To briefly sum up my competitive history in games, i was a cod demon from the ripe age of 6, i got into csgo because my dad was playing it when it came out but before that id played a little bit of 1.6 and css, in csgo i hit global elite by age 13, peaking global elite faceit 9 when i was 14, i was climbing to faceit 10 but studying came first
in valorant, i peaked immo 3 in NA servers and ive peaked immo 1 on EU servers, i think my perspective is unique considering a lot of valorant coaches will tell you to do the opposite of what i will tell you to do, and ill explain why they do so as i go and why you shouldnt be listening to the majority of valorant coaches

before i get into this ill recommend two valorant coaches who give genuinely good advice, jollztv and woohoojin

Now, lets start with something you might have heard before but may not have given much thought to.
your crosshair could legitimately be holding you back
The vast majority of crosshairs you see people using / get used do not have outlines on, this is more of a trend than anything that followed on from csgo, these crosshairs have more of a place in valorant but if you want to be using a boarderless crosshair, you NEED to have the player outline contrasting your crosshair colour, you shouldnt be running a yellow crosshair with yellow outlines
I would however recommend having an outline on your crosshair, whether youre using something like the scream dot etc, having that outline for me at least makes a night and day difference, you can see clearly when your crosshair is on an enemy at any range and that eliminates some of the doubt, hesitation, shooting early etc that you might be unknowingly encountering if you are not using a crosshair that either contrasts the player outline or has an outline of its own (in my experience there is a difference between even these two options, i strongly recommend having an outline on your crosshair)

second and this is one that just outright confuses me, ive seen a lot of coaches tell you to look where your crosshair is?
im going to say this as nicely as i can, dont fucking do that, thats how you get tunnel visioned, running into mid peeking out into 3 different angles only looking at one or caring about one

If you go into the shooting test, put an outline on a crosshair or whatever but then, when the bot pops up, LOOK AT THE BOT and then, move your crosshair.
Ive coached a fair few of my friends and this is something i often tell them to do as soon as i review a vod or ask them to do a shooting range test and every single time (ive coached 9-13 people just casually) its made a night and day difference
The basic premise of this is that youre not tunnelvisioning on your crosshair and on that angle but more importantly, youre bringing hand eye coordination into the equation, if youre staring at your crosshair 90% of the time youre not even going to see someone walk up on you in the far left or right of your screen, people dont seem to consciously think about how big of a role hand eye coordination plays especially in fps games, ive said this a lot but its a night and day difference when youre using hand eye coordination to aim, you will see an instant improvement in your aim

now ill get into my gripes with some coaches

crouch spraying
if it wasnt good you wouldnt see it so often, crouching tightens your recoil pattern, makes it more controllable and thats a good thing for a game that has randomized recoil, the time coaches will teach this is if youre doing it every single fight, not aiming for heads etc, its literally the "oh im sorry the ice cream machine is broken" of coaching, the ice cream machine isnt broken they just dont want to explain that its being cleaned and itll take an hour to do so
crouch spraying is not bad, theres just a time and a place and its very hard to explain that concept to someone who is either new to the game or doing it every single gunfight
so when should you crouch spray? ill get an obvious answer out of the way, odin and aries, when youre spraying through a smoke with a spectre or a phantom (DO NOT crouch spray through a smoke with a vandal, this is potentially one of the only times i will endorce "counter strafing", vandal has tracers, if you crouch and spray even 4 bullets and theyre not rotating, you are dead

"counter strafing"
counter strafing is not a thing in valorant and i am sick of pseudo coaches who pretend like they understand the game and regurgitate what theyve heard others say telling people it is
counter strafing is a term that comes from counterstrike, the base speed of counterstrike is much faster than valorant, to a point where going back to csgo for me feels like im suddenly fighting people on roller blades. its insane.
In csgo, you do not stop when you leg to of your input key, hence why youd press the opposite one to quickly bring yourself to a stop.
Valorant does not have this type of drift, if you let go of your input, you stop. "counter strafing" isnt a thing, strafing is and it is admittedly something you should learn to do, but not for the reasons youd think

almost all coaches tell you to "counter strafe" but have you ever seen someone actively employing that in high elo lobbies? you dont see it because whoever shoots first in high elo wins, there is no counter strafing. The only time ive seen it employed in valorant is when an immo smurf is in a low elo lobby and people are just spraying it down, that is the only real time strafing will work in a gunfight, even you as a silver in a silver lobby, strafing will not do you any good if youre being outaimed, its good in pistol round gunfights, thats as far as strafing goes for gunfights

what you should be strafing is angles, shoulder peeking, jump peeking etc, these skills are integral and the quicker you pick them up the better

one tip that valorant coaches give that i wholeheartedly endorce is crosshair placement. load into a private game and just practice putting your crosshair where you know a head will be, the quicker you get that down the better youll be for it, always expect someone on an angle youre peeking too, or a corner youre clearing, if you dont youll just awkwardly stare at them and get bodied.

This was more of a mini rant than anything ill be honest, ill answer any gripes or questions in the comments, i hope you can apply what ive said and improve