Most Valorant players can relate to being stuck in a certain rank and feeling like there is no escape. Playing game after game and still seeing red in your match history is not enjoyable for anyone. There are some uncontrollable circumstances to losing Valorant games like teammates going AFK or trolling, but most of the time there is always a way to improve your own gameplay to turn your defeats into victories. Even the smallest of changes in gameplay can improve your skills in the long run.

The first step to improving is recognizing your own patterns and mistakes. Are you being overly aggressive and dying before your team does anything? Are you not using your utilities for information on the other team? Are you not communicating when you see or hit an enemy? Are you putting yourself in bad positioning in front of the enemy? There are countless aspects of the game you could be looking past which alters your play style completely. Watching videos of your own gameplay is a great step to take to see how you react to what is put in front of you. Once you narrow down some areas where you could work on, then it’s time to start practicing.

TIP 1: Improve Your Aim

Aim is the most noticeable element of gameplay in first-person shooters. Expanding your understanding of aim in Valorant will automatically step up your gameplay. Establishing good crosshair placement is a good first step to setting yourself up for success. Since headshots deal the most damage to the enemy, having your crosshair at head level is necessary for hitting those shots.

Valorant’s maps have design elements that aid your crosshair to be placed in the correct area from different angles. For example, Ascent’s B site has a stack of boxes where the top edge of the bottom box is in line with the height of the agents, as seen in the picture below.

These design cues allow you to easily place your crosshair in game while moving and focusing on everything else going on around you. Some weapons in Valorant allow you to aim down a sighted scope, which often can be overused by low elo players. Most of the time, aiming down sight should be used for long distance single-shots. Using your sight in close combat slows down your fire rate and tracking – making it much more difficult to hit the enemy.

Another mechanic that also tends to be overused by many lower elo players is crouching while shooting. While this can be helpful to control your spray, it often makes you an easier stationary target for the enemy to hit. Learning to strafe when shooting instead of crouching makes you a harder target to hit to the enemy and will force you to only shoot a couple bullets at a time for better accuracy. Fixing these basic parts of your aim will give you leverage over other players in lower elo gameplay.

TIP 2: Find Your Agent

Selecting the right agent can make or break your own performance in competitive play, so making sure you choose an agent you are comfortable with is essential. Do you play aggressively and try to get frags for your team to push a site? Play a self-sufficient agent that can get in and out of gunfights quickly. Do you like to be safe and play off of information you have gathered for your teammates to get the frags? Play an agent that can get that information with their utility and initiate those fights for your team. Gain experience with an agent by playing many games with them. Try different setups, positions, and retakes, over and over on different maps. This experience will help you understand what your agent can do with your playstyle. Many online guides go much further into each individual agent’s roles and utility that can be extremely useful when wanting to learn a specific agent.

TIP 3: Understand Your Utility

Knowing how to use your utility to help your team is usually gained off situational awareness and quick thinking. Using your utility with purpose is always better than throwing it in an area for no reason. If you are setting up utility pre-round, ask yourself why you are placing it there. If you are using abilities that deal damage, make sure you are not placing it where your team will be running. If you are smoking off a site, be sure to not do it too early or late. Overall, using your utility relies on timing and awareness of your surroundings.

TIP 4: Make the Right Decisions

Decision making is another game sense that is perfected on situational experience. Most rounds in a game are not going to be predictable, and you will have to rely on reaction and quick thinking to help you and your team. This is a skill that will improve over time as you play the game more but reflecting on failed decisions will also give insight on what to do next time in that situation.

TIP 5: Pay Attention to Sound

Sound plays a huge role in Valorant. When attacking or defending, sound is used to give information. On attack, it is important to listen to your team when you either want to make noise to distract the enemy or stay silent to make sure the enemy cannot hear your location. On defense, listening for enemy footsteps helps you gauge their location to see if you need a teammate to come help you defend the site. Learning the sound cues for different areas of the map is also key to being aware of the enemies positioning. Learning which sounds belong to each agent’s abilities will also help with this immensely.

