Clutching as a defender is no easy task. You could try to imagine the situation as a reversing of the tables. As a defender you start off holding a spike site and you sort of know the steps and events that will take place. Attackers are going to enter the spike site from a set of specific locations. If they are successful and take the spike site, the defenders now have to re-take the spike site.

The main difference, and really the reason it is so hard, is that as a Defenders trying to retake the site, you’re at a disadvantage. Attackers can be anywhere in the spike site. They can be holding an infinite amount of angles, even angles that don’t make sense. Information will be your best guide when you are trying to locate possible positions but it will only take you so far.

Creating a clutching guide for Defenders is no easy task either. There are a lot of variables that you will have to deal with that are specific to your game. What I have done is put together a step-by-step guide of what I think is important to think about when going into a clutch situation. This guide will cover the following:

1. Over-rotating /Rotating too early – There are many issues to dive into here. The gist of this concept is that by over-rotating you create a problem for yourself and your team. You have created a potential hole in your defenses which an attacker can sneak into and cut off your rotates from fakes.

2. Saving, Exits or Going for it – I brought this up earlier, there are many issues that will be specific for your game. I will go through each argument one at a time and hopefully give you some tools to help you decide if clutching is the best idea.

3. Information Needed for Clutching – For me, this concept has to be explained in ever guide. Information is what is going to help you win rounds.

4. Eliminating Angles – Once you find yourself in the clutch situation, this will help create one vs. one situations and make it easier for you to clutch the round.

5. Getting into the Mind of Your Opponent – Try to understand what your opponent is thinking. Does the opponent expect you to come from a certain location? If so, make a decision whether coming from that location is your best course of action.

6. What to do in 1v1 Situations – This chapter will start off as a summary of what you have learned and how to use all of the concepts to your advantage.

7. Bomb Tapping – Very simple concept but I will try to dive into what your opponent expects when you tap the bomb and how you can use that to your advantage as well.

8. Creating Distractions – Distractions can be very powerful in a clutch situation and can be used to deceive your opponent.

Once you complete the guide, I hope it will give you some ideas on how to approach one of the hardest situations in Valorant.

1. Over-Rotation

Over-rotation occurs when Defenders make a commitment to a bombsite when there is barely enough information to support the number of defenders holding that bombsite.

Why is this bad? When you rotate too early you create holes in your defenses that lurkers will happily walk through. This can cause a lot of problems for your remaining teammates who depend on you to hold an entrance to a bombsite.

Let's say that you are holding catwalk on Ascent and there is a call for B Spike Site. Maybe the Defenders holding the B site only heard footsteps or maybe go flashed. By rotating, you have essentially have given up catwlak and dedicated your rifle to helping your teammates at B. But let's say that there is a teammate who is playing inside A who is also rotating to help the teammates at B.

But when you gave up catwalk, there was a lost Attacker who wandered (or lurked) on to catwalk and peeked just as you left and your teammate was rounding the corner. Your teammate is eliminated. Now what?

This is not even to mention the possibility that you may have been faked out and the Attackers2 really planned on taking the other spike site.

So how do you solve the over-rotation problem? Well you can’t really. Your teammates have to come through for you. You have to realize that your teammates are just extensions of yourself. You rely on them for information. This is only achieved through good communication.

Good communication is a skill. This is often talked about but rarely explained. In competitive video games, good communication is really getting as much information to your teammates in the shortest amount of time possible. To practice good communication, shorten your sentences.

Here's a situation that happens too often. Your teammate opens up voice chat and tells your teammates a story about how he might have heard footsteps but he doesn’t really know because his cat was chasing a fly on the wall and did a backflip and he wasn't really paying attention.

Cut the story out. Simply say, “Possibly 1 B, heard footsteps.”

2. Saving, Exits or Clutch

Anytime you lose control of a spike site as a Defender you have to make this decision, “Should I save, go for exits or is this situation clutchable?”

At the lower levels of competitive play, this decision is often completely dismissed and Defenders just go for it everytime. But this isn't always the correct choice.

“Saving” refers to saving the equipment you purchased at the beginning of the round. You do this by finding a place to hide where you don’t believe the Attackers will find you.

“Exits” is often referred to as “Going for Exits” which means that you are going to find a place or path where you believe Attackers will be exiting the bombsite. You will hide and wait to kill one or multiple opponents which will force the opponent/s to repurchase their guns next round.

Lastly, should you try to clutch?

Each option described will have different arguments for why you should or should not choose that particular option (and your teammates might get mad at you if they think you picked the wrong one, but ignore them.) And in the next couple of chapters I will give you the argument for why you should either save, get exits or try to clutch.

The Argument for Saving

Now this argument will be hard to stomach for some people. Saving in matchmaking will almost always come with some sort of flame unless it’s a one vs. five and you have 10hp. But saving is almost always a smart choice.

It all comes down to money and risk. Think of it as an equation for whether you should be brave or live to fight another day. But before you run into a situation, hit your TAB button or whatever you have bound to be your scoreboard. Look at your money and your teammates’ money. Remember those numbers.

Now a quick economics lesson in Valorant. The cost of an rifle will run you $2900. An Operator is $5000. For Head Armor, whether you believe in it or not, will cost you $1000.

If your main role in game is a "rifler" or a person who is primarily uses rifles, it is going to cost you $3900  just for a gun and armor. An Operator, you are looking at $6000.

Now compare that to the money you receive each round. Here is the break down for what you receive as a base amount if you lose:

1. First Loss -$1900
2. Second Loss- $2400
3. Third Loss - $2900

As you can see you get $1900 + ($500 multiplied by the number of losses in a row)

To justify going for it and running the risk of dying, you need to have enough money to put yourself back in the situation you were in before you died.

If you just had the basics and this is your first loss, you need to have either $2000. For an AWP you need to have $4900. The math scales up the more you lose and it becomes cheaper to “go for it.”

You can find out the amount you need by subtracting $1900 + ($500 multiplied by the number of losses in a row) from your total cost of your beginning round purchase.

