Having been an avid gamer for many years, I’ve had my fair share of experience in leveling up in games like CS:GO, Overwatch, and nowadays VALORANT.
My thirst for domination has led me down the path of actively trying to climb the rankings.
I’ve gone through many guides, tips and tricks, agent-specific videos, and studied pro gamers to the point where I have created whole routines on improving at VALORANT.
Mastering a game like VALORANT is like any other skill in life. You need to work hard and practice as if you would with any sport or craft you’re trying to learn.
So in this guide, I will show you the 11 game-changing tips on how to get better at VALORANT and how these tips helped excel my skills as a player.
Let’s dive in!
VALORANT is a game where knowledge can give you an incredible advantage over your opponent.
Reading and understanding the opposing team’s strengths and weaknesses means you can create a plan to out-strategize them.
Familiarising yourself with all agents and abilities allows you to predict how players will instinctively defend or attack a site.
For example, if the opposing them has five duelists, you can bet that they won’t have any map control and go in head first, guns blazing.
If that’s the case, you could easily smoke off choke points on the map and delay their pushes or punish them if they decide to push the smoke.
And you won’t be at a disadvantage since they have no smokes to control their map, hence why having a good team comp is essential.
Knowing agents’ abilities also allow you to gain valuable information through sound bites.
Agents have signature sounds that they make whenever a particular ability is used, like Phoenix’s “Run It Back,” Jett’s “Blade Storm,” or even Yoru’s “Gatecrash.”
Whatever the case may be, familiarising yourself with all agents and their abilities will provide game knowledge that's integral to out-strategizing your opponent.
It’s essential to know all agents' abilities, but it’s arguably more critical to know what role you’re most comfortable with and to master agent(s) within that role.
If you’re serious about climbing the ranks, knowing your role and playing your role effectively will give you a significant advantage, especially if you have a good team comp.
For example, if you’re a duelist main, your team will expect you to make essential entries to establish map control when pushing a site.
Or, if you’re a controller main, your team will expect you to smoke popular choke points or angles to force the opposing team to wait out your smokes or reposition from advantageous angles.
Additionally, your abilities can drastically affect the difference between winning and losing a team fight.
Having complete mastery of your agents means you know precisely how and when to use your abilities.
An example would be ulting with Reyna before entering a site so that you can gain a quick kill, heal up, and establish more control over an area.
Or using Killjoys ultimate to drive enemies away so your team can plant the bomb, or on the flip side, prevent a bomb defusal.
Having this game knowledge allows you to create significant impacts and can turn the game’s tide entirely.
Abilities can make or break a push or a defense, and abilities executed together can give you an advantageous position to take control of objectives.
Once you know your agent, you can focus on how you’re going to play and approach each map.
There are many variables when it comes to holding down bomb sites or pushing into a site.
So knowing common holding spots, choke points, angles, and smokes are all essential to anticipating your enemy’s movements and understanding what to do at what point during the round.
There’s no other way to learn maps than to play them. The best way to learn common angles to hold is to play Deathmatch, as you will find which spots are effective or spots that make you vulnerable.
VALORANT is one of the few games that allows you to quickly determine where you are on the map by pressing the CAPS LOCK key:
Knowing the map means you know where an enemy can push from, so you can anticipate a push and position yourself in a spot to maximize your chances of catching them by surprise.
Crosshair placement will help you gain more kills, out-aim your opponent, and make you strong at holding positions and angles.
When you see pros like TenZ, ScreaM, and Hiko pop off during a game, it’s not only because they have fantastic aim (which they do), but they maximize their aiming potential because of their superior crosshair placement.
Your crosshair placement is when you anticipate where an enemy will come out from, so you position your crosshair in the closest spot possible, so you only need to make a minor correction to land a shot on them.
You can practice crosshair placement by doing aim training, playing deathmatch, and knowing common angles on specific maps.
Practicing your crosshair placement is critical to winning 1v1 fights. The quicker you aim at someone, the higher the chance of you being victorious.
Isolating one 1v1 firefight is a fundamental skill in VALORANT.
If you’re going up against a crossfire (where two opposing players are holding the same angle), you’re guaranteed to lose because even if you kill one enemy, you will die from another.
That’s why it’s crucial always to isolate 1v1 fights because when the second enemy comes, you can constantly reposition to gain that double kill instead of “trading” kills.
There have been countless times where I had a 3v1 advantage, but we ended up losing the round because the last enemy was able to pick us off one by one.
It’s not always viable to try and isolate a 1v1 fight, but you should focus on being in a position where you can only be shot from one angle when entering a dangerous part of the map.
Using this tactic with self-sustaining agents can make you a dangerous player.
Agents like Reyna and Phoenix are excellent picks since you can always heal up after winning a fight and continue to pick opponents off one by one, giving your team a numbers advantage.
Most of the time, you will be looking for those 1v1 opportunities, but as you get into higher elo, it becomes harder to carry your team because almost all kills are “traded.”
Trading kills refers to making a 1:1 exchange, so if your teammate dies, you kill the enemy that killed him. The same can occur if you’re in a team fight.
It's important to practice trading kills with your teammates since it’s a tactic used at the highest level of competition.
If you look at any pro-VALORANT players play, you will find that trading kills occur almost every round.
Trading kills fundamentals if you want to play at a high elo.
