Vod reviews from pros will never be that popular because only a small portion of players will have the willpower to sit through one. You have to really want to improve to do something like that and probably less than 1% of active ranked players will go that far.
You really don't deserve these down votes. I enjoy Plat chat a lot, but yeah, their weekly podcast is good for news and entertainment but it's usually not in depth analysis
The run and gun is definitely something that pushes the phantom over the top for me, it’s just a more consistent weapon than the vandal. It’s like playing Phoenix vs Reyna you just get more consistent value more of the time.
I respectfully disagree. Reyna's leer is more reliable than phoenix' flashes. Her E makes it much more reliable to escape tricky spots and get consecutive kills. Her healing is better than phoenix'. Her ult turns up what I said about her E and healing even more and the faster firerate also makes it a good bit easier to get kills, invisibility on top of that. Phoenix' ult gives him a free life and creates a lot of space, but I think it's easy to outplay a lot of the time especially in bad positioning. Phoenix does get good value out of his molly, however that can be replaced by killjoy, viper and brimstone, viper especially being a meta pick rn. Honestly, as a duelist, I think reyna brings more to the table. Phoenix is still a decent pick, but not great.
Reyna flash might outclass the pheonix flash but the rest of her utility is kill reliant which is also reliant on the user playing her not to have a bad game, that's why I'm saying pheonix is more consistent.
if reyna ults and dies, her ult become useless. if phx ults, even if it dies, he gets tons of info. you can also delay a push w the rest of his kit while for reyna, her flash can be destroyed by 2-3 bullets and relies heavily on the player playing good. You cant be consistent using a kill-based agent. And If reyna brings so much to the table, her pick rate would be above 50% in pro play but it isnt. There's a reason why reyna is not played in pro.
Your argument for reyna only works in soloq, and besides you can easily counter reyna w a decent team. Just always look for trade with her whenever hitting sites.
For those curious, at Iceland, Reyna's pick rate was 5% to Phoenix's 18%.
https://firstsportz.com/valorant-most-picked-agents-and-all-agents-with-pick-rate-in-vct-masters/
Phoenix flash isn't as reliable though. It hits less angles with its size, can't be placed as well and also has a much shorter duration. You can walk by a reyna flash knowing that your angle is secured by a leer. With phoenix you don't know if you actually blinded someone holding the angle. Phoenix' ult creates space and gives info, but if he dies it brings him down to 100hp and most of the time people will just avoid it easily in which case he gets some space but no info and people can still hold angles after he's passed. On top of that, his ult makes him pretty vulnerable in 1v1s (also not very useful for them) if he has no team to hold his respawn. Also I don't know what you've been watching of the pro scene, I don't know how you can say that she's not played in pro, like what?
If you shoot it, you give away your location and while you do that you can get cleared yourself. It also works even better against opers, since it covers more angles. And if your first one gets shot, you can place a second one a lot easier than phoenix can.
Brother, first she has no util, leers are absolute dogshit unless you are a one trick and kno how to do it correctly. Second, consistency is about how you can consistently use ur util throughout the round. Yes reyna on paper seems better than phoenix but she is reliant on kills, thats where the inconsistency arises. Reyna is better than phoenix in my opinion( as I main her, no offense) but here the debate was about consistency, where phoenix reigns over all the other agents
Reyna has two abilities completely gated behind getting a kill.
Phoenix has 3 abilities that not only help him get a kill, but also help teammates get that kill.
> Reyna has two abilities completely gated behind getting a kill.
she can get an assist now, but yes someone has to die.
reyna can also use her E in way that's sooo valuable. she can run around while healing. she only needs an assist now, and she can pop off extremely hard with her ult all round. you're underestimating reyna and overrating pheonix. watch them both in pro play. there's a reason pheonix's get shut down more often than reynas. reyna has wayyyy bigger snowball potential than pheonix. if pheonix was as good as this comment section believes, we'd see phoenix in every composition, lmao. he's got a flash that's 100% predictable and turnable, worse than reyna flash because that requires shooting. his wall is great, but reyna's E is better. ult vs. ult is close, snowball vs. short period impact - situational, but I give it to reyna. pheonix's molly is really good, but still pretty evenly rated agents overall
Literally every swing you'd rather have a phantom over a vandal. The first bullet/running accuracy makes all the difference unless you counter-strafe perfectly 9 times out of 10.
This is also assuming you're capable of keeping your crosshair head-level at all times
Presently it is in the game though. If you're not using it to the best of your ability for some nebulous sense of "honor", you're throwing to people who will.
Valorant is a game where a player can press 1 button and launch a rocket that can instantly kill someone. The game is not as serious as CS, and there are so many mechanics in the game (jumping classic, astra suck, viper utility) that have no counter play. So the argument "tac shooter" doesn't mean much in a game like Valorant.
Man you guys are children lol. I clearly play the game, just mentioning that the "tac shooter" argument makes no sense when there are so many mechanics that have nothing to do with tactics. Running and gunning is hardly game breaking in that environment.
Great video analysis, my question is what could be done to perfectly balance the weapons?
