8 Valorant Basics You Need to Know

Anyone with a half-decent PC or laptop can install and play Valorant, but no one can be good at it instantly. As with every game, there are certain basics to being able to play Valorant, basics that, only when you've practiced to perfection, can you move on to learning more technically advanced things. As they say, ''You need to learn how to walk before you run''.

To help you with this, we've consulted with our own professional players to ask them which Valorant features are the most important to learn. Everything they said was then compiled and condensed to come up with eight core Valorant basics to know before even thinking of calling yourself a Valorant player.

And no, we aren't talking about features that every first-person shooter shares, such as aiming, shooting, and sensitivity, as those are the same everywhere. We're talking about characteristics that are unique to Valorant, such as shortcuts and navigating the title screen to log out. 

1: How to say no

Saying no in Valorant is extremely important to combat trolls and players who give up easily. Of course, there's the ''no'' you say when a teammate asks for help, but you KNOW you'll end up being an easy target for the enemy, but that's not what we mean.

Valorant players will know that any time one player opts for surrender or a remake of the match, the entire team is asked to put their vote in. Oftentimes it happens that your friend is the one who accidentally disconnected, and you're the only one who knows that they'll be coming back, but remaking the game would penalize them.

In this case, if you don't want to surrender and think you have a winning chance, you'll want to put your vote in as ''no''. To do so, there are three ways. 

• The first is to use the keyboard shortcut, which is F6. As soon as you press it, your vote will be counted as no
• The second is typing the ''/no'' chat command
• Finally, if you don't vote at all, your vote will automatically be counted as no, similar to how it happens in League of Legends.

2: How to drop spike

The spike is one of the most important items in Valorant and something with the potential of being a game-changer when used properly. However, sometimes a player with no intention of planting the spike might accidentally pick it up. What's worse is that the player might be a duelist or might have a habit of rushing the enemy team to end the round quickly, in which case the spike will be dropped in the enemy's base upon their death.

Instead of putting the spike (and their entire team with it) in danger, the best thing that player can do is to drop it near their own spawn point so a teammate who actually wants to plant it could pick it up.

Unfortunately, just randomly mashing buttons will not work. To drop the spike, you first have to select it by pressing ''4'' on your keyboard. Then, with the spike selected, press the ''G'' key, and your agent will drop the spike right in front of you.

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3: How to hide your name from other players

Valorant might be a game that prioritizes teamwork, but sometimes players want a sense of anonymity. This might be for several reasons. Maybe the player is a streamer who's afraid of being stream sniped, or perhaps the player is hiding from other players for some reason or the other.

Whatever the reason, it's easy to hide your name from other players. To do so, 

• With Valorant launched, go to settings (either by pressing the Esc key or by clicking on the gear icon)
• You should be in the general tab, but if not, then switch to it
• Scroll down till you reach the 'Privacy' subheading
• Here, you'll find two options for hiding your name. The first is ''hide my name from players outside my party'', while the other is ''use generic names for players outside my party''
• For complete privacy, it is recommended you turn both of these options on, especially if you're a streamer wanting to protect yourself and the players in your match against stream sniping.

4: How to change enemy color

The next Valorant essential feature to know about is how to change the highlight color of the enemy. Players who have watched streams of professionals might have noticed that they tend to change the highlight color, mostly to yellow.

This is because it gets easier to spot enemies if you use bright colors to highlight them, especially from a distance. Of course, it isn't a huge improvement, but every advantage counts when you're in the heat of the moment. 

As for how to do this, it's very easy. 

• With Valorant launched, go to settings (either by pressing the Esc key or by clicking on the gear icon)
• You should be in the general tab, but if not, then switch to it
• At the very top of general settings will be the 'Accessibility' subheading 
• The second option will be ''enemy color highlight''. Simply change it to the color you want and back out to apply the changes

If you're wondering what color we recommend, then it's definitely yellow, deuteranopia, to be specific. Red is the default one, but that, along with purple, is a little too dark. Protanopia is also a viable option.

5: How to skip the tutorial 

Picture this. You boot up Valorant with your smurf account for the first time and enter a display name. As soon as you agree to Riot's terms of service, you get thrown in the range where you have to complete a tutorial. However, as this isn't the first time you're going through this, you already know everything.

There are many cases where players want to skip the tutorial but don't know how to, with some reasons being more extreme than others. For example, many players have reported that their game lags way too much when trying to complete the tutorial that it becomes borderline unplayable.

Fortunately, while there isn't any official way to skip the tutorial, there is a glitch that players have found. To do it,

• First, boot up Valorant. Enter your display name and agree to the terms of service as usual until you load in the range.
• After loading in, walk straight only till you reach the first waypoint (you'll know you've reached it as the area will be highlighted in green), where you will press 'Alt+f4' to close the window.
• Launch Valorant again, and this time, instead of throwing you in the range straight away, you'll get a pop-up saying ''Welcome to Valorant''
• This step is the most important. Don't click anywhere when you get the pop-up. Just tap on the 'Esc' key, and they should instantly load you into the main menu, effectively skipping the tutorial.

While some players who tried this have reported that the glitch didn't work for them, the majority of them have been able to successfully skip the tutorial.

6: How to Reload

Yes, we said we wouldn't go through basic first-person shooter mechanics, but reloading is so crucial that we felt like it has to be mentioned. The last position any player wants to find themselves in is one where they had the chance to take an enemy down but weren't able to because they hadn't reloaded their weapon.

There are two ways to reload in this game. The first is to press the 'R' key when you've used up one or more bullets from your magazine. The second is emptying the magazine, which will have your agent automatically reload their weapon.

Reloading takes approximately 2.5 seconds, which, in a gunfight, might prove to be too many. There are actually some tricks that might cut down this time, however, and the best way to learn them is by hiring a professional Valorant coach from Eloking. Check out our guide on what Valorant coaching is, and how it can help you get better at the game.

7: How to sign out

Players that are more serious when it comes to their ranks tend to have multiple accounts. One for playing casually with friends, and one for, as the kids call it, ''try harding to the max'' to get to as high a rank as possible.

Therefore, our next Valorant basic is learning how to sign out in Valorant. To do so

• With Valorant launched, press the Esc key, or click on the gear icon to bring a pop-up that has the option to go to settings, contact support, check about, or exit to desktop. To sign out, you're gonna want to click on exit to desktop.
• By pressing it, another pop-up will come where you'll press ''Sign out and exit''

And there you go! The next time you boot up Valorant, you'll be asked to sign in again. There, you can simply enter the login details of your smurf to play with that, and when you want to switch back, just repeat the earlier steps.

8: How to get out of ELO hell

Our eighth and final Valorant essential is how to get out of the loop that is ELO hell. What ELO hell pretty much means is being stuck in a low rank without being able to get out of it no matter how much you try (mostly because of reasons out of your control such as bad teammates) 
Fortunately, we have a guide already that goes in-depth on this very subject to help you in case you ever find yourself in such a predicament. Fittingly, it is called How to get out of ELO hell in Valorant.