VALORANT Rifle Tier List: Every Rifle Ranked After Patch 13.06

Patch 13.06 is the last major VALORANT update before Champions 2026, and buried under the Agent Mastery overhaul and the new Gauntlet: Glitched mode is something that actually changes how you spend your 2,900 credits: a fifth rifle. The Warden joins the Vandal and Phantom at the top of the price chart, and its stat line is unlike anything else in the category. That's reason enough to revisit where every rifle in VALORANT actually stands right now.

This is an opinion piece, reasoned from Riot's own published weapon stats and patch notes rather than from any hidden testing client. Numbers below are pulled directly from the official arsenal data; where we're guessing about matchup outcomes, we say so.

Gauntlet: Glitched. Agent Mastery. The Warden. And more. Patch 13.06 goes BIG.

— VALORANT (@VALORANT) on X

That table is the whole story in miniature: damage per bullet climbs as fire rate drops, all the way from the Bulldog's fast-but-weak spray to the Warden's slow-but-devastating taps. Where each gun lands on this list comes down to how well that tradeoff matches the range and pace of the fight you're actually in.

01How We Ranked These Rifles

Rifles live or die on three things: how much damage they do per bullet at the ranges you'll actually fight at, how fast they put those bullets out, and how forgiving they are when your aim isn't perfect. We weighed all three against how VALORANT's economy actually plays out — a 2,900-credit gun has to win full-buy rounds consistently, while the 2,050 and 2,250-credit options need to punch above their weight against a fully kitted enemy.

How We Ranked These Rifles

1. 1Every stat in this list — cost, fire rate, magazine size, and damage by range — comes straight from Riot's own weapon data, not third-party trackers.
2. 2We weigh how hard each rifle hits against how fast it fires, since a rifle that wins on paper can still lose a real gunfight if it can't put bullets out fast enough.
3. 3Falloff, wall penetration, and zoom level decide whether a rifle is built for close-range trades or holding a long sightline.
4. 4A 2,900-credit rifle has to win full-buy rounds consistently; a 2,050 or 2,250-credit rifle only has to outperform its price tag.
5. 5The Warden launched six days before this list was written, so its ranking is our early read, not a verdict backed by a full patch cycle of data.

02S-Tier: Vandal and Phantom

Nothing has knocked these two off the top since VALORANT launched, and the Warden's arrival doesn't change that — it just gives them a new neighbor. The Vandal deals 160 headshot damage at any range with zero falloff, which means a single tap kills an enemy whether they're three meters away or across Ascent's long A. It holds 25 rounds, fires at 9.75 rounds per second, and its only real weakness is that every one of those bullets has to be aimed — there's no fire-rate cushion to fall back on if your crosshair drifts.

The Phantom is the Vandal's mirror image. It fires faster at 11 rounds per second out of a 30-round magazine, comes with a built-in silencer that hides your tracers and muffles your shots past 40 meters, and wins close-range trades where spray control matters more than one-tap precision — Riot's own data shows it taking roughly half its kills inside 15 meters and out-dueling the Vandal head-to-head at that distance. The tradeoff is damage falloff: headshots drop from 156 to 140 once a fight stretches past 20 meters, occasionally leaving a shot that should kill someone alive for a follow-up.

Pick the Vandal when you want every bullet to count the same regardless of range. Pick the Phantom when you expect to be sprayed at up close, need the silencer for an off-angle, or you'd rather not think about damage falloff on a bad server. Either is a correct buy on full economy, and that's exactly why they're still S-tier.

03A-Tier: The Warden

The Warden is the most interesting rifle Riot has shipped in years, and it's also the hardest one to rank with any confidence — it's six days old at the time of writing, and pick-rate and win-rate data from Riot hasn't been published yet, so treat this placement as our early read rather than a settled verdict.

