A brief word on Covid & mental well-being:

First and foremost, before I dive into an explanation of my training methods I want to take a moment and wish you all good health! I believe it's safe to say that 2021 was a challenging year for all of us, with new developments in regards to the spread of Covid-19 and the inevitable restrictions that came with them putting a great strain on both our mental and physical health globally. I hope that 2022 can be an easier year for all of you, that you find gaming to be a healthy momentary escape from a sometimes stressful reality, and that all of you and your families remain in good health! <3

Post Contents:

The aim of this post will be to inform the reader on the importance of aim-training, and the numerous benefits that can come from remaining consistent in following a routine. All of the included playlists / routines mentioned throughout the post will be included free of charge.

My posts tend to be lengthy in regards to content volume, if you're just here for the aim-training playlists, skip to section 5!

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1. Who am I?
2. An introduction to aim-trainers
3. The Importance and applicability of aim-trainers in Valorant
4. Different aim mechanics utilised in Valorant
5. Aim-Training Playlists (Kovaak's/AimLab/Aiming.pro)
6. Discord server

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1) Who am I?

For those of you that are not familiar with my content, I'm a Valorant coach that began coaching in CS:GO and then Apex Legends. Feel free to look through my reddit profile: -My profile- for a variety of free guides, covering topics ranging from hardware (monitors / mice etc.) to in-game concepts such as proper crosshair placement or gamesense development. All the content I post on Reddit is complete in itself and freely available to everyone.

My Experience in Gaming / Coaching:

I'm an (ex) semi-pro counter strike player with over 7k hours in CS:GO, my peak elo fluctuated around 3.2k in 2016 on Faceit (EU) and I've played at a multitude of local lans and Faceit tournaments. When a ranking system was introduced in Overwatch I climbed up to #29 WR as McCree. I've hit top 500 in Apex Legends, as well as multiple top 100 scores in Kovaak's FPS Aim Trainer. I have always had people asking how my aim got "this good" so I decided to try my luck in mechanics oriented coaching.

People assume that my aim got where it is now due to inherent "talent", while that is true to a minor extent, consistent training is the main benefactor in the progression of my skill. Everyone has a friend with thousands of hours in a game that still plays like a beginner, that's not due to genetic predisposition acting as a set-back, it's due to the fact that while they have spent time playing the game, they haven't figured out how to make the most out of their training.

I've been lucky enough to work with a multitude of other companies / organizations in the recent years, some of these include: AimLab / Statespace, Aiming.Pro, Insights.gg, Enlyo.com, and a few others that I can't name yet ;) I have participated in AimLab's CreatorStudio fund which only 5 individuals were initially picked for globally, I have two routines (both free) in the top 10 on Aiming.pro, a top 10 Valorant playlist on AimLab's older structure (pre-CS) and have been involved in the product-development phase of Enlyo.

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2) An introduction to aim-trainers

Aim-training is something that has been around for over a decade as a more abstract concept, what I mean by "abstract" in this context is that it has been common sense for people to focus on their aim while playing FPs games in order to improve upon it, whether that has been through playing more DM (deathmatch) playlists or through simply playing more of the game itself. In April of 2018, Kovaak, a former Quake pro released his interpretation of what an aim-trainer should look like, he called it "Kovaak's -FPS aim trainer-".

Kovaak's was the first of now many aim-training platforms to be released to the public, a trainer through which you could isolate individual mechanics and play simple target practice type maps to address your mechanical flaws. Kovaak's gained recognition in the pro-scene quite fast, with a multitude of professional players and streamers advertising it as an efficient tool, but the average player was yet to be convinced of their efficacy and necessity, which led to them being unwilling to pay for a tool they didn't feel they needed.

Now, we're in 2022, and there are multiple available "aim trainers" for players to choose from. In this post I will be talking about three of them, Kovaak's, AimLab, and Aiming.Pro.

Kovaak's:

Kovaak's is the "OG" of all aim-trainers, it comes with heaps of content in the form of available maps in the workshop, massively surpassing AimLab in regards to the sheer amount of content available, and a very dedicated community which you can come in contact with on various servers, namely the official Kovaak's discord server! In my opinion the sheer amount of maps available in Kovaak's make it the superior aim trainer, however, it is a paid application.