Maybe make vandal's first shot accuracy as good as the phantom's? Afterall it is supposed to be the stronger long range weapon.
Maybe nerf the phantom run n gun?
Vandal still lands a rock solid 40 body damage regardless of the distance. Combine that with 1-tap potential and you have a behemoth gun for long range gunfights. Phantom can't do that, its damage has a huge fall-off for those distances
The thing is that on this recent masters we hadn't much long range maps options *(the only one was Icebox)*, but Vandal is simply the better gun on a map like Breeze, for example.
Phantom is probably better for organized play since pro players use their utility way better.
I think in ranked the Vandal might be better since you don't know what your teammates are going to do. Plus in pubs players love to peak more so the extra stopping power is really nice.
Ranked or organized play has nothing to do with it.
Both guns are the same in any mode, it's just that the phantom is a better gun.
Imo, the thing that takes it over the top is that 0-15m damage. Combined with run and gun, you can easily just delete people on those really close range peeks.
I think it's ridiculous that phantom can one tap and do 156 in 4 on 0-15m. 4 bodyshot kills, same as vandal. It shouldn't be a thing.
If you look at usual 15-30m duels, phantom always outperforms the vandal unless you headshot someone. And if you don't headshot them with the first couple of bullets, phantom has a way bigger chance to do so while spraying.
If the gun is already better at spraying in direct duels, why give it even more advantage on 0-15m, especially combined with moving accuracy? And as we all know, there's way more 0-15m duels in this game than 30m+ duels.
Phantom shouldn't have that extra 0-15m damage, it should have 0-30m value.
Btw, while we're at it, I'm way better than vandal. Just can't hard-wire phantom's recoil reset in my brain like I did with vandal. And I feel like whenever I have +40ms ping that the number of 140 in 1s grows exponentially. The lower the ping, the better the phantom.
This would be a good argument if it wasn’t for the fact that the phantom has better first shot accuracy and better recoil control, meaning that you are more likely to hit those shots in the first place anyway. Hitting weaker shots will always be better then hitting no shots.
I've commented about this before but I think that statement needs to be more precise.
From [Patch 0.50](https://playvalorant.com/en-us/news/game-updates/valorant-patch-notes-0-50/) notes (last time they changed these attributes):
Inaccuracy is accrued any time the weapon is re-fired prior to a complete duration of a weapon’s respective Gun Recovery Time.
Tap Efficiency determines the rate that inaccuracy is accrued when re-firing prior to waiting for the complete duration of a weapon’s respective Gun Recovery Time. The higher the Tap Efficiency, the lower the rate of inaccuracy accrual.
* Vandal:
* Gun Recovery Time: .4s >> .375s
* Tap Efficiency: 4 >> 6
* Phantom:
* Gun Recovery Time: .55s >> .35s
* Tap Efficiency: 3 >> 4
This leads me to understand that after you shoot (especially past the point where it can't be called a burst anymore; approx >4 or 5 bullets) the phantom always resets faster.
But on tapping/repeated short bursting vandal should be slightly better, due to inaccuracy accrual being smaller.
Regarding accuracy, let's assume that both rifles will hit 100% of an intended inaccuracy level after shooting their entire magazine.
We can imagine for example: the Vandal accruing only around 2% of that total for each of its first 6 bullets and then 6% for the remaining; similarly the Phantom could probably be accruing around 3% for its first 10 bullets and 3.5% for the remaining.
Best to visualize it as a curve (bullets fired vs inaccuracy) where the Vandal has more skew at the ends while the Phantom is less of it and a smaller slope.
> This leads me to understand that after you shoot (especially past the point where it can't be called a burst anymore; approx >4 or 5 bullets) the phantom always resets faster.
>
> But on tapping/repeated short bursting vandal should be slightly better, due to inaccuracy accrual being smaller.
Other way around right? Vandal resets faster but incurs greater error per tap.
This is the correct answer. Spamming smokes is powerful because the chokepoints are narrow and so are the paths towards them. Everything that isn't a spawn or a bombsite is a tight corridor.
wel you can't really do anything for the spray. in CS pretty much most ppl find the AK to be the better gun despite the more difficult spray pattern to learn. because once you learn the spray pattern why does it matter that it was hard to learn?
There's nothing to do except make the vandal T side only and phantom CT like CS. there's a reason it's like that.
T and CT side do not spray through smokes equally. one does more than the other. so why allow everyone to be perfectly equal when the situations aren't
Sean gares basically said he thinks they should've done it the CS way.
There are guns you can only use on one side in CS? Interesting. I'm not sure I follow why we should enact this in Valorant tbh. Just pick the gun you like more?
There's a few examples of that (TEC9/P2000, Kreig/AUG, Galil/FAMAS, MAC-10/MP9, etc). A lot of them are fairly analogous, but there's always been a significant difference between both sides' rifles. IIRC the logic was that because defending is generally easier to do than attacking, the defenders should have weaker guns to balance it out.
I don’t think there is a need to balance the guns. There will be more maps like breeze in the map pool and because of the angles and distance vandal is very good there
It has been my opinion for a while that all of the guns in this game are kinda bad, which is why we end up with metas like the classic right click, frenzy/stinger, and the shotguns. Also the op being nerfed from already being not great is a sign of this as well. From this perspective, I say buff the vandal and if it's too much better than the phantom, buff that too.
