Many debates have occurred regarding whether you should or shouldn’t crouch spray when exchanging gunfire. Many of the most favored responses mention how crouch spraying is entirely situational. But if you’re someone who commonly gets shot in the head while crouching, it’s time to get rid of the crouch spraying habit altogether.

Is Crouch Spraying Bad?

In the circumstance that you tend to get shot more in the head than your body while crouch spraying, it can be clear that your opponent’s are not aiming at head level most of the time. If this is the case, crouching during the gunfight gives the enemy a chance at a free kill. General movement in gunfights is extremely crucial, and the hitbox for a headshot is already big, meaning that there is no reason to crouch spray. At times, it can be certainly said that crouchspraying is not optimal in most situations--and is indeed a bad habit.

Take a look at this small example of the regular spray pattern (1st row) vs the crouched spray pattern (2nd row):

Maintaining your accuracy and changing your stance from standing to crouching, the first two bullets shot tend to be the most accurate. During these shots, you want to be standing while shooting your opponent so you won’t entirely miss your target when crouching. In addition, crouching can be somewhat helpful when lowering your crosshair and can help you get used to controlling the spray pattern to an extent. Although, it’s clear that you would have to get your pick as quickly as you can while you are crouching, otherwise you will then become an easy target due to the slow caused when you are tagged by a bullet.

As your MMR starts to rise, you'll start to be matched against players who may tend to aim more towards your head, and crouching can sometimes allow you to avoid headshots while also helping you control your recoil.

Low Elo Vs High Elo

Whether you are new to playing VALORANT or have been playing for quite a while, there’s no avoiding the fact that crouch spraying is a prominent habit for newer players. You may or may not be aware of the fact that most players at lower ranks will aim at chest level, so in this case, crouching against players in lower ranks is something that is detrimental and can cause you to crouch into a headshot.

In the pro scene, we can see players doing the crouch spray mechanic. We can assume that they understand how the mechanic works. To imitate those who understand the mechanic, you should drop after the first few bullets of the spray to continue it. Doing so would then make you a smaller target and force the opponent to adjust their crosshair to your head.

As you go up the ranks, you will notice that most players will start aiming for the high chest area and are tactically implementing the crouching and counter-strafing mechanics in certain short-range and long-range gunfights. It’s not suggested to crouch at any long range or any fight that puts you in a position where you have to reposition quickly. Counter-strafing should definitely be used more than crouching for situations other than gunfights, like taking and peeking angles. Advanced players may also have burst fires and single taps rather than full-on sprays, and are more aware of their movement than those in the lower ranks.

Unbinding Crouch

As we all may know and have heard, the best and most acknowledged way to start getting rid of the inadequate habit of crouch spraying and/or unnecessary crouching is to unbind your crouch key—as simple as it sounds. To do this, you can either entirely unbind crouch from all keys, or rebind crouch to another key that you do not see yourself pushing down on.

I’ve Unbinded Crouch, Now What?

But now that you have finally found a solution that can help eliminate your bad habit—what do you do now? In the meantime, it is suggested to start working on a better alternative to your movement in gunfights than crouch spraying that fits your playstyle.

As mentioned before, you should definitely be counter-strafing more than you are crouching, as counter-strafing is a mechanic you can implement in many different scenarios. Being able to take gunfights while staying on your feet will definitely make a crucial difference in both aim and movement.

More importantly, anything that will help you build your confidence when taking gunfights should be practiced and mastered consistently in order to take your aim and movement to the next level.

Conclusion

There are extremely situational duels in which a crouch spray would be viable, just as how crouching mid-gunfight can get you a positive outcome, although it shouldn’t be forced. The mechanic can be very useful at times, considering that it’s helpful when controlling your spray due to it lowering your crosshair to adjust to the spray. Although this may be useful, if it becomes a bad habit where you are constantly losing your gunfights because of it, that should be acknowledged.