Mastering the Art of Marking in Valorant: Tips and Strategies
Are you new to Valorant and wondering what marking is all about?
In this comprehensive guide, we will explore the importance of marking in Valorant and how it can benefit your gameplay.
From using the ping system to communicating with your team effectively, we will cover everything you need to know about marking in Valorant.
Stay tuned to learn about the different types of markers, how to use them strategically, and common mistakes to avoid.
Let’s dive in and elevate your Valorant skills!
Contents
Key Takeaways:
What Is Valorant?
Valorant is a free-to-play multiplayer tactical tactical first-person shooter (FPS) produced by the Riot Games dev studio in Los Angeles. A five-player-per-team Counter-Strike-like game, it was announced in October 2019 under the codename Project A, and fully released on June 2, 2020. Valorant now has 10 agents, a number of maps, game modes such as Unrated, Spike Rush, and Deathmatch, as well as alternating Competitive and Champion stages. In the competitive mode, two teams of five battle one another. Throughout, players seek to deploy their chosen agent’s specific skills and weapons to advance their team’s strategic plan and eliminate the opposition.
What Is Marking in Valorant?
Marking in Valorant is a heads up to your teammates that you have identified the location and status of an enemy or area on the map with potential enemy presence. Why, where, who, what, when, and how they are marked are always communicated to offer each teammate the best information. This increases shared team situational awareness, improves strategies and tactics, and aids in coordination and teamwork.
Why Is Marking Important in Valorant?
Marking targets in Valorant is important to communicate with one’s team so that a goal is established for a coordinated push into the game, achieving map progression rather than remaining stagnant the whole round. This allows for players to visually know what they are pushing on the map as well as allowing tactical improvement through better information gathering, which becomes particularly important during the later stages of a round. It naturally encourages map awareness and improvement in communicating vital information.
How to Mark in Valorant?
You mark in Valorant by going into the settings and changing the key binding for place ping marker under the Communication menu. Marking is a Valorant term to drop a ping to provide your teammates with the location of opponents. This is useful when you spot an enemy or suspect an enemy is in that position, but cannot actively push that location yourself. You can also use them as marks to remember locations for yourself.
In Valorant, marking a ping uses the Walk, Move, Mic and Communication keys (customizable in the Key Bindings) and follows these steps:
- Open the map with the WALK key. You can also show the map by clicking on the green speck in the lower right of your screen, or thumbstick on a game controller.
- Click to pinpoint the target location where an enemy is moving or hiding.
- Add an ‘X’ to remove the mark by clicking the MOVE key after selecting a mark to help clear communications if not needed.
- Use the MIC key for chatting and say the target location loudly to help remember and guide other team members to focus on that location. Most gaming headsets will have a microphone for video game communications, and these can be lowered or controlled in-game as needed.
If communicating on a call across systems, you can invite other teammates to a Discord channel, which allows you to speak across systems, helping avoid the in-game communication bugs. To see where your teammates on the same team are marking, use the Ping circle to see where others have marked. This will help provide tracking and mutual support for marked locations and threats.
Using the Ping System
Right-clicking anywhere on the map, left-clicking on a player’s icon, or, if pointing at a planted Spike, pressing the key bound to Ping Spike will allow you to mark in Valorant using the ping system. A marker will include the name of the player or Spike’s location at the time of marking, as well as the current time. Different pings can be used to modify the message typed with the ping, which serves as an option if a player can’t or won’t talk on voice in addition to providing more detail on the location of the marker beyond just a character overlay.
Using Voice Chat
In Valorant, players can use the in-built VOIP or voice chat to mark. This enables live tracking and marking of the enemy using voice, according to the game’s update #2 on May 14 (0:02). However, this method is less efficient than using the ping system as it requires more time, attention, and early communication with team members. Use pinging as the primary communication method and switch to voice chat under fire when you may not have the time or means to use pings.
Using In-game Markers
In the in-game voice chat window, the fifth and sixth buttons at the top of the screen are blue and pink markers. You can remember this as c blue = c for camera = pink. Activation can be completed by clicking the right bot and dragging the mouse in the form of an arrow. Alternatively, you can press the middle mouse button on the blue and pink crosshairs to apply pins or a ping. The markers give greater accuracy to a ping and easily let teammates know if there are multiple enemies in an area. The icon will stick to the agent that marked it. A pink marker placed over a yellow marker will stick to the yellow, so a urinal will be aware that you are pinging their original angle, or that a Cypher trap is located there.