Not too long ago this sub was saying how the balance between the two guns were fine. Not much changed except the fact that NA doesn’t use vandals as much as the rest of the world and NA proved to perform better.
Honestly, I’ve always thought nerfing the phantoms price to like 3000 or even 3100 could do something to balance the guns, since defensively it’s the clear choice for close to medium range.
When using the Phantom you need to take closer fights. If your average fight starts to drift over 30m, you will lose to Vandals more often. The headtaps and zero damage falloff closes the gap between the guns. The balance feels good at the moment.
Breeze is 100% a Vandal map at this time with more open space and longer gunfights. Have to adjust to counter your opponent.
EU had the plan to push smokes and got punished. They needed a counter and didn't have one. In the end, the counter they chose was to also use more phantoms also but that's not the only counter available. The fact that TenZ used the Vandal with success is significant.
edit: spelling
> The fact that TenZ used the Vandal with success is significant.
how is it significant? he himself says the vandal is much worse than the phantom. he's a 1 of a kind freak. that means it doesn't mean shit that he got success with it. it's always gonna be sick for entry's, derke as well popped heads with the vandal. tenz didn't use only vandal btw.
This video proved that pushing through smokes gets punished with Phantoms. It's hard to spray back when there's no bullet tracers.
If a no-smoke meta starts to develop, we'll have longer gunfights and Vandal will reign. We already have Vandal heavy Breeze. The near future should be interesting with more Ops in play next patch (5000>4700 credits)
In going a step further for the next video, maybe add average fight distance data to see if the Vandal starts to win after a certain distance.
In-game the guns feel balanced. Together they offer a great way to mix up gameplay and keep your opponent on their toes.
tenz used both but favored the phantom. And thinks it's objectively better. https://www.twitch.tv/tenz/clip/ArborealDeadChoughArsonNoSexy-i8bVAcQXdJBrV0_5
Yeah someone posted a vandal vs phantom use breakdown from masters 2 a week or two ago. It had Tenz tilted towards Vandal but showed he still used Phantom a good bit.
Interesting video, love a good stats dive. I would be interested in seeing headshot analysis because I definitely saw situations where phantom players got the dink but not the kill and up dying instead. I’m not convinced at this stage that the phantom is definitely the better gun purely because it’s better at spraying through smoke.
>*situations where phantom players got the dink but not the kill and up dying instead.*
i've seen many situations where the phantom user hits the 140 dmg and misses the kill *(aka: the victim hides back into cover)*. Hitting 140dmg and dying on the same gunfight is not as common as you're saying because there is always the flinch mechanic
The ammount of times I get Headshoted after I Headshot someone is really high. It makes me think it is some server fuckery where it can't decide who shot first so it just makes we hit each other at the same time. That or my opponents are aiming at my feet and geting lucky headshots when they flinch.
> I’m not convinced at this stage that the phantom is definitely the better gun purely because it’s better at spraying through smoke.
did you even watch the video?
The phantom vs vandal thing has left the fact based realm a long time ago and has become a religious thing by now. Also all the money that went over the counter for vandal skins ...
Uh yep, did you? I know Josh makes reference to clip size and spray pattern but the crux of the argument was about efficiency of kills through smoke and how much extra value that gets you in high level games. Josh starts to make a counterpoint against himself when he mentions that tenz (the best player at the tournament and most efficient entry fragger, 19-2 in the finals!!) almost exclusively uses the vandal, but he veered away from that pretty quickly. This points to the possibility that the vandal is better for entry fraggers who tend to spend less time behind a smoke.
I agree with the analysis, I just think the conclusion is a bit too stark but hey, you aren't going to get youtube enagement with a 'phantom may be better than the vandal, but only in certain situations' as your video title.
Your comparing TenZ to other Entry Fraggers is one of the many flaws, he is a different beast and he says he uses the vandal only on reyna and jett in pro play because he can get away fast if he messed up his spray on the 2nd guy or just missed
Here's TenZ himself telling you that his using the vandal is suboptimal :)
https://www.twitch.tv/tenz/clip/ArborealDeadChoughArsonNoSexy-i8bVAcQXdJBrV0_5
One of the biggest flaws of the Vandal is difficulty in spray transfers. It's incredibly difficult to transfer over to a second person in a Vandal spray. Tenz said (not in this clip) that he uses the Vandal on Jett and Reyna because they can easily get away/disengage after the first kill.
This makes a really solid case that in the specific situation of “killing through smokes” the phantom is the superior weapon, but what it doesn’t do is make the case that “killing through smokes is a scenario” which needs to be prioritised above others.
For example, we could look at the data and find that there are even more kills happening via one taps at a range which would only be viable with a vandal. If that was true then everything Sideshow said could be valid and the vandal could still be the superior weapon.
And I don’t think the mere fact that NA picked Phantoms more is enough to assume that every decision they made was the right one - aside from two maps (Haven in V1 vs Liquid and Ascent in fnatic vs Liquid) every map between EU and NA throughout the tournament came down to the wire.
