Source
r/VALORANT•
Recabilly

Light armor only

Discussion

Lately I've been playing with light armor only, and I want to share my experience with it and get your opinion on it.

Here are the reasons I use light armor only:

  1. It's cheaper and I'm able to buy up more often than my teammates. I always have enough money to buy for a teammate.

  2. I noticed that I very rarely die from any less damage than 150. There are a few occasions where I die from a one tap with a phantom with 140 damage, but it's not as common as I feel people think. The phantom shoots so quickly and accurately that if I didn't die from the first bullet, I will most likely die from the second bullet anyway.

  3. In csgo, it's a waste of money to buy head armor on CT side because the T side will have AKs which are a one tap to the head even with head armor. In Valorant, the enemy team could just as easily buy a vandal at any point of the game. Since a vandal is one tap to the head with full armor, I feel like the same reasoning applies here.

My teammates react quite differently... They usually start off by saying "buy heavy armor" and I say "nah, I don't like heavy armor". Some respond with "lol why not?" and I joke around saying "it's too heavy" and everyone is in a fine mood and we play the rest of the game just fine.
Others respond with "that's fucking stupid" and throughout the entire game they act like I'm either throwing or I'm an idiot just because I have light armor, regardless of how many times I can buy for my teammates. I try to explain my reasoning and if they don't listen to reason and act toxic I just mute them.

This doesn't mean that I never buy heavy armor. I pay attention to economy. If I'm maxed out or will be maxed out, I'll buy heavy. If the enemy team is on an eco round, I'll buy heavy because I know they can't afford a vandal or OP. If it's last round I'll buy heavy.

I think too many people are buying heavy armor every single round. I think it's better to buy heavy armor when it makes sense to instead of buying it any round that you can afford it. What do you all think?

Posted Mar 29, 2021, 2:38 AM UTC

1129
ShotcallerBilly•

You’re assuming every shot is a head shot, and you’re ignoring abilities in your post. You mention other guns, but I still think you aren’t completely factoring in how much each hit point matters. You want the enemy to have to do the most to kill you. Sure a 1 shot from a vandle kills in the head, but if they miss the head instead of getting a 125 body spray its 150 to kill. Make them have to headshot you to win. Make every fight as hard as possible because they may hit you for 140, but then miss 2-3 bullets allowing you to kill. With light armor, you are dead. A lot of gun fights are close, and games can be won or lost on nuance. Light armor has a place. Heavy is better for sure in pretty much all full buys.

33
AsyndeticMonochamus•

interesting what elo are you in

23
PawahD•

exactly my thought

8
RecabillyOP•

After doing this method I went from silver 1 to gold 1, but I'm not attributing this with my rank up, it's just a coincidence. I have also been heavily working on my aim at the same time of starting this.

7
AsyndeticMonochamus•

yeah im silver but im skeptical because there are a ton of damaging utilities in this game and ya need all the health you can get, and spraying is really advantageous

20
abcd63514•

no flame but this doesnt make a lot of sense because silvers/golds will not be headshotting u a lot of times. also a lot of silvers/golds will buy phantom so the 140 will be pretty common.

4
Honigbrottr•

I thought they dont hs often so how can a phantome 140 be common then xd

2
Reg1n4•

With light shield u get slowed more when tagged compared to heavy

-14
rslee1247•

Source?

10
RecabillyOP•

I honestly didn't know this! Thank you, this is definitely something to consider...

1†
Gooierwheat:Omen: LOOK BEHIND U•

Not true mate

7
DigitalSubsistence•

I'm able to buy up more often than my teammates

I think this is actually bad, no? Saving 600 when your team full spends and then buying when they can't will just fuck up your buy timings.

Then what if you lose gun round? You saved 600 credits? What are you going to do? Buy a ghost and hope to 1v5 while your team is running around with classics? Even if you full save with your team you'll be at 5000 instead of 4400 -- both of which are enough to invest in a full buy anyway.

I think If your team wants to invest in a round, you should fully invest in the round. If everyone on your team had your same mindset you'd be at an effective 125 HP disadvantage on gun rounds. Funnily enough that's a full player with light armor.

11
RecabillyOP•

I also only do this with certain characters. If I am duelist, I'll more often purchase heavy, but if I'm sentinel then I'll get light.

I also don't just buy every single round, I just mean that I have more money even if my team doesn't, which allows me to buy my team smgs or bucky on rounds that normally might be a full save round.

3
BittexGaming:cypher: <3 :kayo: pls maybe Omen too•

Well if leg shots, smgs and wallbangs wouldn't exist i would probably buy light armor more, but i hate the Phantom and every corner in this game is wallbangable even with a classic

9
RecabillyOP•

Very true. I notice myself being more cautious of where I stand and how I peek certain areas because of my light armor decision. I know that I can die from wall bangs easier so I tend to avoid the areas that are often prefired.

