---
title: '5 Vandal Tips to Escape Low Elo in 2026'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=Dz4_ZbBMNBI'
video_id: 'Dz4_ZbBMNBI'
date: 2026-08-03
duration_sec: 643
---

# 5 Vandal Tips to Escape Low Elo in 2026

> Source: [5 Vandal Tips to Escape Low Elo in 2026](https://youtube.com/watch?v=Dz4_ZbBMNBI)

## Summary

This video provides five actionable tips for Valorant players stuck in low elo, focusing on mastering the Vandal rifle. The tips cover burst firing, using aim-down-sight (ADS) for long-range accuracy, maintaining gun hygiene, isolating gunfights, and exploiting range advantages. The video includes practice drills and emphasizes the Vandal's unforgiving nature as a tool for improving fundamental skills.

### Key Points

- **Tip 1: Rely on Bursts** [00:17] — Instead of panic spraying, use controlled 2-5 bullet bursts. Riot increased protected bullets from 4 to 6 and reduced horizontal recoil switch time from 37 to 6 seconds, making bursts more predictable and reliable.
- **Practice Bursting in Range** [01:34] — Practice bursting in the practice range, standing back to mimic mid-range fights. Focus on 2-5 bullet bursts between lateral strafes. Use the shooting error graph to ensure accuracy. Transition to Team Deathmatch for realistic practice.
- **Tip 2: Use ADS for Long Range** [03:09] — The Vandal is strong at long range but requires ADS. ADSing reduces first shot spread from 0.25 to 0.157, and crouching while ADSing reduces it further to 0.13. This is crucial for hitting long-range shots.
- **Practice ADSing** [04:04] — Practice ADSing in a custom server with a friend on a long-range map like Haven. Focus on ADSing between strafes to avoid movement speed penalty. Use TDM to practice long-range fights intentionally.
- **Tip 3: Maintain Gun Hygiene** [04:57] — The Vandal punishes mistakes. You must control movement, shot timing, and accuracy. Stop briefly to reset accuracy before firing, especially when strafing. Practice with the shooting error graph in the range, firing only when accurate.
- **Tip 4: Isolate Gunfights** [06:54] — Avoid fighting multiple enemies at once. Break fights into 1v1 duels using utility, terrain, and communication. This minimizes the Vandal's weaknesses in spray transfers. Practice by peeking one bot at a time in the range.
- **Tip 5: Exploit Range Advantage** [09:01] — When facing weaker long-range weapons like the Phantom, take your time to line up one taps. You can afford to be patient because you won't die instantly. For super long-range fights, aim for upper body/head and shoot 1-2 bullets at a time.

### Conclusion

Mastering the Vandal's mechanics—bursting, ADSing, gun hygiene, isolating fights, and exploiting range—is the key to escaping low elo. The Vandal's unforgiving nature forces you to develop solid fundamentals that translate to overall improvement.

