Whether you’ve never played a CS-style multiplayer FPS or are hopping over from CS:GO and looking to dominate, learning the Valorant spray patterns and how to control the recoil for all of the weapons is key to winning fights.
With eight fully automatic weapons in the game, learning the spray patterns and how to counter them for all the guns is no mean feat, but even if you can only manage to keep the first few shots on target you’ll be improving. Keeping an entire Vandal mag on target will likely take days practicing against a brick wall, and even longer to put your learnings into practice during a real match with moving targets that fire back.
But in this skill-based game every improvement you can make to your gunplay will go a long way towards making you a better player. It should be noted that all of this mastery goes out of the window if you’re trying to shoot straight and strafe at the time. Likewise recoil is much easier to control when crouching, so you’ll need to constantly reassess your aim depending on the situation you find yourself in.
Frenzy
With only 13 rounds in the magazine you really need to make the most out of this full-auto machine pistol’s modest clip. The Frenzy spray pattern creeps up and to the right for the first four shots, then jumps up and right slightly for the remainder of the mag.
You can make this a lot more accurate by gently dragging down and left with your mouse – judging the recoil jump you get halfway through the clip is very tricky and will take a lot of practice. You can of course mitigate the recoil jump by shooting in six-round bursts. We find this to be the best method as each burst can net you a kill.
Stinger
Up to ten metres this cheap SMG is a key part of the Valorant economy and is very good for landing a sustained spray with. Over long distances, however, it’s practically impossible to use.
If you want to stretch it to mid-range or make your short-range accuracy better with it then you’ll need to swing low and left with your mouse like a mirrored L shape with a curve – this one only needs a very gentle adjustment.
Of course you could use the alternate fire mode, but this drastically reduces your TTK to the point where you’ll almost always lose the 1v1.
Spectre
This SMG is beloved for the very fact that its recoil is so easy to keep under control for the first ten rounds. All you need to do is gently pull down and you’ll find you’re pretty much hitting centre until halfway through the clip – this is enough to take down any opponent and then some. After this you’ll need to hold the downwards left mouse position and switch quickly to the right and then back again.
The pattern you draw with your mouse should be like a mirrored ‘7’ where you retrace the short part of the ‘7’ for the second half of the mag. With a bit of a practice we’ve managed to land almost a whole magazine at 20 metres on dummy targets.
Bulldog
The recoil is very nasty on the Bulldog and we’ve not managed to crack a perfect pattern for it just yet. The mirrored ‘7’ figure is somewhat helpful as the spray pattern definitely shoots up and to the right, however, getting the timing right for when the recoil shoots left and then right again is evading us.
There is also a slight kink in the long part of the ‘7’ figure, which you’ll need to factor in. Maximum effective range for firing this full-auto with any accuracy is about 20 metres.
Phantom
The Phantom’s first few shots are nice and easy to land all the way up to 30 metres so you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s a bit of a laser. If you’re planning on sinking a whole mag with this then you’ll need to draw straight down and flick to the left as you get to your ninth or tenth shot. Following this you steer right slightly and then back left.
The pattern looks like a particularly tall upside ‘T’. The most effective way to use this rifle is with short four-round bursts, dragging down as you fire each burst.
Vandal
The Vandal’s recoil pattern is actually less punishing than that of the Bulldog, but still a lot trickier to control than the Phantom. The basic spray pattern to draw with your mouse is a mirrored ‘7’ where you have to trace back along the short arm for the last ten rounds of the mag.
However, there’s a more drastic left lean to the recoil than with the Bulldog or Spectre. On top of that, there’s a slight kink about halfway down the long arm of the mirrored ‘7’ where you’ll need to pull right slightly.
Ares
This can seem very intimidating at first but it’s actually very manageable, especially if you’re comfortable crouch-peeking. The basic pattern is an ‘S’ styled like a lightning bolt. You drag left and down, then right, then left and down again.
Crouching with LMGs makes them so, so much more accurate, so we will always advise mastering this recoil from the crouched stance. While most Valorant guns are better fired in bursts, LMGs are often used for spraying through walls, so knowing how to control a full magazine’s worth of rounds is important.
Odin
This one is surprisingly simple but comes with the caveat that you should expect to be missing a lot of shots after firing half of your 100 rounds in full-auto mode.
More help: Valorant characters and abilities
The first 30 rounds are a relative breeze though, simply crouch and drag down with a slight left bend as you fire, flicking to the right and left as you see the Odin’s barrel jerk in a new direction.
The basic pattern is a very tall upside down ‘T’ that turns into a lightning bolt pattern, so as you start to encounter the sharp horizontal recoil you’ll still need to be pulling down. The flicks to the left and right you see at the end are random, but you can predict which way the recoil will go by paying attention to the where the barrel points to.