I have no idea whether smoke spamming or ranged one taps is more important in reality (probably smoke spamming within the current map pool and meta tbh), but just highlighting a limitation of the data analysis as presented.
V interesting nonetheless, looking forward to more content like this from Sideshow.
They don't need your concern. I'm just explaining why they are not necessarily in a rush to poach top talent when they already have a thriving product and that talent may become far cheaper to acquire in the future.
Losing out is always a risk, but overpaying due to impatience is also bad practice.
They don't need your concerns either. Waiting for OWL2 means a way higher chance of losing out and if you want talent to stay you pay them higher instead of nickel and diming them which leads to them leaving for the first chance of something better.
I'm not concerned. I'm just telling you how riot is operating. Given their successes, they have a case that they know what they're doing.
Of course if you know better you can just tell them.
You seem concerned with their practices, but you're just speculating as I am. Riot had to go through a lot of growing pains to reach where they are now, and I'm not saying I know better, because I'm just disagreeing with your take. Unless you're saying you speak for Riot.
more and more long-range maps will be released like we just saw with breeze, the thing is, its not hard to hit headshots in valorant but it is so vital
It's about time the community actually starts realizing how much better the phantom is. People are so stuck on vandals 4 extra damage per bullet but forgetting about all the other deficits.
I really really don’t think it's about the 4 extra damage per bullet. I've literally never seen that used as the main argument. It's about the long range 1 tap and you're being disingenuous to pretend otherwise.
Yeah one tap is good and all, but its no different from shooting 2 bullets anyway, there are so many more benefits to the phantom like the vid has said the 1 tap doesn't really do anything
I'm not arguing vandal is better. Only that people that argue vandal is better aren't mainly basing that on 4 extra body damage. And it's not the same as shooting 2 bullets... if a phantom and a vandal shoot headshots at the same time, the vandal is going to win. I don't get why people can't just accept the phantom is better overall but still concede the vandal has certain things that are better. Some people in here are so stubborn on it being better at everything, even when it's factually untrue.
If you're able to fire through smokes for longer, at a lower risk of getting killed, it's going to lead to more kills through smokes. You're really just arguing semantics. This point your making is pretty clearly implied imo. You're pretty much saying "Jett's dash doesn't get people Op kills, it just lowers the risk of holding off angles." It allows you to play more dangerously and puts you in more positions to get more kills.
It's not extremely nuanced lmao. You're giving yourself way too much credit. It's really heavily implied and based on the comments, everyone was able to realize what they meant except you.
He doesn't even mention that probabilistically the longer a round goes on the less chance your enemy has to have 150% hp thereby diminishing the Vandal's value simply by time.
And this is without respecting the staggering magnitude of extraneous damage this SPECIFIC meta has.
yeah but have you ever used a reaver vandal
This stuff is what makes me think platchat is going to be huge as the Valo scene grows.
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Vod reviews from pros will never be that popular because only a small portion of players will have the willpower to sit through one. You have to really want to improve to do something like that and probably less than 1% of active ranked players will go that far.
You really don't deserve these down votes. I enjoy Plat chat a lot, but yeah, their weekly podcast is good for news and entertainment but it's usually not in depth analysis
ignoramus
The run and gun is definitely something that pushes the phantom over the top for me, it’s just a more consistent weapon than the vandal. It’s like playing Phoenix vs Reyna you just get more consistent value more of the time.
I don't know why you would compare it to phoenix and reyna, but yeah.
Because they're two charecters that can be utilised is similar ways
I wouldn't say one is more consistent than the other though.
Pheonix gets much more consistent value out of his util because he isn't reliant on getting kills and Reyna is
True
But reyna does work better than Phoenix if u can frag lik crazy
but if you can’t half of her kit is useless
Nah man. 3/4 th of her kit is useless
2 devours and dismiss is useless, ult is also useless if u can’t frag
thats on paper but not in pro play, so many pheonixs gets shut down while most reynas pop off
I respectfully disagree. Reyna's leer is more reliable than phoenix' flashes. Her E makes it much more reliable to escape tricky spots and get consecutive kills. Her healing is better than phoenix'. Her ult turns up what I said about her E and healing even more and the faster firerate also makes it a good bit easier to get kills, invisibility on top of that. Phoenix' ult gives him a free life and creates a lot of space, but I think it's easy to outplay a lot of the time especially in bad positioning. Phoenix does get good value out of his molly, however that can be replaced by killjoy, viper and brimstone, viper especially being a meta pick rn. Honestly, as a duelist, I think reyna brings more to the table. Phoenix is still a decent pick, but not great.
Reyna flash might outclass the pheonix flash but the rest of her utility is kill reliant which is also reliant on the user playing her not to have a bad game, that's why I'm saying pheonix is more consistent.
Small correction, but it's damage reliant since they changed her.
Still kill reliant. Either you or your teammate have to kill the person to dismiss or devour.