TIP 6: Remember Enemy Contact

Remembering enemy contact is something often overlooked in lower elo lobbies and is crucial to team awareness. When you see an enemy, be sure to keep track of who and where they were, as this can lead you to understanding where the other enemies are with prediction. Seeing when enemies use multiple abilities in certain areas can help you know when to time a successful attack to where they cannot defend themselves. Lastly, being aware of enemies you or your teammates have damaged can also help you choose gunfights that you have a better chance of winning.

TIP 7: Use Angles to Your Advantage

Understanding and using basic angles of the map will position yourself in better situations to win gunfights in lower elo. Knowing when to hold different angles is another aspect that is learned through experience or watching professional play. You will have to take account of what weapon you are using; can it shoot accurately long distance? Do I need to be close to the enemy to kill them quicker? In most situations when holding an angle, it is important to position yourself where you will be able to see the enemy before they see you, giving you the advantage.

TIP 8: Clear Areas

Clearing corners is something small that will help you feel more confident in your surroundings when pushing into a new area. Clearing sneaky corners where an enemy can hide gives you more space to work with and lowers the chances of you or your teammates getting killed from behind. Going with this, clearing a site before you play will also prevent you from easily being killed after they spike is planted.

TIP 9: Communication

Teamwork relies on communication in Valorant. It is important to know what your teammate means by certain callouts in-game, and you should be able to successfully communicate back information to your team. These callouts will happen quickly, as you are receiving information and reacting to it, so being clear and concise is crucial to correct communication. For example, here is an image of Bind’s location callouts, taken by Valorant-HQ.com.

As you can see, most of these callouts are 1-2 words, which is easier to say when a quick reaction is needed. Learning what callouts mean and what to specifically callout will happen gradually over time, and it is always good to ask teammates what they mean if you do not understand. Communicate when you need help on a specific site, or if you need teammates utility placed down in an area. Callouts are also not limited to enemy contact but can also be used when pointing out enemy utility. Remember, it is better to over communicate than to not communicate at all.

TIP 10: Movement and Positioning

Diving deep into the concept of movement and positioning in Valorant is seen more in higher elo, but knowing some of the basics is always good to know. One of the biggest mistakes lower elo players make in positioning is exposing themselves to multiple angles when swinging an angle. Forcing yourself to clear possible enemy angles one by one as you peak is a better approach so that you can take more winnable gunfights. With your movement, something you want to keep in mind is how predictable you are being to the enemy team. Have you lurked multiple rounds in a row? Have you tried pushing the same site from the same entry spot repeatedly? Have you used your utility in the same spots this whole time? Being unpredictable isn’t always necessary, but it may put you ahead of the enemy in the rounds that count most. Staying in an area for too long is also another habit seen in lower elo play. Not only does this apply to an individual player, but slow team movement can cause major problems if it becomes too predictable. Your team can get stuck in an area and ultimately get killed off by utility, ultimates, or the enemy team pinching them. Finally, learning how to jiggle peak

TIP 11: Watching Professional Play

Watching professional Valorant players is one of the most fun ways of learning and improving your skills. Being exposed to high level play will subconsciously influence you to change your own gameplay for the better because of how drastically different gameplay is between high and low elo players. There is much more coordination, patience, and communication when watching pros perform at their best. Whether you watch YouTube videos, Twitter clips, or Twitch livestreams, watching experienced players is the most entertaining way of learning how to successfully play Valorant.

Conclusion

Being hardstuck in Iron, Bronze, or Silver is not easy. So much stress can come out of noticing no improvement. With these tips, hopefully you can identify what may be holding you back so that you can get back on track to reaching your highest potential. Climbing ranks may not come quickly, but small improvements go a long way. So next time you lock in an agent and load into a map, be sure to keep these basic tips in mind and have fun!