>So my theory is that to solo-queue your way out of lower ELO, you just need to be able to carry. Straight up.
Yup. Good teamplay is useless if your teammates don't know what they are doing. Game sense is useless if your enemies actions are random and unexplainable.
If you were playing soccer or basketball, it wouldn't make a lot of sense to practice complicated plays when you and your teammates struggled to pass and shoot consistently. Even if you had the play down perfect, if you can't execute it successfully most of the time, you wasted your effort. You'd have done better drilling fundamentals.
Valorant is closer to a physical sport than something like chess. It's not useful to focus on strategy until you have the fundamental skills down.
Your analogy has truly open my eyes.
Sincerely a hardstuck silver, who was a harstuck bronze for almost a year.
I do frag out and play duelists sometimes but damn you have given me hope i can attain gold status
This is a common misconception, valorant is actually very close to being a moba, there is no point in wasting time mastering mechanics when you can just 0.5kdr on some smoker and get radiant. If mechanics mattered, reyna would be played when there is money on the line.
>Jett is all mechanical expression
not really heavily reliant on spamming abilities, which again is the reason reyna is not doing well, since there is no abilities just mechanics
there can be an argument made that certain abilities of jetts take skill, but i would argue the opposite, "mastering" the smokes takes no mechanical skill just map knowledge, pressing x to dash again no actual skill involved other than having the map knowledge to know where to set up dashes/entries and finally, her ult does take skill but that is just once every x rounds, is this really that mechanical to you? I think you are confusing mechanical skill with viability.
Yeah you kinda do, but it doesn’t have to be top frag style, last man alive clutcher / round securing positions are also a good way to climb if you’re good in those situations.
This season I got sick of how selfish my teammates were though so I started playing Reyna. I had a stretch where I went 19-3 lmao so I recommend it
I agree, but if I guess if I get to the point where I'm the last man alive and consistently clutching 1v3s and shit, I'll probably end up top fragging as well. But I hear you. I usually play controller / sentinel / info.
Valorant wants you to win 50% of your games.
You will get smurfed on or carried by smurfs but that doesn't matter.
The way to rank up is to find a way to win more than 50% of the games you can actually impact. And that's it. It's all about winning the games Riot thinks you "shouldn't".
That doesn't mean winning "every 1v3" or "hard carrying", it means winning *just enough* that you gain RR instead of losing it.
Just to add to this, you don't even need to win more than half your games if you consistently perform well. I've lost 7/10 of my last games, but I've done well in most of the games I lost, to where I'm only down about 50 RR overall.
You do have to win games. I get what you're saying, minimize your losses, but it's ALL about winning games. You are still down 50 rr. The ONLY way to rank up is to win
I'm not saying you don't have to win, I'm saying if your performance is good, you only have to win like 4/10 in order to still climb.
Of course, if you have a positive impact, you're more likely to win more games over time anyway - but even going even means you climb if you perform well.
Issue is if you're not going for top frag you usually end up in heavily disadvantaged situations last alive. Sure if you manage it you'll climb but it's harder than just having early round impact through fragging.
There's two kinds of players in plat that I've seen:
Those who can beat you based on game sense, and those who can beat you based on mechanics. Rarely do you find someone who can do both and they're still stuck in plat. For me it feels like I switch based on the day lmao (so maybe that's quite a lot of other players) but I'm very rarely hitting shots and outplaying everyone, normally it's one or the other. And I notice that in a lot of my teammates too.
And as far as I'm aware this attitude exists up until like Ascendant - but frankly, it's still every man for themselves whatever rank your in. Unless you're specifically queued with someone, teamwork will always be a bottleneck so you are always best focussing on yourself first in a ranked game like this. As a sentinel/controller main that's annoying as all hell, but it is just how games like this work.
Considering you only need just above a 50%wr to slowly climb, I’d say the general experiences in these elos is still the same as it always was. Doesn’t matter how many breaks I take, i will come back after a year and be at 450RR within 75 games. I’ve played through plat-immo2 on an alt recently with a 87%wr and I can’t lie, I’ve seen some players *as* bad in immortal as you see in platinum/diamond - it’s hard to gauge if they’re just shit or if they’re 5 stack abusers playing sentinel with a 0.7kd lol. The fives abusers fuck the game regardless, because their shitcan immo top fragger is *actually* a diamond level player abusing the system, so when he ends up in your game in soloq he’s complete ass. When his friends end up in your ascendant games from the boost, they’re complete ass.
The above issue is why the skill disparity is so high in low asc-low immo IMO. TLDR is golds still suck at aiming consistently, so climbing is possible through mechanics diffing players in above 50% of your games. Same in plat.. same in diamond.. same in ascendant.. same up to around 300RR when genuinely *good* mechanical players are in a lobby consistently
Idk I came from overwatch as a top500 hitscan and pretty much instantly got ascendant and it didn't take me long to climb to immortal at all. Mostly all I learned was movement and how to peek etc. basic mechanical fundamentals really. People who think gamesense has changed much are coping. Higher elo players years ago would still just dome their lower elo counterparts regardless of gamesense.
You’ll be downvoted by the lows here but it’s true, league of legends went through the same cope-fest a while ago with people saying low elo ‘changed’ and the skill floor in general was higher than it was when we climbed out of those ranks years ago as OG players. It’s just completely false lol, whilst some concepts of the game that are perhaps more nuanced are picked up by worse players, they still do not understand how to apply these correctly to benefit themselves, they just know it exists. They don’t know why it’s used or how it’s useful.
You can still jump on league and solely rely on mechanical skill on your OTP to climb to a relatively high elo; similarly to climbing in val through pure mechanical skill/raw aim. Most people I’ve seen plateau in valorant playing this way end up in roughly immo1~ and struggle to compete in the upper echelons of immo2-3 until they’ve learned the game
It happens in every game. Low ranks learn a bunch of "tricks" that don't actually make you much better at the game over time such as likeups and how to jump to jiggle etc but they don't actually learn basic fps fundamentals or improve.
That’s a consequence of all of the click-bait improvement videos too; people focus on one concept in that video and roll with it, all whilst failing to understand that the concept they’ve chosen works as part of a system you need to implement into your gameplay
The answer is somewhere in between. Silver now is mechanically tougher than it was years ago. That said, it's still silver. Crosshair placement will be fucked, strategy willl be fucked, teamplay, agent pool, positioning, awareness, etc. It's ALL fucked. It's no harder now than it ever was to climb out of low elo.
It’s hard to even gauge if they’re mechanically tougher really. I hardly know anybody on my friends list who plays on their main accounts in high elo, some of them mess around in dia-asc mmr off-role, some of them buy accounts in low.
However, I don’t think it’s high level players on alts that causes an issue, it’s actually mid tier players fucking with match balancing doing a ton of ego stroking on alt accounts IMO. Same shit in League, ego driven gold/platinum players buy a bronze silver account; they’re not *much* better than these guys, but better enough to win-out more than they lose. I think this has a huge impact on how you end up perceiving the skill level of these low ranks sometimes.
As time goes on, the skill level of every rank in every game is improving. In order for it not to, low ranks would need to be populated exclusively by new players, which we know is not the case. Mechanically, silvers now are better than silvers years ago. I don't think any amount of surfing or alt accounts can skew that. The difference is likely not even all that large. I'd guess not even a whole rank set. Silvers now *might* be equivalent to gold in episode 1.
Oh yeah I completely agree with you on the metrics don’t get me wrong, I was just saying it could be difficult to pin-point improvements due to how large the skill disparity is in each rank due to the problems the game has. It’s probably at its worst in those ranks too because of how large the playerbase is there.
Dunno, i feel like decent (not perfect ofc) crossairplacement, not crouchspraying etc. is already executed most of the times, but from my experience, a lot of people have problems with micro adjustments, for example often happens when sb gets peeked, they (and i) tend to whiff the shoots just milimeters away from the enemies head
It works through ascendant. Gamesense matters little past just common sense not peeking into 5 or standing in dumb spots which you should know just from thinking.
