How To Communicate In Ranked Valorant: A Radiant Player’s Guide

Being an effective communicator is an essential part of video games that leads to better team coordination and ultimately increases your team’s chance of securing each round. In this article, we will explain how you can improve your communication skills in Valorant.

Communicating with the team as a solo queue player can be difficult, so we will go through some ways you can try to play well with the team. An in-game leader and skilled communicator can provide important information to the team in a clear, concise, and easy-to-understand manner.

It is necessary to convey as much information as possible in a concise manner, as this will allow your teammates to process your callouts easily. This is an important concept due to the tempo in Valorant.

The earlier that your teammates become aware of where your enemies are and what sort of play is being executed, the faster they will be able to respond accordingly. Taking extra time to communicate will slow down your team’s responses and might lead to them missing some key information.

For brand-new players, we recommend skipping down to the terminology section at the bottom of the article before you start reading.

The Key Ingredients For Good Communication

First and foremost, one of the most important things is to uphold a sense of respect toward your teammates and to create a positive environment. Doing so will instill confidence within them and reduce chances of team tension and or individual ranked anxiety.

Since most gamers are focused on themselves and the RR at stake, it gets difficult to try and have comradery and positivity between you and your teammates. Most people appreciate it when you are helpful, respectful, and it can be seen throughout the game that you are giving your all.

Ways To Be Helpful

The best way to be helpful to your team is to provide them with information you have on the enemy quickly and briefly. Also, try sharing whatever information you gain on the enemy as soon as you become aware. This way, your team can support you earlier.

While making a call-out, ensure that you don’t leave out any crucial information in the hope of being concise and snappy. Let’s go through a good and bad version of the same call-out:

Example 1

• Good callout: “Raze tag 100 mid, Reyna back B.”

• Here, you have now identified which enemy is tagged and given a more specific location for the other agent.

• Bad callout:  “Tagged 100, 2 mid.” [Haven]

Example 2

• Good callout:  Care close, could be anywhere

• Bad callout: You die back site A on Haven to a Raze that was Hell 10 seconds ago. Your teammate is last alive in a 1v1 with the enemy Raze. Your teammate is walking up Sewers: “Raze back site.”

Example 3

• Good callout:  “Reyna [location] tag 100 but over-healing”. “Sage tag 100 used heal”.

• Bad callout: You tag Reyna 100, but you ignore the fact she is over-healing and say, “Reyna tag 100”.

• You can apply the same if you tag and die to a Sage early in the round.

Example 4

• Good callout: “Few A short, Jett tag 80”.

• Bad callout: You are playing aggressively at A Cubby on Bind as a defender and die to the enemy Jett, you hear lots of footsteps behind her and say,

• “All A.”

• It is impossible to know for certain that all enemies are short, so this may give your B defender a false sense of security.

• “Jett tag 80”
• The callout is lazy, you should alert your team to the fact that there is more than one enemy on the A side instead of withholding information.

Information That You Should Share With The Team

• Once you spot an enemy momentarily in the distance, you should share where and who it is with your team.

• When planning to use your utility as a Controller or Initiator, you should explain to your team what your plan of action is, i.e., “Dogging shop,” “Concussing ramp now,” “Pulling logs.”
• If you have noticed the enemy has wasted valuable utility, this information is worth sharing with your team, i.e., “Sage no slows,” “Reyna Dismissed no heal,” “Breach no Flash,” “Skye dogging out B.”
• Valuable utility that you don’t have in the round, i.e., “No wall this round,” “No smokes this round,” “No trips this round care flank.”

Ways To Be Respectful

Try your best not to educate a teammate since a ranked competition is not a place where you should be giving individual tuition. The player might take it the wrong way, and it is highly likely that tensions might develop in the team, which does no one good.

If your teammate makes a mistake, you should give them some words of encouragement or a good remark. If you do so, the next round will be better and will go a lot further without patronizing or belittling, which can only exacerbate negative energy and tension in the team.

One crucial thing that is highly recommended is that you avoid micromanaging your teammates. Like most tactical shooters, Valorant is full of unpredictable action and several different agents and map-specific interactions that can occur round-to-round.

