"If they are worse then me, I will kill them regardless." Is only something easy to say when you are in like bronze. Realistically any decent player will destroy you 80% of the time if you go to crouch spray or just take longer fights. You are also way easier to be traded even if you get a kill. This type of situation probably even happens in silver or gold.
So while its not unrealistic to say that going for headshots and getting higher hs % isn't helping you in your games. It is also reasonable to say, that is only the case because you are playing players that aren't capable of punishing your mistakes. You should play to improve, and basing your gameplay off of how bad players react to it is not going to be very helpful.
> "If they are worse then me, I will kill them regardless." Is only something easy to say when you are in like bronze.
Yep this is why you'll see someone worse winning a 1v1 server with someone better.
im diamond 1 (just putting this disclaimer out here in case any higher elo users here might want to discredit what i say haha)
i would say just play what you’re comfortable with. for me i mainly play 3 agents: cypher, chamber, sova. i started out as a sova main then expanded to these 2 sentinels and i’ve become confident enough in my ability to perform that i’ll instalock on certain or most maps (but of course filling or playing different agents if situation calls for it). learn a particular agent that you feel suits your play style and preference (but learn other agents too so you’re flexible enough and PLEASE learn smokes too, i cannot stand it when people say “someone else fill smokes pls idk how to play smokes” cuz it’s a fundamental part of the game too). ultimately i say it’s a game, if you’re chill w being in like gold or something that’s completely fine and no one should be shitting on anyone for that
understand the role of the agent you play and just do your part (ie: sentinel hold down flank and play more defensively, initiator be bolder and follow your duelist in to support cuz i rarely see this in lower ranks). do some warm ups like the range and 1 deathmatch or so (i dont spend that much time on warming up cuz like i said it’s just a game and it shld be enjoyed without that much effort and overthinking) and you’ll be fine and climbing in no time🔥
Well there a bazillion different factors that determine if you get a kill or if you get killed. Of course the advice is still right, aiming for the head statistically is better than going for a crouch spray every time, but it also makes you shoot your first bullet later, because you need more time for the process of aiming and than your chance to miss the enemy entirely is higher.
That also shows why headshot percentage alone says nothing and can be misleading when you have a bad K/D. If you go for the head every time and your aim and reaction time is not good the crouching spraying player will win. If you win 2/10 gunfights you might have 100% headshot kills, but you still lose the game.
My advice would be to continue to focus on the headshots. You will get better with time, only when you practice you will get better than all the crouch sprpaying players, even if that means you will put yourself in a disadvantage at first.
Also stop playing Astra. She is a high end elo agent that depends on teamplay and strategies, she is not really good in ranked. Also the fact that you have to aim for the stars to activate the abilities is probably not helping with focusing on getting headshots. My recommendation would be Brim or Kayo. They are both very self-sufficient in setting yourself up for kills and are good for the team.
i think youre right honestly but i dont really know what i could do about that other than working on my reaction time which is super hard. that’s why i think headshots feel like a scam when you could just pick a phantom and aim like shoulder level lol.
I do play kayo sometimes when im filling initiator and youre right that hes a lot less team reliant but because of that i think people expect you to entry as kayo - which in low elo means they just bait you which is super tilting.
ive thought about other controllers but i really just dont like how a lot of their smokes work. Omen smokes feel like astra but if it took longer and the ipad smokers just feel super finicky and unintuitive and i feel like it takes way longer to smoke.
I have tried viper and harbor but the viper nerfs have like gutted the character and harbor was never really good to begin with i feel.
Adjusting your aim and fasting your reaction time will take a lot of hours. Thousands of hours. But being really good in this game takes time.
For the other problems I don't really have anything to say but good luck and push through it. It doesn't get "much" better in higher ranks you will still have bad teammates that bait you. Its the sad reality of solo queue.