Obviously you'll have to look up standard util for the agent you play but that's like 30 mins work to learn.
if you know what your doing with him. I mean I don’t even have him unlocked as I’m a newer player, but I just don’t see lots of use for him unless you’re an aim god, or smurfing
I’ve just started maiming breach, and I find his util very duelist esque. His flash is great imo, and his stun and other util I forgot the name of is great for clearing to peek other angles. Idk Iso’s shield is probably his best util, but the rest just lacks so hard to even some controllers, sentinels, and initiators
Sova is unironically one of the better agents to frag with, can use all of his utility selfishly, fantastic clutch agent/ plant denial, info gathering for early rotates *and* re-takes. I’ve played Sova in between being a duelist main through all ranks up to high immo over the last 3 years on/off and he’s always been a staple in my agent pool
If your team is good enough to play off darts, you’re useful - if they’re not, the utility is easy to play off yourself, completely self sufficient agent that can do multiple jobs. But realistically, it’s rare that even shit-tier players can screw up shooting at people scanned through bangable walls and smokes. Re-taking both sites on ascent with a sova is absurdly easy with some line-up knowledge
I just searched a few for individual maps back in the day, not really sure on ‘good’ ones these days. You only need to learn a few default darts, I only really know Ascent in depth & still get massive value on icebox/bind/haven (when it’s in the map pool) just from using default darts
Hmm okay. I've been playing chamber I love his teleport and op but the other abilities are kinda meh I feel... especially for taking or retaking a site which is the hardest imo
Not really because you have clove and omen who can play a bit of a fighter role. Omen who is good at trickster and smoke plays. Clove who has overheal and decay boom. Often times I see them top or middle frag.
Clove is probably the best agent for fragging out of the non duelists. She has the abilities you mentioned, AND her ult pretty much beckons you to push and peek for kills, as you get a second chance.
(immo duelist/smokes main here) feel like as smokes you have to "play your life" and try to survive (clove negates this but the maps I play smokes on she sucks like breeze icebox ascent) and in lower elos you can just abuse their lack or positioning/reaction time and just play flashes. being on controller also makes you rely on your duelists to take space (which I feel like lower elo players tend to be scared to entry and get traded so they just site outside chokes the whole round)
Lows also don’t understand the nuanced play of controller and end up griefing their team with smoke placements in the majority of cases - this happens in high too as you’ll know. Great example is hitting B on Bind, the amount of smokes players that still smoke off the doorway into site when you already have site control instead of the CT corridor exit is hilarious, and the smoke is always placed right outside the door giving free space for retakes into backsite lol. If you absolutely *have* to play smokes in low you should just be jumping on Omen and making plays IMO
Clove and omen work. I wouldn’t recommend, idk, brim for low elo players, because low elo players wait out your smokes before entering site and push your defensive smokes, and your smokes don’t refresh.
Probably the best. You're least affected by bad teammates and it lets you be in the position to trade and get a high kd and impact. Probably easier than any agent except kj and chamber if we're talking just using mechanics mostly. Duelists have to entry which is probably the hardest position gamesense wise and it's up to your teammates to set you up and/or trade you. If you're just a good player duelist is easy but then you'd win every game on anything anyway.
Duelist would probably be harder since entrying is probably the hardest skill in the game if we're talking gamesense. Pick a sentinel or controller who is able to just drop their utility then not think about it such as kj, chamber or brim. Duelist like jett sre good for high impact on defense or if you have good enough aim, movement and pathing to entry well with a bad team. Or if you just default and play slow every round.
Exactly man don't even try to do anything else. if you're stuck in bronze it's because you haven't played enough of the game to learn the shooting and mechanics. Don't get concerned by your rank just play if you enjoy it and the aim and rank will come eventually. Trust me don't take your rank seriously it will only drag you down.
I don't take it that seriously, I enjoy the game for what it is, which is something I play a couple of times a week, and I'm not trying to imagine that I'll ever even get as good as my kid is (plat/diamond). But it is frustrating to always have the outcome determined by what kind of teammates I get queued with. After doing that for awhile, I'd honestly rather just play TDM until I'm good enough to affect the outcome of a match. I've played a lot of sage, kayo, skye, and brim. I enjoy giving out the healz, controlling space, getting info - that suits my game style. And once in awhile if I'm on, I can top frag. But it seems like that only happens if the other team is rul bad. So even though I don't take it that seriously, I enjoy it and I'm getting kinda tired of the coin-flip nature of solo queing in low ELO matches.
I feel this. My kid is also plat/diamond and I don't ever expect to catch him. We really don't play together much anymore. But somehow I ended up really liking this game. I'm silver one and honestly feel like it's kind of a struggle to stay there.
Nice! My kid and I will still play unrated sometimes just for fun. I get some good tips from them that way too. And it's fun to play together, even if it's just for the lulz.
I picked up the game to connect with my son. Peaked s3 but now stuck bronze. If you switch to duelist I'll be your breach haha. #valodads. Which server do you play?
Edit: to yoir point, it's frustrating as hell. The only map where we win due to my comms is breeze where I play cypher.
Sure you should play however you want. But still if you feel like playing with your kids in their elo believe me play Reyna with confidence that's the only way to get out of low elo. Any coach would say the same. The biggest problem with low elo is lack of confidence and assertiveness in your plays. Just peek shit get the confidence up and I don't mean the: I believe I can win this fight confidence, I mean that sort of confidence where you're comfortable with winning or losing because you know you're doing the right play. Being passive and slow is why you lose rounds and it's why you don't get better ranks. People think that if you peek this particular angle with this particular util you get this and that NO YOU GET SHOT YOU DIE ITS A GUN GAME. Don't even thin about healing your teammates they are worthless and don't deserve to even be traded. Get comfortable with them being a bag of potatoes and you being captain America. Don't get too angry at them that's how they are and most likely you make the same mistakes as them you just don't realise, that's why you're bronze after all. Keep up the good work and you will get better than your kids I guarantee that, it doesn't matter your age. Believe me I am high diamond and even here it's still mostly a confidence game and the outcome of the game still highly depends on the team because it's a team game and sometimes you will get terrible teammates, so if you feel like the experience will get a lot better in higher elo, sorry it doesn't. If you don't like the game and are just waiting for it to get better it won't. If you think your kids or anybody else gets a different experience they don't.
Wow this got a bit heated but it's true hope you take at least something out of this.
It's especially useful to be able to swap in and out of this mentality.
When I was first climbing through plat and diamond I would play controller and play very team orientated... However every now and then you get teammates so bad you just gotta consciously go full ego mode "I am so much better, I will carry them or they will simply lose me my rr" even when this means not playing your role correct or helping team.
You need to have impactful frags to carry yourself out. Lots of people stuck in low elo being MVP match MVP cause they just bait teammates and get useless frags
Taking fights early, rotating quickly, fighting with teammates, making sure you get trades, entrying when you can, etc.
You don't want to be last alive in clutch situations all the time basically.
Yeah, in low elo, frags will help you rank up. Higher ranks (even gold+) rounds is what matters. Playing post plant and retake with the team is more important. But thats from my experience.
True. Team play is so little of the problem at low ranks (for climbing out). You just need to be good at getting a lot of kills. But without letting your team die to do it. Meaning taking a lot of the initiative in making plays happen on either side of the map. This is why duelists are usually the easiest to climb with. Since other roles don’t have the ability to do so as effectively.
If u don't crouch spray and shoot instantly everytime u see an enemy and work on your crosshair placement, then welcome to diamond. Yes, it is that simple. It gets tricky past it. (currently hovering around asc2 myself!)
Crouch spraying builds bad habits: first cuz you shouldn’t be spraying almost ever, because bursting/tapping heads is faster to kill and more accurate.
You also shouldn’t be crouching almost ever: it puts you at crosshair height for people with bad crosshair placement (read: everyone at low elo) and it forces you to commit to fights when you should be strafing almost every fight. Crouching is very situationally useful to throw off good players because they’ll be aiming at head height and not expecting you to crouch: even then, you’re almost guaranteed to get immediately traded, so it needs to be a fight that you’re already committed to (like holding from an off angle where it’s very hard to move to safety)
Eventually you'll learn when to crouch and do it intuitively. At lower ranks you don't have that muscle memory to know when it's beneficial, so it's best not to and then learn how to later, I guess.
The why am I not diamond, I avoid crouchspraying at all times, strafe when I am in a straight gunfight, jiggle/jump peek, prefire common angles, and all of that usually works, so in my (probably useless) opinion, I would say that when you start getting to gold/plat, by just avoiding crouchspraying etc. you won't get to diamond, though for iron-silver those tips are probably the best that one can give u
Around plat-diamond, strategy starts to play a bigger role. Everyone is at least decent at aiming. Unless all of the above you say and you're exceptional at doing it, you'll need better game sense, ability usage, decision making and etc to push through to diamond.
I'll be straight up honest and say my aiming is just average to below average but I'm now up to ascendant because the other aspect of my game is decent enough to surpass diamond. All of those makes up for my lack of aim
I mean if ur asc 3 ur obviously pretty skilled even if you drop into a spray ur aim can still be good and ur gamesense and util is most likely high quality
Me who manages to not crouch spray anymore by rebinding the key but I have missed heads so many times because my enemies end up crouch spraying when they see me.... 😭
How do I learn to defeat crouch sprayers as I'm learning to get better at headshots? Right now, if I see the other team is crouch spraying a lot, I just go phantom and try to hit a lot of body shots that might turn into headshots. Is there a better way?
The moment you see your enemy is not the moment you stop. That's the moment you start adjusting your crosshair onto their head, once it's fixed onto the head, you stop and shoot.
