Phantom vs. Vandal: Which is the best rifle in VALORANT?

The Vandal and the Phantom are arguably the two most used guns in the whole of VALORANT, perhaps minus the Classic, as it is free, but the two rifle weapons are always butting heads.

Every player has a choice of buying either the heavy hitting Vandal or the fast-firing Phantom for 2900 credits, and whilst a lot of players have their set favorites they use and automatically purchase every round, there are a few differences that makes a specific gun more favorable in certain situations.

When Should you buy the Phantom in VALORANT?

In VALORANT, the Phantom is the close to medium range rifle of choice, and it gets around 3% more of its kills between 15-30m compared to the Vandal, which is a big spike.

The Phantom has a lot better spray patterns for players to try and control, and whilst this isn’t always a game-changer, being able to hold your crosshair on a target’s head and actually hitting bullets is a big thing for a gun trying to land multiple bullets on an enemy.

You should also buy the Phantom if you are in close quarters areas, but still want to purchase a rifle over an SMG. If you are defending B Site on Lotus, a Phantom is a lot better than the Vandal, as the dropoff of damage that a Phantom has over a longer range is not as relevant as on A Site on Lotus.

How much Damage does the Phantom do in VALORANT?

The Phantom does a lot of good damage in VALORANT, and is one of the most consistent ways to get kills:

• 0-15m: Head-156, Body-39, Leg-33
• 15-30m: Head-140, Body-35, Leg-29
• 30-50m: Head-124, Body-31, Leg-26

It has a Fire Rate of 9.9 rounds per second, meaning if you can hit a headshot and a body shot between 15 and 30m, you can kill your target within a lot less than a second!

When Should you buy the Vandal in VALORANT?

Well the Vandal is a lot better at longer ranges, and despite being the most popular pick in professional VALORANT play, it is a lot harder to hit. A duel between two high tier players on C Long on Haven using a Vandal vs a Phantom, the Vandal will most likely win nine times out of ten.

This is because the Vandal is a one-shot headshot of 160 damage at any range, whereas the Phantom drops off heavily, requiring its users to hit multiple bullets.

If you back your skills at hitting headshots with just a singular bullet, the Vandal is a superior pick in most long-range gunfights, and this is why you see a lot of pros tap firing with a Vandal.

Certain crosshairs actually make using the Vandal or the Phantom easier in VALORANT, and a crosshair such as Shroud’s crosshair in VALORANT is designed around hitting those sweet, sweet headshots with a Vandal.

How much Damage does the Vandal do in VALORANT?

The Vandal is a lot simpler to understand with its damage metrics, having a set amount of damage, regardless of what range you are shooting at, or being shot from.

This means there is no fall off damage to the Vandal, allowing you to take gunfights from whatever range you want, unlike the Phantom:

• 0-50m: Head-160, Body-40, Leg-34

The Vandal has a fire rate of 8.775 rounds a second, which is considerably less than the 9.9 of the Phantom. This massively increases the risk of a Vandal user against a Phantom user, as if the Vandal user misses their headshot, the Phantom user can get off nearly twice the amount of shots in the time between the Vandal’s bullets being fired.

Why do professionals use the Vandal over the Phantom in VALORANT?

If you have tuned into any VCT Champions games this year, or any other competitive VALORANT matches for that matter, you will see that most of the lobby and the professional playerbase uses the Vandal over the Phantom.

This is not because they think the Vandal is a better gun, but in fact, it is that their aim is so much better than ours, meaning they can confidently hit the Vandal headshot before the two bullets a Phantom requires to kill enemies with at all ranges.

This does not mean that you should be using the Vandal exclusively, however, in fact, the Phantom wins most trades between itself and its slower counterpart at lower elo, where players do not have perfect aim or perfect movement.

Is the Phantom or the Vandal better in VALORANT?

Whilst this choice is, and will always be down to each player, especially considering a lot of players choose between their favorite Phantom skins and favorite Vandal skins, we have decided what we think is better.

We think the Phantom is fundamentally a better gun to use, unless you are in a high elo rank, we’re talking Ascendant or beyond, in which case, you should back your aim and pick up the Vandal.

This is not to say the other one does not have its uses at all elos, especially the Vandal at lower elo, but just maybe if you are hardstuck Gold 1, don’t purchase the Vandal every round when you are one and nine!