Everything You Need to Know About VALORANT’s Outlaw Sniper
With the release of Episode 8, a new weapon, the Outlaw, has been introduced to the game. It’s the first weapon added since VALORANT’s launch.
The Outlaw is a sniper rifle between the Marshall and the Operator price points..
This VALORANT Outlaw guide will review the new weapon’s stats, how best to use and counter it, and how it will affect the meta as a whole
Outlaw’s Stats
- Damage (Head / Body / Leg) = 238 / 140 / 119
- Price = $2400
- Magazine Size = 2
- Fire Rate = 2.75 Rounds/Second
- Reload Speed (2 Shots) = 3.8 seconds
- Reload Speed (1 Shot) = 2.3 seconds
- First Shot Spread (Hip / ADS) = 3.5 / 0
- Penetration = High
- Recoil while ADS = Follows Crosshair
There are some things to take note of that dictate how best to use the weapon. First is the damage. A body shot kills someone with light armor. The fire rate is extremely fast and is almost as fast as the shorty. The reload speed is different between reloading one and two shots, the latter of which is extremely slow. The spread when firing from the hip is fairly accurate. The last thing to take note of is that the ADS recoil follows the crosshair. So the second shot when ADS is will go wherever your crosshair is.
How to Use the Outlaw
Despite being a sniper rifle, the Outlaw plays differently from the Marshall and the Operator. This is primarily because of the difference in its mag size, reload speed, fire rate, and damage. The same agents utilize the Outlaw the best, and that is Chamber and Jett. This is because they can play aggressive angles then dash or teleport away and distance themselves while they go through the extremely slow reload.
The weapon can one-shot a player with light armor, but the high damage has such a high impact on a tag on a full armor player. The fast fire rate also allows the user to quickly two-tap before disengaging. The recoil follows the crosshair when ADS which means your second shot will go where you are aiming. Conveniently the bounce of the crosshair perfectly returns to where you were aiming the first shot when the second shot is ready. This means you can two-shot the same spot in 0.36 seconds and kill someone with full armor and/or hit two people.
If you take note of the reload speed, there is a big difference between the reload speed of one and two shots. If you are in a situation where you can reload with only one shot, you should. It is roughly a 1.5-second difference which is the entire reload speed of the Ghost.
As mentioned before the hip-fire is fairly accurate. It can’t be fired from the hip from very long range like the Marshall, but it can from up close. This weapon is like a Shorty sniper, but it also fills the role of the Shorty quite well. The fire rate, damage, and hip-fire accuracy are all at the level where you can use the Outlaw up close like a shorty. This is a much riskier play, but of all the snipers it is by far the best to use this way if you are getting rushed down.
How to Counter the Outlaw
Playing against the Outlaw is fairly similar to playing against the Operator. Closing the gap and forcing them to fight up close is best. The weapon is surprisingly good up close, but you can secure a trade easily if you get the Outlaw player up close.
The best way to counter the Outlaw is to push during the very long reload. The reload is very slow and provides a window to take ground and push off the Outlaw player. Not only is the two-shot reload slower, but it also has a different audio cue which you can use to get a more accurate timing of when they have their weapon ready. The two-shot reload has a higher pitch metallic sound. Next time you use the Outlaw listen for the difference so you can take advantage of this when playing against the weapon.
Thoughts on the VALORANT Outlaw
In current state, the Outlaw seems very strong. Many thought its intended purpose was to counter the high prevalence of light armor, which it does well, but it also will have a greater impact on the game outside of that. This is because of the high damage and fast fire rate which makes it good against full armor as well. The fire rate lets you two-tap an area so quickly that even if an enemy is full armor you can kill them quickly.
Hitting a player with one shot so they have 10 health left essentially takes them out of the round. Skye is currently popular to heal, but Viper is also very popular which means an enemy chipped from her toxins become one-shot despite full armor. The weapon’s strength will have a fairly large impact on the meta, and most likely won’t be where many thought it was intended in lowering the efficacy of light armor.
How the Outlaw Will Affect the Meta
Being able to one-shot a player with light armor is very strong, but it most likely won’t prevent players from using light armor + rifle. It is still too strong economically, and players will continue to buy light armor because it is still very good against rifles and it saves credits over many rounds. The main difference that will probably be seen is players will buy heavy armor sooner as their economy becomes strong rather than riding light armor out for longer.
The damage will make it very strong as an anti-eco weapon and will make forcing the second round far too risky. The Outlaw will be a very popular second-round buy after a win because it will kill any player with a body shot if they save or force. Then you can take it into the third round where buying a rifle and light armor is very popular for the team that lost the pistol round.
The Outlaw can be a mainstay as something to buy on full buys as an alternate means of saving credits due to its price and ability to one-shot a player with light armor. Light armor isn’t going anywhere, so a player with this weapon can punish that and save money themself due to the $500 difference between the Outlaw and a Rifle.
Using the Outlaw can be an Operator replacement in matches where you can’t get your economy in a good place and there is a lot of back and forth in rounds. This is because an Operator is hard to afford in games like this, but also these are games in which light armor is extremely popular.