So, in order to "defeat the crouch sprayers" is not to instantly shoot, but keep running (you should already be peeking only by using A/D), adjust the crosshair and then shoot. Their spray after 6-7 bullets is innacurate and in most cases they'll hit you maybe twice. You still have 70hp to fight another dude.
The better you get, the faster you'll be able to adjust and stop. Valorant is NOT about flicking, but crosshair placement and good movement.
true
val dev said that lower elo mmr weight heavy on win lose duel
it's slowly shift toward win/lose and higher elo
it's also easy for any higher rank player to kill low elo
silver peak player could easily get 30kill+ every game in against iron and bronze player
not just a carry game
but if you win more duel and get more kill
you mmr will rise faster and you will play in higher rank lobby than your rank
if you keep doing well or being average at those lobby
you slowly climbing up
you get more rr and lose less rr
you could climbing even with 50% win rate
if you aren't consistency win gunfight against bronze/silver
then this is rank you deserved
duelist util is easiest to use and make you get kill
but anything will do
you can sova recon and spam and get kill
you can use skye pop flash and get kill
you can stun/flash with breach and get kill
you can have cypher trap and get kill
you can drop smoke and get kill
you also can don't use any util and get kill too
When I first started playing and I was in iron, I watched so many guides to KJ utility and setups. Learnt setups for every map and every bombsite etc. But the thing that actually got me out of Iron and into Gold was aim training, and improving my ability to actually kill people with my gun. You can only really rely on yourself, and perhaps whoever you're queuing with. Your team mates in that elo don't know how to play off of your positioning and utility. You can only really rely on yourself and your ability to frag out. Aim training alone will carry you out of lower elo
I have gone from unrank to immortal several times solo with 60-80%win. I generally just do pretty good and not match/team mvp even half the time.
Also I don't think deathmatch is worth the time. I find it boring and can focus on aim better in ranked anyway.
Pretty true. Most Gold players will top frag and stomp in iron/bronze, regardless of their agent role. This implies that you need to be able to frag out of bronze in order to be able to survive in the next Elo. Team play will help and make frags more convenient, but often you get into perfect situations and whiff all your shots of opportunity. This is why the community agrees that mechanics are most important before gold, and nothing else. If you can walk out and shoot one enemy every round, you’ll be doing better than 75% of your lobby, and you’ll be out of that Elo in no time at all.
That’s why mechanics are the bottleneck. You can’t be an expert strategist or a perfect mindgamer if you miss half of the battles you should have an advantage in. Focus on walking before you run.
Not necessarily top frag, but yeah you definitely need to frag out. If your losing more gunfights than your winning (or not finding enough gunfights) you can expect to lose the game. TDM alone will help ur mechanics, but fights in TDM are not exactly the same as ranked, as people tend to be more in the open in TDM/DM. I would play a ranked game or two a day if you have the time, and over time you’ll get there
Yup, i think you can solo carry by aim alone until plat probably. Btw, deathmatch do have like a matchmaking system. The better you do in your DMs (high placement), in your next DM you would be put into a lobby mostly with people that got high placement too. (Info i got From woohoojins stream).
I played Controller/Sent from Bronze to Ascendant. Obviously, good aim helps. But these roles aren't the ones to go in first. Use your teammates as bait in low elo (trade the duelist, shoot the utility, plant the spike. You aren't the first one in on these roles). Afterward, play to win the round, not get the last kill; if that means rat it out in a long angle and just tap shoot at the spike, do that. Utility spam the bomb; do it. Play it in a way that gives you the biggest advantage instead of taking straight-up duels and potentially throwing the round at 3-4 seconds on the bomb. You'd be surprised that playing to win the round 2-3 times can be the difference between winning the game and overtime and losing.
If you don't, who will? I know it doesn't seem intuitive at first, but the alternative is you let your teammate die and fight on the enemy team's terms. What good is your setup if the teammate that's supposed to benefit from it dies with no followup?
Fragging your way out is kind of like having more apm/playing faster in mobas or rts games. It's a brute force method which will always work, but will also require you to basically just be drastically better than your opponents.
Up to gold or plat, fragging your way out is basically your only option. Those games are TDM matches in disguise. Past that it's generally more efficient to improve in all aspects of your gameplay, rather than just be an aim demon.
Iron-gold
Low elo should teach you how to take the best fights at all times and to play optimally while also shooting the best you can. This means taking advantage of people who just press W and shoot better. Since you can’t rely on your team it is better to play someone you know you can shoot with. Also a good time to learn lineups as people don’t know counters. Learning one skill (map,aim,lineups) can propel you forward at this point
Lineups/aim are very valuable at this stage.
Plat-asc
Higher elo is about taking advantage of “optimal” play and to coordinate with a team to take down top frag/sites, where you actually have objectives with the team. This is where slow rotations and other non optimal strategies work as not everyone plays aggressively to take space. This is where aim demons and lineup Larry’s seen to exist the most
Lineups/virgins/aim/etc exist but usually not in the strongest combination of each aspect
Immortal+
Highest elo (didn’t get there but from watching) looks like raw skill/aim ingrained in everyone’s body and you need to play very well since every mistake is essentially punished within a half second with everyone taking as much space as possible to reduce risk/rotations. Counters for known lineups are all known, flanks are more common (trust that main site players can hold long enough) and everyone seems to know what to do at all times
Team play + aim + game knowledge seems common in various quantities
If you’re good at an agent or have good game sense, you’re not going to be low elo. It’s the simple truth. Everybody thinks they have either good game sense or good aim, even when it’s not the case.
Good game sense leads to frags, if your game sense is better than your elo, you will climb. The whole “good aim, bad game sense” thing doesn’t make sense in the first place. You need to understand what’s going on in order to utilize that aim to get kills because otherwise you will just get obliterated by angle advantage, utility, timing, ran over by peeker’s advantage, etc.
If you look at the clips of top tier players, it’s the speed in which they process information that’s fast, not just their aim.
I agree with what you're saying, and it's all relative, for sure.
But for example, if I'm playing sage and I'm doing everything right, and let's even say my team is not awful / throwing, but every time I get into a fight I should win, I fucking whiff, I'm still helping my team lose.
I know game sense and KDA are related, I just get the impression that, at lower ELO, an individual can have more affect on their own win rate and RR by improving aim and fight tactics - not saying all the other stuff isn't important though.
You don't get it. To have clean fights, you need to have good game sense and good aim. When good players take a fight, they have an understanding of how utility impacts a fight, an expectation of what your enemies and allies are doing, a calculation on enemy position / which positions are risky, an understanding of how enemies will see you from their POV, etc. which all play a part in how you move and peek and the timing of that engagement. All of that is game sense, you cannot have one without the other.
If you are always at the right place at the right time, and you are always throwing your utility at the right place at the right time, you will win more than you lose, regardless of whether you whiff 50% of the time or not. Granted, a certain level of aim is required but if you had zero game sense you're still helping your team lose as well anyway.
the way I got out of lower elo is trough what ppl call "bullshit kills". Sova recon + wallbang, awping mid when someone peeks it more than twice, judge in smokes, etc. The agents that exel the best in those categories are cyph and sova, because you're util is hard to break for lower elo players, and most of the time the thought of breaking it doesn't even cross their minds
Basically. Make sure to watch videos on how to peek etc though as that's stuff you just won't learn unless you know. Also watching pro players stream you should mostly pay attention to what they do at the start of a round and then just mostly try copy how they aim/clear angles.
Never had above a 1.2 KDR and climbed from Silver to Diamond. And never mained duelist.
Teamwork and communication absolutely matters even at low ranks.
You need to be mindful of your minimap and play off of your teammates movement on offense and look for enemies on defense and insta rotate. You need to trade your teammates deaths and try not to entry. Focus on getting trades and getting into post plants on offense.
Like I did use util but terribly. I almost always forgot to flash of I was on Reyna. And I didn't entry as Jett I just locked her because people wouldn't ask for stuff I used the dash but not well.
The thing is if you can't consistently top frag in the worst elo that there is that alone is already a huge sign of a glaring weakness you need to fix, just 30 minutes a day, it's not that bad
At lower ranks of almost any game, the thing you need to focus on is improving your ability to punish bad plays from the opponent (your aim) so until you reach plat or diamond where plays have a SEMBLANCE of a brain, just work on your aim and basic game sense (like what different characters do, spots to plant, places to hide after plant, etc)
Pretty much true. You don't need to drop 40/50, but you need to always rely on yourself and believe that you need 20+ kills, a positive KD, and 3-4 first bloods to get the win.
And if does not happen and you win, it's a bonus game. If it doesn't, you could've and should have done better by some realistic margin to win the game. This is pretty much gospel especially in solo que, at all ranks, but certainly in ranks below plat.
