Title is pretty self explanatory, but I want to break this down a bit more. My boyfriend and I play Valorant quite often. He has lots of pc gaming experience and has been playing since beta, meanwhile Val is my first pc shooter game and I’ve been playing almost a year.

When I first started the game, I was absolute trash. It took me a good 6 months to really learn how to play. Lately I’ve been practicing very seriously to get better. This act I’ve even started playing comp! My headshot accuracy is going up, my game sense is getting really good, and I’m making great calls as an IGL for the 5stack I play in. I’m not incredible by any means, but I usually can hold my own and I occasionally carry.

My boyfriend has always been better than me at Valorant. (And I’m okay with that! He’s been playing FPS games on pc for forever now, it only makes sense.) I’ve always looked up to him, wishing I could get the number of kills he does. When I watch him play, I’m amazed at how he always consistently tops frags.

However when we play together, I struggle to find my footing. I regularly play with Silvers and Golds, and while I may not top frag, I end up with an even KD and can usually hold my own fairly well. But like I said, when I play with him, I rarely perform well. For the longest time, I thought that maybe it was because I was anxious, from playing with someone that I know and love IRL.

Over the last couple weeks, I’ve been playing extremely well because I’ve been practicing my aim and other skills. When I got into a game with him tonight, it’s like all that flew out the window. And then I realized, it’s because he was hanging back, and waiting on my contact so he could swing in and get the kills. And 99% of the time, I would die because he waited too long to swing or push. He was doing it to other people too. Come to think of it,, I’ve seen him do this countless times when playing with randoms or other people as well.

Now, if I was a duelist, or maybe even an initiator, this would be totally understandable. But I’m a KillJoy main, and if I’m not playing her, then I’m on controller or another sentinel. Meanwhile, he usually plays duelist or initiator. Tonight while playing, it finally clicked in my brain that the main reason he’s so good at the game is because he uses his team for bait.

The blue dots in This Photo represent where my bf was holding, while playing Jett, when we were on B site Fracture defense. The yellow dots are typically where I’d be, the orange x is my turret, orange box is my alarm bot, and green dots are nano swarms.

During this match, the enemy team would consistently rush onto site and wipe me and my util out before I could do much damage to them. I was lucky if I could get 2 frags. Then, my boyfriend, usually after I died, or way after I called out locations, would come onto site and get frags. I got tired of getting rushed and killed on B, and being responsible for holding both back and front site. So I started hanging back closer to spawn with a different set up. My boyfriend literally would not hold site. And when the enemies took it (what a surprise) I had to push in first, and die, before he went in and got his frags.

I always wondered why I felt so crappy about my gameplay after playing with him. I used to get so frustrated with myself, thinking I had performance anxiety and just couldn’t play well when with him. But in reality, it’s that I can’t play well with someone who doesn’t play their agent properly, and would rather bait their team to get kills. Idk if I should talk to him about all of this though. I want to be able to enjoy playing with him, but saying that someone baits their team is a very accusatory statement in Valorant, especially when coming from your partner. I know this post was super long, but if anyone has any advice on how to handle this, I’d really appreciate it :’)