Image credit: Riot Games
The incoming VALORANT Patch 13.06 sees some of the biggest changes to the game in recent years. As well as the new Warden automatic rifle, this patch promises to further ban smurf/boosting accounts, but it will also see the ACS (Average Combat Score) system replaced with the new Performance Score.
For those climbing the VALORANT ranks, previously, a higher ACS meant the rewarding of higher RR payouts than when playing more of a support role, or passively (Initiators and Controllers). With the implementation of a new rifle and a revitalized scoring system said to better reward playing the objective, the game could be changing for the better, but is it going to be enough to shake the rust off a meta that’s been stale for years?
What is the Warden in VALORANT?
The Warden is an incoming fully automatic rifle that’s the same tier as the Vandal and the Phantom, VALORANT‘s two biggest weapons. It’s priced identically to those two firearms, at 2,900 credits, and features a 2x scope for greater ADS potential, an 18-bullet magazine, medium wall penetration, and a fire rate of 6.5 rounds per second. However, the USP of this new rifle is that it offers 50 damage per bullet at all ranges, including a staggering 200 damage for a headshot regardless of distance, meaning it sounds even deadlier than the Vandal, the previous one-tap headshot frontrunner.
Currently, both the Vandal and Phantom are viable weapons for almost all situations. They can both be considered the best VALORANT guns and will be the most used firearms in your arsenal, provided you understand the economy of the game. Where they differ is in those situational use cases: the silenced nature and more relaxed recoil of a Phantom make it easier for new players, although you aren’t guaranteed a headshot at certain distances, meaning it’s more of a spraying or bursting weapon at range. The Vandal is slightly harder to control and excels primarily when you’re strafing and tapping or two-tap bursting, depending on your playstyle, gun hygiene, and overall raw aim prowess.
The Warden sounds just as situational, then. It features a much smaller magazine capacity than either the Vandal (25 rounds) or the Phantom (30 rounds), and has a significantly slower fire rate of 6.5 rounds per second compared to 9.7 and 11 rounds per second, respectively. Because the ADS zoom is backed up by a 2X scope as opposed to the usual 1.25X ADS of both the Vandal and the Phantom, the incoming weapon is said to be better for pre-aiming and holding longer angles, or anchoring on a site rather than taking direct duels, but this will depend on the player base.
Where the Warden excels beyond its two other rifles (at least on paper) is with the first-shot spread of just 0.04 compared to 0.157 and 0.11 of the Vandal and the Phantom. Similarly, the aforementioned 50 damage at any range makes it so that it’s a 3-shot kill so long as you hit the centre of gravity of another player, compared to the 4-shot body kill of a Vandal or the murkier nature of 35-39 damage of the Phantom depending on the range. In other words, you’re trading firing speed and magazine capacity for a higher-damage weapon, with better spread and first-bullet accuracy here. This applies to hip-firing, too, at just 0.15-degree spread against 0.25-degree spread.
How the Warden can break VALORANT’s stale meta
If you’ve been playing VALORANT for any decent length of time, you’re likely to notice that the meta has (largely) remained the same for the last three-or-so years. It’s true of any VALORANT agent tier list, just as much as the weapons you put in their hands, too. Throughout all skill levels, you’re likely to see the same handful of characters used again and again whether you’re playing Competitive or Unranked: Omen, Clove, Jett, Neon, Chamber, Cypher, Killjoy, Sova, and Fade, where the pick rates of other characters seem inconsistent or few and far between.
Regardless of who you choose to make up your 5v5 team comp, the way you play across VALORANT maps has remained the same regardless of rank or RR total. You play pistol rounds with a Classic and Light Armor, or a Ghost/Sheriff with Utility until the other side is dead. Whoever wins usually buys Heavy Armor and a Spectre or the best possible weapon that their remaining purse allows, and whoever lost the first round (ideally) should save and rush the winning side with Classics and limited Utility in hopes of saving enough credits to have viable weaponry in Round 3 and beyond.
Regardless of how you get there, it leads to the Full Buy rounds, or the Rifle rounds as the VALORANT community calls it. Heavy Armor, Full Utility, and (until now) either a Phantom or a Vandal to be the deadliest when taking (or defending) a site. So where does the Warden fit in here and cause a stir from the established formula? Well, its first-bullet accuracy, high damage, and 2X scope means it can essentially act as a fully automatic version of the Guardian, or a cheaper, weaker version of the Operator, depending on how your economy and team are playing. It gives you a viable alternative that isn’t just the same five guns over and over.
The Operator is VALORANT‘s most expensive weapon and is the game’s answer to Counter-Strike’s AWP. Much like in Valve’s tactical shooter, it’s an instant-kill to the body with Heavy Armor (150 damage) or 255 damage when you aim for the head. The Op is far from the easiest gun in the game to use, as it’s primarily used by the likes of Jett or Chamber to anchor a site and hold angles that can halt a push from a team. Any good VALORANT game should see a competent Duelist or Sentinel go hands-on with the sniper for this reason, but, due to its expensive cost and difficulty of use in low-to-medium Elo, it’s not used as much as you may expect.
Obviously, the Warden does not guarantee an instant kill anywhere on the body. However, with its near-7-second fire rate, a decent player with good reaction times can still slay a foe in half a second, even if their pre-aim isn’t perfect initially. With the standard mobility of any rifle, rather than the slowest movement in the game, the Warden could also give you viable time to reposition and hold another angle, or swing a chokepoint to leverage that 2X zoom as well.
Will players adopt the Warden rifle?
The Warden certainly has the specs and the potential to be a top-tier VALORANT weapon, but that won’t count for much if the pro scene, casual players, and those grinding the Competitive ranks don’t embrace it. The Vandal currently holds a 91.7% pick rate in Competitive across all ranks, and it’s followed in distant second by the Phantom’s (respectable) 52.7% pick rate. If the vast majority of players are already heavily favoring one rifle over the other, will this third entry into the category be enough to win over the skeptical? It’s hard to say.
Asking people who have (potentially) spent upwards of six years playing with one or two main rifles to suddenly adopt a third one is a tough sell. The community currently seems just as split on the Warden this side of its unveiling; a main r/VALORANT Reddit thread confirms as much: one of the top responses says it will be “either broken or useless”, and another user claims it could be picked for them over the Vandal, provided the first bullet spread is truly superior as stated.
A different thread sees its top comment take the neutral ground, explaining that: “new guns get spammed for two weeks no matter how they perform” and that they “settle into whatever pick rate they actually deserve”. This sentiment is similar to what happened with the Bandit, a pistol released in January of this year. At 600 credits, it’s priced between the Ghost (500 credits) and the Sheriff (800 credits), and was met with a mixed reception.
Despite technically having better first-bullet accuracy than the Ghost, it has a slower fire rate and a smaller magazine; it’s unsurprising that it lags behind both in terms of pick rates in the current meta. Time will tell if the Warden is able to buck this trend, or if it’ll suffer the same fate as the Frenzy and Ares. With the VALORANT Champions Shanghai about to kick off and a fresh update just around the corner, it truly is all to play for in 2026 and beyond.
FAQs
The newest VALORANT gun is the Warden, which is an automatic rifle costing 2,900 credits, just like the Vandal and the Phantom.
The Warden features a 2X scope and superior bullet accuracy when compared to the Vandal and the Phantom, with the trade-offs being the smaller magazine and slower fire rate.
About The Author
