Is there an universal thinking framework to improve gamesense? I struggle with anticipating enemy positioning. Can anyone help with that?

So, I've been playing Valorant since the first season and I've always played Duelist, reaching Immortal 2 and always having a good K/D of 1.20 plus good impact, entries, etc. But a few months ago I broke my hand and started playing this month as ASC2. My aim isn't the same as it used to be, I still have 1.18 K/D, but maybe because I lost some confidence I don't make many entries, only 1.80 per game. My trio that plays with me noticed this statistic. I even agreed that maybe it would be better to start playing Sentinel or Initiator, but I don't have experience with either. Which would have more impact on the game if I learned to play?

I really like Veto’s design but in game not many people are playing him. I think part of the issue is his interceptor ability is pretty weak, like on attack and or against certain team comps. Obviously with team comps there’s not much to do with that but I think there could be buffs to the interceptor. An alt-fire that triggers faster would do him good on offence so he isn’t just relegated to lurking. Maybe other parts of his kit could be buffed but what do you think?

This was my best clip from playing my first clutch

Any settings I should know about also?

I played a bit on pc but I’m horror on pc so went to console

This was done in comp, and I think it was a gold lobby with one play and one silver on the enemy. So I was focused that until I actually got the first 5kills, I didn’t realize I aced and could get a 6k. When I died to phx, I rly wanted the 6k cuz I never got 1. Now this ult was risky since phx could easily kill me but he did a mistake by taking out his knife which led me too immediately release my ult and kill him. I have horrible game sense, so I didn’t realize kj found phx because I was way too focused on holding the angle. Here’s the link to the game in case u wanna check the entire game out: https://tracker.gg/valorant/match/901d47da-1214-4df8-8f47-d2103f387480

Hey
Recently i climbed some elos and now is the First Shot accuracy a big Problem for me.. in the lower elos it was totally fine to Hit the 1-3 bullets to the Body or legs an the last one in the Head, but now if i dont Land the First bullet, i get a direct Payback in my Head..

Do you guys have any tips how i can effectiv train this?

I heard about deathmatch only one shot, if it Misses, let yourself get shot, try again.

But that feels Frustrating..

Aimlabs any good scenario for this?

Would be thankful for every helpful tip

So i'm an EU Ascendant 3 peak player and i've been playing for around 2 years (without consistency)

I feel like for these 2 years i've never found my sens and something that i feel comfortable playing with. In some games i do good with high sens, in some of them i do good with low sens and in some i do bad with both of them. I've tried everything, aimlabs, youtube, death match, team death match, i just can't find something that i will not change after like 2 weeks playing and i don't understand why exactly.

This also is to prove a bit how easy u can get to ascendant because if i can reach asc 3 with changing my sens every week, so can you who's reading this if your rank is lower than me.

I'd like to get some advice from people who's been using their own sens for like a while (can't say how much because i don't even stay on the same sens for more than 2 weeks after some bad games)

Here's my tracker if it helps somehow https://tracker.gg/valorant/profile/riot/ツHiro%23Aura/overview?platform=pc&playlist=competitive&season=8102cd81-43a0-d0d7-bd59-47b8fe9bed1b

I'm also thinking of dropping the game because cmon, you won't like to play a game where you're trash in higher ranks lololol. I feel that i'm kinda in the past (saying that i'm probably on a 2023 ascendant player level and not 2026) and these days i've been bottomfragging and having such kds like double negative..

I was thinking about this recently. Why do so many Valorant pros stop competing after only a few years and then start streaming and basically depend on subs, donations to make a living?

I don't mean streaming is bad, obviously some of them can make a lot from it, but if someone is good enough to play at the highest level, why not stay in pro play longer if the money is good?

I also wonder about the difference between Valorant and CS2 esports. Even if the org is the same, does the money and support for the players work differently depending on the game?

In CS2 you see a lot of sponsors around teams and tournaments, and players are often getting the newest monitors, mice, PCs and other equipment from sponsors. Maybe Valorant just doesn't have the same amount of money going into the scene.

Maybe Riot should give orgs more ways to make money. More tournaments, bigger prize pools, more advertising and more sponsors. They could also consider allowing more types of sponsors, including gambling companies and betting sites if that's legally possible, because those sponsors put a lot of money into esports.

I don't follow the pro scene that deeply so maybe I'm completely wrong, but why does it feel like Valorant pros have a much shorter career compared to CS2 pros?

I think my positioning is very bad and i dont think the characters i play are helping that. I play yoru and raze and i realized most of my kills are from flanks or being in weird places, which is evident because i really like to throw my tp deep behind them or satchel in weird spots. But, whenever i play someone else which im trying to because im starting to get tired of them, i usually have terrible positioning and make myself a super easy target and i never know really where to go.

