Hey there, I want to share something I discovered through loads of research and experimenting. I am currently Ascendant in valorant, and my goal is to get as high of a rank as possible before the end of this episode. I have an extremely weak setup that only runs around 40-50fps, and drops as low as 20-30 when a lot of utility is used. My internet is very inconsistent and I average around 2-3% packet loss. It is ROUGH. However, I always refused to accept things as they are, my moto is "defy luck with skill", so - when I can't rely too much on my reaction speed and consistent frags, I decide to use my brain. I want to take this Episode very seriously, and I started off by doing some research.

I gathered 10 people from each of the categories: Iron 1 - Bronze 3 Silver 1 - Gold 1 Gold 2 - Platinum 1 Platinum 2 - Diamond 1 Diamond 2 - Diamond 3 Ascendant 1 - Ascendant 2 Ascendant 3 (5 people) Immorral 1 (5 people) Immortal 2 (5 people)

This is a total of 75 people involved in the tests. I ran most of my tests to see how their aim correlates to their ranks, what scores they get in different aimlab tasks, how they play ganes when they are not allowed utility, and most importantly - how they actually use their aim.

What I found out is that 69 (funny) out of 75 players aim in the exact same manner when faced with the task of having 100% accuracy doing medium flicks on head-sized targets, where their reaction time is only a part of their TTK (time-to-kill). Here is a very simple formula I created:

RT+TTM+CT+TTA=TTK RT = Reaction Time, aka the time between the target appearing and the player moving their mouse. TTM = Time To Move, aka the time between the first movement and the final movement of the crosshair. CT = Confirmation Time, this one is slightly faster than RT - I will get back to it in a moment. The time it takes for the player to confirm if the crosshair is on the target or not. TTA = Time To Adjust, aka the time it takes for them to move the crosshair onto the target if it wasn't already on. In lower ranks (primarily up to Gold 2 or so) people would often need multiple adjustments, all of which were counted as TTA (the longest record being 1.435ms). If the crosshair was already on the target and the player shoots, TTA was recorded as 0.

What I am getting at here is that there is only 2 instances where the reaction time is actually used when taking a precision shot, the RT and the CT (typically around 40-50ms faster than RT, my assumption being that some players are able to predict where their crosshair will end up before they finish the movement, as well as the fact that the target does not spawn away from the crosshair but is indtead very close to it, meaning that it is directly in the players' line of sight). To make things less confusing, here is what it would look like if all those variables were given numbers in milliseconds:

206+59+161+34=460

Assuming the values "206" and "161" are constant and can not be changed, we still see 2 ways to bring down the TTK - by getting faster at moving the crosshair to the target, and by being more precise about it to remove the TTA value. In theory, if we become 16ms faster at flicking and have a 100% accuracy (no need for TTA), that already brings our TTK down to 410ms instead of 460ms. However, we can go further. As most of you know, there is barely any increase in recoil/bloom om both rifles between the 1st shot and the 2nd. So, here comes up a new tactic: fire 1 shot before you confirm whether the crosshair is already on target or not, THEN run CT and TTA if needed and take the second shot. Assuming the shot is once again 100% accurate we bring our TTK down from 410ms to 249ms. This is the exact manner in which 3 of the IMM2 players, 2 of IMM1 players, and 1 ASC2 player aimed. Assuming their first-flick-accuracy is 40%, this practically means that they have a 40% chance of killing the enemy in 249ms, and a 60% chance of killing the enemy in 444ms (460-16). And they are still able to increase their TTA and their TTM via training.

What is my conclusion? Sadly, you can not train your reaction time. You can however increase your time to kill. With a reaction time of 200ms and flicking speed of 25ms as well as a perfect 100% accuracy for example, you could hypothetically get your TTK down to 225ms - less than a quarter of a second. Extensive aim training builds exactly that (if done correctly), which is what lead some people to believe reaction time can be improved through practice. Someone with better genetics than you will always have the higher potential, but you could still overcome them by making the most of your own potential. In my case, I adapted and learnt to make the most of my brain. Finding better ways to aim, finding ways to get kills without being in direct gunfights: cypher tripwires, rat angles, off angles, using utility to let my team get easy frags and assisting them as much as i can, improving my game sense to a point where i practically read enemies minds. That's how I improved, and that's how I am going to improve.

There is still much more I am researching, and much more I will be posting about in the future. I like to keep most of the data I gathered only to myself and a few of my friends, I like to think of it as my trump card in a way - but I might share some of the details, so feel free to direct message me if you like and I will see how I can help.

P.S. some of the upcoming posts will be about: sensitivity, enemy psychology, coinflip vs predictions, typical behavior (how long people hold an angle before looking at a minimap or giving up, how long do they wait after smoking before crossing, etc)

EDIT: Title says "Increase". I meant "Improve". Thanks to the kind mod for pointing this out :)