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Valorant Higher Elo Insights

Byjack

Yesterday I played two 10 man customs with my brother. It was interesting because everyone was higher elo (high plat to diamond, and immo peak).

I realized something while playing with them. First, they aren’t much better skill wise, but take much fewer risks when they place. I often take a lot of risks and rely on my aim.

However, something occurred to me recently while watching profession Valorant play.

Diamonds and even immortal are not the best Valorant players and I know even from my own Valorant games that playing defensive is not always the best move.

The point is the take risks when you need to, like when your team is down numbers, or if you have a read. In those moments, you need to believe in yourself, trust in your aim and play aggressive, not afraid.

Often times, when I play aggressively, it is out of fear, confusion, and pressure to make a play. When I play defensive, I’m always afraid, confused and defensively hide.

I wonder what it would be like to play in a more yin yang balanced approach. As you would in tai chi, be soft when they are hard, hard when they are soft. What that might me in Valorant is to be gone from places where the team is holding strong map control, and be present in places where they are weak.

I don’t exactly know how this will work as a technique, but I’d like to try it out today.

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Valorant Challenge 1: Spike Rush Cypher

Byjack

Today I didn’t have the time or the pc to play competitively. I played a couple of spike rush games as cypher.

Impressions:

  • Hot damn it’s hard to play cypher. So much to put down in so little time. The cages are HARD to use as well.
  • I don’t know if playing different agents will help me play. Maybe I should just refine my mains.
  • I think agents like cypher play around their utility (they almost never peek unless they have to). I wonder if I should do that more with all agents (play around flash and grenades, shockdarts and mollys)
    • Makes me think flashes are waay worse at getting info. It’s all or nothing. The timing needs to be right and you need to be able to push with your team to gain ground rather than flashing randomly.
  • To counter a cypher I need to guess where the camera is and shoot it out. Requires knowledge of common cam spots. Dunno how I will get that knowledge without watching tons of videos. Poopers.
  • Cage + wires can be OP since wires reveal and cage block their vision.
  • You need to be f*cking fast on the camera or they will shoot it out.
  • Crouch and shoot wires head level to get wires you cannot jump or crouch over or under.

I feel like my posture was pretty terrible after the practice. My left shoulder blade was hurting and my stomach was clenched.

I need to work on processing the emotions better and feeling my body more (using the sensual feeling technique I will discuss later). I will also need to work on posture exercises way more. After working my body for about 20 minutes with shaking, stretching, and posture exercises, my should mostly doesn’t hurt anymore and my digestion feels much better.

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Valorant 26: Back to Basics

Byjack

So I’ve been stuck in Silver 3 forever after the rank reset and it seems that I need to do a second climb to Plat again. Perhaps I just need to relearn the basics better.

So there is a peeking guide by Noted that I’ve been trying to apply for the longest time and I think I finally understand a good mentality and visualization that can make the peeks good. It is interesting because I’ve been feeling so down about Valorant recently but I always tell myself that the lower elo I go, the more freedom I have to innovate, and innovation is definitely the thing I like to do.

So here is Noted’s peeking guide:

He talks in the peeking guide that its just something you “get used to”. But I wanted to find a way to break it down do that anyone could learn it and that you would never overpeak and angle even if you are not far away enough. This idea of drawing a line to the contested “fighting area” allows for a simple visualisation that will ensure you don’t overpeak, and to do noted’s peek, you simply have to think about drawing a longer line.

I demonstrate it here:

Another note, the best way to peak safely with this method is to have the “line” end close to the edge of the wall, allowing you to peek back in if you miss your shot.

The next piece I might need to refine is just counter strafing because that still isn’t that solid for me, especially for moving targets that I need to constantly adjust for. The initial research into this yields that miyagi-do/looking at distance between crosshair and head is the best solution so far. Results have been good, but it hurts my wrist. I am experimenting with a looser grip and using more of the arm to aim.

Here is a good video on it:

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Valorant 37: Back on the Grind

Byjack

Thoughts:

  • Make the transitions smoother, add in more wide swings
  • Focus on micro adjusting more before shooting
  • Overall very strong stuff, great positioning
  • Not having much luck with the micro adjust
  • Try to shoot twice and crouch
  • Use the difference between head and crosshair as new micro adjust method
  • I hate DM
  • I don’t really know what to do
  • Maybe need to watch some pro vods

I really want to work on my mindset when I get upset, miss my shots or get frustrated with my teammates.

Some ideas:

  • Pumping myself up
    • Judging based on “clipable” moments rather than kills
    • Use music to pump up
  • Self-talk strategies
    • I believe in myself
    • I’ve done it before, I can do it again
    • This is a small part of my long journey to being the best
  • When feeling physically/mentally unwell and need a reset
    • Exercise
    • Watch videos of my vlogs and reflections
    • Tumeric tea
    • Playing music

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Aim Technique Ideas

Byjack

Takeaways

  • Prefiring is not about shooting them before you clear a corner, a prefire is about shooting before your brain registers that they are there
  • Try jiggling with OP, when you repeek shoot without even knowing they are there
  • Try to understand their tempo and timings for when a peek is happening and adjust your predictions of their patterns
  • Can be strong in eco or save rounds
  • Crosshair placement doesn’t replace aim, crosshair place IS aim
  • If you can place crosshair faster and more accurately, you can also clear faster and prevent bad timings
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Valorant 15: Reframe

Byjack

I’ve been doing my Valorant challenge for about four months now and I haven’t seen much progress.

I think there are a couple of changes that needs to happen.

  1. I need to be kinder to myself. I don’t have much time for gaming and this is my very first FPS game. I have already improved by quite a lot in the time given.
  2. I need to be a lot more focused on learning and make the learning less effort. I will try to play only one ranked game every day on my main and VOD review that.
  3. I need to focus the rest of my time with having fun with Valorant. Creating more motivation is important.
  4. I am going to get more outside help, will get more people to review my gameplay with me.

I am going to make a list of things I actually like doing on Valorant:

  1. Trying new agents
  2. Playing on my smurfs with ridiculous challenges:
    • A specific gun (sheriff, marshall etc.)
    • Play only with guns from ground, never buy
    • Rushing in as quickly as possible
  3. Deathmatch can be fun
  4. More aggression in general