The spike is a crucial part of Valorant, and while players should focus on the gunplay and positioning necessary to gain control of the site, learning how to effectively utilize the spike will help you close out your rounds on offense. This guide will help explain how to use and protect the Spike without losing cash to the resulting explosion.

Spike 101

You will need at least 4 seconds remaining to plant the spike, if there are less then 4 seconds remaining and you try to plant, it won't work and the round will be lost. The spike explodes after 45 seconds. Defusing takes 7 seconds, 3.5 seconds to get it halfway and another 3.5 to fully defuse. When the spike has been planted you will hear beeps. The faster they get, the less time you have. I timed each beep to know exactly how much time you have left.

1st beep 0 - 25 seconds

2nd beep 25 - 35 seconds

3rd beep 35 - 45 seconds

One of the more important reasons to knowing the spike detonation area is you will know where your enemy will be running to for safety. If you are defending and you know you can not win the round, you can still camp their escape routes to get a free kill or two. Even though you lost the round, by killing a few enemies you are forcing them to buy and waste credits which will ruin their eco. The only risky thing about this is you have a chance of also being shot by the enemy team and ruining your eco.

You can actually plant the spike outside the bomb site, this can be done by going to the edge of the plant area and facing away from the plant area. When you plant the spike it will be outside the plant area. This can be useful on some maps by giving you a better sightline to the bomb from a safe distance. Below, I've inserted two images: the first one shows the plant area, while the second one shows where I planted the bomb (which is outside the plant area). As you can see, planting the bomb outside gives you new potential angles - you can now easily peek towards the spike from garage, when normally you wouldn't be able to.

When planting the spike, a circle will appear around you similar to when you make noise when running. The circle that appears on the map when planting is the sound distance in which people can hear the spike being planted. Something else I found out is if you plant the spike and then jump on it, the noise you make will show you a rough idea of the spike explosion distance. However this is not 100% accurate from my testing, the spike explosion seems to go a tad further. So if you use this method, I would recommend taking a few steps more just to play it safe.

Spike Detonation Map

In the maps below, the area covered in green shows the possible explosion range no matter where you plant. So, if you are standing outside the green area, you will be safe no matter where the spike has been planted. This map will also help you understand where your enemy might go to when they are trying to escape the explosion and you might be able to catch them off-guard.

How I did my research?

When finding how far each spike explosions goes, I started off by planting them on the corners of the plant area then going far away and seeing how far the explosion went. I then marked it on the map on photoshop. For each site, I performed around 10 plants to make sure I was thorough, and I used an outside plant for each plant, since those explosions would extend the furthest. For the bomb timing with beeps I planted a bomb and timed it multiple times to make sure my findings were accurate.

(Click the images to view larger size)

For Haven, since it is so compact with three bombsites, I created two maps: One focuses on the B-plant, while the other focuses on the A and C plants. If I was to leave them together, the entire defenders' side would be green, making it confusing to look at (and relatively useless).

(Click the images to view larger size)

When to plant?

Firstly, it is important to say when pushing a site to plant the person with the spike should never be the one pushing on site. The obvious reason is if that agent dies and the enemy sees the spike, they will try their best to play around the spike and make it very hard for you to obtain spike again. It also ruins your chances of sneaky rotation since if they see the spike is missing, they will know you are going to the other site or sites.

For most cases, it's fair to assume one site will hold up to 2 to 3 defensive agents max, assuming they did not get vision of your team's location. It is particularly important to get full control over a site before planting. Getting a pick or two for the most part means the site is clear. This also means the enemy team will now be rotating toward the site, so you need to cover rotations and flanks. The only time you can try planting without having full control over a site and planting would be if your team's Sage can use her Barrier Orb at a good angle and your teammates can hold rotations and use smokes. Again, this method usually works only on early rounds such as pistol round since with stronger guns and abilities they can break the ice wall pretty fast.

When to rotate?

Rotating is very important on the attacking side, because it's mostly how teams get plants off. There are two types of rotations, real rotation and fake rotations. A good real rotation would be, for example, if you are trying to take over site B but realize there are 4-5 agents on it trying to stop you from entering, so two of your teammates (one with the spike) can slowly rotate to site A as the other 3 still try pressuring site B. This gives the illusion that you are still trying to plant B. for the most part the enemy will also be wasting their abilities. So once your team gets the plant on Site A, they won't have as many abilities to fight back with during the post-plant. In contrast, a fake rotation is about giving the illusion that you are rotating while you are still planning on executing on the same site. Fake rotations are more effective when it's 1v1 or 2v2. Your main objective is to split the enemy team up while you and your teammate stick together. In the map Bind, you can fake rotate by throwing something through the teleporter such as a grenade or Omen shadow.

Defend your spike

When you successfully planted the spike, you want to hold corner or cover rotations. Very rarely should you be the one moving around. It's safer to just peek and hold angles and play the spike's timer. if you have any abilities, I would use them - especially if they're deployables like Killjoy's turret or Alarm Bot. In these cases, even if you die your Turret and Alarm Bot might buy you time and that extra time could allow you to win the round. If there is only you and another teammate alive, you want to make sure you both have vision of the spike when you peek. If you hold an angle that does not have vision, you will be forced to move a lot especially if they start defusing behind cover. This will give away your position and you may be picked off by another enemy member. If you are playing an agent like Raze, it's always better to use your grenade or Boombot instead of peeking, especially in 1v2 or 1v1 situation. Your objective is not to get a kill, but rather to buy time by forcing the enemy to stop from defusing. The less time they have the more aggressive they will be forced to play, which means they will start making mistakes.

Defending a site

Firstly, you seldom if ever want to 5-man stack a site. What you should aim for is two people on Site A, two people on Site B, and one person holding Middle. The person holding Middle will be the first one to rotate to either side since he is equally far from both sites. If one of your teammates says, “They are on site A rotate fast,” it is never a good idea to have everyone rotate. One person should stay behind in case the enemy team is faking it or if the enemy team decides to rotate. Sometimes your teammate can also be wrong they may think they are all on A site while its only really just two people. The one person staying behind can either hold the other site or middle. They can even hold the rotations and catch a lurker off-guard. Your main objective for defending should be to get as much info as you can and try getting picks. Remember they are the ones who need to come toward you. you do not need to force an engagement they need to do that. so its best to hold good angles and cover places where they are most likely to push from.

Final Notes

Always remember to communicate with your teammates, on where you see enemies, which abilities are they waste, and what guns they have. This is espically important if they have Ops or shotguns. Your teammate will know not to fight from a distance and not to peek if they have an Op, and they will know not to fight close if the enemy team has a shotgun. This information is vital and can be the reason why you win or lose a round. By telling teammates the enemies' locations and where they are headed they will be prepared to engage and catch the enemy off-gaurd.