Valorant 14: Insane Warmup
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
Similar Posts
Valorant 35: Breach Fracture
Byjack
Thoughts:
- Can flash high on B
- Stun choke in A is common
- You can stun from far away
Valorant 33: Brimstone Pearl
Byjack
This idea of finding the same type of gameplay in a pro or radiant player was really interesting, and so I decided to take it into my next vod review.
My vod:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T05HsudTzvQ
Main takeaways:
- I’m mad about getting one tapped, but that actually happens at all ranks, Valorant is a quick time to kill game
- Controllers don’t smoke as quickly as I do, and they often use them selfishly (smoking mid if they play mid to establish control over the parts they want to take control over)
- The smoke on B site creates a wall from pushing onto site, I guess I didn’t know what kinds of smokes would be useful
- In terms of playing around smokes, they move quite slowly in and out of smokes
- Generally play wide and out in the open for better angle advantage, I play scared and close to the wall
Valorant 43: The End and More
Byjack
I decided today that I need to close out the Valorant challenge for a couple of reasons:
Firstly, most importantly, the challenge is over! I think it is important to have specific success/end criteria for every challenge because then it gives a distinct goal to focus on and allows for new challenges to take its place. My original goal for Valorant was to get to Plat in a month. It instead took maybe over a year, but there is no doubt that I completed the challenge. I have been solidly in Plat 1 for months now and just recently solo-queued up to Plat 2. Before there was a reason to keep the challenge going because I kept dropping back down to Gold, but now I think this challenge is well and truly finished.
Secondly, I noticed that I started posting shorter and less thought-out posts about Valorant. Since the challenge is essentially over and my goal has been achieved, it has completely lost focus…which is why it is important for old challenges to end and new challenges to start. Since my posts about Valorant have evolved into less focused thoughts along my journey in Valorant, I can remove the label of “challenge” and continue making posts of observations and thoughts in my overall Valorant journey. I will always challenge myself in Valorant and it will continue to be a long-term goal to learn from the game and grow as a player and as a person. I don’t need a challenge to denote that ambition because this entire blog is that ambitious. Challenges are meant to be smaller focused time and goal bound tools and structures.
Finally, I have new challenges I want to focus on. I have my art and creative challenge coming up, my jiujitsu challenge, and my sleep challenge. All of those challenges require time and effort and the less distractions and pressure I have, the easier it will be to complete those challenges. I will almost certainly start a new Valorant challenge in the future and I need to set a precedent for that now by closing out old and dead/completed challenges like cobwebs in the mental attic.
P.S. For old times sake, here are my latest strategies in Valorant that got me to Plat 2.
- Have a purpose/gameplan every round
- Look for multikills, not just killing and running – this gives you awareness even if you end up getting one kill and dipping
- Focus on what mindset works for you
To expand on number 3, the main mindsets I like to use:
- Flicking mindset (good for if you are feeling lots of energy and quite relaxed). Keep your mouse hand loose and imagine flicking on the enemies. Visualize centering all of the enemies on your screen.
- Cart of rails mindset (good for very careful and deliberate clean peeks). Imagine you are sitting in a cart on rails and you want to do a driveby shooting. Your railway car can move left and right but not up or down, and will stop the second your crosshair covers the head of an enemy. Anticipate to see them opposite the direction you peek (moving to the right, anticipate on the left).
- Adjust crosshair mindest (good if your micro adjustments are off). After seeing the enemy, focus on the space between your crosshair and their head and use intuitive movement to close that gap, whether it is strafing or moving the mouse.
So it is goodbye for now for the Valorant challenge, but we will probably be back at some point to compile data about this whole challenge and do a couple of retrospectives.
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.
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.
Valorant 6: Feeling Out Aiming
Byjack
I realized something today. While deathmatch and the practice range are a time to focus on hand-mouse-crosshair connection (basically pure aim), that doesn’t work in competitive game practice.
When I practice Valorant in a comp game, I should be feeling out everything including game sense, movement, and ability usage. See, aim in a real game only matters if the other aspects are set up correctly. It matters which agent you play. It matters how your enter, what your ability usage and game sense tell you. I was able to get so many more headshots when I was starting feeling out the entire game not just my aim.
The one area I realized I need the most practice with is game sense – feeling out where the enemies are hiding and being ready for multiple to peak out at once. I either don’t check corners, keep my crosshair super low or lower my guard after killing just one enemy.
I was able to ace with just game sense, ability usage and a little aim.
In the clutch clip, the one area I can clearly see room for improvement is the use of my ult. It was good for the first shot, but the next two shots should have been very intentionally trying to clear out the enemy hiding spots.
Also, in the clip below for the last round, I can see my decision-making skills need work.
- I need to do something with phoenix and reyna inevitably who were going to rush me. I also had my ult.
- I could have jiggled the wall, then try to make my way to long.
- I could have dodged the phoenix flash by hiding in the corner and facing the left.
- Or I could have peeked hard and try to make my way to long.
