I recently noticed I hit 1000 DM's (126 hours) on my main account alone, and yesterday crossed 100 hours on Aimlabs. Wanted to give some thoughts given the time so far i've put into grinding my aim. I feel like this will be useful to some people as for my background: I started the game as a COMPLETE beginner/0 FPS experience this past April, and am playing on just a laptop (hovers 60-80 FPS, easily drops below 50 during gunfights). I've risen from Iron to Plat, in large credit to the aim training.

I know theres always arguments over whether 3rd party aim trainers help, and to a lesser extent, how Valorant's Deathmatch by design makes it training super tilting/frustrating

Supplementing your Valorant playtime with proper aim training helps tremendously both in the short + long term. Just "playing the game" is NOT efficient if you don't have a solid foundation

I understand some people can compensate for bad aim with good gamesense and positioning but in reality you can't substitute one for the other. And ESPECIALLY in the lower elos like Bronze - Silver, gamesense is completely out the door, and Aim is the #1 thing that can get you out of these elos aside from learning not to overrotate or dry pushing the enemy on a 4v2 postplant.

I have friends who have been playing since Beta/Ep 1, on actual gaming PCs and are still stuck in high Silver/Gold 1. They don't aim train, not surprisingly. Now I'm not going to boast that Plat 1 is so so good, but what got me to Plat, from Iron, on a Laptop, is not just gamesense and positioning (although this was very important for me for the high gold -> plat step), but AIM.

How Deathmatch has helped: 0 crouching habit (my HS% on Vandal is 45%), having bursting + strafing down (hardest ppl to kill are strafers - btw Miyagi method helps with tracking moving targets, just don't overdo), proficient at the sheriff and guardian, practicing crosshair placement (this is so overlooked). Remember your goal is to have your crosshair at HS level as 24/7 as Possible.

Play DM to improve your mechanics, not cheesily "win' by (sound) camping/spraying, etc. If you really are worried about friends seeing 10-14th place in every DM in your viewable history, then go grind DM on an alt. But they'll understand in the near future when you are hitting nasty shots :)

Aimlabs: Started out Silver II, now am Diamond III. I usually do Aimlabs 5-6 times/week, from light 10 min sessions to full 1 hour sessions. I usually do them NOT right before I play so i don't wear/tire my wrist out. For example, I sometimes would do my Aimlabs session early evening, go Exercise/Eat Dinner, then come back and open Valorant and Deathmatch before playing matches.

Do NOT spam Gridshot. There are SO many better exercises. You need to think about what mechanics in-game are fundamentals for good aim. Tracking, Microadjustments, etc. Don't play tasks with huge targets. I started focusing on Valorant Ascent Tracking, MotionShot Precision, Sixshot (Peak 95k atm), Microshot, and recently picked up the Voltaic exercises. Always try to prioritize Accuracy.

Other tips: There is absolutely such thing as OVERtraining. I've learned this over the past few months with burning myself out many times by completely overspamming certain aimlab exercises or deathmatches (even worse when tilted). You don't want to build bad habits , mentally wear yourself down before you even play a match, or worse, physically hurt your wrist/arms.

Final Note: Just think about it, in the context of aiming, the # of targets you train to hit, and actual PvP encounters in a 40 min Valorant match is vastly smaller than doing DMs/Aim Trainers. This is why its super helpful to supplement "just playing" with deliberate aim training.

I can't imagine the extra improvement if I had an actual decent PC setup; (Playing the game on just a laptop is a handicap, but aim training on one is also painful). Playing on a laptop though has forced me to have competent aim (gamesense too ofc, but focus of this post is on Aim) in order to combat "hardware diff" / crouch spraying against same-elo peers.

I still have a LONG way to go to even consider myself "cracked", but I'm happy with the results so far of this journey and I hope this is helpful to others - particularly the newer players and laptop hopefuls!