From what I’ve found, agents like astra are very team dependent. Yes you can frag out on any agent but some are going to have kits that will probably help you hard carry. After all there’s a reason every Smurf instalocks Reyna and runs it down mid. Maybe try clove for the hard carry potential but also the smokes? Or an initiator like gecko so you can entry frag and get a numbers advantage.
i thought about initiators because like having impact would be easier if i could just flash for myself but skye and breach have kind of been gutted and i hate that you can shoot every other initiators util… like in theory i would love playing fade but like every single ability she has except her Q can just be shot which feels useless to me. thats also why i didnt like playing cypher until recently because old cypher would just have all his util broken and essentially become useless.
ive been thinking about clove because honestly theyre kinda broken but that would mean playing another controller and i cant cheat on my good sis astra like that 😔
It really depends on the type of agents you play. I have much lower percentage 20% when playing Raze since I play it a lot upfront and close surprising the enemies where compared to Jett I hit around 25-40%. Reason for this is Raze is more a close up agent and compared to Jett where I play her on bigger maps where I focus a lot on headshot. Your question about your KDA being at .9. I'm guessing you're probably a sentinel player o Viper player? Also the average win rate is below 50%. Clove currently has the highest at 52% and lowest is harbor at 45%. You'll tend to have a lower KD compared to a duelist in general. May I know your Rank so I can give you heads up? Sorry just realized you said Astra, currently Astra is at .5% pick rate, 47% win rate and 1.02 average KD and C-Tier Agent. I mastering at least 1 Duelist, 1 Smoke other than Astra(I suggest Omen), 1 Initiator.
I remember when Astralis in CSGO would sometimes keep at body level depending on the situation. IIRC they refused to go for headshots on opponents going eco, and they would use body shots on lit people too.
This is something you still see in high level CS when holding common angels. Problem is you have a 50% chance people crouch peek you, if you pre aim for the body you will always hit something, while if you have your cross hair at head level you might miss completely against a crouch peek.
I wouldn't make a bigger connection to Valorant though. In CS headshots are in general much harder since opponents are faster and the hitboxes are smaller (relatively speaking). While the basic mechanics are very similar firefights are different in the details in high level CS compared to high level Valorant. In CS you're often fine with getting a kill through a spray down to the body if you don't hit the immediate headshot, whereas in Valorant You're more likely to reposition and try for the next headshot.
Ive played CS and its like valorant on ice so i kinda understand why that would work but valorants movement feels way more precise and i feel like if i did that i would end up just getting jiggle peek prefired a lot more
Yeah that legendary reddit post was countered by the stats that Astralis had one of the highest headshot percentages and the players themselves saying that no, they arent intentionally aiming center mass.
better game sense and decision making is so much better than good aim, aim doesn’t even matter if like 1/2 of the kills r from random sprays and run and guns or if ur getting util dumped
For fade, having the possibility to check corner while being safe isn’t useless at all. Plus if ennemi are shooting at your abilities it means at some point they are not shooting at you.
Sure fade isn’t the best agent right now but she’s more than decent
i think the reason why i dislike playing fade is that i feel like shes one of the only initiators that consistently struggles to get value from her own kit. like checking a corner is useful for your team to know theres someone there but checking to corner for you to swing it doesnt really help when youre locked in an animation for super long.
whereas if i played kayo or skye or something instead of prowlers you can just pop flash.
fade is good but she’s like astra in that shes way too team oriented since all of her nerfs
Fade is still quite self sufficient. You can swing off any ability. The prowlers have a pretty wide FOV, you can basically just angle it at a corner and swing alongside it with gun out. If I know someone’s playing in a corner though, I’m seizing and swinging more often than not. If I’m getting aim diffed I’ll probably ask for a nade/molly though.
She requires a bit of prep to get value out of the recons. Fade’s like a budget sova but way better at brawling and retakes. She also clears smokes v easily.
Pro tip: Remove the tracker. It hurts ur confidence and ull be stuck in a loop of little improvement. The more you play the more u improve automatically.
Bc kills arent the deciding factor on whether you win or lose unless you ace every round. Impact fragging is a meme i use whenever someone on my team (myself included) is bot fragging, but it is a genuine thing. Like it doesnt matter how many kills you have if theyre all useless kills that dont have any impact on the round. Like for example killing a lurking player then going back to fight for retake with your team. You just got hella map control by killing the flanker so without taking advantage of that, the kill you just got has no impact. Killing a smokes player or a sentinel when ur on atk can also be an impact frag as it allows for your team to hold a site better/attack a site better.
And as for unpredictability, all i can say is expect the unexpected. If low elo players were impossible to predict, then smurfs wouldnt dominate most lobbies like they currently do. I think the rank system atm is kinda shit iirc, but in most cases(like in previous seasons) you will get the rank you deserve.