We now have the money side explained; let’s shift our focus to the risk portion of the equation. Here, we need to start by looking at what the situation you are about to face. Ask yourself the following:

1. How much money do I have left?
2. How much money do my teammates have?
3. How many terrorists are left?
4. How many teammates do I have left?
5. Is the spike site hard to retake?
6. Do I have any flashes or grenades to help me retake the site?
7. Are the terrorists expecting me to retake the site?
8. Do I know if there are any Attacker flanking and trying to attack while I retake the site?

You should notice how the further you go down the list of questions, the more you feel in your gut that maybe saving is the better option. Ask yourself, can I make more of an impact on the next round for myself and my teammates if I have a better gun and armor? That answer is almost always yes.

So… what are you waiting for? Find a good hiding spot!

The Argument for Exit Killing

Exit killing require you to think about your money and whether or not you are willing to risk losing your gun in order to get guns out of your opponent’s hands. It is a combination of saving your gun and killing your opponent. It is not getting into an aim battle with your opponent. There should be little chance for your opponent to kill you when you are going for exit kills. This is a very important point to this concept that's worth repeating twice. There should be little chance for your opponent to kill you when you are going for exit kills. This means hiding behind boxes, hiding in corners and it certainly does not mean standing in the middle of a hallway taking 2v1s or even 1v1s.

Let’s take a look at the economics of going for exit kills.

By going for exits, you are conceding the round to the Attackers. That means all the Terrorists receive $3000 from the bomb’s explosion.

The cost of head armor and an ak-47 is $3900. Now if you’re looking at the math you should notice that $900 is what they would need to rebuy the next round. Just a reminder, $3900 is just the basics, only an ak-47 and head armor. Often Attackers are forced to buy abilities to get access to spike sites which increases the costs of buy rounds for Attackers. When making the decision to go for exit kills you are attacking the Attacker's money and decreasing the benefit of the spike explosion.

From the money alone, this makes going for exits somewhat lucrative prospect if you know the opponent is low on money.

If the money doesn’t entice you, maybe this will. By going for exits you essential are catching the opposing team by surprise.

In a previous chapter we talked about how hard it is for Defenders to retake spike sites because Attackers can be holding an infinite amount of angles. Well going for exits flips that concept on the Attackers. They are forced to contend with almost every angle to save their guns. You can be anywhere on the map and this gives you a huge advantage.

Going for exits is always a controversial call. One common mistake that people make is when the Defenders needs to save his gun, but goes for exits and after an extensive aim battle, the Defender dies. This should be an obvious mistake but for some reason it’s not.

The reason this is a mistake can be a number of things. First, you need to make the choice ahead of time whether you are saving or you are going for exits. By making this decision, it will help you determine where you are going to wait for the opponent. You want to hold angles where you will not get into an aim battle with your opponent.

Second, you need to know what gun you are saving. This will determine whether you are close or farther from the exit point. It will also help you decide if you are going to hold a tight angle vs. a looser angle.

If you are saving an automatic rifle such as a Phantom or a Vandal, you will want to hold a closer angle. You will also want to make sure you are aiming around the chest or head level. You want to take down the opponent as fast as possible. In addition, it can be either a tight angle (which provides maximum cover if you miss) or a looser angle where you are trying to maximize surprise over cover.

Saving an OP is a little different. People may disagree with me on this but here is my concept and my logic behind going for exits with an OP.

An OP is one of the most expensive commonly used guns of the game. At $5000, it can make a huge impact on the next round. The AWP kills in one hit unless you hit one of the legs of the Attacker. This combination of cost and damage makes going for exit kills controversial.

My philosophy about going for exits with an OP is you get one shot at it. If you miss, you don’t go back for a second shot. The reason for this is you have a maximum surprise element which makes it safe to take the first shot. However, going back for a second shot is greedy and opens yourself up to an aim battle. If you are going for exits, you're trying to save your gun. You are not trying to get into an aim battle. Aim battles are a big no-no.

In the end, if you think you have enough money to buy next round and you believe you can find angle which will surprise the exiting Terrorists, I say go for it.

The Argument for Going For It!

When deciding you are going to attempt the clutch play, you have ruled out the possibility of saving and exit kills. Situations where this decision is acceptable are but not limited to:

1. You have the money to replace your gun and armor.

2. You are desperate for rounds or it is the last round of the half.

3. You have a teammate or teammates that are going for it and are prepared to retake the spike site together.

4. You have communicated to your teammates your plans.

From this point forward, I am going to assume that it you vs. “x” amount of attackers. Many of the concepts described can be applied when you and a teammate are retaking a bombsite. However for simplicity, the concepts are better described assuming you are alone.

Alright! Let’s take the plunge and go for it.

The Information You Will Need

1. Where’s the Spike?

The very first piece of information that you need is the location of the spike. If the spike hasn’t been seen there is no point in rotating to help another bombsite. Remember your holding your original position for a reason. Unless you are with a teammate who can cover the position while you leave, hold fast. (Yarrrggh!)

If you know the bomb is down somewhere on the map then this may change the situation.

A one vs. “x” with the bomb down somewhere other than a bombsite opens up possibilities. You have to make the decision to either move towards the bomb to stop the Attackers from picking it up or hold a bombsite and wait.

Trying to hold on to a downed bomb can be a difficult task and even more difficult to describe how to clutch in those situations. There are too many variables to consider. For the purposes of this guide, I want you to wait or make your way to the spike site closest to the spike.

2. How many Attackers are left?

Second you’re going to want to know how many Attackers are left. Press your TAB button and figure this out quickly. Remember if you’re facing a one vs. four or five, reconsider possibly saving or going for exits.

3. Do your teammates know the location of any Attackers in the spike site?

This one is probably the most important of the list of information you need. If you know the location of the Attackers your life is infinitely easier. You will be able to shut down angles and separate the Terrorists if you know where they are. So make sure you ask your teammates if they have any information to share before transferring to their spike site.

4. How much time do you have left?

Once the spike is planted you have 45 seconds to defuse it. Usually you will start to transfer to the spike site once you have heard the spike go down.