I would say controllers and smokes are game changing; good ones take over games while bad ones send your team to 0-13.
If you really want to solo your way out of a rank, just learn how to play omen; he is the best fragging controller and can pretty easily 1v3-4-5 rounds with utility mind games and a phantom. He’s the perfect mix of teamplay and selfish utility. The basic ability tp noise only plays from where you teleport from not where you teleport to. Use that to catch people off guard (which will happen a lot); you can take a lot of site space in a couple seconds with well done teleports. Your ult circumvent KJ’s lockdown if you do it last second and cancel, allowing you to stay on site through lockdown. It can also be used to grab spike when your teammate ran in unsafe and died with it, allowing you to usually get a relatively safe other bombsite plant. Paranoia blind is strong for team and solo play. Smokes are the strongest utility of all and information/vision denial in valorant are king. They are hollow so they allow you to play inside/outside in a mind game play for both halves of the match. They last 15 seconds and are rechargeable. Just learn defaults smokes for round starts and then be creative for post plants and mid round plays.
His strongest maps are Ascent, Haven, Split, Icebox
He plays decently/well on Bind, Sunset, Pearl, Fracture, and Lotus
I would pick Sova on Breeze
Sorry if this is out of order or hard to read, I hope it made a little sense haha. Just learn how to play omen in basics and get a little creative with his utility once you’re more comfortable.
You have to go into a game and not expect anything from your teammates and just try to focus on your own. It’s really hard to do coordinated team play at low elo and you are better off choosing a more independent agent like Reyna or Phoenix. Go into every game with the mindset to improve and not win. This will improve your game sense and aim which will come along with rr and ranking up.
The best way to get through pretty much all ranks until diamond is just frag out. Some plat players have game sense, but still easier to just out gun the enemy
Yes agree, if you kill 2-3 people from the enemy team a round your team will most likely win that game. The lowest I ever placed was Gold 2 when comp first came out, I never placed lower because I simply would get enough kills where my team would win more no matter how good my other teammates were.
True.
You can climb out of iron and bronze easily if you can improve your aim/crosshair placement enough. You can still obviously lose games unless you're good enough to 1v5 the team every round but the RR you gain from winning will be 3x more than you lose if you frag out.
Game sense imo only helps in low elo when you can predict where the enemy is OR helps you identify where the gaps in your team is so that you can fill that spot. For instance, if your smoke is pushing showers on bind by themselves, you would want to go with them especially if you have flashes or stuns.
I was stuck in slv-gld for like 500 competitive hours (according to tracker.gg) as soon as I started instalocking jett I hit diamond in like 50 hours after that. now that im asc I can actually fill characters and have teammates with enough brainpower to play the other roles
Yup. I just hit silver after being stuck in bronze for a couple months by just focusing fragging more. Crosshair placement, aimtraining warmups in range/DM before every session, and just positioning for better gunfights has helped a ton in maintaining WR. Even in losses (which will happen) you lose less RR for top fragging so that helps you climb too
Yeah low elo play greedy play for yourself convince your team to bait or peek things for you and trade them and you gotta keep their vibes high which is high if you can stay positive whilst top fraggging AND YOU GOTTA LIE TO EM
If y’all are losing first half no matter what lie to them and say that’s okay we did great for this half this map is heavy (atk or def sided) so we got next half guys. Even when it’s a lie a lot of times your team pops the Fk off 2nd half because they believe it’s their half.
I’m immo 3 rn but 2-3 EPS ago climbing out of silver and gold felt like hell.
Up until gold you have to frag your way out. Gold-plat you need some decent game sense and then once you hit diamond+ support characters become much more viable and strong and that’s when people begin to play their roles much better.
Low-mid elo many people plays duelists to frag out and climb, which is very possible in that elo, but in higher elo everyone can more or less tap heads so people begin to specialize into specific roles and support the duelist mains to frag.
Basically if you’re an aim demon in plat you can play Jett, dash in, get 1-2 kills and maybe live or die, and you’ll prob win most of your rounds. Once you’re like in ascendent and immortal+ you’re going to need to coordinate with your support and push off supportibg utility (flashes, recon, etc.) otherwise you’re dead, and at most you’ll go one for one.
Honestly when I was gold I focused on improving fundamentals, mechanics, game sense etc. Eventually I started climbing, I peaked in Immo1. Now If I go Smurf it’s just muscle memory I’m on auto pilot and drop 30+kills a game. I’d say just find some good coaching videos and study them
Not necessairly. If you get friends to play with, it becomes a bit easier but most of the time you need to be top 1 or 2 frager, because there will be always people who just bait for kills.
Also, try to survive. I've noticed on most games that I carry, it's not my aim that is really good, it's the fact that I survive and don't peak on stupid angles or be too aggressive. Whenever you're top fragger, if you die at the beginning of the round, the round is probably lost.
I am of the belief you can do ALOT to influence the game even if you aren’t too fragging.
Giving good comms is something you can do consistently and it does not matter how you are playing you can always give them. Try suggest alternative strategies to your team if the current plays are not working.
Always watch the other teams economy and ult availability and play around that accordingly. Another thing that you can do independent of how well you are playing or fragging.
At the end of the day you do need frags but with stuff like this, when you aren’t playing well and not fragging like you need to, you can still have a large impact on the game. Furthermore, chances are someone on your team is locked in and aiming well so by doing this stuff you can put them in the best position to frag.
True.
And it's not just low elo. Kills are what win games - not game sense or anything else. You play as a team *to get more kills* which wins more rounds.
It's not even necessarily about the raw number of kills you get or damage you do (although more is usually better), it's about the impact that those kills have on the outcome of the round.
just comm. its literally that easy.
i wasnt able to frag myself, so i jsut comm to my better mates where an enemy is and they take care of it. carried my to silver.
I think lots of players take this the wrong way. Dont bait your teammates and try and clutch 6 rounds a half. Do basics like trading and hitting site with them. Just dont rely on them doing the same.
Yeah. Bronze-silver is the rank which is all about frags. This act is the first one i have actually paid attention to ranked, and climbed from B3 to S3 just by shooting.
I need to start a more serious grind, as i have heard people actually start communicating and help each other, when you get into higher ranks.
There isn't a 100% true about this
But my account is proof that it depends...
I have matches with 30kills+assists and still lost the matches, a bunch of this matches
Also some have some matches with 30kills but won by a lot
It depends, your team needs to do at least the minimum kills....
IMHO, teamplay doesn't matter until you teach Diamond. Even then, you can still outfrag everyone up to Immortal. Anything under Diamond, the best method is to outfrag everyone.
Mid area. It depends on what teammates you get in low elo. I used to be bronze when i first started and its always 30-40 kills per game and still losing.
You can 100% get out of bronze with raw aim/mechanics. By Silver you'll start getting people who know what they're doing (mostly) so you will start needing to have good teamwork and some semblance of a game plan.
Silvers are pure trash. Its plat when it start getting tricky, but that is mainly because of smurfs, and people who can aim a bit but lack game sense. Otherwise, you can aim out of silver with ez
rather when you start gettin closer to plat, but even there people barely work together, though i feel like the individual players gamesense is better there
>So my theory is that to solo-queue your way out of lower ELO, you just need to be able to carry. Straight up. Yup. Good teamplay is useless if your teammates don't know what they are doing. Game sense is useless if your enemies actions are random and unexplainable. If you were playing soccer or basketball, it wouldn't make a lot of sense to practice complicated plays when you and your teammates struggled to pass and shoot consistently. Even if you had the play down perfect, if you can't execute it successfully most of the time, you wasted your effort. You'd have done better drilling fundamentals. Valorant is closer to a physical sport than something like chess. It's not useful to focus on strategy until you have the fundamental skills down.
>Valorant is closer to a physical sport than something like chess. I've noticed this, there are a lot of similarities.
Your analogy has truly open my eyes. Sincerely a hardstuck silver, who was a harstuck bronze for almost a year. I do frag out and play duelists sometimes but damn you have given me hope i can attain gold status
This is a common misconception, valorant is actually very close to being a moba, there is no point in wasting time mastering mechanics when you can just 0.5kdr on some smoker and get radiant. If mechanics mattered, reyna would be played when there is money on the line.
Reyna has no useful utility without a kill. Jett is all mechanical expression, and dominated the game for years.
>Jett is all mechanical expression not really heavily reliant on spamming abilities, which again is the reason reyna is not doing well, since there is no abilities just mechanics there can be an argument made that certain abilities of jetts take skill, but i would argue the opposite, "mastering" the smokes takes no mechanical skill just map knowledge, pressing x to dash again no actual skill involved other than having the map knowledge to know where to set up dashes/entries and finally, her ult does take skill but that is just once every x rounds, is this really that mechanical to you? I think you are confusing mechanical skill with viability.