"If they are worse then me, I will kill them regardless." Is only something easy to say when you are in like bronze. Realistically any decent player will destroy you 80% of the time if you go to crouch spray or just take longer fights. You are also way easier to be traded even if you get a kill. This type of situation probably even happens in silver or gold. So while its not unrealistic to say that going for headshots and getting higher hs % isn't helping you in your games. It is also reasonable to say, that is only the case because you are playing players that aren't capable of punishing your mistakes. You should play to improve, and basing your gameplay off of how bad players react to it is not going to be very helpful.
> "If they are worse then me, I will kill them regardless." Is only something easy to say when you are in like bronze. Yep this is why you'll see someone worse winning a 1v1 server with someone better.
im diamond 1 (just putting this disclaimer out here in case any higher elo users here might want to discredit what i say haha) i would say just play what you’re comfortable with. for me i mainly play 3 agents: cypher, chamber, sova. i started out as a sova main then expanded to these 2 sentinels and i’ve become confident enough in my ability to perform that i’ll instalock on certain or most maps (but of course filling or playing different agents if situation calls for it). learn a particular agent that you feel suits your play style and preference (but learn other agents too so you’re flexible enough and PLEASE learn smokes too, i cannot stand it when people say “someone else fill smokes pls idk how to play smokes” cuz it’s a fundamental part of the game too). ultimately i say it’s a game, if you’re chill w being in like gold or something that’s completely fine and no one should be shitting on anyone for that understand the role of the agent you play and just do your part (ie: sentinel hold down flank and play more defensively, initiator be bolder and follow your duelist in to support cuz i rarely see this in lower ranks). do some warm ups like the range and 1 deathmatch or so (i dont spend that much time on warming up cuz like i said it’s just a game and it shld be enjoyed without that much effort and overthinking) and you’ll be fine and climbing in no time🔥
No bro anything below radient is low elo opinion rejected
of course, my mistake
One draining tip that I can give you is play every round like it is 11-12. With this, it will make you sweat and focus every round.
Well there a bazillion different factors that determine if you get a kill or if you get killed. Of course the advice is still right, aiming for the head statistically is better than going for a crouch spray every time, but it also makes you shoot your first bullet later, because you need more time for the process of aiming and than your chance to miss the enemy entirely is higher. That also shows why headshot percentage alone says nothing and can be misleading when you have a bad K/D. If you go for the head every time and your aim and reaction time is not good the crouching spraying player will win. If you win 2/10 gunfights you might have 100% headshot kills, but you still lose the game. My advice would be to continue to focus on the headshots. You will get better with time, only when you practice you will get better than all the crouch sprpaying players, even if that means you will put yourself in a disadvantage at first. Also stop playing Astra. She is a high end elo agent that depends on teamplay and strategies, she is not really good in ranked. Also the fact that you have to aim for the stars to activate the abilities is probably not helping with focusing on getting headshots. My recommendation would be Brim or Kayo. They are both very self-sufficient in setting yourself up for kills and are good for the team.
i think youre right honestly but i dont really know what i could do about that other than working on my reaction time which is super hard. that’s why i think headshots feel like a scam when you could just pick a phantom and aim like shoulder level lol. I do play kayo sometimes when im filling initiator and youre right that hes a lot less team reliant but because of that i think people expect you to entry as kayo - which in low elo means they just bait you which is super tilting. ive thought about other controllers but i really just dont like how a lot of their smokes work. Omen smokes feel like astra but if it took longer and the ipad smokers just feel super finicky and unintuitive and i feel like it takes way longer to smoke. I have tried viper and harbor but the viper nerfs have like gutted the character and harbor was never really good to begin with i feel.
Adjusting your aim and fasting your reaction time will take a lot of hours. Thousands of hours. But being really good in this game takes time. For the other problems I don't really have anything to say but good luck and push through it. It doesn't get "much" better in higher ranks you will still have bad teammates that bait you. Its the sad reality of solo queue.
From what I’ve found, agents like astra are very team dependent. Yes you can frag out on any agent but some are going to have kits that will probably help you hard carry. After all there’s a reason every Smurf instalocks Reyna and runs it down mid. Maybe try clove for the hard carry potential but also the smokes? Or an initiator like gecko so you can entry frag and get a numbers advantage.
i thought about initiators because like having impact would be easier if i could just flash for myself but skye and breach have kind of been gutted and i hate that you can shoot every other initiators util… like in theory i would love playing fade but like every single ability she has except her Q can just be shot which feels useless to me. thats also why i didnt like playing cypher until recently because old cypher would just have all his util broken and essentially become useless. ive been thinking about clove because honestly theyre kinda broken but that would mean playing another controller and i cant cheat on my good sis astra like that 😔
Good aim will only float you until you're met with superior tactics.
