Valorant: Five suggestions to enhance your Valorant gameplay

Valorant is a subtle first-person shooter that emulates CS:GO. Here are five tips to assist you in succeeding.

The Valorant meta is a newborn infant, a mass of undeveloped baby strategies that is still waiting to develop into a real boy. But, because Valorant and Riot’s first first-person shooters share so much genetic material, some established ideas transfer over. These fundamental ideas about movement, shooting, and economy should be understood, especially by players who have never played CS:GO. Here are some helpful tips and tricks to improve your gameplay.

1. Recognize the game’s high-level structure.

Like American football, the game is set up with two teams lining up at the starting line with their players positioned in formations that will increase their chances of winning. Players collide, one side wins the round, the whistle blows, and everyone regroups to plan their next moves.

This type of FPS differs from battle royale and 32-player shooters like Battlefield due to the repetition of rounds. Rather than running and shooting across a large landscape, you plan a deliberate move, try it, and fail, as is the cycle of life. In other words, you must predict whether your opponent will pass, blitz, or run the ball if you want to win.

Your team’s opponents will remember what you did in the previous game and form an opinion on how you behaved. Have you successfully rushed B three times in a row? More defenders from the opposing team will likely be placed on B. Toying with those expectations and discovering your opponent’s tendencies—such as whether they’re great at sniping, terrified of specific bombsites, or who their entry-fragger is—is part of the fun of this style of first-person shooter.

2. Keep still and shoot.

You may need to get used to the fact that guns won’t shoot straight if you’re moving when you pull the trigger if you’re coming from another first-person shooter game like Call of Duty: Black Ops or Titanfall, where weapon accuracy isn’t affected by the players’ movements. Even walking while shooting is not advised, but lowering yourself to a crouch stabilizes your aim.

That being said, a duel doesn’t require you to remain motionless. Your rhythm should be “step, stop, shoot.” Avoid attempting to fight and flee at the same time; only practice firing after releasing pressure on the WASD keys. The “movement penalty” setting in the crosshair customization menu can be enabled to give you useful information about when your aim is most likely to be obstructed.

3. Two different shooting techniques

Holding down Mouse 1 while remaining still and aiming one of Valorant’s assault rifles at the wall will cause a T-shaped pattern of bullets. Each gun has a 2D recoil signature, and good players will instinctively know where the sixth or seventh bullet will fly. This is the recoil system that games like Valorant and CS:GO use. The more shots you fire in quick succession, the further your bullet will stray from the center of your crosshair.

Spraying is the act of firing a continuous stream of full-auto shots. If you lower your crosshair to account for the rising position of your bullets when using this technique, you can still shoot accurately. Maybe aim for the enemy’s belt with your fifth or sixth bullet if you want to hit them in the head. If you’ve never played Counter-Strike, it may take some time to become accustomed to this technique.

In contrast, tapping involves making individual mouse clicks, which allows the weapon’s recoil to reset between shots. At longer distances, you’ll want to shoot in this manner, but a spray at 30 meters or more can still result in a frag. The training area provided by Valorant is an excellent resource for honing these skills and fine-tuning your sensitivity, which should be as low as possible to accommodate small adjustments at range.

4. Remember to control your economy.

When the round begins, if the majority of your team has less than 3,500 credits, you should all buy lower-value gear. This is referred to as an “eco round.” The idea behind this is that your team won’t be synchronized in combat strength if you half-buy—some of you have top-tier weapons, some of you have armor. To prepare the team for a full buy where everyone has what they need, it’s acceptable to lose an eco round.

A player can carry a maximum of 12,000 credits at any given time during a game. Ask a teammate to buy equipment for you or another teammate if they are getting close to this amount by making a buy request in the buy menu (right-click). Anything you buy can be sold for the full purchase price.

5. There will only be two guns that matter, sort of.

Buy heavy armor in rounds where you have at least 4,000 credits, then buy either the Vandal or the Phantom assault rifle from Valorant. These weapons serve as the foundation of the game because they can kill at all ranges, like how the AK and M4 dominate CS:GO’s Which one you choose depends on your preference for either lower recoil or higher damage per shot.

The Vandal, which was inspired by the AK in CS:GO, is better suited for ranged, single-shot play because it can drop an armored foe with a headshot and does not experience damage reduction at distance. Phantoms are simpler to control and fire at a higher rate. Consider these weapons as the equal but very different halves of a single coin.

But, Valorant’s SMGs, shotguns, and secondary pistols are flat-out worse in most situations, so you should stay away from them whenever you can. These weapons are intended to be used in the first few rounds of a match or when you need to save money after a defeat or fatality.

The Operator sniper rifle, an offspring of the legendary AWP from CS:GO, is powerful and deserves to be treated with respect. They are specialist weapons, so you won’t want to run more than one or two of them on a team, and losing them would be costly. Tyler’s Valorous Weapons Guide, which includes a complete comparison of damage figures, has more information on these weapons.