It ensures that you keep the playing field as even as possible, so the opposing team can never have a numbers advantage.
VALORANT is a team game that’s best played when communicating with your teammates.
Providing clear and concise communication gives your teammates critical information that they can use to out-strategize your opponents.
You will want to relay information in real-time as you see scenarios unfolding.
The more information you or your teammates have, the better the decision-making will be.
You have all experienced a game where the majority of your teammates have no mics, which only makes your games harder since you’re lacking vital information on your opponent’s locations, what they’re doing, or what your teammates plan to do.
VALORANT is a team game, so working as a team effectively is the best way to maximize your chances of winning.
When it comes to getting better at VALORANT, game sense always trumps aim training; that is why tips 1 - 7 are purely game sense related.
But there is a place for aim training; it shouldn’t just be your first priority.
The better your game sense is, the more “enhanced” your aim will be; this relates back to having superior crosshair positioning and position on the map.
What practicing your aim will do is improve your reactions, speed, and accuracy.
We have some excellent guides on practicing your aim using Kovaaks that you can check out here.
Practicing your aim doesn't just stop using aim trainers; you need to practice your aim in VALORANT using the weapons you usually use in competition.
Hopping from aim trainers to the practice range is an excellent way to translate what you’ve learned from aim trainers into in-game scenarios.
Another factor that will affect your aim is your recoil, so shooting the practice bots or the “target” inside the practice range will improve your muscle memory.
Chances are you will be using the Phantom or the Vandal the most; therefore, it's essential to know how to control the recoil properly.
The more you can control your recoil, the easier it will be to aim.
We wrote a whole guide on whether you should tap aim, burst fire, or spray which you can check out.
Just know that having excellent recoil control will make aiming much more effortless.
After you complete your aim training and practice in the practice range, you should go into deathmatch and compete against real players.
Bots in the practice range have “unnatural” movements, so training with real players with more natural movements is a great way to improve your aim.
One common mistake that many players make is that they play deathmatch, like deathmatch. Let me explain.
When you play deathmatch, you should simulate real competitive scenarios. So you should play deathmatch as if you’re playing competitively.
You should hold angles, reposition, and move the way you would in any competitive match.
Simulate authentic game scenarios, so you know exactly what to do when you’re in a similar position during a match.
Note that players in deathmatch don’t move as they do in competitive, so it’s not 100% translatable to real games, but the point I’m trying to make is you should move as you do in competitive so you can get a “feel” of what crosshair placements and movements are most effective.
Lastly, the final piece to the puzzle is to review each competitive game after you’re done playing.
Watching yourself play makes you realize mistakes that you could’ve avoided.
It’s different when you’re watching yourself from a “third-person view” because your thought process and objectivity are different.
Gaining immediate feedback on your mistakes and actively correcting them will accelerate your skills as a player.
After all, great players are great because they make better decisions and fewer mistakes compared to newer or low elo players.
Knowing your mistakes allows you to create a plan to prevent them from reoccurring in the future.
And minimizing your mistakes will make you a more effective player overall.
Minimizing your mistakes, improving your game sense, and sharpening your aim is the recipe for success in VALORANT.
Below are some frequently asked questions about how to get better at VALORANT.
To get good at VALORANT, you need to practice your game sense and your aim; this will only come from practicing your aim in aim trainers, in the practice range, and in deathmatch.
Then you apply what you’ve learned into playing competition and review your mistakes after your game to minimize them in future games.
Think of getting good at VALORANT like learning any other skill; you just need to train the right way.
Follow our 11 tips listed above, and you will get good at VALORANT real quick.
To train to get better in VALORANT, you should create training routines.
You can search up strategy videos for your chosen agents and practice those skills in a custom map to practice your game sense.
To practice your aim, you can use aim training tools like Kovaaks and Aim Lab, then transition to the Practice Range to drill in your accuracy, speed, and reaction times, then simulate real scenarios by versing real players in deathmatch.
Then you can hop into the game all warmed up and try and perform at your best.
Afterward, you should review your comp games, and note down mistakes, and practice minimizing them for future games.
The best recording software I’ve used to record my gameplay is either Outplayed by Overwolf or lowkey.gg.
Note that recording your gameplay can drop your FPS, so you will want to have the best graphics settings turned on and have a system that can take running VALO while simultaneously recording your gameplay.
To master VALORANT, you should model your routines after pro-VALORANT players.
All VALORANT players have a warm-up routine before hopping into competitive, to keep their aim sharp and their movements crisp.
They also review their gameplay to see their mistakes and create a plan to minimize them in the future.
In a book named “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell, he states that it takes 10,000 hours of deep practice to achieve mastery over a complex skill.
The 10,000-hour rule would apply to VALORANT as well. Many pros already have tens of thousands of hours in FPS gaming already.
These players already have tens of thousands of hours of practice in FPS games which are similar to VALORANT.
So to master VALORANT, you have to continue practicing the right way till you reach your goal.
So to get better at VALORANT, it comes down to practice.
And not just any sort of practice, deep practice, which is training that you do that directly relates to improving your skillset as a VALORANT player.
If you follow the 11 tips above, I am 100% sure that you will grow as a player.
Keep on adapting your training and learning from the best players in the world, and eventually, you can reach your goal.
If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me through our contact form, I will be more than happy to answer any of your questions!
Happy gaming!