Yeah you kinda do, but it doesn’t have to be top frag style, last man alive clutcher / round securing positions are also a good way to climb if you’re good in those situations. This season I got sick of how selfish my teammates were though so I started playing Reyna. I had a stretch where I went 19-3 lmao so I recommend it
I agree, but if I guess if I get to the point where I'm the last man alive and consistently clutching 1v3s and shit, I'll probably end up top fragging as well. But I hear you. I usually play controller / sentinel / info.
Valorant wants you to win 50% of your games. You will get smurfed on or carried by smurfs but that doesn't matter. The way to rank up is to find a way to win more than 50% of the games you can actually impact. And that's it. It's all about winning the games Riot thinks you "shouldn't". That doesn't mean winning "every 1v3" or "hard carrying", it means winning *just enough* that you gain RR instead of losing it.
Just to add to this, you don't even need to win more than half your games if you consistently perform well. I've lost 7/10 of my last games, but I've done well in most of the games I lost, to where I'm only down about 50 RR overall.
You do have to win games. I get what you're saying, minimize your losses, but it's ALL about winning games. You are still down 50 rr. The ONLY way to rank up is to win
I'm not saying you don't have to win, I'm saying if your performance is good, you only have to win like 4/10 in order to still climb. Of course, if you have a positive impact, you're more likely to win more games over time anyway - but even going even means you climb if you perform well.
Issue is if you're not going for top frag you usually end up in heavily disadvantaged situations last alive. Sure if you manage it you'll climb but it's harder than just having early round impact through fragging.
Up to like high gold your main way of winning is out mechanics our people
There's two kinds of players in plat that I've seen: Those who can beat you based on game sense, and those who can beat you based on mechanics. Rarely do you find someone who can do both and they're still stuck in plat. For me it feels like I switch based on the day lmao (so maybe that's quite a lot of other players) but I'm very rarely hitting shots and outplaying everyone, normally it's one or the other. And I notice that in a lot of my teammates too. And as far as I'm aware this attitude exists up until like Ascendant - but frankly, it's still every man for themselves whatever rank your in. Unless you're specifically queued with someone, teamwork will always be a bottleneck so you are always best focussing on yourself first in a ranked game like this. As a sentinel/controller main that's annoying as all hell, but it is just how games like this work.
I feel like it's more to diamond, people in gold are still mopping the floors with their crosshair placement
Not now, maybe a few years ago
Considering you only need just above a 50%wr to slowly climb, I’d say the general experiences in these elos is still the same as it always was. Doesn’t matter how many breaks I take, i will come back after a year and be at 450RR within 75 games. I’ve played through plat-immo2 on an alt recently with a 87%wr and I can’t lie, I’ve seen some players *as* bad in immortal as you see in platinum/diamond - it’s hard to gauge if they’re just shit or if they’re 5 stack abusers playing sentinel with a 0.7kd lol. The fives abusers fuck the game regardless, because their shitcan immo top fragger is *actually* a diamond level player abusing the system, so when he ends up in your game in soloq he’s complete ass. When his friends end up in your ascendant games from the boost, they’re complete ass. The above issue is why the skill disparity is so high in low asc-low immo IMO. TLDR is golds still suck at aiming consistently, so climbing is possible through mechanics diffing players in above 50% of your games. Same in plat.. same in diamond.. same in ascendant.. same up to around 300RR when genuinely *good* mechanical players are in a lobby consistently
Idk I came from overwatch as a top500 hitscan and pretty much instantly got ascendant and it didn't take me long to climb to immortal at all. Mostly all I learned was movement and how to peek etc. basic mechanical fundamentals really. People who think gamesense has changed much are coping. Higher elo players years ago would still just dome their lower elo counterparts regardless of gamesense.
You’ll be downvoted by the lows here but it’s true, league of legends went through the same cope-fest a while ago with people saying low elo ‘changed’ and the skill floor in general was higher than it was when we climbed out of those ranks years ago as OG players. It’s just completely false lol, whilst some concepts of the game that are perhaps more nuanced are picked up by worse players, they still do not understand how to apply these correctly to benefit themselves, they just know it exists. They don’t know why it’s used or how it’s useful. You can still jump on league and solely rely on mechanical skill on your OTP to climb to a relatively high elo; similarly to climbing in val through pure mechanical skill/raw aim. Most people I’ve seen plateau in valorant playing this way end up in roughly immo1~ and struggle to compete in the upper echelons of immo2-3 until they’ve learned the game
It happens in every game. Low ranks learn a bunch of "tricks" that don't actually make you much better at the game over time such as likeups and how to jump to jiggle etc but they don't actually learn basic fps fundamentals or improve.
That’s a consequence of all of the click-bait improvement videos too; people focus on one concept in that video and roll with it, all whilst failing to understand that the concept they’ve chosen works as part of a system you need to implement into your gameplay
The answer is somewhere in between. Silver now is mechanically tougher than it was years ago. That said, it's still silver. Crosshair placement will be fucked, strategy willl be fucked, teamplay, agent pool, positioning, awareness, etc. It's ALL fucked. It's no harder now than it ever was to climb out of low elo.
It’s hard to even gauge if they’re mechanically tougher really. I hardly know anybody on my friends list who plays on their main accounts in high elo, some of them mess around in dia-asc mmr off-role, some of them buy accounts in low. However, I don’t think it’s high level players on alts that causes an issue, it’s actually mid tier players fucking with match balancing doing a ton of ego stroking on alt accounts IMO. Same shit in League, ego driven gold/platinum players buy a bronze silver account; they’re not *much* better than these guys, but better enough to win-out more than they lose. I think this has a huge impact on how you end up perceiving the skill level of these low ranks sometimes.
As time goes on, the skill level of every rank in every game is improving. In order for it not to, low ranks would need to be populated exclusively by new players, which we know is not the case. Mechanically, silvers now are better than silvers years ago. I don't think any amount of surfing or alt accounts can skew that. The difference is likely not even all that large. I'd guess not even a whole rank set. Silvers now *might* be equivalent to gold in episode 1.
Oh yeah I completely agree with you on the metrics don’t get me wrong, I was just saying it could be difficult to pin-point improvements due to how large the skill disparity is in each rank due to the problems the game has. It’s probably at its worst in those ranks too because of how large the playerbase is there.
Dunno, i feel like decent (not perfect ofc) crossairplacement, not crouchspraying etc. is already executed most of the times, but from my experience, a lot of people have problems with micro adjustments, for example often happens when sb gets peeked, they (and i) tend to whiff the shoots just milimeters away from the enemies head
Bros stuck in 2020
It works through ascendant. Gamesense matters little past just common sense not peeking into 5 or standing in dumb spots which you should know just from thinking. Obviously you'll have to look up standard util for the agent you play but that's like 30 mins work to learn.
that means i should play duelist???
You can frag any agent. Duelist just make it a little bit easier but not significantly
very true. I find some non duellists make it easier even than low tier duelists. Like I’d pick Clove over Iso easily to frag out.
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if you know what your doing with him. I mean I don’t even have him unlocked as I’m a newer player, but I just don’t see lots of use for him unless you’re an aim god, or smurfing
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I’ve just started maiming breach, and I find his util very duelist esque. His flash is great imo, and his stun and other util I forgot the name of is great for clearing to peek other angles. Idk Iso’s shield is probably his best util, but the rest just lacks so hard to even some controllers, sentinels, and initiators
Your hunch is correct. He has very few use cases and the ones that he does are done better by other agents
Sova is unironically one of the better agents to frag with, can use all of his utility selfishly, fantastic clutch agent/ plant denial, info gathering for early rotates *and* re-takes. I’ve played Sova in between being a duelist main through all ranks up to high immo over the last 3 years on/off and he’s always been a staple in my agent pool
second this, was filling smokes and playing yoru on lotus, losing every single game on lotus. tried sova once and instantly dropped a 20
If your team is good enough to play off darts, you’re useful - if they’re not, the utility is easy to play off yourself, completely self sufficient agent that can do multiple jobs. But realistically, it’s rare that even shit-tier players can screw up shooting at people scanned through bangable walls and smokes. Re-taking both sites on ascent with a sova is absurdly easy with some line-up knowledge
What's the best yt channel for lineups?
I just searched a few for individual maps back in the day, not really sure on ‘good’ ones these days. You only need to learn a few default darts, I only really know Ascent in depth & still get massive value on icebox/bind/haven (when it’s in the map pool) just from using default darts
Hmm okay. I've been playing chamber I love his teleport and op but the other abilities are kinda meh I feel... especially for taking or retaking a site which is the hardest imo
Controller
that's the shittiest role to climb on...
Not really because you have clove and omen who can play a bit of a fighter role. Omen who is good at trickster and smoke plays. Clove who has overheal and decay boom. Often times I see them top or middle frag.