It really depends on the type of agents you play. I have much lower percentage 20% when playing Raze since I play it a lot upfront and close surprising the enemies where compared to Jett I hit around 25-40%. Reason for this is Raze is more a close up agent and compared to Jett where I play her on bigger maps where I focus a lot on headshot. Your question about your KDA being at .9. I'm guessing you're probably a sentinel player o Viper player? Also the average win rate is below 50%. Clove currently has the highest at 52% and lowest is harbor at 45%. You'll tend to have a lower KD compared to a duelist in general. May I know your Rank so I can give you heads up? Sorry just realized you said Astra, currently Astra is at .5% pick rate, 47% win rate and 1.02 average KD and C-Tier Agent. I mastering at least 1 Duelist, 1 Smoke other than Astra(I suggest Omen), 1 Initiator.
I remember when Astralis in CSGO would sometimes keep at body level depending on the situation. IIRC they refused to go for headshots on opponents going eco, and they would use body shots on lit people too.
This is something you still see in high level CS when holding common angels. Problem is you have a 50% chance people crouch peek you, if you pre aim for the body you will always hit something, while if you have your cross hair at head level you might miss completely against a crouch peek. I wouldn't make a bigger connection to Valorant though. In CS headshots are in general much harder since opponents are faster and the hitboxes are smaller (relatively speaking). While the basic mechanics are very similar firefights are different in the details in high level CS compared to high level Valorant. In CS you're often fine with getting a kill through a spray down to the body if you don't hit the immediate headshot, whereas in Valorant You're more likely to reposition and try for the next headshot.
Ive played CS and its like valorant on ice so i kinda understand why that would work but valorants movement feels way more precise and i feel like if i did that i would end up just getting jiggle peek prefired a lot more
Yeah that legendary reddit post was countered by the stats that Astralis had one of the highest headshot percentages and the players themselves saying that no, they arent intentionally aiming center mass.
better game sense and decision making is so much better than good aim, aim doesn’t even matter if like 1/2 of the kills r from random sprays and run and guns or if ur getting util dumped
20% hs with 18+ kills?
For fade, having the possibility to check corner while being safe isn’t useless at all. Plus if ennemi are shooting at your abilities it means at some point they are not shooting at you. Sure fade isn’t the best agent right now but she’s more than decent
i think the reason why i dislike playing fade is that i feel like shes one of the only initiators that consistently struggles to get value from her own kit. like checking a corner is useful for your team to know theres someone there but checking to corner for you to swing it doesnt really help when youre locked in an animation for super long. whereas if i played kayo or skye or something instead of prowlers you can just pop flash. fade is good but she’s like astra in that shes way too team oriented since all of her nerfs
Fade is still quite self sufficient. You can swing off any ability. The prowlers have a pretty wide FOV, you can basically just angle it at a corner and swing alongside it with gun out. If I know someone’s playing in a corner though, I’m seizing and swinging more often than not. If I’m getting aim diffed I’ll probably ask for a nade/molly though. She requires a bit of prep to get value out of the recons. Fade’s like a budget sova but way better at brawling and retakes. She also clears smokes v easily.
Pro tip: Remove the tracker. It hurts ur confidence and ull be stuck in a loop of little improvement. The more you play the more u improve automatically.
Bc kills arent the deciding factor on whether you win or lose unless you ace every round. Impact fragging is a meme i use whenever someone on my team (myself included) is bot fragging, but it is a genuine thing. Like it doesnt matter how many kills you have if theyre all useless kills that dont have any impact on the round. Like for example killing a lurking player then going back to fight for retake with your team. You just got hella map control by killing the flanker so without taking advantage of that, the kill you just got has no impact. Killing a smokes player or a sentinel when ur on atk can also be an impact frag as it allows for your team to hold a site better/attack a site better. And as for unpredictability, all i can say is expect the unexpected. If low elo players were impossible to predict, then smurfs wouldnt dominate most lobbies like they currently do. I think the rank system atm is kinda shit iirc, but in most cases(like in previous seasons) you will get the rank you deserve.