Valorant Mechanics for Beginners

Spray Patterns

When you point your crosshair in one location and don't move your mouse when spraying the bullets will go above your crosshair.

Video 1: Uncontrolled Spray

To compensate you should pull your crosshair in the opposite direction of the spray pattern. Each gun has a different spray pattern. I recommend you learn the first 10 bullets of the high tier guns such as the Spectre, Phantom, and Vandal.

Video 2: Controlled Spray

Movement & Shooting

You don't want to shoot while your character is running. This is what happens.

Video 3: Extreme Inaccuracy when running and shooting

Instead if you want to avoid getting shot while being accurate at the same time... you should move, pause, shoot, move, pause, shoot in bursts as shown below.

Video 4: Move, Pause, Then Shoot in Bursts

Alternatively, you can walk or crouchwalking while shooting with good accuracy.

Video 5: Walking While Shooting

Shooting at Apex of A D A D Movement

When you shoot at the moment you change directions it will be very accurate. I call this shooting at the "apex" of your left right movement.

Video 6: Shooting at the Apex of A D A D Movement

Peeking Techniques

Watch Adren's Video as he explains the "proper way" to peek very well. Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9mvXfnY8wU

After you learned how to peek the Adren way, snapping to corners. You may want to combine it with the A D peek for common spots players normally play. You usually want to peek like this if you're a solo player with no teammates. If you have teammates who can trade you then snapping to a corner style is ideal.

You want to peek purely with A and D as much as possible. Peeking with WA and WD makes you an easier target because it brings you closer to them.

Video 7: Adren's Peek + A D Peek (Aka NiKo Peek)

Video 7 below is an example of a pro CS:GO player applying these concepts.

Video 8: How this CS GO Faze NiKo Peeks by Ron Rambo Kim

Aim at Head Height All the Time

It's always best to place your cross hair at head height at all times even when no one is around. That way you'd only have to focus on moving the mouse left and right instead of up down left right to readjust your aim if someone comes at you. Make it a habit and you'll win more fights!

One tip if you don't know where head height is at, is to look at a team mate. Head height is the same across all distances on a flat plane. So you can use your team mates head as reference. The only time you should aim for body shots is if you have an Operator.

Video 9: Head Height is the same across all distances on flat plane!

Mouse Acceleration Turn it Off!

First off, disable mouse acceleration By unchecking "Enhance pointer precision." That way if you move 30cm in one direction fast or slow your cross hair will still move the same distance instead of a varying distance.. Mouse acceleration will definitely throw your aim off because it's unpredictable. It's usually under control panel > mouse > pointer options.

Choosing a Mouse Sensitivity & Calculations

Try to choose a mouse sensitivity where it takes 1 swipe to do a 180. Somewhere between 25cm / 360 up 55cm / 360. There is a calculator here than can help: https://www.mousesensitivity.net/

My sensitivity personally is 52cm / 360. My mouse is set at 800 DPI.

In order to achieve that sensitivity in CS:GO I have to set a sensitivity of 1.

In order to achieve the same sensitivity in Valorant I divide CS:GO sensitivity by 3.181818. New research, indicates that this number may be closer to 3.3735 instead of 3.181818.

So my 30cm / 360 in Valorant is 0.314.

This may not be comfortable for you so choose a sensitivity between 25-55 cm / 360. Lower sensitivity, that is more than 55cm doesn't hurt if you're comfortable with it, but anything below 25cm/360 is too high sensitivity for this kind of game. If you want to learn more about mouse sensitivity and aim trainers check out Aimer7's guide it is more comprehensive than what I cover here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/vaba3potfhf9jy1/KovaaK%20aim%20workout%20routines.pdf?dl=0