Vocabulary

VALORANT TERMS AND SLANG

Callout, spike, eco, clutch, retake, whiff. The words you will hear in every game, spelled out in plain terms, so you know what your team is asking for and can call things out yourself.

Terms 80 Essentials 25

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THE 25 TERMS TO LEARN FIRST

If you are new to Valorant, start with these. They cover most of what gets said in a game, and they come up in just about every round.

Aim Callout Clutch Counter-strafe Creds Crosshair placement Defuse Eco Entry fragger Flash Force buy Headshot Mid Peek Plant Post-plant Retake Rotation Site Smoke Spike Spray Trade Ultimate Utility

Valorant is played with your voice as much as with your mouse, and the calls fly by in a shorthand nobody stops to explain. Someone tells you to rotate, to trade, to save, and the round is over before you have worked out what any of it meant. This glossary gathers the words you will actually hear in a game, with the full form or the common variant when there is one, and what each of them means in practice. They are tagged by theme and listed from A to Z.

A 5 terms

Ace Competitive: Killing all five opponents on your own in a single round. It is the most celebrated individual play in the game, and the whole match gets an announcement when it happens.
AFK Away from keyboard Competitive: A player who has stepped away from their keyboard and is doing nothing. Staying AFK for long enough gets you penalized by the system.
Aim ★ Gunplay & movement: How accurately a player puts the crosshair on a target and lands the shot. It is the core skill of Valorant, the one that settles a duel between two players with the same utility.
Anchor Agents & abilities: A defender who stays on a site and holds it alone until teammates rotate over. The job usually falls to a sentinel.
Attackers Objective: The team that has to plant the Spike on one of the sites. Both teams swap sides at halftime.

B 5 terms

Bait Competitive: Letting a teammate take the duel first so you can clean up without taking the risk yourself. Often unintentional, never appreciated.
Bhop Bunny hop Gunplay & movement: Chaining jumps to keep your movement speed up. It works far less well in Valorant than in other shooters, and it rarely pays off in a competitive game.
Bonus Bonus round Economy: A round played on a partial buy, usually after a loss, picking up dropped weapons or settling for SMGs.
Boost Gunplay & movement: Standing on a crouching teammate to reach a raised spot. It opens angles nobody expects, at the cost of tying up two players.
Burst Gunplay & movement: Firing in short bursts of three to five bullets instead of holding the trigger down, to keep recoil under control. The recommended way to shoot at mid range.

C 6 terms

Callout ★ Comms: The community name for a precise spot on a map, like A Short or B Heaven. Using one passes a position along in a single word instead of a vague sentence.
Clutch ★ Competitive: Winning a round alone against several opponents. The odds go with the word, a 1v3 clutch for example.
Counter-strafe ★ Gunplay & movement: Tapping the key opposite your movement to stop dead before you shoot. Essential, since your accuracy falls apart while you are moving.
Creds Credits ★ Economy: The in-game currency, earned from rounds won, kills and planting the Spike. You spend it on weapons, shields and abilities.
Crosshair placement ★ Gunplay & movement: Keeping your crosshair at head height and on the angles an enemy can appear from. The single habit that improves a new player the fastest.
Cubby Comms: A small alcove set back from a corridor, where a player can sit without being seen from the main line of sight.

D 3 terms

Defenders Objective: The team that has to stop the Spike from going down, or defuse it once it is planted. They start the round already spread across the map.
Defuse ★ Objective: Taking a planted Spike back out by standing still against it for seven seconds. The moment you move or take damage, the defuse stops.
Dry peek Gunplay & movement: Taking an angle with no utility thrown to set it up. Usually a mistake, unless you already know exactly what is waiting there.

E 4 terms

Eco Eco round ★ Economy: A round where the team deliberately skips the buy to rebuild its bank for the next one. Knowing when not to buy is part of the game.
eDPI Technical: Your mouse DPI multiplied by your in-game sensitivity. It is the only number that lets you compare two setups fairly.
Elo Competitive: A catch-all word for a player's estimated skill level. In Valorant it lines up with your displayed rank and your rank rating.
Entry fragger ★ Agents & abilities: The player whose job is to go in first and open the site up for the rest of the team. Almost always a duelist.

