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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 39: Mind Training (PreGame)

Byjack

Today we are going back to the Valorant Challenge but from a different perspective.

I strongly felt that the one time when I didn’t feel stressed at all, but instead felt the timings of the enemy and where they could be, and how I could systematically take them apart, I was playing Valorant at a significantly higher level.

Some thoughts for today:

  • Closing eyes to mental reset
  • Playing music to hype up
  • Breathing and letting the energy carry the action

Most of all, I will endeavor to feel out the enemy’s position and figure out how I can take the map piece by piece with util, teamwork and aim diff.

I will create another post after the game to review how that went.

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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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The Valorant Challenge: From Silver 1 to Platinum 1

Byjack

I’m gonna try to do something crazy, which is to try to rise from Silver 1 to Platinum in Valorant.

For all of you who don’t know, Valorant is a competitive FPS shooter. Like all popular computer games that are competitive, it is extremely difficult to progress in rank.

When I first started Valorant I was in Iron 1 and after months of playing, I rose to Silver 1. Now I want to make a similar rise from Silver 1 to Platinum 1. But I want to do it faster this time. I want to do it within the course of 2-3 months.

I want to use this experience as a test of my speed learning skills and also how I can make videos for challenges.

I also believe that mindfulness and self-awareness can bring greater success than any brute force tactic, and I want to prove that with my progress in this game (which will be easy to measure and indisputable).

My current philosophy for speed learning:

  1. Embracement of pain
    1. Lower expectations
    2. Process emotions
    3. Try new things
  2. Self-reflection is KEY
    1. Need to see yourself
  3. Focus on fun
    1. Play when you want with things you like
  4. Small steps
    1. Don’t need to do everything in one day
    2. Do tiny steps if possible
  5. Prepare yourself
    1. Create an environment for success

Specifics:

  1. Embracement of pain
    1. Don’t set goals
    2. Assume I’m gonna do bad
    3. Slow down and process when I’m doing bad
    4. Always try new strats
  2. Self-reflection
    1. LOTS of VOD reviews
  3. Focus on fun
    1. Only play comp when you want to
    2. Other days do light practice
    3. Focus on agents you have fun with (focus on agent abilities that are fun)
  4. Small steps
    1. Find ways to practice in aimlabs, spike rush and deathmatch
  5. Prepare yourself
    1. Work on environment
    2. Work on posture

NEXT: What my plan on filming will be.

Also, got recommend How to Fight Thich Nhat Hanh by a friend on how to work on mindfulness.

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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 21: Aim Mechanics

Byjack

I’ve narrowed down core aiming principals to a couple of things:

  • General Aim: Pointing your body toward your target
  • Survivability: strafe peeking (strafe out, prediction of enemy location, hit strafe and shoot at the same time as seeing enemy)
  • Preaiming: crosshair placement
  • Flicking: loose mouse hand + some general aim mechanics

Overall, I think the most important technique is just having the mindset of pointing to your body toward your target (what I’m starting to call general aim since it gets you in the general vicinity of your target). This helps massively with confidence, with holding angles, and with tracking and flicking.

Second most important is probably a combination of a loose mousehand and good crosshair placement as this allows you to hit most targets while also being ready for a flick. This pairs with a strong understanding of how to slice a pie and clear a site.

Finally, some sort of strafing is important as it increases survivability by a lot.

There are a couple more aiming techniques that I feel are significantly less important as they are more niche. These will help you in deathmatch and higher elos but are not part of core aim:

  • Strafe shooting: general ability to track and strafe a moving target, paying attention to crosshair
  • Spray control: the ability to crouch spray and spray adjust
  • Angle holding: predicting how close or wide a peek will be

Strafe shooting is probably the most important as it is good for long range fights as movement based aiming is a lot more effective on those fights.

Spray control is pretty niche to close range gun fights and fighting multiple enemies.

Angle holding is very important but general aim and strafe clearing are more key to holding angles.

 

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It’s Valorant Time

Byjack

I love gaming. The competition. The graphics. The speed, the maps, abilities. The headshots, the camaraderie.

Today I asked myself a question. How do I get to the level of gameplay that I want to get to? How do I play Valorant in the way I want to play it?

I listened to my body and I used connection theory. Your body is tired. It’s aching. Your mind is cloudy and distracted. Your eyes are dry and tired.

I need to feel the magic that Valorant can be.

I turn on the Dark and Dangerous playlist:

It is time to turn off all the lights. To go into my closet. To let everything go silent.

I feel scared and anxious and my head hurts, but my body knows it’s okay to relax now.

I lay on my bed to meditate. Long enough to wonder when I should stop. Long enough for my mind to wander to think of my colleague who left today and wrote a very nice email. Long enough for the magic of nighttime to sink in, for me to want a hot drink and settle down for a night of gaming.

Turned off the lights again. Fired up the playlist again. It feels like the mood.

Had a good few games where I team MVPed every single game until the last one with a smurfing reyna on both teams. The one on my team was classic only, the one on the enemy team was not. Didn’t really like my duo, he annoyed me. Also bottom fragged every game.

Pretty pissed off about that last game.