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Play Valorant Like A Pro

Byjack

I feel compelled to do another Valorant challenge, and I feel this video is the most excellent way to learn how to treat Valorant like a pro:

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Valorant 19: The True Warmup

Byjack

In my Valorant journey right now, I’m very interested in perfecting strafe shooting and proper clearing. 

I heard that one of the elements of getting really good is about focusing on fewer things. What I’m really working on right now is getting something out of my warmups.

I usually play deathmatch until I feel like I’m hitting my shots and then jump into a match. But, now I’m thinking I need to let go of trying to push off from the confidence in a good deathmatch and instead working on making the mechanics more intuitive…meaning I need to deathmatch until I can hit shots even if I’m not match mvp, my clears, peeks and jiggles feel COMFORTABLE. Even if that means going into some deathmatches where it is really hard and everyone on taps me. The point of warmup should be when I feel like I’m not having trouble hitting shot anymore.

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Valorant 10: Catching People On Your Crosshair

Byjack

I just did it. I cracked the CODE on aim.

It’s not Miyagi do the method. It’s not movement-based aiming. Its not feeling out the timing. It’s not the last bullet method.

It’s a combination of EVERYTHING I’ve learned into a more simple mindset – catch them on your crosshair.

This method works if you are lagging, on low FPS, can’t hear anything and have a bad mental state.

Believe me, last night I was playing on my laptop with low FPS (sub 60) and terrible audio (laptop speakers) and not the best mental (unhappy, nervous and angry) and I still used it to drop tons of headshots.

I outlined the mentality in my earlier post about the “last bullet” exersise, but I’ll break it down again.

  1. Start out by holding a tight angle, and waiting for them to walk into your crosshair
  2. Get the feeling of “catching them” like you would catch a ball, adapt to their movement naturally, and try to click when you catch them on your crosshair
  3. After you feel comfortable with that, try to “catch” people while pushing them aggressively, this requires you to intuitively feel where they might be before swinging. Don’t swing until you are ready. This is an intuitive way to “pre-aim” as we like to say.
  4. When you are warmed up, go into a real match. Go on intuition on whether it is easier to catch them walking into your crosshair or if you need to catch them while peeking out at them. There is usually an option that helps you isolate more kills. 

 

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Valorant 14: Insane Warmup

Byjack

My insane warmup strategy:

  • No sound (focus on clearing every single angle)
  • Good crosshair placement
  • Movement-based aiming

Results: 1st place deathmatch sheriff only, breeze

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Valorant 28: How to Get the Feeling for Something

Byjack

This might fall into my Valorant challenge but it goes much deeper.

I started trying to find a way to multitask in Valorant, which led me to thinking about confidence. This led me down a whole path where I was trying to understand how to focus on the game and get into the game, and get into flow.

I finally arrived at a technique that looks something like this:

  1. See the enemy
  2. Imagine their head getting shot
  3. Aim
  4. Shoot

This works for drills, deathmatch anything. The point is that you visualize the outcome first, then take some action (aiming). You don’t immediately aim, you don’t shoot as soon as you visualize.

This does a couple of things:

  • Visualizing hitting the headshot removes anxiety because in my head I can hit the shot
  • Visualization makes me focus on one target and give it my full attention
  • Aiming makes sure I actually hit the shot

On top of this, I can do anything to aim, I can use my movement to aim, I can center my screen, I can do literally anything, the important part is to visualize the headshot before it happens.

In a very interesting turn of events, I’ve actually found this super helpful in music too.

Oftentimes my singing is muddy and unclear. I’ve done something similiar:

  1. Chop the notes into shorter more enunciated syllables
  2. Savor and taste each note
  3. Imagine how I want the note to taste

This does something similar where I am more aware of each note and can sing it with more intention and emotion. I don’t skip ahead too fast, I focus on each word as it comes.

It seems that a combination of a focus on a small step, and visualization helps bring me into the present moment.

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Valorant 7: Embracing Death (and Improving Movement)

Byjack

I’ve been thinking about what small exercise I can do right now to level up my gameplay and progress in Valorant since I haven’t had much time to play or practice recently.

After meditating on it a little bit, I settled on something that I know has held me back in Valorant since I first started playing the game – the fear of death.

The fear of dying in the game:

  • Makes me stressed out, and not think clearly
  • Makes me shoot too fast without aiming
  • Makes me frustrated when I lose
  • Makes me exhausted after playing for a few games

I’ve decided to learn how to accept death in the game, and to understand it better overall.

For example, understanding the “time to death” from an intuitive sense (and knowing how to extend that time) could be a GAMECHANGER.

It will intuitively let me know:

  • When to peek
  • If I whiff, whether I should peek back, crouch down, or keep spraying
  • How much time do I have to aim before I get killed by the enemy
  • Stay focused even after dying a frustrating number of times

So I hopped into a couple of deathmatches and gave it a shot!

I started out just trying to predict when I would die, but dying stresses me out too much to tap into my intuition (you need to be relatively clear-headed to feel things intuitively). I focused then on saying “die” aloud every time I died or predicting when I died. This is taken from a sports exercise of intentionality (you vocalize what will happen, for example, if you are playing badminton, you say “hit” when you hit the birdie, and “miss” if you miss). This exercise is supposed to train your intuition and powers of prediction and anticipation.

Some takeaways:

  • Crouching can make most people miss if they are shooting at you.
  • The direction you run and bunny hop is very important, need to figure out the most evasive ways. Sometimes running directly at them has zero chance of success. I need to work on sometimes facing the side not just forward to be more evasive.
  • The timing of peeking is important, how they have been spraying bullets is important.
  • When you are running behind a wall, before you peek, you don’t need to bunnyhop, just run normally, feel out intuitively, the moment you should peek out
  • I should start just by shouting out dead, every time I actually die, then try to predict
  • I need to aim higher to knife to the head, I keep knifing the body.
  • What I should try next is to stay alive for as long as I can.
  • I should also focus on letting the shock and frustration from dying play out before going again so quickly.

 

My intuition also tells me that I should focus on what I’m missing or losing when I’m dying and focus on those feelings right after dying.

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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: