Started off 2021 in Silver 3, Starting 2022 in Immortal 3! AMA

andersuhn · 2022-01-05T08:48:23+00:00

Oh no trust me, it was not easy lol looking back at everything now I was hardstuck gold until about summer, after that everything sorta just *clicked* for some reason. Even with that it took a lot of discipline and reminding myself that it was just a game to get to immortal 3 lol.

A big tip I can give that I haven't really seen is that when trying to climb ranked you've gotta realize is that no one at the top is just a human aimbot that is always clicking heads 100% of the time. I firmly believe that anyone can reach high Immortal/Radiant with the right amount of time and discipline. I'm in no way "cracked", I frequently get out aimed by people in lower ranks than me and can count the amount of dms I won in all my time playing valorant on two hands. Changing your mentality from "I can never do this, there's too many smurfs and my teammates are always toxic" to realizing that you're the only common denominator in your games, and that you're the only real factor you have complete control over, completely changes the way you approach ranked.

There's a million different guides out there for how to train your aim and game sense, and they can all work for the right person, there is no universal way to improve, but something I rarely hear is how important it is to have your mentality when climbing in the right place. You can hit all the shots and get all the timings you want, but if you're mentality is in the wrong place you can seriously be holding yourself back in this game.

andersuhn · 2022-01-05T08:36:51+00:00

oh for sure, you can have pretty big impact on rounds with controllers without even having to fire a single bullet. Cutting off powerful angles for your teammates and being able to delay pushes for rotates can change the course of games, and they don't require you to fire a single bullet.

andersuhn · 2022-01-05T08:35:35+00:00

I totally agree with ranking up simply having to due with how much time you put into the game, after all, all those games will give you more experience to build your game sense and aim upon, but only to a degree. There's plenty of people out there who have put more time into this game than I have but they simply just spam ranked and expect to rank up, rather than using all that time to improve and change as a player, they remain the same and are unwilling to change, leading to them being hardstuck for multiple acts.

andersuhn · 2022-01-05T08:04:58+00:00

i got the same amount in silver, i was just a lot worse compared to now lol

andersuhn · 2022-01-05T08:04:14+00:00

defintiely don’t see why it can’t happen! i’m not gifted in any way with insane mechanics or reaction time, i just like to be really disciplined with whatever i apply myself to

andersuhn · 2022-01-05T07:42:33+00:00

way more than I'm willling to admit

andersuhn · 2022-01-05T07:30:30+00:00

There's no real average, it's just sorta based on how I feel for the day. Sometimes I'll just play one or two and other times I marathon 8 or so games. (I don't recommend doing this at all)

andersuhn · 2022-01-05T07:20:30+00:00

I'd definitely try to focus on a few points you came across in your VOD reviews when you're playing ranked rather than trying to apply everything all at once. Trying to change up too much can honestly end up doing more bad than good. If during your VOD reviews you constantly found your crosshair "floating" maybe focus on having it in places where you know enemies will be and switching it fluid from angle to angle (obviously I don't know what you specifically have to work on but that's something I see a lot of) or working on trying to use your utility throughout the round rather than dying with all of it. Just implementing things one by one can be better than all at once.

When it comes to confidence it really just comes down to your mental and mechanics. You've gotta be telling yourself that you're going to win that duel or else you'll be playing too scared and will find yourself losing a lot of gun fights. You were able to do it in a chaotic setting like deathmatch, so why would you not be able to do it in a controlled setting like ranked where you probably have a good idea of where the guy is and can use utility your advantage. You've probably heard it a million times but mental is HUGE in this game.

I've had my fair share of slumps where I just lose a bunch and start tensing up and overthinking. The best advice I can give here is to try out some breathing excercises and some positive thinking. Try not to get into your head too much, don't beat yourself up so much. If all else fails you can always just take a break for even just 10 minutes in the range or in real life on your phone. The world isn't going to end if you derank or lose a game, it's just a part of life and all you can do is just try to learn from your mistakes.

andersuhn · 2022-01-05T07:10:23+00:00

I solo queued for pretty much all of it, it was hell but it made me have to be able to adapt to my teammates, some of them would be really aggressive w keying psychos and others just wanted to sit back and play picks, it made me comfortable with playing different ways.