3
Timidityyy:phoenix:•

The only reason this is even somewhat working for you so far is most likely because you're still playing against people who have bad crosshair placement or just have pretty bad aim in general.

You need all the HP you can get. Even without accounting for abilities and wallbangs, light armor gets you one-tapped by a sheriff at long range and a phantom at mid range. Even if you're playing against people who just spray, heavy shields would cost someone one or two more bullets to kill you, and that doesn't account for bullets that miss (and if you have a healer, then you pretty much just lost the armor).

Just because a vandal can one tap you at any range doesn't mean you shouldn't take every advantage you can afford. Those 600 credits isn't as valuable as you not needlessly dying in a full buy round. That potentially one extra bucky/spectre in save rounds isn't worth the hassle if the only reason you could've afforded that was to make almost every buy round harder for your team. Like, why play for the save rounds when you can just... potentially not lose a full buy?

If the enemy team is on an eco round, I'll buy heavy because I know they can't afford a vandal or OP.

This line of thinking is just weird too. So you'd make it harder for them to kill you on an eco round, but purposefully easier when they're full buying? I mean, almost every pistol takes only 2 headshots to kill you at close range regardless of armor choice, so by your logic, you should be going for light armor to save more money anyway 🤷‍♂️

7
RecabillyOP•

Okay, I can see this being true. This will work only up to a certain skill level and then I should switch to full armor whenever I can. Thanks for your input!

2
retrospectivevista•

What I thought you were saying by buying heavy on eco rounds was that the non vandal/phantom guns like smgs will hit 125 hp faster than they hit 150hp. This is another reason why I thought you liked the light armor.

If you only count body and headshots, which make up the most hits, then if you get hit with 3 shots from the vandal, it is 120 damage, where you are still alive with light armor, then the next shot kills you no matter what. The same applies with the phantom, except in the case of 15-30m range.

The smgs however, with their low damage per shot, nearly always kill before 150hp.

This is a thought that I haven't fully investigated with an experiment like you, yet I still don't understand why this isn't more commonly known. I realize that ability damage/wallbangs/legshots are reasons to get heavy armor, yet still I feel they are not enough to warrant it when you're low on creds.

3
WhiteShapes:kayo:•

I guess the only benefit of heavy is a .45 milisecond more react time. for the extra 600 where your can not have to save a round when on a steady money route is pretty good.

4
purplepower4271:sova:•

This definitley doesn't seem viable. With the amount of chip damage in the game having 25 less HP is actually important

3
gfdhgngfnmgfjhdf•

this is a bad idea with even worse reasoning. buy light armor if you're pressed for money but don't cheap out if you can help it

3
Holiday_Cattle•

I buy heavy Shields, but cheap out on guns

I mostly play with spectre and ares even in late rounds with cash to spare...

So that if a teammate needs a vandal or op i can buy

2
TimothyOhh•

Terrible.

Solid players that use their utility correctly and also spam walls will chip your health down. That extra 25 is crucial.

You can only get away with this in lower Elos

2
LosingHand•

It kind of depends on what you value more: saving money by getting OPed or vandal/guardian/sheriff headshotted or whatever that kills you anyway regardless of what armor you have, or trying to have more survivability against pistols/smgs/abilities by buying heavy armor. The difference between being alive with 4 health and dying can be the difference in rounds, but it also might not be and you did well by saving the money.

​

The problem is: You don't really know which rounds the armor you buy will make a difference, until it's too late. I'm not saying that only buying light armor is bad, but it does have potential drawbacks via you dying when you might have lived with heavy armor.

1
RecabillyOP•

So far I've only experienced a handful of times where I die to less than 150 damage. I can probably count it on my hands from the last 20 games. It's extremely rare to die from less than 150, at least from what I've seen. Someone else pointed out that this might only be working for me because I'm not playing with people who have amazing aim. So it might only work up until a certain skill level.

1
Colonel_HD_Sanders•

I am primarily a light armor player, but I wouldn't recommend it in general. If u are playing hit or miss angles, prefiring, peek very tightly/jiggle peek, play off angles where u can reset fight safely, it is no problem. It works best with Jett though, with Ult+light armor u get a tremendous money advantage.

You can get easy picks during ecos because your enemies think "oh they only can buy pistols and need to save" and let their guard down, all you need is 1-2 picks and suddenly your team has weapons worth 5800 bucks, while the enemy team is down 5800.

And even if you buy during eco's, you can always afford to buy next round too, so you don't screw your team. If match goes well, you get multiple Operators or can drop lots of rifles, if match goes bad, you can turn the tides.

1