Improving in VALORANT – Tips for Each Rank
The climb to Immortal or Radiant isn’t easy. VALORANT is notorious for its ELO hell, and you can easily get stuck on a rank for months. Whether you are stuck in Gold and Platinum or struggling at the lower end in Silver, here are some applicable VALORANT tips to make your matches easier.
These tips are based on common mistakes we’ve seen people in certain ranks make. Obviously, it’s not guaranteed that you make those same mistakes. So if you feel like a certain tip isn’t applicable to you, feel free to keep on scrolling and reads the other tips as well!
Iron
If you are Iron, chances are you just started playing VALORANT. At this rank, try to get familiar with the game, especially how the gunplay works. Get familiar with the maps and agents. Try playing with every agent in the practice range so you can have a better understanding of how they work when you face them in a match.
Once you know how the game works, you will automatically get out of Iron. It’s not that hard to get out of it. There are more players in Immortal than in Iron, so unless you got unlucky with your placement matches, you won’t even unlock Iron.
Bronze
For Bronze players, the biggest tip is to stop crouch spraying and focus on other foundational mechanical aspects. Yes, it becomes easier to control your recoil when you are crouched, but you also become a sitting duck for the enemy. When you crouch and spray, you commit to the fight and can’t retreat. Similarly, you should focus on limiting the amount of run-and-gunning you do. Most guns in VALORANT are way more accurate when standing still.
The other thing to work on is crosshair placement. Just try to keep your crosshair at the enemy’s head level every time. Both the crouch spraying and crosshair placement can be fixed using Deathmatch.
Unbind your crouch button and play a few rounds of deathmatch. It will feel a bit odd at first, but you will get used to it. As for crosshair placement, just make sure always to keep it at head level during your Deathmatch rounds. You can read our guide on how to create the perfect VALORANT warmup for more tips and tricks.
Silver
The advice for Bronze still applies here. You will find a lot of players crouch-spraying and shooting aimlessly in this rank. So, being patient with your shots and trying to aim for the head will get you frags easily. Aiming skills in general are quite weak across the lower ranks, so you can make a difference here by outfragging the enemy team.
However, at the higher ranks, aiming skills start to make less and less of a difference, so this rank, it’s a good idea to start mastering some agents. This means learning lineups, setups, and tricks to confuse your enemies. Utility usage is quite weak in Silver, so if you can use your utility effectively, you will also win rounds for your team.
A good tip here is to focus on a couple of agents that you want to main. Don’t try and find cool lineups and tricks for every hero in the roster: odds are you’ll forget about all of them. Try to get good with a couple of your favorites.
Gold
Gold will feel like a big jump from Silver because the aiming standard makes quite a significant jump here. Here, you’ll find a lot of players who have good to great aim but aren’t as well-versed in the tactical aspects of the game.
So, try playing a bit smart in Gold, that’s the main tip. If you pay attention, Gold players are quite predictable, so just by playing a bit smart, you can win a lot of matches. Watch a couple of streamers or pro matches and learn when it can be a good time for a cheeky flank, for example.
The advice about utility also applies here. For instance, if you can master a sentinel, you can easily lock down a site for your team. Teamwork is also quite bad in Gold, so you can use that to your advantage.
Lastly, focus on the economy. Learn how the economy works, when to buy, force, eco, etc. Having a good grasp of the economic situation in the match and coordinating with your team effectively can help you win tons of games in Gold.
Platinum
Platinum is where the true ELO hell starts for a lot of people. Since Plat and Gold are the most common ranks, you can encounter bad teammates as well as enemies that will out-aim you like it’s a walk in the park.
The advice in Platinum is to play patiently. An overly aggressive playstyle won’t work here as players will read that easily. It’s also important to start communicating properly. It could be as simple as asking for flash, calling out smokes, etc.
This is also a good point to start playing a bit more strategically. This means playing for map control, faking executes, and rotations. You are also better off playing with friends in Platinum, because solo queuing in this rank can be difficult.
Diamond
Things get better in Diamond. You will start getting better teammates, and players generally play smart. But this also means that Diamond lobbies are very competitive. Players have good aim, gamesense, movement, and utility usage.
The advice here is to focus on teamplay. This means combining utility with your teammates and just coordinating well in general. Don’t play for the numbers on the scoreboard, play to win rounds.
This means trading your teammates, using your utility to help the team, and calling out information. It’s also a good point to start an aim training routine. Players in Diamond have great aim, and if you are lacking in that aspect, it will be hard to rank up, no matter how smart you are.
Ascendant
Ascendant is another place where players can get stuck. It’s mostly because everyone is grinding to get into Immortal, and winning matches becomes very difficult. The advice here is to focus on fixing your mistakes and bad habits to become a complete player.
For instance, if your aim is good, but your game sense isn’t up to par, watching your own games can help you improve that. Ascendant is also the place to find your role, whether it’s the smoker, entry fragger, or the sentinel.
This rank is basically the place to fix your bad habits and aim to become a better player, in general.
Immortal
For a lot of players, Immortal is the goal rank, because reaching Radiant is quite difficult. If you are Immortal, you already have an idea of what you are lacking as a player. Try to work on that, but the key to reaching Radiant is just pure grind.
It’s quite a generic statement, but it’s the truth; you need to grind and play a lot to reach Radiant. There isn’t a specific tip that works for all, because players in Immortal generally don’t have a lot of weaknesses, so improving and ranking up comes down to finding your flaws and fixing them.
Radiant
If you are Radiant, you don’t need a tip; you have already reached the top step of the ranked ladder. At this point, just focus on staying on the rank, playing your matches, and enjoying the top level of ranked competition.
What you do next from here comes down to you, whether it’s transitioning into pro-play or just enjoying the Radiant lobbies.
Conclusion
Getting stuck on a rank can be demotivating and can often make you quit VALORANT in general. VALORANT ranked can damage your mental especially if you are losing games. At the end of the day though, it’s important to know that results will follow if you improve. You can get stuck with bad teammates, for example, but if you play enough this will even itself out. The only factor you can control is yourself. Therefore, if you always play to improve as a player and teammate instead of only wanting to rank up, you will find that those shiny new ranks come automatically.
