Metrics
What Is ADR in Valorant?
Average Damage per Round: the cleanest raw output stat, what average looks like by role, and the damage-delta refinement.
ADR - Average Damage per Round - is total damage dealt divided by rounds played. It counts every point of damage whether or not you got the kill, so it credits the chip damage and softening that K/D hands entirely to whoever fired last. Of the raw output stats, it is the cleanest: no scoring formula, no kill-credit luck, just damage over rounds.
ADR = total damage dealt / rounds playedIn Riptide's corpus, ~146 is the average ADR among established competitive players (lobby players with at least 30 competitive games), with a standard deviation of about 12. So ~158 and up is a genuinely strong damage profile, and under ~134 lags the field.
ADR by role
| Role | Corpus average ADR |
|---|---|
| Duelist | 150 |
| Controller | 146 |
| Initiator | 140 |
| Sentinel | 139 |
Per-role corpus ADR means (pooled average 146, SD ~12).
Duelists out-damage the field because the fights come to them; sentinels and initiators spend more of the round on utility and space. The gap matters: a Sentinel at 146 is above their role's bar, a Duelist at 146 is below theirs. Riptide compares your ADR against your role's mean, not the pooled one - see agent roles explained for the structural reasons.
ADR vs ACS vs K/D
| Stat | Measures | Corpus average | Blind spot |
|---|---|---|---|
| ADR | Damage output per round | ~146 | Whether the damage converted into kills or round wins |
| ACS | Riot's damage-led combat score per round | ~220 | Role load, consistency, non-damage contribution |
| K/D | Kills per death | ~1.03 | Chip damage, and whether your deaths were traded |
The three raw fragging stats side by side.
The three usually agree; the interesting players are the ones where they split. High ADR with a flat K/D means you soften targets your teammates finish. High K/D with a modest ADR often means last-hit luck or passive exit frags. See the ACS guide for why the scoreboard stat misleads on its own, and KAST for the contribution layer none of these three see.
Damage delta
Damage delta is the two-sided refinement: damage dealt minus damage received, per round. It is the only headline stat that can go negative, and among established players the average is about +4 per round with a wide spread (SD ~13). A positive delta means you win the damage exchange over time; a negative one means you absorb more than you dish out, whatever your ADR says.
damage delta = (damage dealt - damage received) / roundsBaselined on per-player careers. Per match the stat is zero-sum across the lobby, so a per-match population would center at 0 and flatten everyone.
Delta needs both sides of the ledger
Damage received is only present on newer ingested matches, so the damage delta cell hides until enough of your corpus carries it. ADR itself is available everywhere.
How Riptide uses ADR
ADR is one of the two main inputs to the firepower axis of the Impact rating, and it is standardized against your role's mean, not the pooled field:
firepower = 0.4 z(KAST) + 0.4 z(role ADR) + 0.2 z(multikill rounds)Firepower carries 0.36 of Impact - the largest of the six axis weights.
The KAST-ADR pairing is deliberate: KAST says how often you contributed, ADR says how much. ACS, by contrast, stays display-only - it would double-count what these two already cover.
Reading your ADR
- High ADR, low KAST: damage that does not decide rounds - exit frags and unconverted chip. Aim is fine; timing and follow-up are not.
- Low ADR, high KAST: present in rounds but rarely closing them. Push for damage in the fights you are already taking.
- Judge against your role. 145 on a Sentinel and 145 on a Duelist are different reads; the role means above are the honest bar.
- Pair it with damage delta. A strong ADR while absorbing even more damage is still a losing exchange.
Keep reading
ADR is the output half of firepower; KAST is the contribution half. The stats glossary has every definition and average in one place.