifles!
• Follow your teammates to increase your survivability. There’s strength in numbers, and when you’re outgunned, you’ll want to use every trick in the book to help you get the kill.
• Dead enemies drop weapons – use them! While this might be a no brainer for most, getting one or two kills could mean half your team picking up a rifle. Before you know it, you’ve evened the odds and winning the round suddenly won’t seem that impossible anymore!

A forced round is a strategy teams use when they’re on their heels and need to win the following round to prevent losing the match. Essentially, the team spends what little they have on buying whatever they can.  These rounds are critical, and losing a forced round usually means that the match is over. There aren’t any guaranteed strategies for forced rounds, but surprising the opposition with either rushing a plant site or taking it slow are both valid strategies that depend on the situation.

• Did you team rush in for most of the match? Your best bet will be to wait it out and let them make a mistake, as they’re sure to be expecting an aggressive assault.
• Did you get pushed because you played too slow? Facing them head on by rushing to the plant site should be your go-to strategy.

The last round of the half or match is where you spend your remaining creds. Since your creds will be reset to 800 for next half, there’s obviously no point in saving any. If your balance doesn’t say 0 at the end of the buy-phase, you haven’t bought enough!

Unless you’re coming straight from CS:GO, the mechanics of Valorant might seem a bit foreign. Knowing when to walk, having spray control, rotating to plant sites, standing still when shooting and positioning are all things that you’ll learn along the way the more you play the game. That’s not to mention the countless abilities that you’ll have to deal with from both friends and foes. We’ve listed a few tips to jumpstart your progress towards becoming a true Valorant expert.

Don’t walk and shoot. Unlike most other shooters, your accuracy in Valorant depends largely on your ability to stand still while shooting. Naturally, this means opening fire on enemies is a huge no-no and using cover to your advantage is key to being successful in fights.

Control your spray. Recoil plays a big factor in how high your accuracy will be. Each weapon has a unique spray pattern, so it pays off to get familiar with the arsenal at your disposal. Focus on offsetting recoil by moving your crosshair in the opposite direction. Your crosshair is pulling up? Move it down!

Keep your crosshair placement at head height. A lot of Valorant rookies tend to point their crosshair at the ground right before taking aim. Having to readjust your aim accordingly puts you at a massive disadvantage as it will take longer before you can fire effectively. Keeping the crosshair near headshot territory at all times means you’ll be able to take aim and shoot much faster. This is also known as pre-aiming, and also applies to turning around corners with your crosshair already pointed where you expect enemies to be.

Practice makes perfect

Now that you’ve been introduced to the basic mechanics and strategies of Valorant, you should be well equipped for your first battle. But beware! You’ll undoubtedly meet some pretty good players along the way that make you question if you’ll ever learn to play the game at all. Don't worry - the more you play, the more natural and instinctual everything will feel and it wont be long before pre-aiming with spray control will be second nature.