F 6 terms

Flank Comms: Coming around behind the enemy instead of meeting them head on. An enemy flank is one of the most urgent things you will ever have to call out.
Flash ★ Agents & abilities: An ability that blinds anyone looking at it for a short moment. It exists to strip a defender of the positional advantage they are holding.
Flick Gunplay & movement: A fast mouse movement that snaps the crosshair onto a target that showed up off your aim. It goes with crosshair placement, it does not replace it.
Force buy ★ Economy: Buying anyway when you cannot really afford it, betting that winning the round beats protecting the economy. A call the whole team has to make together.
FPS Frames per second Technical: How many frames your game draws each second. A steady number matters more than a high one that keeps swinging.
Frag Competitive: A kill. A player who racks them up is called a fragger, and the word also describes an aggressive role.

G 2 terms

GG Good game Competitive: The line everyone types at the end of a match. Often paired with WP, for well played.
Griefing Competitive: Deliberately hurting your own team, by blocking teammates, wasting utility or throwing away your life. Riot hands out penalties for it.

H 5 terms

Half buy Economy: A middle-ground buy, usually an SMG and light shields, when your creds will not cover a rifle.
Headshot ★ Gunplay & movement: A shot that lands on the head and does far more damage. Several weapons kill in one headshot, shields included.
Heaven Comms: A raised position looking down onto a plant site. A defender holding it sees the whole area without ever standing in it.
Hell Comms: The area sitting below a site, the opposite of Heaven. Only some maps have one.
Hold Comms: Staying put to watch an angle instead of pushing forward. You say what you are holding so the team knows what is already covered.

I 1 term

IGL In-game leader Agents & abilities: The player who runs the team's strategy, calls the executes and manages the buy. A decision-making role, whatever agent they end up playing.

J 1 term

Jiggle peek Gunplay & movement: Stepping out of an angle and straight back in to gather information without committing to the duel. A cheap way to find out what is there.

L 2 terms

Lineup Agents & abilities: An exact spot and aim point that land an ability on a precise target you cannot see. Big with Sova, Viper and Brimstone.
Lurk Agents & abilities: Playing away from your team on purpose, usually behind them or off to one side, to catch a rotation off guard. It takes a lot of discipline.

M 4 terms

Main A Main, B Main Comms: The wide approach leading into a site from the attacker side, called A Main or B Main depending on the half of the map. Usually where the team gathers before an execute, and a few maps call it a Lobby instead.
Mid ★ Comms: The middle of the map, which usually connects both sites. Holding it lets you swing from one site to the other, and stops the enemy from doing the same.
MMR Matchmaking rating Competitive: A hidden internal rating of your real skill level. It decides who you get matched against and how fast your displayed rank moves.
Molly Molotov Agents & abilities: An incendiary ability that burns anyone standing in it. The most common post-plant tool for stopping a defuse.

N 1 term

Ninja defuse Objective: Defusing the Spike unnoticed while enemies are still alive nearby. Rarely the smart play, always a highlight.

O 1 term

One-tap Gunplay & movement: Killing with a single bullet, almost always to the head. The Vandal and the Sheriff do it at any range.

P 8 terms

Peek ★ Gunplay & movement: Stepping out of cover to fight or to look. A wide peek is fast and shows all of you, a shoulder peek shows an arm to bait a shot.
Peeker's advantage Technical: The small edge the player taking the angle gets from network latency: they see their opponent a fraction of a second before they are seen.
Ping Technical: The round trip time between your machine and the server, in milliseconds. A low ping, and above all a stable one, matters more than raw horsepower.
Plant ★ Objective: Putting the Spike down on a site, which takes four seconds and leaves you wide open the whole time.
Post-plant ★ Objective: The phase after the Spike is down, where attackers defend it and defenders try to retake. Plenty of rounds are won here, not before.
Prefire Gunplay & movement: Shooting at an angle before you actually see anyone, because someone is probably there. Great on solid information, wasted without it.
Premier Competitive: The team-based competitive mode, run in seasons, that acts as a stepping stone toward the amateur circuit.
Push Comms: Moving onto an area or a site with intent. Call it out clearly, because a solo push almost always ends in a free kill for the other team.

