VALORANT weapon prices: every gun and what to buy
Twenty weapons, three armour types, and a round-by-round budget that decides more matches than aim does. Here is what everything costs and when to buy it.
Every weapon, cheapest first
| Weapon | Class | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Classic | Sidearm | Free |
| Shorty | Sidearm | 300 |
| Frenzy | Sidearm | 450 |
| Ghost | Sidearm | 500 |
| Bandit | Sidearm | 600 |
| Sheriff | Sidearm | 800 |
| Bucky | Shotgun | 850 |
| Marshal | Sniper | 950 |
| Stinger | SMG | 1100 |
| Spectre | SMG | 1600 |
| Ares | Heavy | 1600 |
| Judge | Shotgun | 1850 |
| Bulldog | Rifle | 2050 |
| Guardian | Rifle | 2250 |
| Outlaw | Sniper | 2400 |
| Vandal | Rifle | 2900 |
| Phantom | Rifle | 2900 |
| Odin | Heavy | 3200 |
| Operator | Sniper | 4700 |
Armour
| Cost | What it does | |
|---|---|---|
| Light Armor | 400 | Absorbs 66% of damage taken, breaks after absorbing 25 |
| Regen Shield | 650 | Absorbs 100% of damage and regenerates, pool of 50 |
| Heavy Armor | 1000 | Absorbs 66% of damage taken, breaks after absorbing 50 |
Light Armor is the best 400 credits in the game. On a thin round, armour before a better gun is almost always right — those 25 absorbed points decide more duels than the gap between a Ghost and a Sheriff.
Heavy Armor is what makes a full-buy opponent take 150 damage to kill instead of 100, and that number is the reason the rest of this page works the way it does.
Which guns kill with one head shot
A full-health opponent with full shields has 150 HP. These are the weapons that beat that number in a single head shot:
| Weapon | Head damage | At what range |
|---|---|---|
| Operator | 255 | Anywhere — and its 150 body damage also kills outright |
| Outlaw | 238 | Anywhere |
| Marshal | 202 | Anywhere |
| Guardian | 195 | Anywhere |
| Vandal | 160 | Anywhere |
| Sheriff | 159.5 | Up to 30 m |
| Phantom | 156 | Only under 20 m |
| Bandit | 152 | Only under 10 m |
Everything else needs two. That includes the Bulldog at 115.5, the Ghost at 105 and the Odin at 95 — three guns people routinely expect to one-tap and which do not.
What to buy, by round
Pistol round (800 credits)
Ghost and Light Armor, at 900, is the standard opener and it is standard for a reason. If your team is stacking a site, Sheriff with no armour at 800 is the aggressive version: it one-taps to 30 metres, and on the first round nobody has shields anyway.
Skip the Frenzy unless you are taking a very close fight you have already decided on.
Eco / save (under 2000)
Buy nothing, or buy a Marshal.
The temptation is to spend 1100 on a Stinger and lose anyway. Don't. Save the credits so the next round is a real buy, and take a Classic — its head shot does 78 up close, which is enough against an opponent who also saved.
If one player wants to make a round awkward, the Marshal at 950 one-taps at any range and costs a fifth of an Operator.
Force buy (2000–3900)
This is where rounds are actually lost. Two options work:
Spectre + Light Armor — 2000. The Spectre is the best value weapon in the game. Thirty rounds, low cost, and inside 15 metres it is genuinely competitive with a rifle.
Bulldog or Guardian + Light Armor. The Guardian at 2250 one-taps at every range, which is the only sub-2900 rifle that does. If you can hit heads, it is a Vandal that costs 650 less.
Avoid the Judge at 1850 unless you know exactly which corner you are holding. It is devastating inside 10 metres and useless past 15.
Full buy (3900+)
Vandal or Phantom plus Heavy Armor — 3900. That is the round everyone is trying to reach. Which of the two rifles is a real question with a real answer; we go through it here.
Operator round (5700+)
Operator plus Heavy Armor — 5700. One body shot kills a full-shield opponent, which no other weapon in the game does.
The catch is what happens when you miss: you have spent 4700 on a gun that loses every close fight, and your team is down a rifle. Buy it when you have an angle worth holding, not because you can afford it.
The rule that matters more than any of this
Buy with your team, not with your wallet. Four rifles and one Classic loses to five Spectres. If two players cannot afford a full buy, the whole team should force or the whole team should save.
The credit counter is a team resource. Treating it as five personal budgets is the single most common economic mistake below Platinum.