Depending on the map it can take you anywhere from 5-15 seconds to get to the spike site. That leaves you with roughly 20-25 seconds to find and kill the enemy, as you need time to defuse the spike.

Keep all that in mind as it will take you time to find out where the Atatckers are and eliminate them.

5. Is the opposing team saving? Do they have upgraded guns? If so, what guns do they have?

This is the last piece of information you should have when approaching a clutch situation. What guns do the Attackers have? Was a gun picked off the body of your teammate? Does one of the Attackers have an OP? All of this is important information to have. With this information you can better determine the potential angles they may be holding.

Now that we have pieced together this information, we can now approach the bombsite. It’s go time!

Eliminating Angles

Eliminating angles is one of those higher level concepts that you might do without knowing that you’re actually doing it. It’s a fairly easy concept to explain, in the game of Valorant you have objects to hide behind; when you peek out from that object, what you see is a viewing angle.

Your viewing angle can be tight, with only a little portion of your character exposed. Or your angle can be loose, where a majority of your character is exposed. Think of viewing angles as alleyways.

By eliminating angles you have to imagine or know the angles your opponent is holding. The purpose of eliminating angles is to create situations where you are focusing on one opponent at a time. Thus, increasing your chances of winning the round because you're not taking fire from multiple angles.

Here's an example of a situation where eliminating angles is required. Here is the A site on Split.

Here’s a one vs. “x” situation. There are two opponents remaining and you have to defuse the spike. The Attackers have setup a deadly crossfire for holding the site. Attackers are red and you’re the little green guy on short. How do you engage one opponent at a time?

You isolate one attacker and focus on another. In the picture above,  you'll find that both attackers are looking towards you in a crossfire. How do you separate these two? Well Valorant has given you some tools and taken some away. When I originally wrote this article for CSGO, there were more boxes and more of a focus on isolating enemies using the environment.

However, in Valorant, we've been given abilities. Let's pretend you are Jett. Knowing that this is the case, you have to exploit their fields of vision. You do so by throwing down her Cloudbursts.

Using the CloudBursts for cover, you negotiate your way into U-Haul. This allows you to engage target 1 in a one vs. one situation. This increases your chances of winning the situation. If you are able to kill Attacker 1, you now have one more one vs. one to finish before you win. Using the boxes again to your advantage you can quick-peek the opponent in bathrooms and win the round.

Learning angles and approaches in Valorant is just as important as learning to aim. Take some time to run around a map and make mental notes of what an angle can see and can’t see.

Something you may be asking yourself is “What if there are no convenient abilities to use?” Well then you have to be creative.

Here is the situation again.

What you are going to do is throw a CloudBurst that eliminates the viewing angle of the player at behind boxes at car.

Then move in front of the smoke and engage in a one vs. one with the opponent in bathroom. After that engagement is over, you can turn and engage the player behind at U-Haul.

Meta: Defining the Mental Movie of Valorant

How do you get into the mind of your opponent? This isn’t a very easy task as you know each opponent is different. What you need to understand is that there is a Meta that plays out in Valorant. It’s almost an expectation of how things SHOULD play out. Like an old story you have heard a thousand times, you expect a certain chain of events to occur. Our use of Meta for this guide will help you make assumptions and allow you a glimpse into the mind of your opponent.
Now this isn’t the easiest concept to grasp.

Let me take a little more time to explain and give you an example.

Imagine you’re playing Split as an Attacker. Your team calls out a 2-3 split for B heaven. Two people are supposed to go B garage and three teammates are going to go mid to B Heaven. The current “meta” says that there will either be either 2 Defenders heaven or one Defender at the B site depending on the setup. But you expect at least two players. But the knowledge that there are players in bombsite B isn’t where the idea of meta ends.

Now, how this strategy should play out is that either the Attacker teammates who are going Mid to Heaven and will engage the enemy. This causes a split in the Defender's defense. This forces the Defender to engage at heaven or fall back to B pillar.

Once the Defenders are killed at B Heaven, this allows the remaining Attackers players to pinch and help their teammates attacking the other entrance.

And this story that has played out millions of times on Split becomes an expectation of events that should occur. If they didn’t, you would feel that something went wrong. Both sides expect this turn of events to happen. This is the meta everyone talks about.

Meta: Exploiting the Mind of Your Opponent

With this in mind, you can use the Meta to your advantage. There two ways to exploit the established expectations in your opponent’s mind. First, don’t follow the Meta and go against it. Second, play with the timing of the Meta. These two tools can help confuse and ultimately conquer your opponent.

If you don't follow the meta, you are changing the way the story plays out. It’s a very simple strategy to apply in a 1v1 situation. And you have seen people do this before. For example, when a defender is in a 1v1 situation and instead of going for the kill then defuse the spike, the defender just defuses and wins the round.

On top of the expectation of certain events playing out, there is an expectation of timing as well. After playing so many games you get a feel for how long something should take.

An example would be imagine you’re a defender and you have spike down. After a minor gun battle, the opponent picks up the spike and you know this happened.

Now after a couple of seconds, you expect him to plant in the closest spike site. But it takes longer. And time keeps going by and there is no spike plant. Usually this lapse of time is a cue that the opponent has taken the bomb and run to the other spike site. That feeling you get that this is taking longer is your brain expecting a series of events to occur that didn’t occur.

Well you can exploit this timing Meta as well. You want to set off those alarms in your opponents mind. It forces the opponents hand to make an action. An extra second before peeking a corner has an effect on your opponent especially in a 1v1 situation where your opponent is faced with multiple angles to cover.

1v1 Spike Plant Scenario

So here we are. You have made it into a 1v1 situation. Whether this was because of your teammates or you eliminated four of the opponents and you’re a couple seconds away from an ace, it doesn’t matter. You have come to the final boss of Valorant.

Before we start, let’s talk about nerves. A 1v1 can be one of the most nerve-wracking situations of Valorant. You have the pressure of winning the round and the pressure of knowing four other teammates are watching you and depending on you to win the round. Now being nervous is not always a bad thing. It lets you know you’re in the moment and there are lots of things you must tackle ahead of you. However, you can’t let this nervousness be debilitating. You still need to THINK and run down the check list of thing I mentioned above in this guide.

If your teammates have killed all the opponents except one, it’s likely that it is not at the spike site you’re covering. This makes the task harder. You are going into a situation of unknowns. You’re going to want to reach out to your teammates and have them fill in some gaps. Where’s the bomb? Where was the last location of the last terrorist? How much time do you have left? Is it a save round or does your opponent have an upgraded gun?

Those are the basics. If you know where the opponent is, are there any angles you know of that you will have to worry about?

Once you have all that information, you should be arriving at the spike site.

Now we want to get into the mind of our opponent before we start the process of clearing potential attacker angles. Take a second to ask yourself “What is the attacker expecting to happen?” Well when we talked about the Meta we said there were two ways to exploit our opponent. Going against the meta and messing with the timing of the Meta. This is where you as the Defender get to be creative. How do you want to approach the situation? Are you going to follow the meta and approach the bombsite like the attacker expects then mess with the timing? Or are you going to try to go against the meta and capitalize on the surprise element of your approach? Remember timing plays a huge role in Valorant so if you take too long it will trigger your opponent to think differently.

Before we get to clearing angles, I think this should go without mentioning but “silence is golden.” You need to be aware that sound will give away your position. You should always know at what point an opponent will hear your footsteps. This will take some learning by either experience or getting a teammate to go through the process of running around for you.

The next task you have is clearing potential angles. Clearing angles means that you are taking the time to check every possible hiding position as you get closer to the spike. Now depending on your skill level this can be a slow or quicker than most. However, you need to take your time. There has been countless times where I have gone too fast and forgot to check an angle and died. If you don’t know where the last terrorist is this process is tedious.

There are shortcuts, but remember shortcuts can always hurt you if you’re not careful. These shortcuts relate to position of the bomb plant. A good example of this takes place on Split.

Here is the A site on Split. The "X" refers to where the spike is planted. Now if you’re coming from B site, this particular spike plant should tell you some things. Let’s first think about the Meta behind this bomb plant.

When an Attacker plants the bomb in a default spot on Split there are a couple of places they SHOULD hide. (Emphasis on SHOULD because remember our plan when it comes to the meta, we’re trying to break it. But for the purpose of this example, let’s not think about that for a second.) We say should because there is a certain amount of time it takes for you to rotate. You opponent-attacker knows this, so if he’s going to hide then it will take time to get to a hiding spot.

These spots are the most common hiding spots (the meta) for a default spike plant. You can narrow this down further depending on the timing of your rotation. If you got to site “A” just as the attacker planted it will be hard for him to get into spots closer to you. If you get there late, it’s possible he could be in all spots.

Your goal should be a process of elimination when clearing angles. The process is tedious because you need to be sure your opponent is not hiding in the spot you checked so you can make progress and move closer to the spike .Let's go over one more example of when the bomb is planted in the middle of the site of "A."

Now this tends to be a little more difficult. You really have to know how much time the opponent had after the bomb was planted. As you can see, according to the meta, the opponent can be in site, in U-Haul or short. Now if you just got there when the spike was planted, these are the most common spot right? He won’t have enough time to make it to closer to you because he has to cross your field of vision to get to bathroom or anywhere thats on the short side of A.

The point here is that timing really matters when you make your rotation. If you give the opponent too much time, he can really be anywhere.

Spike Tapping

The idea of “spike tapping” has its origins probably from the first time someone planted a bomb and when the Defender went to defuse it made a noise. The idea behind spike tapping is to create the illusion that you are defusing the spike when you’re not. In the beginning, I’m sure it worked all the time. I’m sure you can imagine all these infant Valorant minds just being utterly confused when they realized the spike wasn’t being defused.

These days this trick doesn’t exactly work all the time. Many times people won’t even react to the first defuse. This leads to Defenders often just going for it and running the risk of getting killed.

Lucky for you, we at this point we understand the concept of meta and how it plays out. We know that depending on your level of play, terrorists are expecting some sort of bomb tapping strategy. So how can we take advantage of that? Let’s talk about four methods of Spike Tapping.

Well the first method was already discussed above. We can simply just go for the defuse on the first spike tap.

Secondly, another strategy that is often employed is the spike tap and then a second spike tap shortly after. This gives the terrorist the impression that you have looked for him and given up. Since they believe that you have looked for them, there is a greater chance that he believes that this second defuse is the real one.

Thirdly, a meta that is currently evolving is the usage of smokes to defuse. You throw a smoke down and then go for the defuse in the smoke. This works sometimes because the smokes creates an opaque barrier and the attacker can’t determine which side of the spike you’re on. So he panic sprays and hopes to hit you. Now this strategy is used on maps where the attacker is forced to hide and take their vision off the bomb.

Lastly, a strategy that takes advantage of the current smoke grenade meta. In this scenario you use the smoke as the trigger for the terrorist to give up his position. You pop the smoke on the bomb then keeping outside of the smoke range, you peek the attacker and go for the kill. This particular strategy isn’t used very often so you might find a lot of success here.

Creating Distractions

In all 1v1 situations, you want your opponent to make the first move. However, there are times where the attacker just won’t make the first move. This usually happens with the most experienced players. Thus we have to find another way to give us the upper hand. This concept builds off the spike-tapping idea.

What we want to accomplish is to create a distraction or a deception that sticks in the mind of your opponent. Throwing an ability might be a choice. Not necessarily for the noise it makes, but for the split second that the opponent has to realize what is going on. Or even making a footstep of any type can give your opponent information that you can use to your advantage.

In all of these situations, you’re attempting to take advantage of the fact that your opponent thinks they know what is going to happen. All you’re doing is giving them the bait and letting them run with it. There are many other ways to take advantage of these assumptions, just take some time to think some up and they will bring you success.

You Won! Now what?!

This portion of the guide is a reminder not to fall for the tricks you’ve learned in this guide. Your opponents are not stupid when they fall for your tricks. You know they know something about the game and you’re taking advantage of that knowledge. At some point you will run into opponents like you who are thinking a couple steps ahead. In those situations you just flip the meta and go back to playing like you haven’t got a clue.

Also, you need to realize that when you use a trick, you have to expect that the opponent will learn from his or her mistake. Trying to use the same smoke trick or route when you just used it a couple rounds before is going to lose you the round. If you watch top players in Europe, you will notice that they never protect a bombsite the same way twice. They are always rotating positions. This happens because they respect their opponents ability to learn.

In the end, you will realize what you really are doing in clutch situations is showing your opponent that they’re playing checkers and you’re playing chess. They will think there is just one way of doing things. They are used to the Meta. When in fact that’s not the case at all, there is as infinite number of ways to approach any situation in Valorant. Once you grasp this concept, this guide becomes useless and you can call yourself an experienced Valorant player.

Conclusion

This guide took a really long time to put together. I know a lot of players will ridicule this guide as being basic or a waste of time. I got that in my last guide.

But I hope you realize that many of these concepts are never explained. You are just “expected” to know them. Well unfortunately for these people, this guide does exist and the people who are new are going to be able to progress faster than the people who believe this guide to be basic.

In addition, I’m an older counter-strike player with roots in 1.6 and all these concepts are historic. What I’m really trying to do with these guides is to pass on my knowledge to younger generations of players who are just starting out. My days of Counter-Strike are numbered and hopefully yours are not.

When you find yourself playing ranked, how often do you buy for a teammates? Do you ever wonder what leads someone to need to ask someone to buy for them? Why is it my turn now to buy you and then later off down the road it will be your turn to buy me? We follow this pattern and I don't think a lot of people understand what they're doing. Many players look at their economy as binary. Can I buy? Yes? No? And then we get in the weirdness of half buys. I too would like to sit down and listen to the dissertation of the player who buys a stinger 3 rounds in a row.

But who has time for that? I have to convince you that you might know nothing about the economy of Valorant. And that's fine. You're in really good company.

The rule synthesized is essentially this, you only upgrade when you WIN and SURVIVE a round. All expenses come from your winnings. What happens when you follow this rule? You will always have the money to buy a rifle and half-armor.‌‌‌‌

Explanation by showing you a 0/12 performance

In the cells below, what you will find is the outcome of a game where you lose every round and did not get an elimination or a spike plant but followed our buy strategy.

Now this is looking at worse case scenario and only if you bought a ghost for saves and rifle and half armor for all other rounds. What I want you to take a look at is the column labeled "Rollover Credits." This is basically what you take into the next round.

Notice how when we get below 400 credits, we are forced to save. This is because a rifle cost $2900 and the max loss bonus is $2900. Thus all you are ever deducting from your Rollover credits is the cost of the armor after loss bonus is maxed.

That 400 credits is the secret sauce.

There's a downside... but it's not what you think...

As you are aware, when you buy half-armor, you only get 25 armor. But that can be a bit misleading because incoming damage is affected by armor.

The calculations for armor is very straight forward, all incoming damage is reduced by 50%. This description was given by /u/Gay_Rudy on Reddit.

A 156 headshot damage of the Vandal will break your shield completely, in the meantime your hp is reduced by 156/2=78 (hp=100-78=22).

Now there is some left over damage that the shield cannot absorb anymore => 78-50=28. Substract the 28 damage from your 22 remaining hp => one-shot headshot.

If we synthesize those statements, here is more or less the rule:

1. Apply damage number (156)
2. Divide damage number by 2 if there is armor.
3. The result of the damage number divided by 2 is applied to the hp.
4. Any left over damage that is not covered by the armor, is applied straight to the hp (kinda like true damage).

Well if this is the first time you've seen the armor or shields calculation, congrats! Because it doesn't mean anything at all really.

PHANTOM'S DAMAGE NUMBERS

VANDAL'S DAMAGE NUMBERS

A Phantom head shot at 14m or less is 156 damage. It's a one shot elimination. A Vandal head shot at all distances is 160 damage. It's a one shot elimination.

These are boring. The body shots is where us baddies' magic happens. Below are the health and armor numbers when a shot is registered as a body shot:

Looking at these numbers you might miss it. You really should just look at the graph for a second and I shouldn't have to tell you. I'll give you a hint, look at the number of rows. THEY'RE ALL THE SAME. You're probably like "NANI!?!?!?!?"

That's right, if you're playing against rifles, whether it is the Phantom or the Vandal, it takes four body shots to eliminate a player, regardless if the player has half armor or full armor.

And sorry but if you're shooting legs, this article isn't probably going to help much :)

(But if you're thinking this way you're on to something...)

APPLICATION OF THE RULE

Honestly, we can get even more specific, it comes down to the fall off damage of the Phantom. The Vandal isn't apart of the equation because of the flat damage. If you are shot in the head with a Vandal at any distance, it's a one-shot elimination.

So why does fall off damage matter? Well the best counter to my argument is that there is a space where the values of 125-150 damage matter.

BUT if we are able to contain our fights and not let them get outside of the range of 0-15m, we can mitigate the negatives. In layman's terms, if we keep the fight in a small space then we can throw out the values that extend beyond 15m and work with the damage values of just the 0-15 range. This simplifies our efforts.

600 Credit Pistol and SMG Insurance

When you buy full armor, you're essentially saying, "I believe that I am going to take damage specifically within the 125-150 damage range." That specifically can be the only logically reason as we proved that against a rifle, you can't hit these damage ranges as each rifle takes four body shots to kill.

So how do we get to the 125-150 damage range? Well there are a couple different ways but the majority will be from lesser guns, leg shots, pistols and agent abilities. A more uncommon way may also be being shot through objects such as walls or boxes. But is it worth it?

Valorant has a variety of different guns. Each one suited for specific situations. For example, a Bucky (the pump shotgun) can one shot someone with full armor at close range. Armed with this information, you should use Bucky's at close range. An Operator can do the same but for long distances. A SMG allows you to prioritize movement over aiming. Each weapon puts a different spin on the situation.

But you usually don't know what your opponent has as a weapon until you meet them face to face. So in the end, does it even matter? We are playing a game of information gathering through one means or another.

The boring part is that I can't tell you if it matters. You have the make that decision based on your play style. Are you disciplined enough to hold corners and only go for head shots? Or are you the type of player that is more fluid and like a bit of movement in their lives. You decide.

WE'VE ARRIVED TO THE UPSIDE

I've shown you what happens when you go 0/12. But what happens when you win?

When you win you get 3000 credits. If you bank that money it could get you 7 rounds of half armor (2800/400 = 7), right? Unfortunately no. Even after our first win we have to take something else into account. Loss Bonuses. If we win, our loss bonuses are reset. If we lose the next round, we only get 1900 credits. This is 1400 short of our goal of 3300 credits to buy rifle and half armor. Here are how the numbers play out:

First Loss Bonus = 1900. In order to get to 3300 we need 1400 credits.

Second Loss Bonus = 2400. In order to get to 3300 we need 1000 credits.

Third Loss Bonus = 2900. In order to get to 3300 we need 400 credits.

When you add up the amounts that you need, you get 2800 credits. That's just 200 short of the win bonus at 3000.

So really in order to get me back to a state where I can reset my money and we can ignore the loss bonus, I need to bank 2800 credits to offset the loss round bonuses I don't receive when I don't lose consecutively in a half.

Which means the first time I win, I should only spend 200 credits as I need to anticipate resets of future loss bonuses. This is only necessary though when you lose 3 consecutive rounds. At any point, if you win, you add the additional 3000 credits and instantly improve your situation.

DON'T SPEND IT RIGHT WHEN YOU GET IT!

Essentially you can instantly derail your economy by not saving for the loss bonus reset. And this typically happens in a binary-buy world. You win a round and you get eliminated, most players will full buy with full armor. They feel the pressure to match their teammates equipment. Essentially spending more than the 3000 credits they earned from the win. And that's where the situation gets dire and can mess up buys and throw your whole team's economy into a mess.

When really what you should do is buy a rifle and half armor. Matching fire power but not health pool. We can offset the health pool by effectively intertwining abilities and teammates.

If we survive, we don't instantly buy. We look at our economy and see if we can absorb the loss bonus deficit if we go on a string of losses. If we can, we can then upgrade abilities and even to full armor. Any money spent is money earned through winning. All other money is banked to support our consistent buy strategy.

ALL ROUNDS ARE NOW WINNABLE

One of the key elements of a "save" is a difference in money spent on firepower. In tactical FPS games, a team that is saving is usually much weaker than their opponents. But then there was the introduction of the half-buy. Teams would use weapons and place themselves in situations where the weapon gave them an advantage.

The upgrade economy just seems to be the next evolutionary step. If you go 0/12 in a game using this strategy, you had 9 rounds where you had a rifle and half armor. Like the half-buy you put yourself in advantageous situations which simplify your approach to angles and your opponent. Hopefully with a little bit of luck, you'll never save again.

by uGRAVEL - 12/26/20 @ 8:59am PT.

There's an argument out there about which Valorant rifle is the best. Phantom versus Vandal.

This is not an answer to that debate. Whether you want to argue feeling, I want to argue fact cough cringe cough...

But when we get down to it, distance matters in the argument for which gun is best to use in "x" scenario. And why does it matter? Well good sir or madam,  have you heard of my good friend? "Fall-oof" damage. Fall-off damage always hits you at the worst times. It's that nice little mechanic that let's that guy you definitely hit, get away with 1 hp.  I mean sometimes is walls but most of the time... it's bad luck.

BUT! What if we could  harness the power of the fall off damage and use it against our opponents? Finish this article and I will arm you with that knowledge.

Let's cut through the words. We're more than a 125 words in and I haven't showed you any pictures.

Look at the simple math and beauty of the the gun they call the Vandal.

Focus in on the complexity. Just the abundance of additional numbers the Phantom has. Yuck!

What this article is about is the numbers in the "Damage" box. For the Vandal, three numbers. One-sixty, forty and thirty-four. And for the Phantom, well my 3rd grade teacher would be ashamed but I'm not going to spell out each number.

ALRIGHT WE GET IT! THEY'RE DIFFERENT! SO WHAT!?!

If we assume that we are always going for head-shots, let's take a look at the entry of spike-site "A" in Ascent with a Phantom:

If we go back up to the chart, we see that at 15m and beyond the Phantom does 140 damage. Which means that in order for you to secure this kill, at best, it will take two shots. And that's if both land on the head or if one happens to hit the body first then the head.

Sometimes you just end up with two body shots. Smile.

Let's take the opponent's view with a Vandal:

The Vandal doesn't have fall off damage. So the distance isn't taken into consideration. The Vandal player would just wait for the person to turn the corner and tap their head.

Wait, who wins?

This is where the drama of Valorant plays out. Maybe the defender is holding the angle too tightly. Maybe the attacker jingle-peeks the corner and then wide-swings.

BUT! If we played this out in a vacuum, and each player had the same reaction speed and knew where each other were, the Vandal would win every time. And that... that is what we like to call in the biz, "an edge."

Hold up. You said "If we played this out in a vacuum, and each player had the same reaction speed and knew where each other were..."

But We Don't Live in a Vacuum...

Keep digging Watson! It is true, and obvious, we don't live in a vacuum and there are a world of things that can't be controlled. We can't be perfect every time. However, we sure can practice and prepare to be perfect, right? That's why I am here, to help with practice and get you to perfection.

So this is what we need to do, one, I'm putting out a map for all site-entries which measure the distances to most points of interest from the start of the spike-site. This will allow you to estimate and know what you're going to encounter when you put you're pre-firing or re-taking a site.

Second, I'm putting out another article about utilizing the ping system to get you closest to pre-firing all angles. SO STAY TUNED AND SUBSCRIBE TO THE BLOG!

by uGRAVEL - 12/25/20 : 11:59pm

People currently equate time with getting better. There are hundreds of videos on YouTube about experts giving you their opinion on what’s the BEST or FASTEST way to get better at aiming. And while the mechanical journey feels progressive, like you’re moving forward, the end result will leave a bitter taste in your mouth. How do I know? Well, I’ve spent 25 years playing games competitively, and you don’t know who I am.

The purpose of this article is to make sure you don’t spend a lot of time mindlessly shooting things and think some time years down the road you’re going to be some pro. It’s not going to happen that way. Once again, how do I know? I continually convinced myself that was the path for 25 years.

When you’re done with this article you’re going to have a new way of thinking when it comes to aim and practice. Hopefully I will show you the absurdity of our current methods and how simplifying the mechanics leads to an easier skill to practice in a quicker amount of time. If you can tap your finger to a beat, you can use my method to improve.

Close your eyes. Imagine you’re on your very first date with your future significant other. You decide to take them to a carnival. When you arrive you walk up to the ticket booth and buy some tickets, they’re overpriced. Looking around at the dazzling lights, a game catches your eye. It looks something like this:

You put down some tickets, pick up a gun and take a shot. It doesn’t go well. You sit, ignoring your future significant other and get to business. You really want that goldfish. You want to be the hero.

$20.00 in...

You’re getting a little better. You start to mess around with some analytical thinking about what you’re doing.

The ducks are on a fixed belt. They seem to be going at the same speed.

$40.00 in...

There seems to be two speeds. The ducks are not actually equally distanced apart. But you start to notice something. If you can determine the speed of the duck, really you just need to get the timing right. And maybe I should take the wind into consideration?

$60.00 in...

Turns out the wind didn’t matter. You did it. You are the proud new owner of a $60.00 goldfish. You walk away feeling accomplished. A kid out of the corner of your eye is staring at your prize. You give him a smirk, tell him “Good Luck!” and fade into the darkness with a slight chuckle echoing as you are swallowed up.

What was the point of that?

The carnival analogy speaks to a number of issues with the current state of aiming mechanics in esports. I also believe aiming in a tactical FPS should be similar to the carnival game involving the ducks. If this sounds ridiculous, I invite you to take a quick peek and maybe I can convince you.

Time & Money in, Information Out

Let’s start with sitting down to the game. In all games that we play, we transmute time into knowledge. You sit down to a game, you spend 45-minutes to an hour in game and you probably get some sort of knowledge at the other end of that. I think this information is valuable to beginners but tends to fall out around the intermediate level.

This is all conjecture but I think that in the beginning information is easily available and easily actionable. You try a new gun. You try a new character. You try a new level. You learn a little bit about it. If there’s something interesting about it that you like, you might stick with it or you might move on. But I think all the information you gather at this stage is not difficult to obtain.This is the $20.00 dollar level in our carnival analogy.

Overtime, sometimes a lot of time depending on the game, you reach a level where you are comfortable with the mechanics of the game. In our carnival analogy, you know there are ducks, you know they move and you pull the trigger. Sometimes this is enough for people. I mean it’s just a carnival game.

Graduating out of Beginner

In our carnival game, we identified speed and distance between targets.These seemed to matter to our player when he was trying to get better. If we focus on these elements, our hypothesis is that we improve.

Well what if our carnival player came up with a crazy idea. What if he thought he needed to account for the wind? He takes a couple of shots and what the heck... we got it. Well now our player believes they have to account for wind when really it barely affects his game at all. But who is going to tell him?

Thought Leaders Matter

Why is this a problem? Well what if our thought leader turns out to be that kid that was just watching? The kid can tell us all about what you did, he can talk about all the various ways you held your arm. But that kid lacks the actual insight and knowledge that only the player knows. I know that this creates a huge issue with our modern day coaching. The argument that you have to play to coach is highly debatable. So I’m not going to touch it.

But I think it’s very straightforward that the person who played the game probably has more pertinent information about the game than the person who just observes it. The player (at the $60.00 level) can make difficult connections of concepts in the game that a person at the $40.00 carnival level just can’t make. The time and dedication to the game is valuable. So I guess in a way I did touch the coach argument. A coach can be a valuable coach if they have put in the time and dedication to the game. While their information isn’t complete, when combined with the knowledge of the player playing... a little magic... and bam, a good reason we have coaches.

So what's the current aiming landscape look like?

I believe that we have a lot of kids explaining how the player did it. I think that most of the players at the $60.00 level have moved on and the $60.00 level of knowledge is very rare.

Now I’m not trying to be a gatekeeper or include myself in this group. But there needs to be a recognition that this resource is valuable.

And since this resource is already rare, it only makes sense that our landscape of education reflects that. Go google “How to get better at aiming” and some random person will recite you the same stuff. Get a practice routine. Aim at these targets. Do 45 minutes of practice before you game. A million eyes just glossed over by reading that. You’ve seen it. And it doesn’t make you better.

Detour... it matters don’t worry.

A little info about myself, I picked up competitive games when I was 10. I’m 35 now. I was a person who spent thousands upon thousands of hours practicing. That’s not even close to an exaggeration. It started in Counter-Strike 1.6. I jumped into a de_inferno custom game. I found some bots. I set it to headshot only and I would practice 1000 kills per session using a deagle only. The idea behind it was that I could always use a deagle, whether it was a buy round or a save round, it was formidable and cheap. Coincidentally, this practice routined killed my desire to play any game for fun. Fun was replaced with the dopamine hit of landing a headshot and essentially ending my opponent instantly. It became an addiction.

This routine didn’t stop in CS 1.6. I took it to every other game after. Looking for ways that I could get in more reps than my opponents. It was my obsession.

But you don’t know who I am. If I spent all that time practicing, what did it get me? Am I upset? A little. And it didn’t get me much. Mechanically I am up there. But I’m never going to hit $60. Why?

Re-examine and Simplify

Have you ever driven in a really dense fog? The kind that you can’t see past your bumper? Well that’s what it felt like to try and improve in those 25 years of gaming. One thing would seem super important and then something else would  come up that seemed equally important. I would play against bots and thousands of hours of deathmatch but it didn’t translate. I struggled to figure out why. I couldn’t see a path in front of me.

In retrospect, it couldn’t have happened any other way. We are still in the infancy of esports. People have to stand up, develop and re-examine what they develop and soon we will have the same aspects that exist in traditional sports. And once again, people have but they are handing out the same information that I used when I started playing. It has always bugged me.  