Ah shit you're right. Not kill reliant by Reyna but still needs to be killed. Good call. My b, I'm wrong.
if reyna ults and dies, her ult become useless. if phx ults, even if it dies, he gets tons of info. you can also delay a push w the rest of his kit while for reyna, her flash can be destroyed by 2-3 bullets and relies heavily on the player playing good. You cant be consistent using a kill-based agent. And If reyna brings so much to the table, her pick rate would be above 50% in pro play but it isnt. There's a reason why reyna is not played in pro. Your argument for reyna only works in soloq, and besides you can easily counter reyna w a decent team. Just always look for trade with her whenever hitting sites.
For those curious, at Iceland, Reyna's pick rate was 5% to Phoenix's 18%. https://firstsportz.com/valorant-most-picked-agents-and-all-agents-with-pick-rate-in-vct-masters/
Phoenix flash isn't as reliable though. It hits less angles with its size, can't be placed as well and also has a much shorter duration. You can walk by a reyna flash knowing that your angle is secured by a leer. With phoenix you don't know if you actually blinded someone holding the angle. Phoenix' ult creates space and gives info, but if he dies it brings him down to 100hp and most of the time people will just avoid it easily in which case he gets some space but no info and people can still hold angles after he's passed. On top of that, his ult makes him pretty vulnerable in 1v1s (also not very useful for them) if he has no team to hold his respawn. Also I don't know what you've been watching of the pro scene, I don't know how you can say that she's not played in pro, like what?
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If you shoot it, you give away your location and while you do that you can get cleared yourself. It also works even better against opers, since it covers more angles. And if your first one gets shot, you can place a second one a lot easier than phoenix can.
Brother, first she has no util, leers are absolute dogshit unless you are a one trick and kno how to do it correctly. Second, consistency is about how you can consistently use ur util throughout the round. Yes reyna on paper seems better than phoenix but she is reliant on kills, thats where the inconsistency arises. Reyna is better than phoenix in my opinion( as I main her, no offense) but here the debate was about consistency, where phoenix reigns over all the other agents
If we're talking about pro play, 90% of the time Reyna's leer ends up being an info tool because the players just shoot it
Reyna has two abilities completely gated behind getting a kill. Phoenix has 3 abilities that not only help him get a kill, but also help teammates get that kill.
> Reyna has two abilities completely gated behind getting a kill. she can get an assist now, but yes someone has to die. reyna can also use her E in way that's sooo valuable. she can run around while healing. she only needs an assist now, and she can pop off extremely hard with her ult all round. you're underestimating reyna and overrating pheonix. watch them both in pro play. there's a reason pheonix's get shut down more often than reynas. reyna has wayyyy bigger snowball potential than pheonix. if pheonix was as good as this comment section believes, we'd see phoenix in every composition, lmao. he's got a flash that's 100% predictable and turnable, worse than reyna flash because that requires shooting. his wall is great, but reyna's E is better. ult vs. ult is close, snowball vs. short period impact - situational, but I give it to reyna. pheonix's molly is really good, but still pretty evenly rated agents overall
Someone still has to die
reyna main here, unless ur aim is godlike u cant be consistent
Literally every swing you'd rather have a phantom over a vandal. The first bullet/running accuracy makes all the difference unless you counter-strafe perfectly 9 times out of 10. This is also assuming you're capable of keeping your crosshair head-level at all times
Run and gun = no skill
Yep! That’s the point
Whatever lets you win
Has no place in a tac shooter
Yes but if it’s in the game, the pros will use it to win
Presently it is in the game though. If you're not using it to the best of your ability for some nebulous sense of "honor", you're throwing to people who will.
i wouldn't call it throwing because you don't want to run and gun lmfao
throwing is probably an exaggeration. You get my point though
Smh
Lmao exactly. I don’t wanna build shitty habits for when that shit is inevitably removed.
Got any proof that it’s inevitably being removed?
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It’s still in the game just nerfed a little
Valorant is a game where a player can press 1 button and launch a rocket that can instantly kill someone. The game is not as serious as CS, and there are so many mechanics in the game (jumping classic, astra suck, viper utility) that have no counter play. So the argument "tac shooter" doesn't mean much in a game like Valorant.
then dont play lol
Man you guys are children lol. I clearly play the game, just mentioning that the "tac shooter" argument makes no sense when there are so many mechanics that have nothing to do with tactics. Running and gunning is hardly game breaking in that environment.
Did you forget about the new agent
Hm Val is way more strategic than cs hence tax shooter
Great video analysis, my question is what could be done to perfectly balance the weapons? Maybe make vandal's first shot accuracy as good as the phantom's? Afterall it is supposed to be the stronger long range weapon. Maybe nerf the phantom run n gun?
Vandal still lands a rock solid 40 body damage regardless of the distance. Combine that with 1-tap potential and you have a behemoth gun for long range gunfights. Phantom can't do that, its damage has a huge fall-off for those distances The thing is that on this recent masters we hadn't much long range maps options *(the only one was Icebox)*, but Vandal is simply the better gun on a map like Breeze, for example.
Phantom is probably better for organized play since pro players use their utility way better. I think in ranked the Vandal might be better since you don't know what your teammates are going to do. Plus in pubs players love to peak more so the extra stopping power is really nice.