What we do know from the patch notes is that the Warden hits harder than either S-tier rifle: 50 damage to the body at any range with no falloff, a 200-damage headshot, and 42 to the legs. Compare that to the Vandal's 40/160/34 and the gap is real — the Warden is, bullet for bullet, the strongest rifle in the game. It also carries a built-in 2x ADS scope, doubling the Vandal and Phantom's 1.25x zoom, which makes it genuinely useful for holding a sightline the way you'd use a Guardian or lean on an Operator.

The cost is fire rate and ammo. At 6.5 rounds per second and an 18-round magazine, the Warden reloads its lethality slower than the Vandal reloads its bullets, and it holds seven fewer rounds. In a close-range spray duel against a Phantom, that fire-rate deficit is going to lose you fights the Warden's raw numbers say it should win. We're placing it in A-tier for now: it's a legitimate long-range alternative to committing to a sniper, but it asks you to fight at a distance the S-tier rifles handle just as well without giving up close-range consistency.

There's also an economy question nobody has a real answer to yet. The Warden costs the same 2,900 credits as a Vandal or Phantom, but it plays closer to a hybrid of the Guardian and an Operator — which means its value is going to swing hard depending on map and role. An Operator-style anchor holding a long angle on Haven's C long or Ascent's mid gets more out of the Warden's 2x scope and one-shot-adjacent power than an entry fragger who needs to challenge multiple close angles per round. Until Riot publishes pick-rate data by role, treat any claim about who "should" be buying the Warden as informed speculation, ours included.

04B-Tier: Guardian

The Guardian is VALORANT's other precision option, and it's been quietly effective since launch without ever being flashy. At 2,250 credits it's semi-automatic, firing 5.25 rounds per second from a 12-round magazine, but each shot does 195 headshot damage — just five points shy of the Warden's 200, and well clear of either S-tier rifle. High wall penetration also lets it punish enemies peeking through smokes or thin cover in a way medium-penetration rifles can't.

Its ceiling is real: a player with clean aim can out-duel a Vandal at range because every Guardian headshot is a kill regardless of armor. Its floor is what keeps it out of S-tier — miss your first shot in a close-range fight and the fire rate won't let you recover before a Phantom or Vandal finishes you off. It's a rifle for players who trust their crosshair placement over their spray control, and a genuinely underrated buy on an eco-adjacent round where the 650-credit discount off a full rifle buy matters.

05C-Tier: Bulldog

At 2,050 credits, the Bulldog is VALORANT's budget rifle, and it plays like one. Its primary fire is full-auto at 10 rounds per second, but the headshot damage — 115 — is low enough that a single hit rarely ends a fight outright, especially against an enemy with a full 50-shield. The alternate-fire burst mode trades rate of fire for tighter accuracy, but it's a niche tool rather than a reason to buy the gun.

The Bulldog's real job isn't to win a straight gunfight against a Vandal or Phantom — it's to be a cheaper full-auto option than the Guardian when your team needs rifles on a half-buy round and can't stretch to 2,900. Judged purely on power, it's the weakest of VALORANT's five rifles, which is why it sits alone in C-tier even though it's far from a bad gun.

06Tips for Adjusting Your Buys This Patch

If you're not ready to commit to the Warden's slower fire rate, don't abandon your Vandal or Phantom habits just because a new toy showed up in the buy menu — Riot's own comparison data on the two established rifles still holds, and nothing about patch 13.06 changed their base stats. Treat the Warden as a situational pick for maps and angles where you'd otherwise be tempted to save for an Operator, not as a blanket replacement for your main.

Riot's September 14, 2026 dev update previewing Patch 13.06's Warden, Agent Mastery, and Gauntlet: Glitched, ahead of the update's September 22 launch.

Rifle prices, ranges, and fire rates change slowly in VALORANT — the Vandal and Phantom have anchored this tier list since the game's first year. What's new is that Riot finally gave players a third way to spend those 2,900 credits, and whether the Warden climbs into S-tier will depend on data we simply don't have yet. Check back after a full competitive cycle to see if that early read holds.