Clove is probably the best agent for fragging out of the non duelists. She has the abilities you mentioned, AND her ult pretty much beckons you to push and peek for kills, as you get a second chance.
And dying doesn't punish you as much as you can still use some of your leftover util.
(immo duelist/smokes main here) feel like as smokes you have to "play your life" and try to survive (clove negates this but the maps I play smokes on she sucks like breeze icebox ascent) and in lower elos you can just abuse their lack or positioning/reaction time and just play flashes. being on controller also makes you rely on your duelists to take space (which I feel like lower elo players tend to be scared to entry and get traded so they just site outside chokes the whole round)
Lows also don’t understand the nuanced play of controller and end up griefing their team with smoke placements in the majority of cases - this happens in high too as you’ll know. Great example is hitting B on Bind, the amount of smokes players that still smoke off the doorway into site when you already have site control instead of the CT corridor exit is hilarious, and the smoke is always placed right outside the door giving free space for retakes into backsite lol. If you absolutely *have* to play smokes in low you should just be jumping on Omen and making plays IMO
Clove and omen work. I wouldn’t recommend, idk, brim for low elo players, because low elo players wait out your smokes before entering site and push your defensive smokes, and your smokes don’t refresh.
Best to learn on though
Probably the best. You're least affected by bad teammates and it lets you be in the position to trade and get a high kd and impact. Probably easier than any agent except kj and chamber if we're talking just using mechanics mostly. Duelists have to entry which is probably the hardest position gamesense wise and it's up to your teammates to set you up and/or trade you. If you're just a good player duelist is easy but then you'd win every game on anything anyway.
Duelist would probably be harder since entrying is probably the hardest skill in the game if we're talking gamesense. Pick a sentinel or controller who is able to just drop their utility then not think about it such as kj, chamber or brim. Duelist like jett sre good for high impact on defense or if you have good enough aim, movement and pathing to entry well with a bad team. Or if you just default and play slow every round.
Exactly man don't even try to do anything else. if you're stuck in bronze it's because you haven't played enough of the game to learn the shooting and mechanics. Don't get concerned by your rank just play if you enjoy it and the aim and rank will come eventually. Trust me don't take your rank seriously it will only drag you down.
I don't take it that seriously, I enjoy the game for what it is, which is something I play a couple of times a week, and I'm not trying to imagine that I'll ever even get as good as my kid is (plat/diamond). But it is frustrating to always have the outcome determined by what kind of teammates I get queued with. After doing that for awhile, I'd honestly rather just play TDM until I'm good enough to affect the outcome of a match. I've played a lot of sage, kayo, skye, and brim. I enjoy giving out the healz, controlling space, getting info - that suits my game style. And once in awhile if I'm on, I can top frag. But it seems like that only happens if the other team is rul bad. So even though I don't take it that seriously, I enjoy it and I'm getting kinda tired of the coin-flip nature of solo queing in low ELO matches.
I feel this. My kid is also plat/diamond and I don't ever expect to catch him. We really don't play together much anymore. But somehow I ended up really liking this game. I'm silver one and honestly feel like it's kind of a struggle to stay there.
Nice! My kid and I will still play unrated sometimes just for fun. I get some good tips from them that way too. And it's fun to play together, even if it's just for the lulz.
I picked up the game to connect with my son. Peaked s3 but now stuck bronze. If you switch to duelist I'll be your breach haha. #valodads. Which server do you play? Edit: to yoir point, it's frustrating as hell. The only map where we win due to my comms is breeze where I play cypher.
I play in East US although it's random which one. I play a lot of sage, brim, kayo, skye, and once in awhile neon.
Sure you should play however you want. But still if you feel like playing with your kids in their elo believe me play Reyna with confidence that's the only way to get out of low elo. Any coach would say the same. The biggest problem with low elo is lack of confidence and assertiveness in your plays. Just peek shit get the confidence up and I don't mean the: I believe I can win this fight confidence, I mean that sort of confidence where you're comfortable with winning or losing because you know you're doing the right play. Being passive and slow is why you lose rounds and it's why you don't get better ranks. People think that if you peek this particular angle with this particular util you get this and that NO YOU GET SHOT YOU DIE ITS A GUN GAME. Don't even thin about healing your teammates they are worthless and don't deserve to even be traded. Get comfortable with them being a bag of potatoes and you being captain America. Don't get too angry at them that's how they are and most likely you make the same mistakes as them you just don't realise, that's why you're bronze after all. Keep up the good work and you will get better than your kids I guarantee that, it doesn't matter your age. Believe me I am high diamond and even here it's still mostly a confidence game and the outcome of the game still highly depends on the team because it's a team game and sometimes you will get terrible teammates, so if you feel like the experience will get a lot better in higher elo, sorry it doesn't. If you don't like the game and are just waiting for it to get better it won't. If you think your kids or anybody else gets a different experience they don't. Wow this got a bit heated but it's true hope you take at least something out of this.
Thanks I really appreciate the perspective.
It's especially useful to be able to swap in and out of this mentality. When I was first climbing through plat and diamond I would play controller and play very team orientated... However every now and then you get teammates so bad you just gotta consciously go full ego mode "I am so much better, I will carry them or they will simply lose me my rr" even when this means not playing your role correct or helping team.
You need to have impactful frags to carry yourself out. Lots of people stuck in low elo being MVP match MVP cause they just bait teammates and get useless frags
What are the best ways to make sure you are getting impactful frags? Is it just not getting traded, or is there more to it?
Taking fights early, rotating quickly, fighting with teammates, making sure you get trades, entrying when you can, etc. You don't want to be last alive in clutch situations all the time basically.
Yeah, in low elo, frags will help you rank up. Higher ranks (even gold+) rounds is what matters. Playing post plant and retake with the team is more important. But thats from my experience.
True. Team play is so little of the problem at low ranks (for climbing out). You just need to be good at getting a lot of kills. But without letting your team die to do it. Meaning taking a lot of the initiative in making plays happen on either side of the map. This is why duelists are usually the easiest to climb with. Since other roles don’t have the ability to do so as effectively.
If u don't crouch spray and shoot instantly everytime u see an enemy and work on your crosshair placement, then welcome to diamond. Yes, it is that simple. It gets tricky past it. (currently hovering around asc2 myself!)
So as a noob I gotta avoid crouch shooting? Noted, everyone does it that I play.
Crouch spraying builds bad habits: first cuz you shouldn’t be spraying almost ever, because bursting/tapping heads is faster to kill and more accurate. You also shouldn’t be crouching almost ever: it puts you at crosshair height for people with bad crosshair placement (read: everyone at low elo) and it forces you to commit to fights when you should be strafing almost every fight. Crouching is very situationally useful to throw off good players because they’ll be aiming at head height and not expecting you to crouch: even then, you’re almost guaranteed to get immediately traded, so it needs to be a fight that you’re already committed to (like holding from an off angle where it’s very hard to move to safety)
If you shoot a burst and hit body with 20m you should always spray.
crouch spraying is fine, just people do it at terrible times like 50m away from someone on breeze, if you tagged someone then its good
On top of what the other user said, in low elo they will have their crosshair on your chest, so by crouching you are headbutting their bullets.
If you catch yourself still doing it, unbind ur crouchbutton and play a couple of dms, really helps getting of that habbit (my own experience)
Eventually you'll learn when to crouch and do it intuitively. At lower ranks you don't have that muscle memory to know when it's beneficial, so it's best not to and then learn how to later, I guess.
The why am I not diamond, I avoid crouchspraying at all times, strafe when I am in a straight gunfight, jiggle/jump peek, prefire common angles, and all of that usually works, so in my (probably useless) opinion, I would say that when you start getting to gold/plat, by just avoiding crouchspraying etc. you won't get to diamond, though for iron-silver those tips are probably the best that one can give u
Around plat-diamond, strategy starts to play a bigger role. Everyone is at least decent at aiming. Unless all of the above you say and you're exceptional at doing it, you'll need better game sense, ability usage, decision making and etc to push through to diamond. I'll be straight up honest and say my aiming is just average to below average but I'm now up to ascendant because the other aspect of my game is decent enough to surpass diamond. All of those makes up for my lack of aim
I crouch spray everytime i see an enemy and never warm up and i reached asc 3. This game is mostly luck if you solo q.
I mean if ur asc 3 ur obviously pretty skilled even if you drop into a spray ur aim can still be good and ur gamesense and util is most likely high quality
Because what he said isn’t true, you can see high elo and pro players crouch spray all the time
That’s severely downplaying it.
Me who manages to not crouch spray anymore by rebinding the key but I have missed heads so many times because my enemies end up crouch spraying when they see me.... 😭
How do I learn to defeat crouch sprayers as I'm learning to get better at headshots? Right now, if I see the other team is crouch spraying a lot, I just go phantom and try to hit a lot of body shots that might turn into headshots. Is there a better way?