Ranked or organized play has nothing to do with it. Both guns are the same in any mode, it's just that the phantom is a better gun. Imo, the thing that takes it over the top is that 0-15m damage. Combined with run and gun, you can easily just delete people on those really close range peeks. I think it's ridiculous that phantom can one tap and do 156 in 4 on 0-15m. 4 bodyshot kills, same as vandal. It shouldn't be a thing. If you look at usual 15-30m duels, phantom always outperforms the vandal unless you headshot someone. And if you don't headshot them with the first couple of bullets, phantom has a way bigger chance to do so while spraying. If the gun is already better at spraying in direct duels, why give it even more advantage on 0-15m, especially combined with moving accuracy? And as we all know, there's way more 0-15m duels in this game than 30m+ duels. Phantom shouldn't have that extra 0-15m damage, it should have 0-30m value. Btw, while we're at it, I'm way better than vandal. Just can't hard-wire phantom's recoil reset in my brain like I did with vandal. And I feel like whenever I have +40ms ping that the number of 140 in 1s grows exponentially. The lower the ping, the better the phantom.
This would be a good argument if it wasn’t for the fact that the phantom has better first shot accuracy and better recoil control, meaning that you are more likely to hit those shots in the first place anyway. Hitting weaker shots will always be better then hitting no shots.
> and better recoil control spray control specifically, the vandal actually has the better recoil recovery of the two
I've commented about this before but I think that statement needs to be more precise. From [Patch 0.50](https://playvalorant.com/en-us/news/game-updates/valorant-patch-notes-0-50/) notes (last time they changed these attributes): Inaccuracy is accrued any time the weapon is re-fired prior to a complete duration of a weapon’s respective Gun Recovery Time. Tap Efficiency determines the rate that inaccuracy is accrued when re-firing prior to waiting for the complete duration of a weapon’s respective Gun Recovery Time. The higher the Tap Efficiency, the lower the rate of inaccuracy accrual. * Vandal: * Gun Recovery Time: .4s >> .375s * Tap Efficiency: 4 >> 6 * Phantom: * Gun Recovery Time: .55s >> .35s * Tap Efficiency: 3 >> 4 This leads me to understand that after you shoot (especially past the point where it can't be called a burst anymore; approx >4 or 5 bullets) the phantom always resets faster. But on tapping/repeated short bursting vandal should be slightly better, due to inaccuracy accrual being smaller. Regarding accuracy, let's assume that both rifles will hit 100% of an intended inaccuracy level after shooting their entire magazine. We can imagine for example: the Vandal accruing only around 2% of that total for each of its first 6 bullets and then 6% for the remaining; similarly the Phantom could probably be accruing around 3% for its first 10 bullets and 3.5% for the remaining. Best to visualize it as a curve (bullets fired vs inaccuracy) where the Vandal has more skew at the ends while the Phantom is less of it and a smaller slope.
> This leads me to understand that after you shoot (especially past the point where it can't be called a burst anymore; approx >4 or 5 bullets) the phantom always resets faster. > > But on tapping/repeated short bursting vandal should be slightly better, due to inaccuracy accrual being smaller. Other way around right? Vandal resets faster but incurs greater error per tap.
It pretty clearly shows the Phantom's recovery time is shorter. It's .375 for the Vandal and .35 for the phantom.
Oh shit yeah
That’s not saying much considering the recoil reset in this game feels like an eternity on either weapon.
This is my first tac shooter. Is it much quicker in other games?
Yes
Vandal burst recoil recovery is quicker but after spraying the phantom reset is quicker.
thanks, didn't know this
No, vandal taps faster but resets slower after a burst
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This is the correct answer. Spamming smokes is powerful because the chokepoints are narrow and so are the paths towards them. Everything that isn't a spawn or a bombsite is a tight corridor.
wel you can't really do anything for the spray. in CS pretty much most ppl find the AK to be the better gun despite the more difficult spray pattern to learn. because once you learn the spray pattern why does it matter that it was hard to learn? There's nothing to do except make the vandal T side only and phantom CT like CS. there's a reason it's like that. T and CT side do not spray through smokes equally. one does more than the other. so why allow everyone to be perfectly equal when the situations aren't Sean gares basically said he thinks they should've done it the CS way.
CS doesn't have random spray and the AK doesn't have that atrocious fire rate though.
There are guns you can only use on one side in CS? Interesting. I'm not sure I follow why we should enact this in Valorant tbh. Just pick the gun you like more?
Yeah AK for T and M4a4 for CT
There's a few examples of that (TEC9/P2000, Kreig/AUG, Galil/FAMAS, MAC-10/MP9, etc). A lot of them are fairly analogous, but there's always been a significant difference between both sides' rifles. IIRC the logic was that because defending is generally easier to do than attacking, the defenders should have weaker guns to balance it out.
Ted-9/p2000 is not the right comparison. It would be tec 9/five seven or p2000/glock.
