You can have the best aim in Valorant, but still not make it past the lower ranks. In my opinion, game sense and decision making are just as important as having good aim. Sometimes, it might even be more important, as someone with good game sense will be able to put themselves in favorable situations that might not need good aim to begin with.

Video link if you're lazy to read

In this post, I'll try to teach you how to make better decisions and improve your game sense in Valorant.

When making decisions, you generally need to think about 2 things:

1. The probability of a play succeeding
2. Effects it'll have on the round

This is something that a lot of higher-ranked players think about subconsciously, and there are a lot of factors that affect these two elements, but I'll get into that in a bit.

As a general rule, before making a "play", I like to think about what will happen if you pull off it and what will happen if I fail. In most cases, you're going to want to make the optimal decision. However, that doesn't mean that the suboptimal decision won't work, and just because something works, doesn't mean that it was the optimal choice.

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A Simplified Example

To illustrate this better, here's a simplified example w/ COMPLETE information: let's say I know for sure that an OPer is watching top mid on Ascent. I only have a Ghost, but I still want to peek him. I need to weigh the risk vs the reward of this play, and the probability of success.

The probability of winning this duel is LOW bc it's an OP vs a Ghost. Now, weapons don't dictate everything, but they do influence a lot. You could win this situation if the enemy player misses his shot, but this peek is heavily in his favor.

The effect of me winning the duel is mid control (which is really great) but if I fail and die, the round becomes a 4v5 situation, and I would have offered no value to my team. This means that all my utility for the round, the info I could have provided, or the potential of killing an enemy player is all lost because I chose to make this play, should I fail.

So based on the probability of success, which is LOW, and the most likely effect on the round, which is my death, this is not the optimal play to make. However, this is a very simplified example, that removes a lot of factors, and it's not going to be that way in a real game.

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The Factors to Good Decisions

In almost all scenarios, it's not going to be that simple. You're not 100% sure that an OPer will be posted by mid. There might be two people with rifles, or they might have used a Sage Wall to block it off. Either way, you're almost never going to have complete information.

So in making decisions, you're going to have to make an educated guess based on a bunch of factors. I'll try to expound on them as articulately as I can, but there's a lot of hidden depth to these factors so I might miss a thing or two.

1. Economy - What guns do they have? What can they buy?
At the start of the round, you can check how much money the enemy team has, and predict what gun they'll buy. Knowing what guns they can buy will determine how to play out the round as they (and you, too) will want to abuse the effective range of your weapon. A lot of players in lower ranks don't understand the concept of effective range, but in the simplest terms, you just want to be playing to your weapon's strengths. So if you have a shotgun, then you want to take closer engagements and longer ones if you have a rifle/OP.

Here are some quick numbers that don't factor in ability cost that can help you predict what the enemy team can buy:

3,900 - full shields + vandal/phantom
3,300 - half shield + vandal/phantom
5,400 - half shields + OP
6,000 - full shields + OP

These are the bare minimum for the big purchases, but you also need to check if one player can drop the other. While it might not always change the outcome of the round, knowing what guns players can buy will be a big factor in improving your game sense.

2. Tendencies - Where do people like to play? What are the things they do often?

Over the course of the game, you're going to realize that some players like to repeat certain things. Maybe one player loves to peek mid at the start of each round, or maybe the enemy team is always forcing buys. The most common thing I see is that certain players will play the same angle round after round, and you should be capitalizing on that. Being observant of your opponent's tendencies can help you make better guesses, which leads you to, more often than not, making better decisions.

This factor isn't as measurable as the others, but it's still an important one. For example, even pro players won't clear certain angles anymore because there's a strong tendency that nobody is playing in that spot. This is also why off-angles can work - because players don't usually check these angles, they catch enemies off guard.

3. Ability Usage - What has or hasn't been used? What ultimates are available?

Valorant is complex because of the number of agent combinations you can have in a single game, and the different ways each agent can use their abilities. You need to be mindful of what's been used, and what hasn't been used so that can you play around it.