R 4 terms

Ranked Competitive Competitive: The mode where every match moves your rank. It unlocks once you have played enough unrated games.
Retake ★ Objective: Taking a site back after the Spike has been planted on it. It needs utility and a coordinated entry, never players trickling in one at a time.
Rotation Rotate ★ Comms: Moving from one site to the other. On defense it answers information, on attack it exists to make the enemy guess wrong.
RR Rank rating Competitive: The ranked points you win or lose after each competitive match. The amount depends on the result and, to a smaller degree, on how you played.

S 11 terms

Save Economy: Keeping your weapon at the end of a lost round instead of dying with it, so the next buy costs less. Backing out beats a heroic last duel more often than you think.
Scan Recon Agents & abilities: An ability that reveals enemy positions for a short moment. It is only worth something if you call out what it shows.
Short A Short, B Short Comms: The shorter route into a site, as opposed to the main approach. You say A Short or B Short depending on the half of the map.
Shoulder peek Gunplay & movement: Flashing just your shoulder to bait a shot out of someone holding the angle, without really exposing yourself. Brutally effective against an Operator.
Site ★ Objective: The area where the Spike can be planted, named with a letter. Most maps have two, Haven and Lotus have three.
Smoke ★ Agents & abilities: A cloud that blocks line of sight. It is the controller's basic tool, used to cut off the angles that cover an entry.
Smurf Competitive: An experienced player on a lower-ranked second account. It is frowned upon, because it wrecks the balance of a match.
Spike ★ Objective: The explosive the attackers have to plant and detonate. It is the point of the game, and the only thing that really counts.
Spray ★ Gunplay & movement: Holding the trigger down. Spray control means fighting the recoil by pulling the mouse down and then sideways, following the pattern of the weapon.
Strafe Gunplay & movement: Moving sideways with A and D. Switching direction over and over makes you much harder to track.
Suppression Agents & abilities: An effect that cuts an opponent off from their abilities for a few seconds. Only KAY/O and Tejo have it.

T 4 terms

Tap Tap firing Gunplay & movement: Firing one bullet at a time, letting the crosshair settle between shots. The most accurate way to shoot at long range.
Tilt Competitive: The frustrated state where your decisions and your play fall apart. Spotting your own tilt and stepping away beats queuing up again.
Tracking Gunplay & movement: Keeping your crosshair on a target that is moving. The aim skill that goes hand in hand with flicking.
Trade ★ Comms: Killing the opponent who just killed your teammate, so the fight does not leave you a player down. It only works if you stay close enough to your team.

U 3 terms

Ultimate Ult ★ Agents & abilities: An agent's most powerful ability, charged with points collected over the rounds rather than bought.
Ultimate orb Ult orb Agents & abilities: An orb sitting on the map that charges your ultimate when you pick it up. Kills, deaths and planting the Spike feed the same bar.
Utility Util ★ Agents & abilities: Everything a team's buyable abilities add up to. Sites are taken with utility, not with aim alone.

V 1 term

Vanguard Technical: Riot's anti-cheat, which runs at kernel level and starts with Windows. On Windows 11 it requires TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot.

W 3 terms

Wallbang Gunplay & movement: Shooting through a thin wall, with the bullet losing part of its damage on the way. Heavy weapons and sniper rifles do it best.
Whiff Gunplay & movement: Missing a shot you had no business missing. Mostly used for a duel you lost while holding every advantage.
WP Well played Competitive: The end-of-match line that gives the other team credit for their play, usually typed right after GG.

THE ROSTER

GOODIES & COLLECTION

THE WHOLE STORY, IN ORDER

eDPI CALCULATOR

VALORANT TERMS AND SLANG

THE 25 TERMS TO LEARN FIRST

VALORANT TERMS AND SLANG

THE 25 TERMS TO LEARN FIRST

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