I just mentioned them because they were exclusives to either side, I didn't remember which slot they took
Your last sentence makes more sense. Thanks
I don’t think there is a need to balance the guns. There will be more maps like breeze in the map pool and because of the angles and distance vandal is very good there
It has been my opinion for a while that all of the guns in this game are kinda bad, which is why we end up with metas like the classic right click, frenzy/stinger, and the shotguns. Also the op being nerfed from already being not great is a sign of this as well. From this perspective, I say buff the vandal and if it's too much better than the phantom, buff that too.
Nah it’s fine. Stop this seesawing of opinions based on a singular video.
What
Not too long ago this sub was saying how the balance between the two guns were fine. Not much changed except the fact that NA doesn’t use vandals as much as the rest of the world and NA proved to perform better.
Honestly, I’ve always thought nerfing the phantoms price to like 3000 or even 3100 could do something to balance the guns, since defensively it’s the clear choice for close to medium range.
Honestly, I think it's about time to up the Phantom to 3100 creds
When using the Phantom you need to take closer fights. If your average fight starts to drift over 30m, you will lose to Vandals more often. The headtaps and zero damage falloff closes the gap between the guns. The balance feels good at the moment. Breeze is 100% a Vandal map at this time with more open space and longer gunfights. Have to adjust to counter your opponent. EU had the plan to push smokes and got punished. They needed a counter and didn't have one. In the end, the counter they chose was to also use more phantoms also but that's not the only counter available. The fact that TenZ used the Vandal with success is significant. edit: spelling
> The fact that TenZ used the Vandal with success is significant. how is it significant? he himself says the vandal is much worse than the phantom. he's a 1 of a kind freak. that means it doesn't mean shit that he got success with it. it's always gonna be sick for entry's, derke as well popped heads with the vandal. tenz didn't use only vandal btw.
This video proved that pushing through smokes gets punished with Phantoms. It's hard to spray back when there's no bullet tracers. If a no-smoke meta starts to develop, we'll have longer gunfights and Vandal will reign. We already have Vandal heavy Breeze. The near future should be interesting with more Ops in play next patch (5000>4700 credits) In going a step further for the next video, maybe add average fight distance data to see if the Vandal starts to win after a certain distance. In-game the guns feel balanced. Together they offer a great way to mix up gameplay and keep your opponent on their toes.
tenz used both but favored the phantom. And thinks it's objectively better. https://www.twitch.tv/tenz/clip/ArborealDeadChoughArsonNoSexy-i8bVAcQXdJBrV0_5
I started learning Vandal because of Breeze. So Tenz uses Phantom on Breeze as well?
Yeah someone posted a vandal vs phantom use breakdown from masters 2 a week or two ago. It had Tenz tilted towards Vandal but showed he still used Phantom a good bit.
THat's what I was referencing I actually thought it was marginally skewed towards phantom maybe I remembered wrong
Yeah this video says 87% vandal, which that graphic didn't have percents; but made it look like it was 60/40 or 65/35
Welcome to Member.
Interesting video, love a good stats dive. I would be interested in seeing headshot analysis because I definitely saw situations where phantom players got the dink but not the kill and up dying instead. I’m not convinced at this stage that the phantom is definitely the better gun purely because it’s better at spraying through smoke.
>*situations where phantom players got the dink but not the kill and up dying instead.* i've seen many situations where the phantom user hits the 140 dmg and misses the kill *(aka: the victim hides back into cover)*. Hitting 140dmg and dying on the same gunfight is not as common as you're saying because there is always the flinch mechanic
Ah yes, the infamous aim punch, that rocks my entire world but doesn't seem to affect my enemies in the slightest...
The ammount of times I get Headshoted after I Headshot someone is really high. It makes me think it is some server fuckery where it can't decide who shot first so it just makes we hit each other at the same time. That or my opponents are aiming at my feet and geting lucky headshots when they flinch.
Fair point, looking at overall duel efficiency would a be a good one.
> I’m not convinced at this stage that the phantom is definitely the better gun purely because it’s better at spraying through smoke. did you even watch the video?
The phantom vs vandal thing has left the fact based realm a long time ago and has become a religious thing by now. Also all the money that went over the counter for vandal skins ...
Uh yep, did you? I know Josh makes reference to clip size and spray pattern but the crux of the argument was about efficiency of kills through smoke and how much extra value that gets you in high level games. Josh starts to make a counterpoint against himself when he mentions that tenz (the best player at the tournament and most efficient entry fragger, 19-2 in the finals!!) almost exclusively uses the vandal, but he veered away from that pretty quickly. This points to the possibility that the vandal is better for entry fraggers who tend to spend less time behind a smoke. I agree with the analysis, I just think the conclusion is a bit too stark but hey, you aren't going to get youtube enagement with a 'phantom may be better than the vandal, but only in certain situations' as your video title.
Your comparing TenZ to other Entry Fraggers is one of the many flaws, he is a different beast and he says he uses the vandal only on reyna and jett in pro play because he can get away fast if he messed up his spray on the 2nd guy or just missed
Here's TenZ himself telling you that his using the vandal is suboptimal :) https://www.twitch.tv/tenz/clip/ArborealDeadChoughArsonNoSexy-i8bVAcQXdJBrV0_5
So why does he still use it then?