What Are the Different Types of Markers in Valorant?
The three types of markers in Valorant include the player markers, ability markers, and targeting markers. Player markers in Valorant are the tagging of friendly and enemy players with in-game markers and gives real-time information regarding the game map, player identity, health status, and more. Ability markers in Valorant are in-game effects that create visual markers to identify agent abilities and events on the map. It also includes HUD features such as agent ability abilities in the inventory. Targeting markers in Valorant include effects outside of friendly and enemy markers, such as impact frag markers, post-death frag markers which show a player the impact of certain decisions/risks, and remarkable players, agents, or plays markers.
Enemy Marker
Enemy markers are positioned on the map whenever an enemy is damaged within a previous four-second window. The radius on the map indicates the spread of markers associated with that enemy based on a multiplier of the gun which shot them (2Ms for pistols, 5M for rifles, 9M for shotguns, 20M for snipers, 0.15M for knives), according to the Valorant Fandom page. Utility marker locations can be influenced by the presence of enemy markers. A minimum of three enemy markers is needed to determine the enemy’s location for the Sova’s Recon Bolt ability.
Although damage or utilizing breach abilities are the most common ways to reveal or be aware of an enemy’s location, according to Valorant Gamepedia, even indirect signs such as camera/shadows from the eaves inside the building or reflections in windows from a battlefield being played nearby can be indicators of the enemy’s position.
Location Marker
Location markers in Valorant enable a player to easily mark a location on the map or on their opponent’s head. This can be done by holding the i key (default for Defenders – JOptionPane) if using a keyboard or by saying Jett, mark this if you are using voice chat, then clicking on the map. Once you click on the map, other players will see a red archway icon appear on the mini-map in the spot you marked. You can also double-click on the map to mark locations around the spot you clicked as the center point.
The location marker lasts for 2 seconds as of Episode 3. Ahead of this episode, location markers showed up for 7 seconds. While it is likely to be too faint for most players to see in the heat of battle, the location marker can be utilized after every death by the Recon agent to mark the exact long-range location of the opponents. This is essential for the Shot Calling teammate to line up the best possible strategic play or rotation after the Recon agent respawns.
Weapon Marker
A Weapon Marker is a marker tool used to mark where you dropped your weapon. This drawing function in Vanguard (Valorant’s anti-cheat software) pings the minimap at your location where the weapon is dropped. It is almost the same as marking the spike, and can be done by holding the drawing button and left-clicking where you dropped it. Similar to marking the spike, you can also ping the minimap at the location of the weapon by going to the item in the store and pinging.
Ability Marker
Ability marker is a concept unique to Raid and is a form of healing that lasts until the end of the match. When a teammate is hit, a marker is placed with their health bar and a colored dot on the team’s minimap. Abilities such as Sova’s Recon Bolt and Sage’s Slow Orb slow orb can be used to mark players when they are missing and to learn if the enemy is near each other.
How to Use Markers Effectively in Valorant?
Use markers in Valorant by opening the map and clicking empty space. Hold the left mouse button to leave targeted pings on the map and information like enemy ultimate status and spot pings requires Alt + Click.
Markers are how a player communicates with the team without using voice chat, informing them about what is happening or requesting help. Effective use of markers in Valorant is fairly simple, as the ping marking system is intuitive and quickly grasped. Examples of how to use markers most effectively in Valorant include marking for enemy status when you have information, using the ping system as a communication tool when navigating the map, and calling for assistance when defending sites such as C. The ability to ping pulse areas, communicate without taking your gun off target, and ask for help or indicate the direction of an enemy’s presence make the Valorant ping system highly practical and should be used whenever voice chat is not an option.
Communicate Clearly
Communicate clearly with your team by keeping your mark brief, relevant and concise. Being brief means using the least amount of words possible while getting your message across. Relevant means only communicating necessary information that will affect the decisions of either other individuals working as part of your team or teammates who may act upon what you are saying. Express words or phrases to describe your mark with conciseness and to keep it brief.
Use Markers Strategically
Players mark both the map and the playfield to communicate strategy and tactics to teammates. This marker system in Valorant creates a visual layout for players’ strategic plans.
When playing as a team, always mark the map to make optimal movement routes. Making sure you collectively move together, push for control of areas, or even to fall back from a bad team fight. Brushing the pros and cons and alternative options, pressing and removing the map markers as needed to change team strategy.
