Time to kill, by the numbers: Vandal vs AK-47

Time to kill is a small calculation with a large folklore problem. Everyone knows the Vandal one-taps and the AK-47 one-taps, and past that the numbers people quote come from a video, a wiki, or a friend, from some patch. Here is the maths from the figures in the game files, with the source on each, so you can redo it and see which patch it holds for.

Every input below is a resolved fact in the Knowledge API: the Vandal from Riot's shipped weapon data via valorant-api.com, the AK-47 read from a Counter-Strike 2 install's weapons.vdata_c at build 24916958, VALORANT's shields from the Armor and Shield entity. Two things are not in the corpus and are marked where they appear: a player's 100 base health, and how Counter-Strike applies its armor ratio. VALORANT and Counter-Strike are trademarks of Riot Games and Valve; neither is affiliated with this.

The inputs

Vandal, all at the 0–50 m band (it has one):

• Damage: 160 head, 40 body, 34 leg. Body has been 40 since patch 1.07 (it was 39).
• Fire rate: 9.75 shots per second hip, 8.775 aiming down sights.
• Magazine 25. Equip 1 s. Reload 2.5 s. Cost 2,900 credits.

AK-47:

• Damage: 36 base, headshot multiplier 4 (so 144 to the head before armour).
• Cycle time: 0.1 s between shots. The corpus derives 10 shots per second from it and marks that figure inferred, because Valve's file states the cycle time and not the rate.
• Armor ratio 1.55. Range modifier 0.98. Magazine 30, reserve 90. Deploy 1 s. Cost $2,700, kill award $300.

{ "field": "weapon.damage", "value": 36, "unit": "hp", "tier": "official_gamefiles", "patchFrom": "build 24916958" }
{ "field": "weapon.headshot_multiplier", "value": 4, "unit": "multiplier", "tier": "official_gamefiles" }
{ "field": "weapon.cycle_time_s", "value": 0.1, "unit": "s", "tier": "official_gamefiles" }
{ "field": "weapon.armor_ratio", "value": 1.55, "unit": "multiplier", "tier": "official_gamefiles" }
{ "field": "weapon.fire_rate", "value": 10, "unit": "shots/s", "tier": "inferred" }

Head

Both one-shot. The Vandal's 160 is more than any VALORANT player can absorb: 100 health (the player convention, not a corpus figure) plus the 50 the largest shield absorbs is 150. The AK-47's 144 clears an unarmoured head with room to spare. Time to kill is zero in both cases: the first bullet that lands ends it. The Vandal's data gives no range where that stops being true; the AK-47's helmeted case is a distance question, below.

Body, no armour

Three shots each. Vandal: 40 × 3 = 120, over 100. AK-47: 36 × 3 = 108, over 100. Time to kill is the gap between the first and third shot, so two intervals.

• Vandal: 2 ÷ 9.75 = 0.205 s from the hip.
• AK-47: 2 × 0.1 = 0.200 s.

Five thousandths of a second apart, smaller than anything you would feel. That is the honest answer to "which rifle kills faster to the body": neither.

Body, with armour

This is where the two games part ways, and where most quoted numbers go wrong.

VALORANT. The Armor and Shield entity states it: heavy armor absorbs 66% of each hit into a pool of 50, and the rest goes to health. Run the hits: each body shot puts 26.4 into the shield and 13.6 into health until the pool runs dry, which it does on the second hit; from then on the full 40 lands. Three hits leave health standing; the fourth ends it. Four body shots, three intervals: 3 ÷ 9.75 = 0.308 s. One extra bullet costs you a tenth of a second.

Counter-Strike 2. Armour does not add health; it reduces each hit. The file gives the AK-47 an armor ratio of 1.55. The reading Counter-Strike players have used since Global Offensive is that half the ratio is the fraction that gets through, so 77.5% of 36 is 27.9 per body shot against armour. Three shots is 83.7, short; four is 111.6, enough. Four shots, three intervals: 0.300 s. To a helmeted head at point blank, by the same community reading, 144 × 0.775 = 111.6, still one shot. That one-tap through a helmet is the whole reason the rifle costs what it costs, and the 11.6 of headroom is what the range modifier eats into at distance.

Legs, and range

The Vandal does 34 to the leg: 100 ÷ 34 rounds up to three shots unshielded, and five through heavy armor by the same 66% split. The AK-47's file gives one base damage and multipliers; the corpus does not state a leg multiplier for it, so no leg figure is claimed here. That is the rule the corpus follows everywhere: a number it does not have is null, not a guess.

Range is the other asymmetry. The Vandal's figures hold across its whole 0–50 m band: the same 40 at 45 metres as at 5. The AK-47 carries a range modifier of 0.98, which the game applies to reduce damage with distance, so its numbers above hold at close range and decay from there. The modifier is in the file; how fast it decays is Valve's formula, and the corpus does not pretend to restate it.

The table, for the wall

• Head, any armour: Vandal 1 shot · AK-47 1 shot.
• Body, no armour: Vandal 3 shots, 0.205 s · AK-47 3 shots, 0.200 s.
• Body, full armour: Vandal 4 shots, 0.308 s · AK-47 4 shots, 0.300 s (community armour reading).
• Cost: Vandal 2,900 credits · AK-47 $2,700.

Every figure above will move when a patch moves it, and the file will say which patch. If you want the inputs for another weapon, or for the Phantom against the M4, the same files hold them, with the source on each. That is the difference between a table you can check and one you have to trust.

Questions