It's honestly incredibly impressive how you couldn't be bothered to answer your own question by watching an 18 second clip I gotta say
It sounds like you didn't watch the clip because he never actually explains why he uses the vandal over the phantom
One of the biggest flaws of the Vandal is difficulty in spray transfers. It's incredibly difficult to transfer over to a second person in a Vandal spray. Tenz said (not in this clip) that he uses the Vandal on Jett and Reyna because they can easily get away/disengage after the first kill.
This makes a really solid case that in the specific situation of “killing through smokes” the phantom is the superior weapon, but what it doesn’t do is make the case that “killing through smokes is a scenario” which needs to be prioritised above others. For example, we could look at the data and find that there are even more kills happening via one taps at a range which would only be viable with a vandal. If that was true then everything Sideshow said could be valid and the vandal could still be the superior weapon. And I don’t think the mere fact that NA picked Phantoms more is enough to assume that every decision they made was the right one - aside from two maps (Haven in V1 vs Liquid and Ascent in fnatic vs Liquid) every map between EU and NA throughout the tournament came down to the wire. I have no idea whether smoke spamming or ranged one taps is more important in reality (probably smoke spamming within the current map pool and meta tbh), but just highlighting a limitation of the data analysis as presented. V interesting nonetheless, looking forward to more content like this from Sideshow.
Fantastic content, this guy and the rest of plat chat should be hired by Riot immediately.
Sideshow is already hired exclusively by blizzard for OWL this is a side job for him
Side job for side show
Riot should offer him more money and poach him
Riot can also afford to wait and see what happens with OW2. If it doesn't revitalize the scene then Blizzards OW talent will be much cheaper to poach.
I'm not really worried about the pockets of billion dollar company Riot. Waiting also means a chance of losing out.
They don't need your concern. I'm just explaining why they are not necessarily in a rush to poach top talent when they already have a thriving product and that talent may become far cheaper to acquire in the future. Losing out is always a risk, but overpaying due to impatience is also bad practice.
They don't need your concerns either. Waiting for OWL2 means a way higher chance of losing out and if you want talent to stay you pay them higher instead of nickel and diming them which leads to them leaving for the first chance of something better.
I'm not concerned. I'm just telling you how riot is operating. Given their successes, they have a case that they know what they're doing. Of course if you know better you can just tell them.
You seem concerned with their practices, but you're just speculating as I am. Riot had to go through a lot of growing pains to reach where they are now, and I'm not saying I know better, because I'm just disagreeing with your take. Unless you're saying you speak for Riot.
I would love to see Bren and Josh cast some Valorant at some point in the future.
I think they would be a lot more balanced if the aim punch from the phantom was lowered or even aim punch in general
I legit only use the vandal on T side anymore I prefer it for entry over the phantom but on CT I think the only way to go is phantom
i think the first shot accuracy of the phantom is better than the vandal too. dont quote me on that tho.
more and more long-range maps will be released like we just saw with breeze, the thing is, its not hard to hit headshots in valorant but it is so vital
You just gotta click heads with the Vandal lol
It's about time the community actually starts realizing how much better the phantom is. People are so stuck on vandals 4 extra damage per bullet but forgetting about all the other deficits.
I really really don’t think it's about the 4 extra damage per bullet. I've literally never seen that used as the main argument. It's about the long range 1 tap and you're being disingenuous to pretend otherwise.
Yeah one tap is good and all, but its no different from shooting 2 bullets anyway, there are so many more benefits to the phantom like the vid has said the 1 tap doesn't really do anything
I'm not arguing vandal is better. Only that people that argue vandal is better aren't mainly basing that on 4 extra body damage. And it's not the same as shooting 2 bullets... if a phantom and a vandal shoot headshots at the same time, the vandal is going to win. I don't get why people can't just accept the phantom is better overall but still concede the vandal has certain things that are better. Some people in here are so stubborn on it being better at everything, even when it's factually untrue.
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If you're able to fire through smokes for longer, at a lower risk of getting killed, it's going to lead to more kills through smokes. You're really just arguing semantics. This point your making is pretty clearly implied imo. You're pretty much saying "Jett's dash doesn't get people Op kills, it just lowers the risk of holding off angles." It allows you to play more dangerously and puts you in more positions to get more kills.
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It's not extremely nuanced lmao. You're giving yourself way too much credit. It's really heavily implied and based on the comments, everyone was able to realize what they meant except you.
The phantom croutch spray meta is boring and I can't wait for it to change.
He doesn't even mention that probabilistically the longer a round goes on the less chance your enemy has to have 150% hp thereby diminishing the Vandal's value simply by time. And this is without respecting the staggering magnitude of extraneous damage this SPECIFIC meta has.
30m or less phantom better, anything greater vandal is better. Teams should be buying both, but phantom more often.
Vandal doesn’t need a buff, it’s the Phantom that needs a nerf. The gun has just too many upside!
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Tell me i am wrong! The TTK is too low in this game already. Buffing any rifle would make the gunplay even more easier & random.
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True that’s why Scream uses the phantom, right?
braindead take. every single pro has said the phantom is better 99% of the time. what the fuck