Let me introduce you to my re-examination on aiming and how I believe it should be taught going forward.

NOT APPLICABLE

You need to take a look at the game you’re playing and apply the correct foundation when it comes to mechanics. What I’m trying to say is if you played Apex Legends and then turned around and tried to apply the same mechanics to Valorant, you’re going to have a bad time.

What that tells us is that these games are different and thus you shouldn’t practice the same for each.Hopefully at this point it's clear that advice is not universal. So what do we do? Since we’re going into aiming, I will use that as an example.

One of the cool things you can do with modern mouse technology is track your mouse’s movement over time. If you haven’t seen it, I suggest you give it a try. I believe Razer Synapse has this feature.

So which one of these do you think applies to Apex and which one applies to Valorant (by the way this is paint, just trying to show an example, not actual data)

A:

B:

Valorant is more horizontal aiming. You hold a spot and then there’s usually a quick burst of movement. It is also more methodical in how you play. There are less erratic movements.

Not so much in an arena style battle royale games like Apex Legends. There are constantly changes in elevation, targets can appear above you just as much as they can appear below you. So do you think the aim mechanics are the same? Do you think if I gave you one practice routine that it could apply to both games? I can tell you definitively the answer is no from my own personal journey in gaming.

Remember how I told you I would practice 1000 hs a session in Counter-Strike 1.6, well that ballooned. Wanna see my rock bottom?

This gets you nowhere.

What we waited 6 pages for...

I promised you a new way of aiming in tactical shooters. This took me 25 years of aiming to figure out just how dumb I was and how simple aiming can be. It doesn’t require 21,000 mouse clicks to get better.

The reason we had to go through the explanation is because you need to realize this isn’t just some whim. This is 25 years of doing it wrong and waking up one day to a new idea that is so simplistic it is very easily rejected. At best it will make you reconsider the time you spend aiming. At worst, it’s another tool in your kit in tactical shooters.

BRING BACK THE CARNIVAL GAME!

Something that a lot of newer players get told is that you should always have your crosshair at head level. You see in tactical shooters, head levels do not move. It probably has something to do with the technology of the time but has become a constant in the genre. Well if the head level never changes, theoretically if you were able to maintain head level at all times, the enemies heads should arrive like these little ducks.

You might be saying to yourself, “But it’s different because we’re moving.” Well... maybe you’re moving too much. Sounds childish but if the problem is the movement, maybe moving less is the solution. At least that’s where my brain went.

From my perspective, being on defense, you hide. It forces the enemy team to play slower. They have to check corners. So what’s this? Did we create the duck game? I think we did.

If you hide and hold an angle, you’ve essentially created the game above. However, there’s one more subtle difference, it’s actually more like this:

What does this do to the game? Well we’re essentially faced with the realities of the modern tactical shooter. You don’t have all the information. The game feeds you clues through sounds and your teammates call for enemy positions.

Remember when we were talking about the $40.00 carnival level knowledge. Well here it is again:

There seems to be two speeds. The ducks are not actually equally distanced apart. But you start to notice something. If you can determine the speed of the duck, really you just need to get the timing right. And maybe I should take the wind into consideration?

The first two sentences were put there on purpose. In tactical shooters, there are two speeds, walking and running. Thus like the ducks example, if you focus on the timing (since the ducks are on a fixed plane) all you need to know is whether the person is running or walking.

All information is valuable and movement is constant. So players tend to walk everywhere. This means your default positioning should account for this default behavior. Hold your cross-hair at a head-shot level but one which you can react to when the head walks into your cross-hair.

We’re going to start simple and only take on cases that are straight on. When you start taking long angles into consideration it gets a bit more muddy.So imagine you’re looking at this angle:

This angle could probably be pulled a bit down but this is about the distance you want for walk ups.

This would be an angle expecting a run out.

The skill involved in this aiming is not based on your ability to make micro adjustments that are hard to replicate. Instead you’re playing the duck game. Keeping your cross-hair at head level and waiting for the ducks to walk into your cross-hair. You’re working on your ability to accurately predict how long it takes for your brain to register a player is on the screen and then to have your cross-hair placed in a spot that allows you to recognize it for that instant-tap.

From there it is mastering timing on your recoil so you can tap the next person and so on and so forth.

Now Why does this work?

This is your average player-model in a tactical shooter:

They tend to put the camera in the middle of the face. What this does is cause the following things to be true:


One, your camera starts at the front of your face and looks outwards in a cone shape. This is important later.

Two, because the camera starts at the center of your face, your shoulders become a problem. They are always exposed first in any situation (except maybe if you ran in an angle that was parallel with the exposure angle)

Since you can’t align your camera with your shoulders, your shoulders will always be first seen before the player can have vision of the other player. It’s just the anatomy of the game, since you can’t align with your gun your shoulders always stick out. Here’s a fun video explaining how it’s an advantage in the real world when you can slice angles because you can control where you see from:

https://youtu.be/QSzTqh8ZsEE?t=358

Since I will always have a warning (their shoulder) before I see them, I have to train myself to react based on that information. Find the spot where I can leave my cross-hair at head level and based on running or walking, adjust my cross-hair placement while still maintaining it at head level. Finding my sweet spots by practicing and holding angles. After that... no one should get by you or you should take at least one with you since you’re on defense.

IMPORTANT THING TO REMEMBER!

Remember this line: “One, your camera starts at the front of your face and looks outwards in a cone shape.”

There’s a golden rule when it comes to understanding your fixed-camera. The golden rule is that you want to always be the furthest from the angle you are holding. This should make sense to you at this point. It’s your player’s shoulders. No matter how you approach this problem, your shoulders will always lead your exposure. Thus you can never expect to have the jump on your opponent because they will always see your shoulders first. All that changes is the level of the exposure.

You can replicate this issue by walking up to a box on any map with a friend. Run directly at the wall so all you see is the wall. Now slowly expose your player model by tapping left(A) or right(D). Tell your friend to let you know when they see you. You’ll be surprised.