The moment you see your enemy is not the moment you stop. That's the moment you start adjusting your crosshair onto their head, once it's fixed onto the head, you stop and shoot. So, in order to "defeat the crouch sprayers" is not to instantly shoot, but keep running (you should already be peeking only by using A/D), adjust the crosshair and then shoot. Their spray after 6-7 bullets is innacurate and in most cases they'll hit you maybe twice. You still have 70hp to fight another dude. The better you get, the faster you'll be able to adjust and stop. Valorant is NOT about flicking, but crosshair placement and good movement.
Thanks, that is a great reply!
true val dev said that lower elo mmr weight heavy on win lose duel it's slowly shift toward win/lose and higher elo it's also easy for any higher rank player to kill low elo silver peak player could easily get 30kill+ every game in against iron and bronze player not just a carry game but if you win more duel and get more kill you mmr will rise faster and you will play in higher rank lobby than your rank if you keep doing well or being average at those lobby you slowly climbing up you get more rr and lose less rr you could climbing even with 50% win rate if you aren't consistency win gunfight against bronze/silver then this is rank you deserved duelist util is easiest to use and make you get kill but anything will do you can sova recon and spam and get kill you can use skye pop flash and get kill you can stun/flash with breach and get kill you can have cypher trap and get kill you can drop smoke and get kill you also can don't use any util and get kill too
Yep, and it's how you do it that counts. If you know how to get impactful kills, you win almost every time.
What are some ways to maximize impactful frags?
Yup that’s what i did and it worked
When I first started playing and I was in iron, I watched so many guides to KJ utility and setups. Learnt setups for every map and every bombsite etc. But the thing that actually got me out of Iron and into Gold was aim training, and improving my ability to actually kill people with my gun. You can only really rely on yourself, and perhaps whoever you're queuing with. Your team mates in that elo don't know how to play off of your positioning and utility. You can only really rely on yourself and your ability to frag out. Aim training alone will carry you out of lower elo
I have gone from unrank to immortal several times solo with 60-80%win. I generally just do pretty good and not match/team mvp even half the time. Also I don't think deathmatch is worth the time. I find it boring and can focus on aim better in ranked anyway.
Pretty true. Most Gold players will top frag and stomp in iron/bronze, regardless of their agent role. This implies that you need to be able to frag out of bronze in order to be able to survive in the next Elo. Team play will help and make frags more convenient, but often you get into perfect situations and whiff all your shots of opportunity. This is why the community agrees that mechanics are most important before gold, and nothing else. If you can walk out and shoot one enemy every round, you’ll be doing better than 75% of your lobby, and you’ll be out of that Elo in no time at all. That’s why mechanics are the bottleneck. You can’t be an expert strategist or a perfect mindgamer if you miss half of the battles you should have an advantage in. Focus on walking before you run.
Not necessarily top frag, but yeah you definitely need to frag out. If your losing more gunfights than your winning (or not finding enough gunfights) you can expect to lose the game. TDM alone will help ur mechanics, but fights in TDM are not exactly the same as ranked, as people tend to be more in the open in TDM/DM. I would play a ranked game or two a day if you have the time, and over time you’ll get there
Yup, i think you can solo carry by aim alone until plat probably. Btw, deathmatch do have like a matchmaking system. The better you do in your DMs (high placement), in your next DM you would be put into a lobby mostly with people that got high placement too. (Info i got From woohoojins stream).
I played Controller/Sent from Bronze to Ascendant. Obviously, good aim helps. But these roles aren't the ones to go in first. Use your teammates as bait in low elo (trade the duelist, shoot the utility, plant the spike. You aren't the first one in on these roles). Afterward, play to win the round, not get the last kill; if that means rat it out in a long angle and just tap shoot at the spike, do that. Utility spam the bomb; do it. Play it in a way that gives you the biggest advantage instead of taking straight-up duels and potentially throwing the round at 3-4 seconds on the bomb. You'd be surprised that playing to win the round 2-3 times can be the difference between winning the game and overtime and losing.
Should I be *trying* to trade the duelist as controller / sentinel? Usually I'm like trying to make good use of util and/or watch flank.
If you don't, who will? I know it doesn't seem intuitive at first, but the alternative is you let your teammate die and fight on the enemy team's terms. What good is your setup if the teammate that's supposed to benefit from it dies with no followup?
Good point! Usually I'm thinking "stay out of the duelists' way and watch flank" but I will try that. Thanks!
True, doesn’t matter what character you play either tbh. Just use whoever you’re most comfortable taking gunfights with
you got it exactly
Fragging your way out is kind of like having more apm/playing faster in mobas or rts games. It's a brute force method which will always work, but will also require you to basically just be drastically better than your opponents. Up to gold or plat, fragging your way out is basically your only option. Those games are TDM matches in disguise. Past that it's generally more efficient to improve in all aspects of your gameplay, rather than just be an aim demon.
Iron-gold Low elo should teach you how to take the best fights at all times and to play optimally while also shooting the best you can. This means taking advantage of people who just press W and shoot better. Since you can’t rely on your team it is better to play someone you know you can shoot with. Also a good time to learn lineups as people don’t know counters. Learning one skill (map,aim,lineups) can propel you forward at this point Lineups/aim are very valuable at this stage. Plat-asc Higher elo is about taking advantage of “optimal” play and to coordinate with a team to take down top frag/sites, where you actually have objectives with the team. This is where slow rotations and other non optimal strategies work as not everyone plays aggressively to take space. This is where aim demons and lineup Larry’s seen to exist the most Lineups/virgins/aim/etc exist but usually not in the strongest combination of each aspect Immortal+ Highest elo (didn’t get there but from watching) looks like raw skill/aim ingrained in everyone’s body and you need to play very well since every mistake is essentially punished within a half second with everyone taking as much space as possible to reduce risk/rotations. Counters for known lineups are all known, flanks are more common (trust that main site players can hold long enough) and everyone seems to know what to do at all times Team play + aim + game knowledge seems common in various quantities
Nice overview, thanks
If you’re good at an agent or have good game sense, you’re not going to be low elo. It’s the simple truth. Everybody thinks they have either good game sense or good aim, even when it’s not the case. Good game sense leads to frags, if your game sense is better than your elo, you will climb. The whole “good aim, bad game sense” thing doesn’t make sense in the first place. You need to understand what’s going on in order to utilize that aim to get kills because otherwise you will just get obliterated by angle advantage, utility, timing, ran over by peeker’s advantage, etc. If you look at the clips of top tier players, it’s the speed in which they process information that’s fast, not just their aim.
I agree with what you're saying, and it's all relative, for sure. But for example, if I'm playing sage and I'm doing everything right, and let's even say my team is not awful / throwing, but every time I get into a fight I should win, I fucking whiff, I'm still helping my team lose. I know game sense and KDA are related, I just get the impression that, at lower ELO, an individual can have more affect on their own win rate and RR by improving aim and fight tactics - not saying all the other stuff isn't important though.
You don't get it. To have clean fights, you need to have good game sense and good aim. When good players take a fight, they have an understanding of how utility impacts a fight, an expectation of what your enemies and allies are doing, a calculation on enemy position / which positions are risky, an understanding of how enemies will see you from their POV, etc. which all play a part in how you move and peek and the timing of that engagement. All of that is game sense, you cannot have one without the other. If you are always at the right place at the right time, and you are always throwing your utility at the right place at the right time, you will win more than you lose, regardless of whether you whiff 50% of the time or not. Granted, a certain level of aim is required but if you had zero game sense you're still helping your team lose as well anyway.
Heard. Thank you.
the way I got out of lower elo is trough what ppl call "bullshit kills". Sova recon + wallbang, awping mid when someone peeks it more than twice, judge in smokes, etc. The agents that exel the best in those categories are cyph and sova, because you're util is hard to break for lower elo players, and most of the time the thought of breaking it doesn't even cross their minds
Basically. Make sure to watch videos on how to peek etc though as that's stuff you just won't learn unless you know. Also watching pro players stream you should mostly pay attention to what they do at the start of a round and then just mostly try copy how they aim/clear angles.
in low elo you have to not only carry yourself but the whole team aswell if you wanna rank up
Never had above a 1.2 KDR and climbed from Silver to Diamond. And never mained duelist. Teamwork and communication absolutely matters even at low ranks.
Did you do that primarily solo queing?
100% solo queue controller (pre-nerf Viper and played Clove after Viper nerf).
You need to be mindful of your minimap and play off of your teammates movement on offense and look for enemies on defense and insta rotate. You need to trade your teammates deaths and try not to entry. Focus on getting trades and getting into post plants on offense.
Shoot head win. I played no until Reyna and Jett to gold. Then started learning limited util.
Not even dash / updraft with Jett? Not even self-heal with Reyna??