## Transcript

most rounds and learning it will make your aim better. And for many players, the key to escaping low elo is precisely that, mastering the one tap machine. immortal and radiant. And I can tell you that the Vandal is the best gun to learn
Valerant's fundamentals, improve your gameplay, and escape low elo. So, let's go over five Vandal tips to escape low elo today. The first tip is to rely more on bursts to secure kills. And we're not talking about panic spraying a full mag
shooting just a few controlled shots mid-range. The reason why I'm giving you this advice is that Riot made some key changes that matter way more than you think. They increased the horizontal
think. They increased the horizontal recoil switch time from 37 seconds to 6 seconds, which basically means the side to side bouncing is way more predictable when you're bursting. There's also a slightly higher chance the recoil
direction changes, but honestly that only affects those long desperate sprays here's the real game changer, the protected bullets shots, which follow a consistent pattern without random bullets. And this increased from four to
six. So instead of relying on only four consistent bullets, you now have six, which makes bursting incredibly reliable. You can now confidently rip off six bullet bursts aimed at the head or chest level without worrying about
your shots flying everywhere. Sure, one tapping is faster, but in low elo where on bursts instead of trying to go for one taps at all costs is going to secure more kills, especially against enemies
and right. Now, learning to burst properly starts in the practice range. loaded up and stand further back to mimic a regular mid-range gunfight. And concentrate on bursting two to five bullets in between your lateral strafes.
error and your bullets are flying accurately, take a look at the shooting seeing orange bars and keep going until you've got the muscle memory down. And you can also use a target in the range at 20 m and fire short bursts, making
sure you're staying inside that first circle. Now, once you've built some confidence, you can transition into team deathmatches. TDMs provide a broad range of angles and ranges that mirror actual gameplay situations. And throughout your
TDMs, focus exclusively on bursting while maintaining steady crosser work through two to three matches of this exercise as part of your warm-up routine. And through regular practice, you'll see your burst and aim improve in
you think that you're already good at bursting, but you're still stuck in the lower ranks, my team of Radiant and BC coaches can give you feedback inside our premium 10week immortal romap program. Our average student gains 500 RR in 10
weeks. And these are some of the things that our students have to say about us. We offer 100 plus hours of personalized coaching with one-on ones, custom scrims. And we're so confident in our coaching that if you don't rank up 500
RR in 10 weeks, we'll give you a full refund. We only have a few spots left use the link in the description to book a free call with me or one of our tracker together, go over your goals, and see if we'd be a good fit. Now,
here's something most low elo players completely ignore about the Vandal, and that's ADSing or aiming down sight. The Vandal is incredibly strong at long range, but you have to ADS to unlock that potential. Too many players stick
thus completely missing out on the Vandal's strongest asset, which is this one tap ability at any range. Sculpting, the first shot spread on the Vandal drops from 0.25 to.157.
And if you're crouched while ADSing, that goes down to.13. This simply means aiming down sight and crouching while staying still. And actually mastering non-negotiable if you want to climb. Aiming down sights tightens your bullet
and accurate shots on enemies who are peeking or holding long range angles. And in low elo matches, players constantly throw away this advantage by leads them to miss shots that should be free kills. If you want to master ADSing
during long range fights, grab a friend and load into a custom server. If you my free Discord server that has other coaching resources in there. And next up, load into a longer range map such as Haven and ask your friend to peek at a
longrange angle. For example, Seong on Haven is great for this. Now, practice aim to ADS and getting used to that feeling of changing the zoom. It can whiff some shots, but after practicing it for a while, you'll get used to the
feeling and take advantage of that free extra accuracy. And an important tip that I want to emphasize is that when you are adsing, you only want to ADS between your strafes. That way, your movement speed is not penalized. And
load into a TDM again and be intentional about only taking long-range fights confidence, you'll be able to apply this into your ranked game in no time. And now that you understand how to maximize the Vandal's onetap capabilities at long
range using ADS, there's another critical reality you need to accept about this weapon. Unlike the Phantom or SMGs that lets you get away with sloppy habits, the Vandal punishes every mistake you make. With a Vandal, you
spraying and expect to hit anything consistently, even if you're up close. get away with aggressive movement while firing due to how movement inaccuracy affects your sprays. However, the Vandal demands actual discipline, and this
makes gun hygiene, which is how well you control your movement, shot timing, and the Vandal effectively. Playing the Vandal right, means perfecting your movement and shot timing. You have to pause briefly to reset accuracy before
firing again, particularly when you're strafing. Moving while shooting with the everywhere. So, mastering that rhythm of stopping to shoot, and then moving is strafe quickly, stop, fire your burst or tap, then immediately move again to
timing between your shot and the movement needs to be clean and means you'll miss, and standing still too long means you're dead. At the phase can simply be the brief moment when you're changing direction. And this
makes you a moving target at all times while maintaining high accuracy. So, how do you practice this? Enter the range and position yourself anywhere along the error graph is enabled. If it isn't, navigate to your settings, open the
until you find shooting error. Then, change it to graph only. And once that's set, use only the A and D keys for movement and fire two shots on the wall that we'll use as reference points. Now strafe between them without moving your
crosshair and concentrate on firing only slightly right after you start pressing the opposite movement key. Start slowly and as you build speed, progressively move the two marks closer together until you can still quickly strafe and shoot
wooden pole in the range. Doing this drill will help you improve your gun hygiene and shoot only when your gun is accurate. And what you've just learned mechanic is invaluable for any type of gun in the game. The Vandal is so
because it forces you to be cleaner with your movement and aim and therefore general. And understanding the Vandal's unforgiving nature leads directly into our next essential tip. How you approach fights matters just as much as her
mechanics. Because the Vandal is not as fast and accurate with sprays as the Phantom, you can't afford to fight multiple enemies at once on most occasions. And this is where isolating gunfights comes in. While recent recoil
favors methodical isolated gunfights over chaotic sprays. And trying to fight multiple opponents at once usually results in missing shots with a free death. Because recoil control remains challenging during spray transfers. For
climbing at a low elo, learning to isolate fights is absolutely key to minimizing its weaknesses. One fundamental principle to pay attention to is to avoid fighting more than one enemy at a time whenever possible. Break
down fights into one-on-one duels and create opportunities to focus on single utility to delay or split enemy pushes fights or communicate with teammates to
together. These techniques ensure you're not trying to fight the Avengers all at once and relying on just spraying and praying. And isolating gunfights is also multiple enemies without your teammates's help, you need to avoid
exposing yourself to multiple enemies at once and instead force gunfights on isolated enemies. Using terrain and obstacles can also be extremely strong to fight enemies in isolated 1v ones. Take this example from Tens where he's
using mount on Lotus to isolate a bunch of enemies into single 1v one fights. to kill everyone here, but the same concept stands for every clutch situation. He's always avoiding peeking into multiple enemies at once and trying
his best to isolate each enemy by going in and out of cover from different him. So to practice isolating your fights, let's load into the range and get the practice bots set up. Next, use a sage wall to go in and out of cover
and peek out just enough to see one bot at a time. This will help you avoid over peaking too much and making your character model stick out too much for versus one. Now that you know how to create favorable one versus one
matchup advantage that you need to exploit. When you've successfully isolated a gunfight and you're facing certain weapons at strong range, you to secure the kill if you're using the Vandal. When you're playing against
weaker long range weapons like the Phantom or anything besides a guardian or operator, you can actually afford to take more time lining up one taps at long distances. These weapons generally need more bullets or suffer damage
reaction window even if they shoot first. If a phantom player tags you during a long range duel, you often won't die instantly, which gives you precious milliseconds to steady your aim and land your own shots. And this means
you can be patient and deliberate with shots rather than panicking and firing the instant you spot an enemy. Patience becomes a huge advantage against these weapons at long range. If you're taking super long range gunfights like Long on
isn't strong, make sure that you take more time to aim at the enemy's upper body and head and shoot just one or two bullets at a time. You'll notice that of cake. And taking distance into consideration, you can even change the
gunfights you're looking to take. If you're planning to push long and take long-range fights in attack, you might as well buy the Vandal. but instead if fights in close areas like mid and art on Pearl, the Phantom might be better. I
usually alternate between the two guns based on the map and how I feel about my Valerant's gun system and improve your gun hygiene, stick to the Vandal first. this video, I think you'll also like this one next. And if you're looking for
a systemized approach to improving in Valerant, check out my coaching program in the description below. Thanks for watching.