If you’ve ever searched up “How to get better at Valorant,” many guides/tutorials will put an emphasis on communicating effectively. It’s what sets the best teams in the world ahead of the rest. Fundamentally, the more information you are able to give to your team, the better they can picture how the round is being played out. Giving information on where each team member is playing and about where enemies are ensures that no team member gets caught off-guard.

Simply communicating direct info is a great baseline to having good communication, but there are smaller habits you can build up to take you to that next level, including communicating what you don’t know, what you think might happen, and processing information into more valuable callouts.

Additionally, an aspect of communication that often gets overlooked is how you speak to your teammates to ensure that they receive information clearly and feel comfortable. It’s definitely important to refine the content that you communicate, but it’s equally as important to deliver it effectively. Not only is it important to make the environment more inclusive, but encouraging teammates often leads them to try harder, and focus on their gameplay without worrying about any negative comments.

What You Should Communicate

For those reading who have not been properly informed, proper communication is essentially giving your teammates information so that they know more and worry less. At a basic level, effective communication is telling your teammates what you see and hear. This contains seeing/hearing enemies directly, how many enemies there are, what abilities are used, and the enemies’ behavior. We’ll get a bit deeper into that last point more later on, but you want to make a judgment on what the opposing plan is, so that your teammates can rotate and react accordingly.

By communicating to your teammates, they don’t have to guess what is going on based solely on the mini-map and kill feed, making your team more aware of how the round is going to play out. This ensures teammates aren’t caught off-guard by surprise enemy positioning and allows them to prepare for engagement in advance.

Communicating what you see and hear is a good baseline and will probably be sufficient for games at a lower level. However, you can do more to improve your communication, which can give you that edge you need to win more games.

Bringing Your Communication to the Next Level

It’s more intuitive to communicate what you directly see or hear, but you can often give valuable information about what isn’t happening. For example, if you are playing around a site’s entrance, and you don’t hear or see anything, you can start a discussion by explaining the lack of enemies at your location. This will likely prompt teammates to report on what is happening at their location, which can give a good idea of where enemies are headed. If the information you give is accurate, then your teammates on other areas of the map can expect enemy contact. On the other hand, if your information is wrong, and your team responds confidently that their areas are open too, you may want to re-clear using utility to confirm your guess.

Another aspect is communicating what you are going to do, and what your teammates should do to either assist or expect. You’ve probably encountered players who will peek and die without saying a word, resulting in the team labeling them as a “thrower”. The truth is, you can’t expect your team to never peek, as you have to at least apply some pressure to the enemy. Instead, you should strive to communicate when and why you are peeking, so that your team has a heads up on how to support you with utility or come up with a back-up plan in case things go wrong. This way, even if you die, you’ve done all you can to prepare your team’s expectations.

You should also attempt to help your teammates by pointing out plays, but very cautiously; doing so in the wrong tone or at the wrong time can be disastrous. We’ll talk about this more in a later section.

Prompting and Directing Conversations

Sometimes, teammates will have great ideas, but don’t have the initiative to speak up. By directing conversation and encouraging ideas to be shared, you create a comfortable environment for less social players to bring their ideas to the table. If conversations are civil and productive, it may encourage these players to join in. Many of these players might be willing to cooperate and adhere to a plan, but without anyone taking a leadership position, the team won’t have any clear direction.

For example, if you are playing defense on site with a teammate, you can communicate what you plan on holding, what extent of support they can expect from you, and contingency plans for any sudden engagements. Statements like: “I’ll be playing close right, so I won’t have your Short,” or “If they push, I’m going to smoke and run CT,'' can be met with responses such as “Sounds good, I’ll be holding Long,” or “I’ll play backsite then, so I don’t get picked off.” This puts your team on the same page, preparing you for any situation. Simple things like this prevent conflict if a teammate is unaware of what play you are making and gets eliminated as a result.

As for the effect on your teamplay, communicating back and forth is key to refine ideas and plays. Multiple minds are better than one, and it’s possible that a teammate suggests a play that is more effective than the one you had in mind. Once you start conversations with a couple different teammates, they might pick up on your habits and start doing the same with the rest of the team.

Tone and Timing

One of the most important things that guides typically miss is the tone and timing of what you say. Although the substance of your communication is important, you want to deliver it in a way that enables your team to absorb it in an encouraging way. Evidently, this is not a deep dive into player sociology, but there are some things that apply to most players.

When giving constructive criticism, you must tread lightly when talking to other players. First of all, players don’t enjoy being told that they are playing the game wrong, regardless of whether the criticism is valid. Thus, you should avoid phrases like “What are you doing?” or “Why are we doing this?” These phrases create conflict. You are focusing on the negative aspect of their mistake, rather than helping them improve. Phrases such as “Nice try, maybe doing ___ could’ve worked, but it’s not a big deal,” are able to give constructive guidance while reassuring the player that you aren’t dealing with it in a negative way.

Additionally, you don’t want to give criticism while a player is still playing a round, taking away from their focus. Oftentimes, this is “backseating” a player, giving too much information. Regardless of whether the advice is good or not, focused players won’t have the attention to change the way they play in the given moment. Thus, giving too much information is often detrimental in live situations.

Another situation where tone is very important is after a missed opportunity, or “thrown” round. If you react negatively, focusing on what could’ve happened, the entire team will be in a pessimistic mood. Emotions spread easily, and it’s important to proactively create a positive mood as soon as possible. Right when the round ends, try to be supportive with “No worries, that was super close,” or “We got it next round,” to keep the team focused on the rest of the game.

The main takeaway is that with positive energy, players will feel comfortable and play better. Thus, not only is encouragement important to keep gaming environments positive, but it will actually help you in a competitive manner.

Picking Up on Team Personalities and Attitudes

The final and most important point is that not all players are made the same. Some players will be extraordinarily outgoing, while some will be remarkably timid. Sometimes, you’ll encounter players that are very negative, or positive teammates who will do the leading and prompting. If you find that the comms you are giving are not effective, it’s okay to accept that and take a step back.

For example, some players will simply be too shy to speak. If you find that consecutive attempts to prompt discussion are met with silence, there’s no need to keep on trying. If the player is timid, they might feel intimidated with further discussion; it’s better to deal with what you have than to do more harm than good.

Another example is encountering extremely toxic players who will not cooperate with the team. In these situations, it’s worth a shot to try to reel them back in, but if you are met with aggression, it’s not a bad idea to utilize Valorant’s muting feature to block out negative energy. Often, the game is still winnable with a toxic teammate! Take that player’s presence out of the equation and focus on the rest of the team and yourself.

Conclusion

Communicating in Valorant is an integral part of being a great player. It’s a fundamental building block for effective team play and will help you win more games. More importantly, it promotes inclusivity in gaming, which takes us back to what video games are for: a fun environment to have a good time.