Top 5 Worst Mistakes New Players Make in Valorant

Hey everyone! Today I’ll talk about the 5 worst mistakes beginner players make in Valorant that just makes their ranking up slower than it could be.

If you’re not a new player, this guide could also be useful to you because it never hurts to get reminded of the basic mistakes.

These mistakes are something I often see during Valorant boosting of my lower-rated clients. I’ve helped many so far, I’m sure I will help you too! Let’s dig in.

1. Crosshair Placement Is Super Important

Crosshair placement in Valorant is extremely important. Unlike some other shooters such as Apex Legends, Overwatch or Call of Duty MW, Valorant is a tactical shooter. This doesn’t mean crosshair placement is not important in the games I mentioned, but in Valorant it’s MUCH more important.

Valorant has a low TTK (Time To Kill) meaning that the number of bullets required to kill an enemy is much lower than in the mentioned games, Operator can one-shot, Vandal can one shot in the head and so on.

This means that a player with good crosshair placement will always beat you in a 1v1 because he will start firing sooner at the target, preferably even head, and obliterate you before you even move to crosshair to his body or head.

How To Fix Your Crosshair Placement

I will now give you the three golden rules.

1. Keep the crosshair at head level

Always keep the crosshair at head level. This will take time to get used to if you’re a new player. The easiest way to practice it is to ALWAYS have it at head level, regardless if you’re rotating and not even expecting someone, keep it at head level! This will help you build muscle memory with time.

2. Be careful with the ground elevation

There are tons of spots on the maps which a player can stand on that will make their head either lower or higher than the usual flat terrain head level height.

This is obviously harder than flat terrain head level pointing. You will also learn this with time. The more games you play, the more familiar you will become with the maps, learning exactly where players can stand so that their head is not on the same level anymore.

When you start peeking such angles you will automatically move the crosshair at the new head level, this simply takes practice.

3. Keep the crosshair head level even when flicking

And the third rule, by far the hardest, is actually keeping the crosshair head level when flicking or turning wide angles to shoot at someone that just appeared there, by surprise.

It’s one thing to learn to keep the crosshair at head level on flat terrain, or even pre-place it to a new head level when peeking at an angle that has different elevations. But, to be able to maintain the crosshair at the head level when flicking left and right is where it’s at. Our Valorant boosters have this muscle memory deeply ingrained by now, but you can too.

It will take a lot more time but now that you know what you need to watch for, the practice and muscle memory building will become easier.

Read more: Valorant Best Crosshair Settings

2. Use your abilities

Many new players, especially those coming from CS:GO forget to use their abilities. This is a great mistake. However, it’s worth noting that you shouldn’t be using abilities just because you can, this will often cost you a death.

Use the abilities sparingly and when truly needed, not just to get rid of them, and especially not if the casting animation or the channel of the ability will make you vulnerable to a quick push and death.

A good example is when pushing or defending a site, using abilities to mess up an enemy's angle, positioning or simply defer them from pushing (think Sage’s wall) or Raze’s bomb to force an enemy out of a position are great uses of an ability.

An even better example is killing an enemy when forcing them out of their position because they’re unable to shoot accurately, for example, Raze’s bomb behind a corner and a fast push to catch them off-guard.

And a side note, ultimate orbs should only be picked up when you’re sure nobody is around to shoot you while you’re capturing it, or you’re not pushing and will reveal your position when capturing an orb since it makes a loud sound.

3. Stop Shooting When Running

Once again, the players who come from the games I mentioned earlier are facing this problem. In 99% of duels, you should be standing still when firing.

The only exception are SMGs such as Spectre that allow minor walking and still a bit of precision, but even with those, you should mostly be standing or crouching when shooting.

This happens because the mechanics in Valorant are designed to make your gun extremely imprecise when walking or running and shooting. That’s about it, doesn’t get much simpler than that. The game is built so that a player is most accurate when standing or crouching.

4. Learn From The Past Rounds

Most people like the comfort zone. In the attackers half, let’s say they push the B on Haven and die 4 rounds in a row, many won’t realize that it’s time to switch it up, this obviously isn’t working out.

The comfort zone isn’t the only problem here, they will also have a bruised ego and want to secure that push and kill whoever has killed them 4 times in a row.

This is simply a good approach, learn from the mistakes, maybe that site is too heavily defended, maybe the player defending it is just better than you, stop banging the head on the wall and switch it up.

If you’re really eager to push that spot, try to delay the push, make him think you gave up, analyze how he is defending a certain angle and see if you can work against it, you will learn this with time.

Read more: Top 10 Valorant Tips to Rank Up Fast

5. Don't Walk Across The Map For a Hero Defuse

Many new, and even more experienced players do this. When you’re a defender and an enemy plants a bomb on a whole other site across the map, a player usually wants to be a hero and clutch defuse it by walking across the map so they can’t hear him.

This is a great mistake because walking across the map will spend so much time you won’t even have time to kill people not to mention defuse.

This is even worse when there are 2 or more enemies on the site defending it. First, you need to quietly walk to the site, then you need to get into a position, kill people and defuse. This will end up miserably in 9 out of 10 cases.

How to clutch defuse

If you really want to attempt such a hero move and not save your gear, move around the map efficiently, run with a knife and watch for your sound radius on the minimap, when you approach the site where enemies might be, it’s time to start walking and approaching the site to kill.

Look for intel from your dead teammates if you don’t know where enemies were last seen and then approach the site accordingly. Try a “fake” defuse by making a sound, or even in some cases reaching half the defuse timer because you get a checkpoint then, stopping the defuse and waiting for the enemy to appear from the angle you expect him from. Kill him and resume the defuse.

Planting and defusing numbers

Planting the bomb takes 4 seconds when you’re attacking. Defusing takes 7 seconds, you do not have a timer when will the bomb explode and this makes it harder. You only have the bombs beeping to know at what point the bomb explodes.

A good rule of thumb is that the last clutch when you HAVE to start defusing is right when the 3rd beeping sound starts. If you haven’t started before, or right then, you’re done, run away, and save the gear.

Wrapping it up

I hope you enjoyed my guide, if you’re having trouble reaching your desired rank, check our Valorant boost services and allow professional Valorant players to give you a hand.

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Good luck with your Valorant games!