The most glaring example of this is playing around Ultimates. If you know that a Raze has her Ultimate available, it might be a good idea to not stick or rush a site. You also need to look out for agents with strong post-plant ultimate like Sova and Brim.

But this isn't limited to Ultimates. We've all seen how strong post-plant molly lineups are or any other lineup for that matter. It's a little hard to go in-depth with all the abilities present in the game rn, but generally, tracking what's available and unavailable, and making decisions off that is a great start.

4. Angle Advantage - Is this angle beneficial to me or my opponent?

Certain angles are more beneficial for one person than the other. How line of sight works in Valorant is that, if you're closer to a wall or object, the person farther away is going to see you before you see them. With this in mind, it'll be harder to have success when peeking these types of angles. (This is easier to see in the video)

If you're playing against a one-way smoke, peeking through the smoke or pushing it, will lower the chances of success by a lot. But since we're talking about smokes, more often than not, smokes can give very big hints on where a player is going to be playing. On post plant, if the opponent smokes a certain area, they're most likely not going to pop out of that smoke.

Aside from that, you also need to take spawn barriers into account. Certain angles will be beneficial to defenders because they can reach areas first. Going back to the simplified example, the angle is beneficial for the OPer, because he gets to hold it before I have the chance to peek.

5. Performance + Tilt - Who's their worst player? Am I playing well?

Knowing how well you're performing, and how well enemies are performing is also something to consider. If I'm feeling very good about my aim in a certain match, I'm going to take riskier peeks because I know that my aim is on point. It might not be the most optimal decision, but sometimes, you just feel like you can out aim people.

Conversely, targeting someone who is having a bad game is a great way to get easy rounds. If you know that their A player is 0/12, then it's probably a good idea to keep hitting A until they change it up.

In-Game Example

This time, we're going to apply the 5 factors when determining the probability of success and the effect on the round. In this clip, I have a Vandal, and I want to peek mid at the start of the round (The Play). My teammate also wants to peek, but he has an OP, so I'm going to let him peek first, and follow up.

Looking at the scoreboard, I see that the Jett has enough money to buy an OP (Economy). Since a lot of Jetts are OPers, I'm going to assume that she'll either be holding Mid or Short at the start of the round (Tendencies).

I know that Jett isn't having the best of games, judging from earlier experiences and the scoreboard (Performance). While this angle isn't the best to peek because it's beneficial for the Jett (Angle Advantage), I'm going to bank on the assumption that Jett won't hit his shot.

Looking at the abilities, I know that Sova, Skye, and Reyna have ults available (Abilities). Peeking mid won't put me in any immediate danger from these, but I have to be careful just in case.

My probability of success is still LOW (if Jett has an OP, Medium if not). The effect on the round is going to be worse than the reward, like in the simplified example. So, the optimal decision is not to peek it, because it's not worth it, but I'm going to peek it anyway because I'm confident I can out-aim the enemy.

The round starts and both OPers miss the shot. So now we know that the Jett has an OP, and it's going to be hard to win the duel if I'm on a rifle. However, I decide to peek her because she won't expect me to repeek this angle, especially since she's has an OP. It works out this time, but again, this isn't the optimal play.

We tried this play again in a later round, and both I and my teammate died to that Jett. This is just a clear example of how suboptimal plays can work but are not encouraged.

Final Thoughts

Good decision making goes hand and hand with good game sense. Remember, while the optimal play will have the most chances of success, it doesn't mean that other plays won't work.

Decisions are almost always going to be made w/o complete info, but you can increase your chances of success by thinking about these factors before you make decisions.

Anyway, that's it for this post. I hope you learned something from it, and if you have any comments or suggestions, feel free to msg me on discord (Eggwick#7855) or on reddit. I'll try to help as much possible! Good luck on the grind :)