Micromanaging teammates will prevent them from feeling any sense of confidence in their own decision-making while also most likely irritating them and your own teammate. Micromanaging means that you constantly urge players to behave in a particular way and impose your own decisions on them. Keeping your teammate's comfort in mind is the best thing to do.

Lastly, do not say anything to your teammate if they are the last alive in a crucial situation unless absolutely necessary. This could seriously disrupt their concentration and plan of action.

Ways To Give It Your All

The significance of this is self-evident. Giving your best effort and caring about the ranking is going to give you the best chance of your teammates reciprocating the same effort and level of support towards you.

Go the extra mile to communicate with your team; do not always assume they understand the situation. This case is especially for the agents who significantly impact the map. For instance, if you are playing Controller Agents or Initiators, you must inform your team of what you plan to do with your abilities.

• Suppose you are playing as Breach and are silently going about your business while you are about to use your Faultline, Flash, and Ultimate on a bomb site. In that case, your team will be unprepared to capitalize on your utility.

• If you are an attacker in a post-plant situation, where the bomb is down, and you have to play time with one other teammate. For instance, you are Astra and have a star down on the bomb, so when the enemy tap, you can pull them off. Your teammate should know this so they don't peek unnecessarily when the bomb is tapped, so they can stay hidden and make it difficult for the opponent.

• It is crucial to communicate with your team that you have slipped behind enemy lines and are able to catch them off-guard if your team can keep distracting them from the other side. By doing all of this, Flanking becomes much stronger, and your team will learn that they should only jiggle and not fully duel the opponents; they will know to commit after they have made contact.

There are some games that are out of your control regardless of being respectful, helpful and giving it your all. There are just too many variables in a game of ranked, and there are times when things will fall apart, and all you can do is watch.

Communication Terminology

Anti-eco

This is a strategy that your team can employ to combat the enemies eco-round. It’s mentioned at the beginning of rounds when your team is aware the enemy will be forced to eco in some way. Due to the assumption that your enemies will have cheap close-range weapons, it may mean keeping your distance from enemies and only engaging in long-range duels.

Bait

Bait means to pretend while playing, where you want to draw out something from the opposition, whether that is the enemy agents themselves or their utility. For example, “Let’s bait out utility” or “Bait me.”

Care

Care is a terminology used by one teammate to another to alert them about a looming or potential danger nearby. For example, you died earlier in the round in Garage on Haven, and now your teammate is entering mid-grass after the A or C lobby; you should warn them by using the line “Care Garage.”

Crossfire

It means establishing a line of sight to hold with a teammate so that you are both covering each other (holding the same line from opposite sides).

Ct

Ct stands for “Counter-Terrorists.” and is a CS:GO reference which people use as this abbreviation is a lot easier to say than defender spawn.

Cubby

Cubby refers to a part of the map with a deep pocket-like area where enemies can hide. Most cubby areas in Valorant are like rectangular inlets, such as A Short Cubby on Bind.

Cut noise

Being utterly silent: shift walking, not reloading your weapon, etc.

Default

Playing default is the act of showing your presence across the whole map. It is a strategy that attackers can use at the beginning of the round—for example, playing default on Haven as attackers would 1 holding C Long to fend off defenders from pushing, one holding A Garden/Lobby while the rest take mid control.

Dinked

The usage of this term implies that the enemy has been shot in the head. You only want to say this when you know for certain that your enemy is on low health, and it has a similar function to one-shot.

Dirty

If something is dirty, this means that your team has no information for that specific area and hasn’t been cleared or checked. Generally, it is used by one teammate to warn the others that an enemy might be there, such as “Garage is dirty.”

Double Peek

To swing with a teammate.

Eco

Eco is an abbreviation for the economy with the generalized meaning somewhere between save and half-buy. If someone says, “we have to eco,” it implies that the team should consider the fact that they are low in credits and should save in one way or another.

Fake

Most commonly used in reference to “faking” an attack on a bomb site, the term Fake is used to deceive opponents and sell them the idea that you are attacking a site when you actually intend to end up somewhere else. It can be used by saying, “Let’s fake B and go A.”

Flank

To wrap around the map in order to pressure the enemy from behind.

Force

This is a risky strategy of spending credits despite the fact that you cannot afford utility, rifles, and full shields. A Force might be something like the entire team buying Spectre Light-shields with all of their credits.