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AimLab:

AimLab came shortly after Kovaak's in 2018, but was widely disregarded as a viable aim-trainer by the community as it only offered a highly limited preset of maps (or "tasks" as AimLab calls them) and no map creation tool. Fast forward to 2022, and AimLab has fully released their own map creation tool called "Creator Studio" which I was lucky enough to be a part of the pre-release / development phase of, and offers a refreshing UI / map creation tool to rival Kovaak's. The UI in AimLab is more colourful and visually appealing than Kovaak's, and now with the implementation of the "Creator Studio", this is a very valid alternative to Kovaak's, while also being free!

Aiming.Pro:

Aiming.Pro is my least recommended trainer out of the three, as it is objectively speaking the most lack-luster in regards to available content, but also performance / functionality. Aiming.Pro is a browser based alternative to Kovaak's and AimLab, and is completely free of charge while even offering a map creation tool. While Aiming.Pro might not be the most "powerful" trainer, it is the only browser based tool that I have used which provides enough content & functionality to be viable when the aforementioned options are for whatever reason unavailable.

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3) The Importance and applicability of aim-training

As I mentioned above, while aim-training has been a common theme amongst professionals, aspiring professionals, and hardcore players, it is not necessarily something that has been picked up on by the casual / average playerbase. Lately due to the exposure streamers and content creators have been giving AimLab, there has been an influx of users in the aim-training world, but still, the general percentage of players that actually dedicate time to trainers or furthermore do it correctly, is minimal.

Why is aim training so important?

Even pros had their contrasting POVs at first

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The majority of players (including a lot of pro players) aren't "sold" on the concept of training your aim through an external platform, and believe that playing the game more is substantial practice.

The main argument in regards to aim-trainers being useless is, why would you use an aim-trainer when you can play more Apex, or more Valorant, or more overwatch? Here's why in very simple terms:

Let's say you play an hour of Valorant MM, that's approximately two competitive games. In the span of those two games, you're going to be rotating, holding angles, spectating, etc. the actual active combat or aim duels that you will be taking are going to be spread out in random intervals throughout that time span. Out of the two hours played, perhaps 20 minutes will be of active gunplay, and even then the aspects of aim used in that gunplay will be specifically restricted to what the game you're playing demands of you, e.g. in Valorant 99% of your aim is crosshair placement and low FOV click-timing.

On the contrary, if you were to play 60 minutes of an aim-trainer, those 60 minutes will be actively allocated to you constantly reacting to visual stimuli on your screen in the form of targets. Furthermore, in aim-trainers you're able to split your time into aiming subsets, for example: 10 minutes of smoothness training, 10 minutes of micro-adjustments, 10 minutes of wide flicks, etc.

Conclusion / TLDR: 60 minutes spent in Kovaak's / AimLab amounts to 3x the "active aiming" as 120 minutes spent in Valorant MM.

It's important to keep in mind that other than the logistics of what I explained above just being common sense, I have privately coached over 200 players in Valorant. A mandatory part of my coaching regimen is a 60 minute Kovaak's / AimLab routine to be completed daily throughout the span of 30 days. I have received unanimously positive feedback for my coaching in the couple years that I have been doing it, and in every single client of mine I have seen an unambiguous mechanical improvement after using aim-trainers, both on paper in their aim-trainer scores, and in-game.

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4) Different aim mechanics utilised in Valorant

Valorant relies mainly on smoothness, crosshair placement in regards to holding 90 degree horizontal angles, and click-timing (I will shortly explain what these terms such as click-timing mean).

The maps below have been split into categories depending on what aspect of aim they train, and their general difficulty. (Novice - Intermediate players [Below Diamond in Valorant / Platinum in Sparky benchmarks] should stick to the easier maps).

Maps tagged with an asterisk (*) are maps which are "crucial" to Valorant aim-training.

Maps with a (small) option have a default vs. small variant, your choice on which to play.

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Click-Timing:

Maps in this category to train your general mouse control in relation to what the general playerbase calls "flick aim", it is your ability to make a movement or adjust your crosshair to click on a target that isn't centered on your screen, and your ability to time your clicks, being able to click at the correct time depending on when your target aligns with your crosshair. Click timing is the most important aspect of aiming in Valorant. Technically, the most important part of aiming in Valorant is "Crosshair placement" but that isn't really aiming, and not really something you can isolate / directly train. In Valorant, since there isn't much added verticality, your ability to "aim" well is heavily reliant on your horizontal click-timing skill. Both my Kovaak's and AimLab playlists mainly consist of maps which prioritize horizontal movements over vertical ones for this reason.