Here are the full game clips.
Valorant 35: Breach Fracture
Byjack
Thoughts:
- Can flash high on B
- Stun choke in A is common
- You can stun from far away
Valorant 33: Brimstone Pearl
Byjack
This idea of finding the same type of gameplay in a pro or radiant player was really interesting, and so I decided to take it into my next vod review.
My vod:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T05HsudTzvQ
Main takeaways:
- I’m mad about getting one tapped, but that actually happens at all ranks, Valorant is a quick time to kill game
- Controllers don’t smoke as quickly as I do, and they often use them selfishly (smoking mid if they play mid to establish control over the parts they want to take control over)
- The smoke on B site creates a wall from pushing onto site, I guess I didn’t know what kinds of smokes would be useful
- In terms of playing around smokes, they move quite slowly in and out of smokes
- Generally play wide and out in the open for better angle advantage, I play scared and close to the wall
Valorant 43: The End and More
Byjack
I decided today that I need to close out the Valorant challenge for a couple of reasons:
Firstly, most importantly, the challenge is over! I think it is important to have specific success/end criteria for every challenge because then it gives a distinct goal to focus on and allows for new challenges to take its place. My original goal for Valorant was to get to Plat in a month. It instead took maybe over a year, but there is no doubt that I completed the challenge. I have been solidly in Plat 1 for months now and just recently solo-queued up to Plat 2. Before there was a reason to keep the challenge going because I kept dropping back down to Gold, but now I think this challenge is well and truly finished.
Secondly, I noticed that I started posting shorter and less thought-out posts about Valorant. Since the challenge is essentially over and my goal has been achieved, it has completely lost focus…which is why it is important for old challenges to end and new challenges to start. Since my posts about Valorant have evolved into less focused thoughts along my journey in Valorant, I can remove the label of “challenge” and continue making posts of observations and thoughts in my overall Valorant journey. I will always challenge myself in Valorant and it will continue to be a long-term goal to learn from the game and grow as a player and as a person. I don’t need a challenge to denote that ambition because this entire blog is that ambitious. Challenges are meant to be smaller focused time and goal bound tools and structures.
Finally, I have new challenges I want to focus on. I have my art and creative challenge coming up, my jiujitsu challenge, and my sleep challenge. All of those challenges require time and effort and the less distractions and pressure I have, the easier it will be to complete those challenges. I will almost certainly start a new Valorant challenge in the future and I need to set a precedent for that now by closing out old and dead/completed challenges like cobwebs in the mental attic.
P.S. For old times sake, here are my latest strategies in Valorant that got me to Plat 2.
- Have a purpose/gameplan every round
- Look for multikills, not just killing and running – this gives you awareness even if you end up getting one kill and dipping
- Focus on what mindset works for you
To expand on number 3, the main mindsets I like to use:
- Flicking mindset (good for if you are feeling lots of energy and quite relaxed). Keep your mouse hand loose and imagine flicking on the enemies. Visualize centering all of the enemies on your screen.
- Cart of rails mindset (good for very careful and deliberate clean peeks). Imagine you are sitting in a cart on rails and you want to do a driveby shooting. Your railway car can move left and right but not up or down, and will stop the second your crosshair covers the head of an enemy. Anticipate to see them opposite the direction you peek (moving to the right, anticipate on the left).
- Adjust crosshair mindest (good if your micro adjustments are off). After seeing the enemy, focus on the space between your crosshair and their head and use intuitive movement to close that gap, whether it is strafing or moving the mouse.
So it is goodbye for now for the Valorant challenge, but we will probably be back at some point to compile data about this whole challenge and do a couple of retrospectives.
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.
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.
Valorant 6: Feeling Out Aiming
Byjack
I realized something today. While deathmatch and the practice range are a time to focus on hand-mouse-crosshair connection (basically pure aim), that doesn’t work in competitive game practice.
When I practice Valorant in a comp game, I should be feeling out everything including game sense, movement, and ability usage. See, aim in a real game only matters if the other aspects are set up correctly. It matters which agent you play. It matters how your enter, what your ability usage and game sense tell you. I was able to get so many more headshots when I was starting feeling out the entire game not just my aim.
The one area I realized I need the most practice with is game sense – feeling out where the enemies are hiding and being ready for multiple to peak out at once. I either don’t check corners, keep my crosshair super low or lower my guard after killing just one enemy.
I was able to ace with just game sense, ability usage and a little aim.
In the clutch clip, the one area I can clearly see room for improvement is the use of my ult. It was good for the first shot, but the next two shots should have been very intentionally trying to clear out the enemy hiding spots.
Also, in the clip below for the last round, I can see my decision-making skills need work.
- I need to do something with phoenix and reyna inevitably who were going to rush me. I also had my ult.
- I could have jiggled the wall, then try to make my way to long.
- I could have dodged the phoenix flash by hiding in the corner and facing the left.
- Or I could have peeked hard and try to make my way to long.