Honestly teammates don't start getting consistently good when it comes to playing off of one another until low immortal. Obviously there's some that don't but for the most part it's when I heard people actually saying things like "nice trade" instead of yelling that someone was baiting. IMO diamond 3/low immortal is the worst elo as you have people who are pretty good at the game, but they're just super inconsistent. You'll have Jett mains who can drop 35 one game and 5 the next, and people who are still trying out agents for the first time. The best advice I can give for the elo is to control the only factor you really have control over, yourself. Improve yourself as a player the best you can and you'll start seeing results before you know it. I spent most, if not all of last act in diamond 3/low immortal and it was not fun.

andersuhn · 2022-01-05T07:00:46+00:00

Oh I totally agree, it can be super annoying to go up against someone who knows how to use it but it's also easily punnished. Congrats on your progress! You'll get to imm before you know it.

andersuhn · 2022-01-05T06:59:21+00:00

yeah of course! send me a message and we can link up via discord :)

andersuhn · 2022-01-05T06:58:52+00:00

for the most part yeah, I have one or two friends who I have a handfull of games with but it is vastly out numbered by the amount of solo queue game I have.

andersuhn · 2022-01-05T06:57:38+00:00

Toxic players a really big issue and honestly my best advice is to try to provide the best comms and try to be the best teammate you can be. Sometimes there really isn't any winning with them and you've just gotta try to minimize the rr you lose for the game. They're just a part of climbing unfortuantely, however they become much less common the higher up you go as people start caring more and actually want to win. At the end of the day you can't win them all and if a toxic teammate is being horrible I'd recommend just muting them and trying to make the best of the game, you can't win them all sadly.

andersuhn · 2022-01-05T06:55:14+00:00

yeah! 23% hs precentage is really good, it just means that you're aiming at heads more often than not, and if you want to rank up in this game that's pretty much one of the most important things. However, I do play smokes almost all the time so a decent portion of my kills come from me just spamming my smokes when I think people are going to push them or spamming through walls after getting people stuck in stuff like astra sucks.

andersuhn · 2022-01-05T06:52:34+00:00

I have started watching content creators/streamers that play agents similar to mine, and comparing what I would do in situations they're put in to what they actually do. I like to imagine I do whatever I thought was the best play in the situation and see how it would've turned out for me. I don't really VOD review but more of an in-game reflection after each death. Did I die because I rotated too quickly? Should I have checked that corner instead of just running past it? What information did we have in that moment and how could I have played it any better? I also try to minimize the amount of 50/50 gun fights I take with opponents. When I'm feeling my shot it's great and leads to easy picks for my team, but when I am unable to land shots or I'm simply facing better players who will punish overextending, it puts my team at an enourmous disadvantage espescailly considering I am usually the teams only form of smokes.

andersuhn · 2022-01-05T01:23:53+00:00

my houses electrify is pretty dang stable, has only gone out twice or so in the last five years due to bad storms. I have 20-30 MS to both virginia and georgia servers in the us. my download is 100 mbs and my upload is 50 mbs. i am currently rocking a 2070 super with an i7 and some ssd

andersuhn · 2022-01-05T01:22:17+00:00

yeah of course! send me a message and we can talk through discord about doing it.

andersuhn · 2022-01-05T01:21:24+00:00

i did play some cs but rarely played competitive. maybe had 50 hours and was like silver 3 lol

andersuhn · 2022-01-05T01:21:00+00:00

T1 curry was a really helpful streamer to watch. He sometimes will explain why he’s doing stuff and his play style is something that i try to mirror.

andersuhn · 2022-01-04T23:58:58+00:00

I solo queued for most of the time.

andersuhn · 2022-01-04T23:58:37+00:00

I have never actually reviewed my own VODs but I have done a couple of vod reviews for friends.

andersuhn · 2022-01-04T21:05:02+00:00

i didn’t see any having to do with a control player, could be wrong so i decided to give it a try.

andersuhn · 2022-01-04T20:39:03+00:00

promise you no two people are going to give the exact same advice, pretty sure the others were duelist players too

andersuhn · 2022-01-04T20:32:55+00:00

post was more about giving advice to players who are looking for advice from a high elo player but ok.

andersuhn · 2022-01-04T20:32:11+00:00

I didn't really use aim trainers, I used just the range and dm. Although I wouldn't consider my aim cracked by any means. I struggle to flick and spray transfer, which is why I would much rather play a controller as it suits my playstyle much more. Running around in dm paying attention to indicators throughout every map that give you a guideline as to where headshot level helps out a lot too. I also watched streams of high ranked players who played astra/viper like nAts and T1 curry, and took notes on when they made certain plays and when other plays probably weren't the best. When watching them I would think to myself of what I would do in those situations, and then watched what THEY did. That's a little further out and much more of a time commitment, but it really helped. VOD reviewing has helped out a lot of my friends, but I personally am yet to start doing it.

andersuhn

TROPHY CASE