Be Aware of Your Team’s Markers
You can add any points that are important to your strategy, even if they do not come from the opposing team. If your team uses markers, they will appear at the most recent locations called by your teammates, so the marker your opponent’s placed may indicate where your own team’s marker was last placed. This could be an important indicator to either turn attention that way or away based on when your own team last had someone in that position.
What Are Some Common Mistakes to Avoid When Marking in Valorant?
- Marking as an entry fragger – Entry fraggers (role agents) are meant to be the first ones in hunting information about enemy positioning. It is optimal for duelists or sentinels such as Phoenix, Yoru, Sage, Killjoy, or Raze to mark the enemy in order to gain quick entry kills using the information relayed by the mark.
- Marking heading into the final zone – In the last 15-20 seconds of a contested spike scenario in search and destroy mode, marking enemies and relaying that information to the team is generally crucial as all remaining players on both sides are committed to either planting or eliminating the planting team. Gaining information on enemy whereabouts can have a big impact on the game. Mark only when necessary.
There are several mistakes common to marking that should be avoided when playing Valorant. These include:
- Marking through cover – This can give positions away too early if you are caught unaware by a flank.
- Over-marking – Repeatedly marking enemies without any clear purpose can draw attention to your team’s position and distract them from gameplay or become the boy who cries wolf.
- Carefully choosing agents to mark – If there are too many markers in the team, they may not produce the necessary output and simply end up hindering team strategies. Choose the roles of marking agents wisely and relay information when needed.
- Marking through walls if not necessary – It can give away the ability of tracking and scouting enemies when they already have a rough idea of their position.
Overusing Markers
Overuse of markers can be a problem in Valorant gameplay for a similar reason to comms fludding. It can distract players and might lead to a marker losing its meaning in the eyes of a team. Imagine if players casually marked almost every spot on the map or marker feature points like a refrigerator instead of an incoming enemy so players have too many markers to pay attention to. To avoid overuse and alert misuse, it’s important to evaluate the appropriate time to apply the Control+Left Click combination based on these factors.
Not Communicating with Teammates
Not communicating with teammates is the second most common mistake in marking in Valorant. Marksmen stand back and rely on the rest of their Valorant team to make decisions without providing their own information. In this way, team play is missing. Calling out enemy locations or using one-way voice chat features such as pings or map locations to inform their teammates about what they are doing is a vital aspect of helping accomplish objectives.
For example declare where they are setting up a snipe or which way they are flanking an enemy. According to Team Dignitas, the #1 eSports company in the world, one of their best practices for Valorant communications is to establish a location-based calling system with map-specific information. This means that you establish what terms you will use for specific environments on every map and you make sure your team knows them.
Ignoring Markers from Teammates
While the default behavior in Valorant is to pay attention to markers from teammates, there are certainly situations where it is helpful to ignore them. If your teammate has marked an area occupied by an enemy but their mark has disappeared, this mark was from having an enemy on their screen that you, the player, did not have on your screen, according to Riot Kanna’s Reddit post entitled Improving the Pinging System.
Learn to trust your instincts. Do not rely too much on markers from teammates.
Frequently Asked Questions
How to Mark in Valorant?
FAQs:
How do I mark an enemy in Valorant?
To mark an enemy in Valorant, press and hold down the Ping button (default: Z) while aiming at the enemy. This will place a red marker on their location for your teammates to see.
Can I mark a specific location on the map in Valorant?
Is there a way to mark a specific location on the map in Valorant?
Yes, you can mark a specific location on the map by pressing and holding down the Ping button (default: Z) without aiming at an enemy. This will place a yellow marker on the terrain for your teammates to see.
What is the purpose of marking in Valorant?
Why should I bother marking in Valorant?
Marking in Valorant is a great way to communicate with your teammates and coordinate your strategy. You can mark enemies, locations, or even items to alert your team and make a plan for your next move.
Can I customize my marking options in Valorant?
Are there any options to personalize my marking in Valorant?
Yes, you can customize your marking options in the game settings. You can change the keybind for pinging, adjust the color of your markers, and even enable markers to show on your minimap.
How long do markings stay on the map in Valorant?
How much time do I have to act on a marked location or enemy in Valorant?
Markers in Valorant will stay on the map for a short period of time, typically around 5 seconds. After that, they will disappear and you will need to mark again to keep the information fresh.
Is it possible to remove a marker in Valorant?
Can I remove a marker that I previously placed in Valorant?
Yes, you can remove your own markers by pressing the Ping button (default: Z) while aiming at the marker. This will delete it from the map and your teammates will no longer see it.