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https://reddit.com/link/urvk0w/video/isuqypvli3091/player

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Micro-adjustment Training:

Maps in this category train your mouse control in relation to "micro-adjustments", micro-adjustments are an aspect of click timing which is pretty straightforward, your ability to make minimal adjustments precisely, and in rapid succession. Now, most people may think, "well the smaller the mouse movement, the easier it is to hit a target", however, that isn't true for the majority of players. A lot of the time, making a very short movement requires a lot more control / precision, and relies on muscle groups that you aren't too experienced in utilizing, e.g. I may move my wrist / arm to adjust for a wider flick, but if my crosshair is off just by a couple of pixels, the adjustment is so small that it would require me to use my fingers in order to make the adjustment. Most players (especially tac fps players) aren't experienced in making micro-adjustments, even though it's a crucial skill. In games like Valorant, your goal is to have such good / consistent crosshair placement, that you rarely need to adjust it in order to land a headshot, however, even the best players will be put in situations where their crosshair is slightly off, but not by enough of a distance to warrant a wide flick (usually happens if you're clearing an angle and you move your crosshair past an enemy you didn't see fast enough), and in those instances making a micro-adjustment accurately enough to correct your crosshair placement can be what saves your life. Here is an example of a micro-adjustment map:

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https://reddit.com/link/urvk0w/video/vqxmwpemi3091/player

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Target Switching:

Maps in this category train your mouse control in relation to "target switching", target switching is your ability to make a fluid and fast movement from one target onto another. When target switching, you should be doing so in a single movement, rather than overshooting and then correcting, and the movement should be rapid, so more of a flick rather than simply moving your crosshair as if you were clearing an angle. Target switching is important in Valorant because even the best players with excellent positioning will find themselves in situtations where they're open to multiple LOS (line of sight) and can be potentially peeked by more than one player simultaneously, in these situations it's crucial that the player is able to eliminate the first target, and then flick onto the other. Good target switching will save your ass in these situations, due to the fact that this concept may be harder to visualize than click timing / micro adjustment as it's more situation reliant.

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https://reddit.com/link/urvk0w/video/i06eut6ni3091/player

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Smoothness Training:

Maps in this category train your mouse control in relation to your "smoothness". In relation to aim, smoothness is simply your ability to make mouse movements in fluid motions without unwarranted micro-adjustments or jitter. Most of you (with the exception of kovaak's grinders / AFPS players) will notice that when making a movement, you're unable to maintain a set speed and your aim slightly "jitters". Although smoothness is an aspect of aim which is far more important in games that rely more heavily on tracking (ow/apex/etc.) it's also important in Valorant as a lack of it can lead to sub-optimal angle clearing. If you're clearing an angle, and you can't maintain a smooth motion throughout, it can increase the chance of your crosshair placement being slightly off, which in turn forces you to make unecessary adjustments to your aim in order to land your shots on the target.

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https://reddit.com/link/urvk0w/video/ekj6gs4oi3091/player

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5) Aim-Training Playlists

Recommended time split = 30 mins of Kovaaks / AimLab pre-game ( 5 mins of each map ) and 30 mins of Kovaaks when you're done playing for the day.

"But Twix, why not play the routine in one go?"

If you want to complete the routine in one go (60m) rather than split it into two segments (30m+30m) that's perfectly fine, and it's up to you. The reasons I personally suggest playing the routines in a split structure are the following:

> Burn-out / Exhaustion is very real, and due to both cognitive and psychological factors, after a certain amount of time of continuous training, you will hit a point of exhaustion / diminishing returns. Informational intake after you've hit this point will not happen at the same rate as if you were at your optimal state. The average time a human can spend processing new information continuously without hitting that point of diminishing returns is around 60m total, but since it's subjective, it's easier to just play it safe and split the training in 30m segments. Here is a graph that may help you visualize this concept:

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The law of diminishing returns

> Difference in mentality / reason for training. This is my personal theory, and I am not making an ultimate statement about this applying to every individual, as once again, it's subjective, but I've discussed this with multiple coaching clients and they have agreed that it applies to them. My theory is, that the way you train prior to a game session, and the way you train after a game session may vary. When playing kovaak's pre-game a lot of people tend to use it as a warmup tool more than a long-term mouse control training tool, and therefore don't focus on optimal training methods while playing through a playlist, as they just care about their short-term performance in the game they'll play after kovaak's. When playing kovaak's as a cooldown, you're already warmed up (don't play if exhausted however) from the day, plus you aren't training with a set short-term gain in mind. This theory is based on psychological effects mainly, which (once again) are very subjective to the individual, so take it with a grain of salt.