Half-Buy

Your team's economy is not awful, but it is sub-optimal, and only a few players can afford a full-buy while the rest of the team is broke. In such a situation, a half-buy might be a viable option where you buy-down to the point where you see you will still have a 3900 minimum for the next round.

This might mean that some players on your team have 5000 credits while others have 2000. In this case, the richer players can maybe buy a Spectre Full-Shield while still having enough for the next round.

Jiggle/Jiggle peek

It can either be:

• To peek the corner (preferably with your knife out so you are faster) without wanting to engage in a duel. It is purely just to find out information on the location of your enemies.
• To burst fire your gun while moving from one corner to another.

Lurker

Lurker is a player who strays away from their team and wanders off to the opposite end of the map in a stealthy manner in an attempt to catch off rotators and find picks.

One-shot

This is a common way to warn your teammates that an enemy is one shot away from dying, such as “Raze is one-shot.” This term is specific to what round and what sort of loadout your team has.

For instance, if it is a pistol round and you tagged the enemy Jett 70, then you should avoid saying one-shot since a Classic only does 26 to the body.

One-way

Smoke that is positioned deliberately and proves to be favorable to one side (generally the side of the defending Controller agent). The best functions best only “one-way,” as there is usually a gap below it that allows for the defender to have a visual on the attackers. On the other hand, the attacker has limited or no vision of the defender.

Play for picks

In this case, Picks is another word for kills and Playing for picks generally encourages a slow play style, in which case you would most likely establish a “default” setup as attackers hoping to catch a defender dropping their guard.

Play time

Try to hold up the situation. If you are in 1v1 and have planted the Spike and the enemy is looking for you, you might receive a friendly reminder from your team to “play time.” Avoid contact with the enemy in this case and let the clock tick down.

Prod

The act of “Prodding” is to slowly creep up into enemy terrain while playing the defense to provide information for your team. For instance, if you're playing Site C on Haven on defense (and there has been no noise or commotion at the beginning of your round). Here, prodding would mean carefully making your way or watching your step as you creep up C Long to check for any enemy presence.

This would help with map control if the enemy decides to return to C and will also allow your team to understand where they have to be.

Rotate

To leave the current site of the map, you are on and “rotate” or move to the other bomb site.

Sucked/Pulled

Once Astra’s Gravity Pull is initiated, it “sucks” and “pulls” enemies towards the middle of Astral Star i.e. “Jett sucked back site.”

Retake

As defenders, playing retake is the act of giving the bomb site to the attackers (if you are a lone defender on site and have concluded that too much risk is coming your way, you can opt to leave the site and protect yourself from dying).

By doing so, you allow for a coordinated retake to take place, in which case you may have more chance as opposed to if you simply ended up dying and leaving your teammates 4v5.

Re-hit

To decide to execute the same site again after cutting noise and leaving the enemy confused but most likely believing that you have rotated.

Save

The act of deciding not to waste your credits on any expensive weapons or utility to ensure that you can full-buy the next round.

Shift/shift walk

To walk silently when you hold the shift key.

Stack

Stack is the act of bringing your team together or grouping them together on one bomb site as defenders.

Swing

Swing is to step out of cover to peek and duel with an opponent, i.e., a “wide-swing” is where you continue to strafe sideways, the direction you peeked out of cover despite the fact you already made contact two steps ago. This is done hoping to make yourself a difficult target for enemies.

T

T is short for “terrorist,” which is another CS:GO reference; it is way easier to say “T spawn” as compared to “Attacker spawn.”

Timing

Saying “Timing” means the enemy got lucky in regards to when exactly they did something. For example, if you were holding Showers on Bind for 30 seconds and then the split second you gave it up, someone killed you by Peeking at you from Showers. This was an example of bad timing.

Instances of good timing are also there in which you are aware you have slipped past enemies and can easily infiltrate their spawn and or flank. You could warn your teammate, “I’ve got timing just delay while I flank.”

Trade

Trade means to avenge a fallen teammate immediately without wasting any time.

Utility/Util

Another term for the abilities of agents that can affect other players on the map.

Wallbang

This term refers to hitting an opponent through the wall via bullet penetration.