Valorant: How To Rank Up Quicker & Better

Now that Valorant has been out for a bit of time, it’s safe to assume that a lot of people have received their ranks and are working on getting it improved. But, because Valorant is such a unique game, there’s different things that need to be noted and worked on particularly if you’re looking to rank up in the game that you may not be aware of. I studied my own gameplay, other players’ gameplays, and also professional gameplay to see what helpful tips I can find to make players get better, and found seven great tips and I’m going to share them with you, right now.

First off, it’s important to mention that Valorant is focused around your personal performance. If you’re not playing well but you’re winning games, you’re not going to rank up much. Also, if you’re losing games but you’re constantly the MVP of the game then you can expect to keep your rank safer than if you were being destroyed every match. Some of these tips, if not all, should help you perform better to get your score higher in each match.

 

1. Play More Aggressive

It’s more of a no-brainer that playing more aggressive will give you chances to get a better score. But, do it wisely. If your team is in need of a couple of rounds, passive play may help you get the right picks to get the advantages in different rounds to ultimately win the match

But, if you’re up by enough rounds and you feel secure by the scoreline, feel free to push up more on defense or to take the first peek and entry on offense. This gives you the chance to improve your gun skill and to also do some damage before the kills get taken from you by your teammates.

If you do this when you’re 5-0 up and you get just one kill every round because of it (and get a perfect game), that’s 8 kills you’ll get from just playing more aggressive. That’s just a minimum too, since there’s a chance you’ll need more rounds to finish the match and you can also get multiple kills per round, as well.

 

2. Use Your Agent’s Ultimate Properly

Too many times there are players doing something dumb like using Jett’s ultimate to clutch a 1v1 or something. This isn’t a smart decision since they most likely have a weapon of some sorts that they can use instead. The weapon provides more ammo and can be better to use in clutch situations with multiple enemies alive.

So, when do you use Jett’s ultimate? The answer is to use it when you’re starting with no weapons and/or credits. If you lose a fight with the knives, you’re losing just the knives in that case and not a weapon as well. If you win the fight, you still have knives and there’s a chance you may get to your opponent’s weapon. It’s as simple as that.

Every agent has similar thinking to do with their ultimates, such as Sage who should only revive players in the last round or to even out the playing field (or get a player advantage). Brimstone is great to use for post-plant on offense with his fire ultimate since you can hold the spike clear for a few seconds. I won’t go into every Agent’s ultimate in detail here, but you get the main idea. Don’t waste your ultimates.

 

3. Spray Control

Valorant has a spray pattern for each of its automatic weapons that you can learn and use to your advantage. By doing the reverse movements of the gun’s spray, you can keep your shots accurate and can save bullets, as well. This isn’t the easiest thing to do since the range you’re shooting at affects your spray greatly and you’ll need to have a better control at further distances. I recommend getting the hang of a few guns that you use regularly and making the most of them as much as possible. Then, expand to other weapons so you’re ready for different situations that may arise in game.

 

4. Know How to Peek

This is the most common mistake professional players make. They’re definitely better than the average players, meaning their aim, knowledge of the game, and reaction times are better than pretty much any casual player. But, many times professional players use snipers on tight angles that make them have to react insanely quick. This leads to missed shots because they’re too slow or flicks that don’t hit.

This is easily avoidable by simply aiming a little more to the side of where your enemy will be running. It’s beneficial in two ways, actually. First off, you can wait for the enemy to run onto your scope and you get an easy hit. Secondly, you’ll have plenty of time to adjust your scope to hit any slow peekers testing their luck since you’ll have the peeker’s advantage. It’s a win-win. Just try it.

 

5. Learn Different Agents

This is a big one. I specifically recommend learning 4 agents, one from each category that I mention. The first one is a movement-based agent. This means Reyna and Jett. If you let them move around freely, they’re deadly with their abilities since Jett is unpredictable and fast, while Reyna is able to heal herself and become invincible for short periods of time. Learn one of them.

Next, you should learn a location-giver or opponent-threatener. I’m talking about Cypher and Sova. Both of them have abilities that give away enemy locations and will typically scare away enemies when you use the abilities correctly. They can buy A LOT of time for your team and get some VERY crucial knowledge for your team, as well. Having one is always very helpful.

The 3rd category is a one-agent category. You need to have a Sage. you never know when you can use another teammate or can use a health boost as an agent that can’t get health back. So, having her is crucial. Nevermind the fact that her ice wall is also super useful to have available in a round to block off players or even the spike (or boost a player if you want to do that, instead).

Finally, the 4th agent you should know can be any of the other agents that aren’t listed. They’re all useful in their own ways and you should look to use them in their own unique ways. It doesn’t matter which you choose, really. Viper is great for post-plant. Raze has some great damage she can do with her grenade and boom-bot (and the crazy rocket launcher). Phoenix is a self-healing support agent. The list goes on. But learn one of these agents as well. Or, learn two of them and you’ll never have all of your agents taken in a match all at once, ever.

 

6. Fire Through Smokes

To this day, I’ve gotten a whole bunch of blind kills through smokes and flashes. Flashes are riskier and might be dumb to try to kill through but, in my opinion, smokes are just opportunities. When Jett uses her smoke, she or her teammates are probably going to push to a new spot or for an orb. Burst fire through it to catch them off guard and to be less predictable to them. Any bit of damage helps and can be a huge round difference maker.

Reyna’s “smoke” is my favorite one to fire through since you can easily see which side it comes from and she almost always peeks after throwing it up. Just aim at the side she’s coming for and see if she peeks early or not. Spray through her purple orb and you can expect some damage to be done.

 

7. Use Your Perfect First Bullet Accuracy

For those of you who didn’t know, Valorant has multiple guns that are nearly perfect with their first bullet’s accuracy, while walking. Some guns include the Sheriff and Vandal. Both of these guns are devastating to get headshotted by and will trigger plenty of players if you hit a walking one tap on them because of this mechanic. Check out what other weapons give this pleasure and use it to your advantage. Don’t be afraid to take the shot.

These are only seven of the ways that you can take your Valorant game play to the next level. You don’t necessarily need all of these things to get better but having a good mixture of all of them will surely improve your rank. Also, remember to be patient as Valorant is still a newer game and the mechanics, including the ranking and MMR system, are still in the process of being finalized to perfection.

I’ve only listed seven but there are plenty of other things that may help minorly and majorly. Also, watch some professionals play the game and see what they do and see if I’m right about some of these things. Hopefully this helped and we’ll see some better competition on the battlefield.

Valorant is available now as a free-to-play title on PC.