> Optimal learning time differs from person to person, this also holds true with training. Some people process new information better at night, some people process new information better throughout the day, either way, the concept here is pretty clear. Do what works best for you, however, if you aren't sure about if you're a "day-time learner" or "night-time learner" you can just play it safe through splitting your routine as suggested. One thing to note is that it is scientifically proven that a smaller time frame between the time of informational intake and sleeping, may improve the consolidation of new information and memory recall, basically meaning that some individuals retain information better if they sleep shortly after training.

> Final reason: boredom. A lot of people simply find aim-training boring, and therefore it's torture to them to train for an hour non-stop. For these people, training for 30 minutes and then switching to a more enjoyable task (gaming) before completing the other half of their daily routine, can be optimal. If you're completely bored and it feels like aim-training is torture, chances are, you wont be in a mental state that enhances growth / progress.

If you train for approximately 60 minutes a day, you will notice a substantial improvement by the 30 day mark.

ADVANCED RECOMMENDATION:

For those of you looking to further perpetuate an optimale rate of progress in their training regimen, I highly recommend that you try the sens variation method. Play the first half of your aim-training runs on your base sensitivity, and the second half of your runs on 150-200% of your base sens. This will boost your rate of progress as it forces you to use a larger range of your arm / hand / fingers, leading to boosted reconsolidation of your fine motor skills.

There is a common misconception that muscle memory works in a way where if you don't stick to one sensitivity forever you're going to negatively impact your aim. This is entirely false, I will most likely create a detailed follow-up post to address the truth behind muscle memory.

For now, here is an article that supports my stance on the matter directly through motor skill analysis between two testing groups: Motor Skills Are Strengthened through Reconsolidation.

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Kovaak's:

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Smoothness Training

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> Centering I 90 no strafes * - 10m

> Smoothness Training Sphere 30 - 10m

> Ground Plaza Voltaic Easy - 10m

Novice - Intermediate Click-timing Training

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> 1 wall 2 targets horizontal - 10m

> Valorant small flicks * - 10m

> Wide wall 6 targets (small) *- 10m

> Valorant Peek Training ( MCA-9 ) - 10m

Advanced Click-timing Training

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> 1w6ts reload v2 ( only play this if your technique on 1w6ts / ww6ts is on point ) - 10m

> Floating heads timing 400% fixed * - 10m

> Pasu small reload horizontal - 10m

Novice - Intermediate Micro-adjustment Training

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> 1 wall 6 targets adjust * - 10m

> Micro flick - 10m

Advanced Micro-Adjustment Training

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> 1 wall 2 targets small reload - 10m

> reflex micro++ flick - 10m

> Valorant small horizontal flicks * - 10m

Novice - Intermediate Target Switching Training

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> ValTarget switch - 10m

> PatTarget switch (small) no reload * - 10m

Advanced Target Switching Training

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> KinTargetSwitch - 10m

> DevTarget Switch - 10m

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AimLab:

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Smoothness Training

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> VT Close Range Valorant Tracking * - 10m

> VT Smoothsphere Valorant - 10m

Novice - Intermediate Click-timing Training

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> VT Valorant Smallflicks - 10m

> VT mpXY Valorant - 10m

Advanced Click-timing Training

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> VT 1w2ts Smallflicks Valorant - 10m

> VT Floating Dots Goated Valorant - 10m

> VT Sky Dots Micro 30% Smaller - 10m

Novice - Intermediate Target Switching Training

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> VT MPspeedTS Valorant - 10m

> VT berryTS Valorant - 10m

Advanced Target Switching Training

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> VT 1w2ts Pokeball Valorant - 10m

> VT ww3t Pokeball Valorant - 10m

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Aiming.Pro

Aiming.pro is a browser based aim-trainer, meaning you can enjoy the benefits of working on isolated aspects of your mechanics without having to download or pay anything:

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Both of my playlists in the website's top 10!

I want to thank my server's moderator Pauer#9861 for taking the time to port the Kovaak's scenarios included in my playlist over to Aiming.Pro using their map creator tool.

Much thanks!

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LINK TO MY AIMING.PRO PLAYLIST:

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https://aiming.pro/#/training/playlists/282

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6) My Discord Server:

https://discord.gg/6ZYVZ6x

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Thanks for the read, stay safe everyone <3