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Valorant 12: The Movement Gun

Byjack

I realized recently that having really insane movement is better for certain types of guns. Specifically the phantom.

I tested this theory today, by playing phantom and I think the results speak for themselves.

A couple of notes:

  • The Vandal will require a different mindset to play (the catch them on the crosshair, holding angles type of mindest)
  • Movement is really good but need to peek tighter angles still

Overall, I need to pick the weapon best suiting my mood and the map. Vandal for slower smoother headshots, phantom for more energetic aggressive plays.

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Profit in Peace 3: Asking Questions

Byjack

I just had a realization. I was thinking about what I “should” be doing in the mornings with this new blog commitment. But I think that EXACTLY what I “should” be doing.

I want to spend my time asking questions. And if an action speaks to me, I will do it.

In fact, this was a major technique in Connection Theory that I forgot about. Connection Theory is about understanding is the pathway to change.

One technique for understanding is to ask many many questions. Very good, specific questions. Questions that beget more questions.

Through questioning, we begin to understand.

Another technique I used to do was to ask myself questions. Imagine myself older and wiser, and come up with questions to ask my current day self, and then answer those questions.

Anyway, I have to transition to work, so this will have to wait for now.

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Valorant 29: My Valorant Fears and Emotions

Byjack

I wanted to do a bit of a post to understand how I am feeling right now about the Valorant challenge. I know I feel incredibly stressed, angry, and depressed because I feel like I wasted all my time on Valorant. So much time trying so hard to be good, but nothing seems to really come of it. Sometimes looking at my VODs I feel like my gameplay is the same as it was before.

I don’t really know what is going on and why it seems like I’m new to the game every time. I don’t know why I’m overthinking everything. Why is everything so hard?

I wish I could see major mistakes in my old gameplay.

I guess watching more VOD reviews will help me understand. But that takes so damn long. Maybe it means that there are still opportunities to play much much better. I feel that I maybe have gotten much better but it doesn’t seem to translate over to comp. Maybe it’s also something about understanding the maps better. I really get the sense that I got to plat last time by playing more comfortably on agents and on maps. I think I understood just how to play each map better. But I want to be a more complete player. I want to play with better movement and peeking.

Something else that I feel that I missed out on was just having more posts about the emotions I was feeling. It makes me sad that all my Valorant posts were about techniques and none of them were about emotions.

Valorant has a lot of nice emotions for me. I met my girlfriend on Valorant, I had a lot of friends on Valorant. These days I play mostly alone, but I still like the world. Cool agents and fun to get on to all these different teams. I love it when I have some really fun crazy game sense timing lurks. I guess that is one way that I got significantly better than before.

I wish I had VODs from when I was in iron. I feel that jump from iron to silver was the large one. The jump from silver to plat is weirdly small.

Ok. So I just spent a good hour or so just watching my VODs from bronze until plat then back to gold. I actually feel my overall movement is better and more consistent. The only difference in plat is that I was calmer and held an angle for longer. I also did more wide jiggles. I know for gold I held a lot more angles, and made sure to hold them wide because they would often wide swing everything.

Looking forward, I would be so happy if I kept calm and held angles for longer when moving around the map, held for the wide swing more often. Then when fighting an angle, I want to be more aggressive, swinging very fast and hard, but stopping at the edge and fighting, not leaving until I try to kill them, maybe just letting go of movement keys or crouch spraying. I would love to see my fundamentals get really really good, to a level I know they can get to.

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Knee Strength 2: Standing Exercises

Byjack

New knee exersises:

  1. Warmup: Single leg toe point
    1. All weight on big toe, quick heel raise, raise whole body upwards
  2. Main Exercise: Rolling single leg squat stretch
    1. Stretch on leg in front, squat forward and down, roll backwards and up
    2. Repeat with both legs
    3. Repeat with stretching leg in back and to the side
  3. Mobility: Gentle leg swing bend
    1. Slight bend in one leg while other leg slightly swings forward
    2. Repeat with both legs
    3. Repeat swinging back and to the side and bending up and back
  4. Stability: Pronated squat
    1. One leg squat while weight on outside of the sole of the foot
    2. Repeat with weight on inside, toe and heel
    3. Repeat with both legs
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Valorant 20: The Combination of Crosshair Placement and Strafing

Byjack

I learned a couple of things when it comes to Valorant. Firstly, I need to either warm up less, or find a different way to warm up, because I notice that both my overall body and my hands get tired after 3-4 deathmatches.

I also learned that it isn’t always good to position for the strafe kill since usually you want good first shot accuracy and even though you are hard to hit when you are strafe shooting, I realized strafing is more of a niche skill rather than how you want to take most gun fights.

However, the best way to use strafe shooting is using cover to shoot.

Here is a step by step breakdown:

 

We strafe to the right to clear left.
As we move to the right, we expect the enemy somewhere on our left.
As we peek out, we try to predict/micro adjust to the head. We are already thinking about moving left now.
As the shot fires off, we are already back behind cover.

Here is a short clip of me demonstrating this concept in a deathmatch.

The point is to always look for cover, if you notice, I get overexposed a couple of times in this clip and I recorrect behind cover quickly. These are a lot of long shots, but it gets even cooler for tight close angles and you can use it hold angles after peeking as well (you don’t need to overpeak everything).

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Valorant 16: Initial Thoughts From The Coach

Byjack

I had an initial discussion with a Valorant coach on a couple of things on improving in Valorant and here are the main takeaways:

  • In low elo (gold and below), aim and mechanics are more important than gamesense as low elo doesn’t have much gamesense worth learning
    • I suspect it is because low elo doesn’t have many patterns or strategies that are worth learning to play against
  • In low elo, try to take as many gunfights as possible to get better
  • To train gamesense, try to play with as many people as possible, ideally five stack
  • Stop playing so much sheriff in the deathmatch because it isn’t the gun you use in your games as much
  • In solo queue, try to play off of your teammates more, try to entry together more

 

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Valorant 36: Washed Again

Byjack

Today I am officially getting back into the grind right, using the same technique as before where I try to emulate the pros.

Some thoughts:

  • Does a lot of wide swinging in big smooth arcs.
  • A bit of movement based aim
  • Ficks very fast to new angles
  • Two taps, using movement strafing, then crouch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOe664CVI1o&ab_channel=Pimbz-VALORANTCLIPS

Some thoughts:

  • Aspas aim is much more similar to mine, less smooth, but distinctly clears and preaims angles
  • Barely counterstrafes, taps a lot and them spray
  • Does a lot of widepeeks as well
  • Like to hold angles a lot more
  • Good attempt to wide swing, need to hold angles more until the swing
  • Wide swing needs good crosshair placement
  • Make sure you are ready for them to be visible at the edge of your swing
  • Good practice holding angles
  • Good overall but prefire is a bit messy, might be from pain and uncomfortable elbow position
  • Crosshair can also get a bit unstead, not using movement to aim

My games today were frustrating. I felt I was moving too fast when it was dangerous (I have a feeling enemies are nearby). I tend to rush my aim and my peek. What helped a lot with that is the preparing your crosshair in the intuitively most comfortable way to take a fight. It’s engaging and helps me slow down and be more intentional. I won every game after using that technique.