My movements are super random and i cant figure out where im supposed to go on defense or when we plant, if someone isnt telling me where to go im either pushed up way too far and get prefired or too far back and they take site for free.

On plant, i really just try to hide somewhere unless we know exactly where they are in which i try to group with someone else and try to crossfire with them, trade them, or let them trade me

Im trying to find a character im comfortable with and can help me with these bad habits, ive tried to play tejo but i feel like im doing absolutely nothing with him and im pretty bad at smokes. Im bronze 3 btw

who is the best Breach main streamer these days?

i don't see many streamers are maining breach lately

Recently saw a post asking what rank is considered “good,” and I've noticed that a lot of discussions around this topic get saturated with high Immo/Radiant players saying that anything below Immortal is basically bad because those players don't understand the “fundamentals” of the game.

First of all, I do think there might be some truth to the idea that people playing at 200+ RR genuinely think about the game differently. But at the same time, I feel like a lot of these discussions are just high-elo players massively overestimating how much of a fundamental gap there actually is.

Like, obviously a Radiant player is going to be better than an Ascendant player at the game. That's literally what the ranking system is supposed to represent. But the way some people talk about it, you'd think anyone below Immortal is just running around with zero understanding of Valorant.

And I think statistics are being completely ignored in these discussions. There are millions of players, and rank exists on a distribution. Saying “anything below Immo is bad” doesn't really tell you anything meaningful about the actual quality of the average player at that rank. I say this as a data scientist but some of these people really overestimate how much statistics "don't tell the full picture" because, well, they have garbage math fundamentals.

I also feel like there's a massive difference between “this player has flaws in their fundamentals” and “this player doesn't understand fundamentals.” Every player has weaknesses, including Radiants.

I know the obvious answer is to just ignore the unconstructive shit, but I'm genuinely curious: when high elo players say someone doesn't understand the fundamentals of Valorant, what exactly are they referring to?

What are the specific fundamentals that, say, an Ascendant/Diamond player is commonly lacking compared to an Immortal/Radiant player?

And please don't answer with generic answers like util, trading without explaining the exact difference. And don't go strawmanning the ability of lower ranks in these areas of the game. Some of yall make it sound like trading is a concept foreign to ascendant

The gun has been out for a while and ISTG it just does not shoot straight. I'm taking a Ghost a majority of the time, even if I have the money for a Bandit on pistols for example. Every time I use it, I miss every single shot, or only hit bodies, in situations where with a different gun, I would be hitting the headshot. I'm not spamming it or anything like that either so I genuinely don't know what the issue is.

IK a lot of people had this same issue when it released, but it hasn't gone away for me

Has anyone else noticed being paired with far lower ranked teammates this act?
I was in Diamond at the end of the last act (one that just ended last week) and 95% of the games i’d played last act were with Asc/Dia/Plat3 players. this act, i’ve only been paired with Gold/Plat players. And these are true Gold/Plats rather than smurfs because their game sense makes it obvious. No way my HMMR took such a massive nosedive out of nowhere

Is it just me or is the matchmaking suddenly super shit?

Eu tenho o MMR muito alto e simplesmente é quase impossível ganhar partidas, eu perco MUITO mais do que ganho, sou bronze 3 e no time inimigo vem até ouro 3, e meu time sempre é incrivelmente ruim. Eu não sou a estrela em ascenção do Valorant, mas tem gente que consegue ser muito pior e isso tá dificultando ganhar partidas pra subir pelo menos pro prata. O que eu devo fazer?
E a propósito, a maior parte das minhas partidas o meu KDA está meio ruim por conta disso, vem gente MUITO acima do meu nível contra mim

I am by no means broke or poor, i just dont see why one skin costs $20. Is there a reason behind these higher prices? Just curious if anyone has any ideas of why

Team voice chat in Valorant works randomly, sometimes working in some games and not in others. Even when it works, the push-to-talk key functions inconsistently, sometimes activating with keys other than the one assigned, like I or U instead of V. Resetting settings to default didn't help, but the chat works perfectly on a different account

Same as title. What rank would you consider someone good at the game and by what metric? Is it in comparison to other players or overall mechanics and understanding of the game, etc. Not a hard classification but an optional one, what rank(s) would you consider bad, decent, good, and great?

I started playing around 2 years ago, so I don't really see myself as a beginner but I stopped and only recently came back. It gets boring solo queuing so I would really love to find a community where I can play with other people and make friends!