Here are the full game clips.
Valorant 35: Breach Fracture
Byjack
Thoughts:
- Can flash high on B
- Stun choke in A is common
- You can stun from far away
Valorant 33: Brimstone Pearl
Byjack
This idea of finding the same type of gameplay in a pro or radiant player was really interesting, and so I decided to take it into my next vod review.
My vod:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T05HsudTzvQ
Main takeaways:
- I’m mad about getting one tapped, but that actually happens at all ranks, Valorant is a quick time to kill game
- Controllers don’t smoke as quickly as I do, and they often use them selfishly (smoking mid if they play mid to establish control over the parts they want to take control over)
- The smoke on B site creates a wall from pushing onto site, I guess I didn’t know what kinds of smokes would be useful
- In terms of playing around smokes, they move quite slowly in and out of smokes
- Generally play wide and out in the open for better angle advantage, I play scared and close to the wall
Valorant 43: The End and More
Byjack
I decided today that I need to close out the Valorant challenge for a couple of reasons:
Firstly, most importantly, the challenge is over! I think it is important to have specific success/end criteria for every challenge because then it gives a distinct goal to focus on and allows for new challenges to take its place. My original goal for Valorant was to get to Plat in a month. It instead took maybe over a year, but there is no doubt that I completed the challenge. I have been solidly in Plat 1 for months now and just recently solo-queued up to Plat 2. Before there was a reason to keep the challenge going because I kept dropping back down to Gold, but now I think this challenge is well and truly finished.
Secondly, I noticed that I started posting shorter and less thought-out posts about Valorant. Since the challenge is essentially over and my goal has been achieved, it has completely lost focus…which is why it is important for old challenges to end and new challenges to start. Since my posts about Valorant have evolved into less focused thoughts along my journey in Valorant, I can remove the label of “challenge” and continue making posts of observations and thoughts in my overall Valorant journey. I will always challenge myself in Valorant and it will continue to be a long-term goal to learn from the game and grow as a player and as a person. I don’t need a challenge to denote that ambition because this entire blog is that ambitious. Challenges are meant to be smaller focused time and goal bound tools and structures.
Finally, I have new challenges I want to focus on. I have my art and creative challenge coming up, my jiujitsu challenge, and my sleep challenge. All of those challenges require time and effort and the less distractions and pressure I have, the easier it will be to complete those challenges. I will almost certainly start a new Valorant challenge in the future and I need to set a precedent for that now by closing out old and dead/completed challenges like cobwebs in the mental attic.
P.S. For old times sake, here are my latest strategies in Valorant that got me to Plat 2.
- Have a purpose/gameplan every round
- Look for multikills, not just killing and running – this gives you awareness even if you end up getting one kill and dipping
- Focus on what mindset works for you
To expand on number 3, the main mindsets I like to use:
- Flicking mindset (good for if you are feeling lots of energy and quite relaxed). Keep your mouse hand loose and imagine flicking on the enemies. Visualize centering all of the enemies on your screen.
- Cart of rails mindset (good for very careful and deliberate clean peeks). Imagine you are sitting in a cart on rails and you want to do a driveby shooting. Your railway car can move left and right but not up or down, and will stop the second your crosshair covers the head of an enemy. Anticipate to see them opposite the direction you peek (moving to the right, anticipate on the left).
- Adjust crosshair mindest (good if your micro adjustments are off). After seeing the enemy, focus on the space between your crosshair and their head and use intuitive movement to close that gap, whether it is strafing or moving the mouse.
So it is goodbye for now for the Valorant challenge, but we will probably be back at some point to compile data about this whole challenge and do a couple of retrospectives.
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.
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.
Valorant 6: Feeling Out Aiming
Byjack
I realized something today. While deathmatch and the practice range are a time to focus on hand-mouse-crosshair connection (basically pure aim), that doesn’t work in competitive game practice.
When I practice Valorant in a comp game, I should be feeling out everything including game sense, movement, and ability usage. See, aim in a real game only matters if the other aspects are set up correctly. It matters which agent you play. It matters how your enter, what your ability usage and game sense tell you. I was able to get so many more headshots when I was starting feeling out the entire game not just my aim.
The one area I realized I need the most practice with is game sense – feeling out where the enemies are hiding and being ready for multiple to peak out at once. I either don’t check corners, keep my crosshair super low or lower my guard after killing just one enemy.
I was able to ace with just game sense, ability usage and a little aim.
In the clutch clip, the one area I can clearly see room for improvement is the use of my ult. It was good for the first shot, but the next two shots should have been very intentionally trying to clear out the enemy hiding spots.
Also, in the clip below for the last round, I can see my decision-making skills need work.
- I need to do something with phoenix and reyna inevitably who were going to rush me. I also had my ult.
- I could have jiggled the wall, then try to make my way to long.
- I could have dodged the phoenix flash by hiding in the corner and facing the left.
- Or I could have peeked hard and try to make my way to long.
Here are the full game clips.