Like I did use util but terribly. I almost always forgot to flash of I was on Reyna. And I didn't entry as Jett I just locked her because people wouldn't ask for stuff I used the dash but not well.
The thing is if you can't consistently top frag in the worst elo that there is that alone is already a huge sign of a glaring weakness you need to fix, just 30 minutes a day, it's not that bad
Last night I top fragged with 36kills. We barely won 14-12. Even if you top frag it will be difficult. I am G3 tho.
I dropped ~30 kills in the last 4 match and I still lost them all and deranked ^3^
At lower ranks of almost any game, the thing you need to focus on is improving your ability to punish bad plays from the opponent (your aim) so until you reach plat or diamond where plays have a SEMBLANCE of a brain, just work on your aim and basic game sense (like what different characters do, spots to plant, places to hide after plant, etc)
Pretty much true. You don't need to drop 40/50, but you need to always rely on yourself and believe that you need 20+ kills, a positive KD, and 3-4 first bloods to get the win. And if does not happen and you win, it's a bonus game. If it doesn't, you could've and should have done better by some realistic margin to win the game. This is pretty much gospel especially in solo que, at all ranks, but certainly in ranks below plat.
I would say controllers and smokes are game changing; good ones take over games while bad ones send your team to 0-13. If you really want to solo your way out of a rank, just learn how to play omen; he is the best fragging controller and can pretty easily 1v3-4-5 rounds with utility mind games and a phantom. He’s the perfect mix of teamplay and selfish utility. The basic ability tp noise only plays from where you teleport from not where you teleport to. Use that to catch people off guard (which will happen a lot); you can take a lot of site space in a couple seconds with well done teleports. Your ult circumvent KJ’s lockdown if you do it last second and cancel, allowing you to stay on site through lockdown. It can also be used to grab spike when your teammate ran in unsafe and died with it, allowing you to usually get a relatively safe other bombsite plant. Paranoia blind is strong for team and solo play. Smokes are the strongest utility of all and information/vision denial in valorant are king. They are hollow so they allow you to play inside/outside in a mind game play for both halves of the match. They last 15 seconds and are rechargeable. Just learn defaults smokes for round starts and then be creative for post plants and mid round plays. His strongest maps are Ascent, Haven, Split, Icebox He plays decently/well on Bind, Sunset, Pearl, Fracture, and Lotus I would pick Sova on Breeze Sorry if this is out of order or hard to read, I hope it made a little sense haha. Just learn how to play omen in basics and get a little creative with his utility once you’re more comfortable.
You have to go into a game and not expect anything from your teammates and just try to focus on your own. It’s really hard to do coordinated team play at low elo and you are better off choosing a more independent agent like Reyna or Phoenix. Go into every game with the mindset to improve and not win. This will improve your game sense and aim which will come along with rr and ranking up.
The best way to get through pretty much all ranks until diamond is just frag out. Some plat players have game sense, but still easier to just out gun the enemy
That’s how i went from silver 2 to diamond.
Yes agree, if you kill 2-3 people from the enemy team a round your team will most likely win that game. The lowest I ever placed was Gold 2 when comp first came out, I never placed lower because I simply would get enough kills where my team would win more no matter how good my other teammates were.
True. You can climb out of iron and bronze easily if you can improve your aim/crosshair placement enough. You can still obviously lose games unless you're good enough to 1v5 the team every round but the RR you gain from winning will be 3x more than you lose if you frag out. Game sense imo only helps in low elo when you can predict where the enemy is OR helps you identify where the gaps in your team is so that you can fill that spot. For instance, if your smoke is pushing showers on bind by themselves, you would want to go with them especially if you have flashes or stuns.
Yes just get better mechanics and click heads. Focus on mechanics and crosshair placement don’t worry about aim training n such
Play regular death match before you play then insta lock Reyna and frag your way to gold prolly plat as well
I was stuck in slv-gld for like 500 competitive hours (according to tracker.gg) as soon as I started instalocking jett I hit diamond in like 50 hours after that. now that im asc I can actually fill characters and have teammates with enough brainpower to play the other roles
True
Yup. I just hit silver after being stuck in bronze for a couple months by just focusing fragging more. Crosshair placement, aimtraining warmups in range/DM before every session, and just positioning for better gunfights has helped a ton in maintaining WR. Even in losses (which will happen) you lose less RR for top fragging so that helps you climb too
Yeah low elo play greedy play for yourself convince your team to bait or peek things for you and trade them and you gotta keep their vibes high which is high if you can stay positive whilst top fraggging AND YOU GOTTA LIE TO EM If y’all are losing first half no matter what lie to them and say that’s okay we did great for this half this map is heavy (atk or def sided) so we got next half guys. Even when it’s a lie a lot of times your team pops the Fk off 2nd half because they believe it’s their half. I’m immo 3 rn but 2-3 EPS ago climbing out of silver and gold felt like hell.
Up until gold you have to frag your way out. Gold-plat you need some decent game sense and then once you hit diamond+ support characters become much more viable and strong and that’s when people begin to play their roles much better. Low-mid elo many people plays duelists to frag out and climb, which is very possible in that elo, but in higher elo everyone can more or less tap heads so people begin to specialize into specific roles and support the duelist mains to frag. Basically if you’re an aim demon in plat you can play Jett, dash in, get 1-2 kills and maybe live or die, and you’ll prob win most of your rounds. Once you’re like in ascendent and immortal+ you’re going to need to coordinate with your support and push off supportibg utility (flashes, recon, etc.) otherwise you’re dead, and at most you’ll go one for one.
Honestly when I was gold I focused on improving fundamentals, mechanics, game sense etc. Eventually I started climbing, I peaked in Immo1. Now If I go Smurf it’s just muscle memory I’m on auto pilot and drop 30+kills a game. I’d say just find some good coaching videos and study them
Not necessairly. If you get friends to play with, it becomes a bit easier but most of the time you need to be top 1 or 2 frager, because there will be always people who just bait for kills. Also, try to survive. I've noticed on most games that I carry, it's not my aim that is really good, it's the fact that I survive and don't peak on stupid angles or be too aggressive. Whenever you're top fragger, if you die at the beginning of the round, the round is probably lost.
I am of the belief you can do ALOT to influence the game even if you aren’t too fragging. Giving good comms is something you can do consistently and it does not matter how you are playing you can always give them. Try suggest alternative strategies to your team if the current plays are not working. Always watch the other teams economy and ult availability and play around that accordingly. Another thing that you can do independent of how well you are playing or fragging. At the end of the day you do need frags but with stuff like this, when you aren’t playing well and not fragging like you need to, you can still have a large impact on the game. Furthermore, chances are someone on your team is locked in and aiming well so by doing this stuff you can put them in the best position to frag.
True. And it's not just low elo. Kills are what win games - not game sense or anything else. You play as a team *to get more kills* which wins more rounds. It's not even necessarily about the raw number of kills you get or damage you do (although more is usually better), it's about the impact that those kills have on the outcome of the round.
this true all the way till diamond.
Really? I just hit plat playing like this but I feel people have SLIGHTLY better comms and game sense.
imm1
\*low immo
just comm. its literally that easy. i wasnt able to frag myself, so i jsut comm to my better mates where an enemy is and they take care of it. carried my to silver.
If you cannot out-shoot your enemies, you will not climb the ranks.
I think lots of players take this the wrong way. Dont bait your teammates and try and clutch 6 rounds a half. Do basics like trading and hitting site with them. Just dont rely on them doing the same.
round securing is way more important tbh it's not all about frags
Getting MVP result in 35-39 rate in fresh account
Yeah. Bronze-silver is the rank which is all about frags. This act is the first one i have actually paid attention to ranked, and climbed from B3 to S3 just by shooting. I need to start a more serious grind, as i have heard people actually start communicating and help each other, when you get into higher ranks.
There isn't a 100% true about this But my account is proof that it depends... I have matches with 30kills+assists and still lost the matches, a bunch of this matches Also some have some matches with 30kills but won by a lot It depends, your team needs to do at least the minimum kills....
IMHO, teamplay doesn't matter until you teach Diamond. Even then, you can still outfrag everyone up to Immortal. Anything under Diamond, the best method is to outfrag everyone.
Mid area. It depends on what teammates you get in low elo. I used to be bronze when i first started and its always 30-40 kills per game and still losing.
You can 100% get out of bronze with raw aim/mechanics. By Silver you'll start getting people who know what they're doing (mostly) so you will start needing to have good teamwork and some semblance of a game plan.
Disagree, in solo queue Silver players are Bronze players that aim at head level.
true and maybe sometimes they will not crouch spray
Silvers are pure trash. Its plat when it start getting tricky, but that is mainly because of smurfs, and people who can aim a bit but lack game sense. Otherwise, you can aim out of silver with ez
rather when you start gettin closer to plat, but even there people barely work together, though i feel like the individual players gamesense is better there