How to control recoil and spray patterns in Valorant

Like many old school competitive shooting games, Valorant is not as simple as your average Call of Duty or Halo when it comes to actually shooting enemies. Arcade gameplay more suited to those games is out in favor of a more serious, concentrated set of mechanics that are firmly grounded in reality. 

This means that you cannot simply run around shooting other players while moving and aiming down sight and expect to maintain a semblance of accuracy. If you think that recoil in Call of Duty is unfair or harsh, perhaps Valorant is not the game for you.

But for those who want to play it and get better, there are things that you can do to help improve your control when it comes to recoil.

Learning about Tap Efficiency

Unfortunately, the shooting comes down to firing more frequently in bursts. The game uses a system called Tap Efficiency, where there is a level of accuracy to a certain number of shots to where you aim before recoil takes effect, causing your accuracy to become worse. Furthermore, you have to wait for a small recovery window before shooting again to benefit from this Tap Efficiency.

This means that after a certain amount of shots are fired in succession, you will lose accuracy from your crosshair. It also means that to maintain accuracy, you should only fire in short bursts of a few bullets in any situation except in close quarters.

However, we are all human, and in the heat of the moment, it can be easy to forget this, and holding down the fire button takes over. While you should try to avoid doing this wherever possible, automatic weapons act like they do to their real-life counterparts if it does happen. They don’t have a set pattern that you’ll see to their spray, but they will move in a general direction, and usually, that’s up.

With that in mind, the best place you can aim if spraying does take over is at an enemy’s feet. With the natural lateral movement of the recoil when shooting, the gun won’t be nearly as accurate as concentrated fire, but it would be your best chance of landing multiple hits on the enemy. 

You can test this in the shooting range on the training dummy, though it is also a good place to try and control the recoil of the game’s assault rifles. Keep in mind the idea that burst fire will be more accurate in the first few shots, and you will be able to show better accuracy in no time.