How to Aim Better in Valorant – For Beginners

Here are eight crucial elements of how to aim better in Valorant to get out of low ranks

As a tactical shooter game, aim is one of the most vital elements of Valorant, and if it is your first time playing a competitive FPS, it's not unusual to find yourself struggling to land headshots.

Moreover, compared to other FPS titles like Apex Legends and Overwatch, aiming is much different in Valorant. Therefore, people switching from those types of games need to get used to the shooting mechanics of Valorant to get better.

In this guide, we have compiled a list of critical factors to improve your aim in Valorant. This will be helpful for beginners up to intermediate players of the shooter. Let's get started –

1. Don’t Move While Shooting

Your crosshair is pointing right at the enemy’s skull. You shoot, and for some reason, the bullet is nowhere near their head. This is likely because you were moving while shooting.

Games like Counter-Strike and Valorant employ a more realistic shooting mechanic, where moving makes your shots inaccurate. Therefore, you need to be perfectly still in order for your bullets to go precisely where your crosshair is pointing at.

This, of course, is not the same for all weapons in Valorant. With SMGs like Stingers and Spectres, your shots are more likely than not to be somewhat precise while moving. However, with Phantoms and Vandals, stopping while shooting is mandatory.

2. Practice Crosshair Placement

Ever wonder how pro players can instantly kill enemies without moving their crosshairs too much? The key to this is crosshair placement.

If your crosshair is on the head level of potential enemies and is pointed at spots where the opponent is likely to peek from, all you have to do is click your mouse button when you see someone. Practicing good crosshair placement will make you a significantly more skilled player than you previously were and help you climb ranks more easily.

Here are a few tips to keep in mind when practicing crosshair placement in Valorant:

• Constantly keep your crosshair on the head level instead of looking down
• Be aware of elevation changes in maps where the enemies’ heads might be higher or lower than on a flat surface
• Understand the playstyle and map better to find where the enemies might peek you from
• Practice counter-strafing alongside if you miss your initial shots

The best way to practice crosshair placement is to play more regular games or deathmatches and be conscious about where your crosshair is pointing at.

3. Burst; Don’t Spray

In Valorant, the punishing recoils of weapons make it hard to spray and get kills. Moreover, the recoil pattern of this game can be random, unlike CS. Therefore, learning the pattern and just “spray and pray” whenever an enemy is in your vision is harder.

It's much better to shoot a few bullets, stop and let your recoil reset, and then shoot again. This method of burst firing is particularly useful for Vandal users.

However, there are scenarios where spraying is preferable. When an opponent is very close in front of you, it's better to spray and kill them quickly.

You also need to utilize the “counter-strafing” mechanic alongside burst firing to have a better chance of winning gunfights. We will explain this mechanic in the next section.

4. Counter Strafe

Counter-strafing is not a new concept, as it has existed in Counter-Strike for years. This mechanic refers to moving left and right and stopping to shoot, making it harder for your enemy to kill you.

As mentioned earlier, shooting while moving is not accurate in Valorant. However, just standing still in front of your opponent will only make it easier for the enemy to kill you. That’s where counter-strafing comes in.

Counter-strafing is the practice of moving, stopping, shooting and repeating until you land a death blow. To perform this, move left or right using A and D on your keyboard when in a duel. Then stop your movement and shoot. Keep repeating as you stop, shoot and move until you kill the opponent.

5. Do Aim Warmups Before Playing

Before getting into a ranked match, you can do aim warmups to get better. There are a few ways to approach this –

• Practice Range: Head to Valorant’s practice range, where you can sharpen up your aim by shooting the robots. Here, you can keep track of your score and get better by comparing your sessions.
• Deathmatch: Valorant has both free-for-all and team deathmatch modes where you can practice aim, shooting and movement.
• Aim Trainers: There are third-party aim trainers that can also help you improve your shooting.

6. Customize Your Crosshair

The default Valorant crosshair is not good at all. It comes with the firing error on, and the size is way larger than it should be. Find the crosshair that feels the best for you by customizing it in the settings.

Moreover, you can also try to copy pro players’ crosshairs. However, we recommend sticking to something that works best for you, be it a dot or a plus crosshair.

For a better crosshair, follow these steps –

• Turn off “Movement Error”
• Turn off “Firing Error”
• Make your crosshair smaller

7. Find the Perfect Sensitivity

Even if you have a great aim, it will not translate to much results if your game’s mouse sensitivity is not right.

By trying out shooting in the range or in a deathmatch, you will be able to find out if you have the proper sensitivity in Valorant. If you feel like your crosshair is moving way too fast, then you should lower the sensitivity. In the opposite case, where your crosshair’s movement feels slow, you should increase the sens. Keep doing it until you find the right spot.

8. Give Yourself Time to Improve

As you can see, there is a lot to learn when it comes to improving your aim. These skills cannot be mastered overnight. That’s why it’s essential to give yourself time and enjoy the process while doing so. Once you get the groove of it, aiming well will become like a muscle memory, where you do not have to think about counter-strafing or crosshair placement all the time. Instead, it will just happen naturally.

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